Another murder in New York prompts Kreizler to rush to the scene before the cops. Moore struggles mentally with the pursuit of the killer.
The Alienist – Episode 3: “Silver Smile”
From Mini-series
Waco – Episode 2: “The Strangers Across the Street”
Robert Rodriguez goes undercover as a man named Jacob, living across the street from David Koresh & the Branch Davidians compound.
The Alienist – Episode 2: “A Fruitful Partnership”
Dr. Kreizler and his team dig up more information about the dead boy, as a police cover-up emerges.
Waco – Episode 1: “Visions and Omens”
Gary Noesner deals with the fallout of the FBI's mistakes in Ruby Ridge. In Waco, David Koresh builds his cult following.
American Gothic – Episode 13: “Whistler’s Mother”
CBS’ American Gothic
Episode 13: “Whistler’s Mother”
Directed by Greg Beeman
Written by Corinne Brinkerhoff & Aaron Fullerton
* For a review of Episode 12, “Madame X” – click here
The finale is here – “Whistler’s Mother” you may remember is the informal name given to Arrangements in Grey and Black, which is the first episode of this mini-series. Why that painting, you wonder? This last episode in particular and yet so much of these episode has consisted of a focus on who?
Mama Hawthorne.
Everybody’s out voting for Mayor of Boston. Madeline (Virginia Madsen) is worrying about the “crazed dollmaker” after her family. So she has private security watching the house, and her paranoia is high. Tess (Megan Ketch) and Cam (Justin Chatwin), along with Jack (Gabriel Bateman), are down at the Alison Hawthorne (Juliet Rylance) campaign HQ. Even Garrett (Antony Starr) turns up to support his sister.
But nobody’s seen Alison. Where could she be?
Over at the station, Detectives Linda Cutter (Deirdre Lovejoy) and Brady Ross (Elliot Knight) lay the whole case with the new evidence out for everybody. Then Brady gets a call from his wife, worrying about her sister. Now, they’re worried the accomplice is very, very close to the campaign.
We all know from last episode it’s Naomi.
Or is it? That secret she had was all about union workers, supposedly. A background check proves Naomi has always been Naomi. A dead end. Ahhh, tricky. Only problem is the cops are still at square one. And who could be the accomplice?
Sophie (Stephanie Leonidas) ends up at the Hawthorne door. She wants a few pictures before heading off for good. At the campaign HQ, Jack is starting to feel the effects of not having his mother around; he reads too much. Simultaneously, Christina (Catalina Sandino Moreno) has turned up to reconcile with Garrett. She’s planning to move to San Francisco and hopes he’ll go. Although he doesn’t want to leave his family, not after everything.
The detectives go to the grave of SBK’s wife, to see if maybe someone comes to visit. He has an epiphany about the cherry blossoms on Sophie’s neck. Just like the ones at the graveyard. And all alone in the mansion with Madeline, we find Stephanie revealing herself a bit more. Most of all after she plants a needle in her former mother-in-law’s neck. Jesus. I honestly never saw any of this coming.
Where do we go from here? Well, Madeline gets tied up for the time being. Sophie talks more about her life, her mother, her father and his ‘art’ of sorts. Seems SBK got his kill list, for him and his daughter, from the donors at the hospital. She tells us that the bells were there to symbolise the one thing that could save their victim stays “just out of reach.” When Cam turns up things get tricky. She reveals their love stayed her want for revenge, but of course things went sour.
Everyone’s closing in now. Will they make it to the mansion in time? Or will Sophie enact the last breaths of her plan for revenge? Looks like she managed to at least strangle Madeline.
Cam manages to get a gun and point it at Sophie. But Garrett doesn’t want him to kill anyone, not like he did, and to have to live with those memories the rest of his life. He prevents Cam from making a terrible decision. Yet Sophie makes off into the night once more.
In other news, Alison wins her bid for Mayor of Boston. What good is that when your family’s being hunted? Small victories, I suppose.
The Hawthorne family is devastated. For all her faults, it’s still not nice to have your mother murdered. And to have been infiltrated so deeply by SBK’s daughter, his accomplice. Just, staggering. Brady kicks himself for not seeing it sooner, though Cutter tries to assure him he couldn’t have known, and at least now they DO know. They came around to becoming better friends and partners throughout the entire ordeal.
Skip to a year later. Everyone is doing well, Tess and Brady have their child, Cam and his lady friend are getting closer finally. The family is okay after all. Somehow. There’s still creepy Jack. Who knows how they’ll eventually end up. Naomi and Alison are together, happy. Then Garrett and Christina show up with their own little family.
With his little bear still holding his mom’s recorded voice, Jack stands alone listening to it, wondering