Joe puts Rick and Jenna on trial, as the Purge is coming to a close.
The Purge – Episode 10: “A Nation Reborn”
From Lee Tergesen
The Purge – Episode 9: “I Will Participate”
Joe puts his captives on trial for wronging him— no matter how petty.
The Purge – Episode 8: “Giving Time Is Here”
Choose your path
The Purge – Episode 7: “Lovely Dark and Deep”
Rick and Jenna help Lila escape the streets. Jane gets help from Joe.
The Purge – Episode 6: “The Forgotten”
Joe's backstory comes out. Jenna and Rick try to survive Purge Night.
The Purge – Episode 4: “Release the Beast”
Jane has second thoughts about Purge Night, leaving the office. Penelope faces the Carnival of Flesh.
The Purge – Episode 3: “The Urge to Purge”
Rick and Jenna are faced with a difficult decision. Miguel gets some help from Pete the Cop.
The Purge – Episode 2: “Take What’s Yours”
Jane's story becomes clearer. Miguel fights through Purge Night in the streets to find more info on Penelope.
The Purge – Episode 1: “What is America?”
The annual Purge is about to commence. Are you prepared?
Outcast – Season 1, Episode 3: “All Alone Now”
Cinemax’s Outcast
Season 1, Episode 3: “All Alone Now”
Directed by Howard Deutch
Written by Chris Black
* For a review of the previous episode, “(I Remember) When She Loved Me” – click here
* For a review of the next episode, “A Wrath Unseen” – click here
Blake Morrow (Lee Tergesen) is with law enforcement partner Luke and his wife, being setup on a date, they’re out for a night of bowling. He starts to feel strange, sweating and ill. Only there’s something a bit more strange than it initially seems. Suddenly, he’s feeling much better, and that means trouble for his partner’s wife. She tries to fight him off, but his strength is almost inhuman. More than human. Supernatural, even. When the partner returns home with a few grocery items he finds nothing but devastation. What I love about this opener is we don’t see what this man sees, only his reaction. We’re left to assume. And likely we can assume the worst. Also, dig that Tergesen is a part of the cast right now. he is a fantastic actor, so I look forward to anything he brings to the series for whatever length he’s in there. Excellent addition.
Reverend Anderson: “Call me old fashioned, but I think our vices should leave a rotten taste in our mouth. Helps keep us honest.”
Kyle (Patrick Fugit) and Reverend Anderson (Philip Glenister) are headed out together. The younger of the two still isn’t sure how he’s meant to play his part in the whole thing. Nevertheless, he rides along. We get a bit of a look at Anderson and his son; a picture of the boy flies out the window, sending him into a frenzy. Look forward to seeing more on that. When Kyle and the Rev arrive at their destination, it’s a military facility. And Morrow’s partner Luke is there to greet them. Inside we see how badly Blake has deteriorated. What he did to Luke’s wife was savage and hideous. Clearly something has gotten into him. All too literally. In comes Rev. Anderson and Kyle, the exorcism duo. Can they help or heal this man?
Meanwhile in other parts of town, Chief Giles (Reg E. Cathey) and Mark Holter (David Denman) are at odds over the dead animals in the woods, and what exactly’s been going on. And Megan Holter (Wrenn Schmidt), she seems distracted. On her way home she sees someone that startles her. Later at school she thinks she sees the same man’s car, though it’s only a parent. There’s something intense going in there.
Anderson can’t find anything demonic hiding in Morrow. When Kyle decides to have a crack, things are a little different. “Do you know me?” he asks before grabbing Morrow by the face. The skin burns under Kyle’s touch. “You – outcast?” mutters Morrow. A-ha! Well, there’s a bit of elaboration on the part of the demon. Through Morrow he feels charming, he’s talkative, intuitive even. They chat a little about Kyle, his life, why the term outcast fits him perfectly. What I love is the parallel that comes out between Anderson and Kyle: the former wants to chase the demons, needs to almost, to the detriment of his personal life and his family; the latter would rather not have anything to do with the power that holds onto him, he’s lost his family (likely because of this shit), and all he wants is to give all the demon hunting up to have them back. Great writing on Robert Kirkman’s part, excellent writing for the series that keeps things building and interesting.
As for Megan, she’s tracking down the man in the red car – Donnie. Her husband, he’s out in the woods where the nailed and mutilated animals were displayed, in an old camper. With his little DNA kit, Mark tries to figure some things out. The Holters have trouble headed their way, as Donnie’s apparently tracking Megan down.
And can’t forget about the mysterious Sidney (Brent Spiner). Holed up in a motel. Resting his fedora. Shaving with an old fashioned straight razor. Can’t wait to see more of this guy, as well as his connection to Kyle, his mother, that whole debacle. Should be fun to watch that develop. Oh, he’s spitting up black blood, too.
Kyle and Anderson are at odds because the Rev only wants to get their exorcism business finished up. Morrow and his demonic influence fight back with their sassy behaviour. And Kyle, he walks away. He ends up talking to Luke whose passionate plea makes him reconsider. Anderson can’t get the job done. Afterwards, Kyle takes on Morrow and the demon inside in a bloody confrontation that ends eerily. A great sequence. This series does the supernatural horror well. The exorcism sub-genre of horror can get tired, but this gets exciting. Even better, we find our expectations subverted when not all the demons can be exorcised. Not all the victims can be freed, such as Morrow, left with a sinister spirit coursing through his body.
But maybe Luke shouldn’t have been told that. He knows there’s no way out for the evil in Morrow. So, that means other methods must be considered. Such as death. Luke opts to take the high road after indulging himself a moment. Should’ve killed the bastard.
When Kyle goes to see his neighbour Norville, he finds the old man dead. A pool of blood underneath him, a straight razor sitting in it. We know where ole Sidney went after leaving the motel. Now how does that connect with Kyle? I guess there aren’t just demons out there looking for him. Or is Sidney one of those, too? I would think so, judging on the black stuff that came out of the kid Kyle saved, the stuff Sidney spit up, the black blood on the teeth of Morrow as he looks maniacally at Kyle. Lots of demonic shit going down.
Another solid episode. This season keeps building up each episode with a great amount of tension, lots of character development, and similar to AMC’s Preacher it doesn’t give us too much while giving us enough to keep things interesting, allowing the interest to grow. Next episode is titled “A Wrath Unseen” – stick with me, fellow fans.
Patty Jenkins’ Monster: Forced to Kill, One Way or Another
Monster. 2003. Directed & Written by Patty Jenkins.
Starring Charlize Theron, Christina Ricci, Bruce Dern, Lee Tergesen, Annie Corley, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Marco St. John, Marc Macaulay, Scott Wilson, Rus Blackwell, Tim Ware, Stephan Jones, Brett Rice, Kaitlin Riley, & Cree Ivey. Media 8 Entertainment/Newmarket Films/DEJ Productions.
Rated 18A. 109 minutes.
Biography/Crime/Drama
★★★★★
For those that don’t know the entire story, Aileen Wuornos was indeed a serial killer. She murdered men. She was a prostitute, one that had been abused, supposedly raped, tortured, and one who took emancipation from a life of sex as business into her own hands when there was nowhere else to turn. And that was the ultimate problem concerning Aileen’s long, tumultuous life. Starting from an early age she was frequently beaten, while naked, by her adoptive father. At the age of fourteen she got pregnant, later putting the boy up for adoption in 1971. She was actually married to a multimillionaire by age twenty, which later ended in a restraining order against her and an annulment. This was also around the time Lee started getting arrested, charged with assault and battery, among other things. When she finally wound up in Daytona, drinking in a gay bar, she met Tyria Moore who’d become the one big love of her life. It was in Daytona the trail of bodies behind Aileen – affectionately known as Lee to those close to her – started piling up.
And this is where director-writer Patty Jenkins’ Monster comes in.
Wuornos, by all accounts, had trouble with the truth. Most of all after her arrest in 1991. What Jenkins does is examine Wuornos in those days after meeting Moore – here named Selby – and the steady decline of her mental state from the time of her first murder onward. In a realistic style alongside a great script, Jenkins uses the fascinatingly honest, brutally true-to-life performance of Charlize Theron as the centerpiece of a discussion about everything from murder to prostitution, to how we judge prostitutes when they say they’ve been sexually assaulted, love, as well as so many other themes in between. This movie is a great film from the early 2000s containing one of the single best performances ever seen in the history of cinema.
There’s some great editing in this film. When Selby and Aileen first stay together in the hotel, after she’s murdered her first victim, things are so light and lovely, which then switches quickly into the stone cold realities of this woman’s life: we cut fast to Aileen in her stolen car, spraying down the windshield and wiping off any of the last bloody remnants inside to make sure it’s not a rolling DNA lab. This is one of the most evident points where we see the division in Aileen’s life, between the woman she wants to be and the woman she is/has become. An instance of when good editing and writing come together to create a sorrowful look into the inner life of a character, especially heart wrenching due to the fact Aileen is a serial killer, as well as partly a very tragic case.
What is part serial killer picture is also part indictment of our general society, which chews people like Aileen Wuornos up and spits them out. Aside from her alleged rape (I only say alleged because Aileen was the only person left on Earth who knew the truth for sure about that particular event), one of the first truly sad scenes is the montage sequence where Aileen heads out looking for a job. First just seeing her dressed in a nice little outfit while looking terrifyingly rough is semi-comical, which might explain Jenkins once telling an interviewer the film was meant to be played as a lighthearted comedy with bits of the murders tossed in amongst everything else. Secondly, when Aileen then goes on to a law office where she hopes to get a secretarial job, the treatment she receives is downright appalling. Then when she freaks out, it’s as if she is being the unreasonable one, but the man provoked her into that behaviour, and furthermore we continue to see how the system is not designed for people like Aileen. One poignantly tragic moment is when Selby is being chastised about Aileen by her aunt, who basically says
Basically, a long and ruined life led Aileen to where she ended up. Having been used and abused most of her lifetime she wound up doing all she was ever conditioned to do: prostitute herself and sell her body. The saddest part to me is that one way or another, Aileen was likely to become a killer. Because if she didn’t willingly start killing men that she felt were assaulting or raping her then there’s still a high probability she would’ve likely, at some point in life, contracted HIV and spread it. Aileen wasn’t some high class escort, she lived on the street going from one situation to the next in desperation, so there’s a huge chance HIV would’ve come along. But the biggest, saddest irony lies in the fact that if Aileen was telling the truth about the original john she killed in the beginning, it’s likely this rape and assault which pushed her into killing the others, even if they never assaulted her themselves. Not to excuse her crimes, they are horrific and inexcusable. It just begs attention paid to the systemic abuse of low class prostitutes that are living dangerous lives on the fringe of society, no protection, barely any mind paid to their situations and their struggles. Eventually the levee has to break, somehow, somewhere down the line. Aileen represents one of the most perfect cases of a woman pushed too far. People want to act like a prostitute gets what she deserves, whatever that means, as if selling her body to survive and get through life effectively relegates her to a life of rape, torture, and all around terror. As if she asked for that. But Aileen asked for none of the life she was given. The title of this film accurately describes Wuornos, yet it has more than just the surface meaning that she is a monstrous person. This title refers further to the monster which society made her, the serial killing creature into which society molded her.
Obviously the most impressive piece of Monster is Theron. Not just the physical transformation, though that is perfect. She not only takes on the physical appearance of Wuornos, she also gets the mannerisms and the phrasing, everything, so dead on correct. If you’ve ever watched any of the documentary material on Aileen, specifically the films made by Nick Broomfield, you’ll find it undeniable how accurate Theron portrays this woman, from top the bottom. Emotionally, this role is heavy, and all the various traumas of Aileen are not easy to illustrate onscreen. Theron proves that empathy reigns supreme, as she crawls inside the skin of this woman, whose story is sad but still altogether scary to relate to. We do, though. We relate in the most unnerving of ways, and that isn’t solely on the writing by Jenkins, fleshing out many important moments in the later stages of Aileen’s days. Theron opens the door to that empathetic viewing, which ultimately makes Monster one of the more compelling films to look at a true story about a serial killer. Yes, there are graphic moments. Even those are tactfully written and handled with solid directorial choices on Jenkins’ part.
With Theron’s powerhouse acting talent this movie doesn’t have to linger totally on the murder, the blood, the rape, none of that. Instead those lie on the peripherals of the film, adding their touches lightly, as Jenkins chooses to focus on the emotional, sentimental aspects of Aileen’s life. In doing so, Theron is able to show off her skills, and the movie reaches a height many other biographical films concerning the hideous legacy of serial murderers often can’t manage to attain. This is a 5-star masterpiece of a crime film. Even better, it’s based in real life, the melodrama is almost non-existent. Not only is Monster one of the best films in the past 16 years, it is an excellent movie period. And Theron’s performance as Wuornos will forever go down in history as one of the greatest. She deserved and still deserves all the accolades heaped upon her for this role because it is tremendous. To make people care about someone who has killed, a bunch of people, is truly remarkable, and to bring forward some of the issues in this film is brave on both the part of Theron and writer-director Jenkins. Truly a phenomenal work of cinema.
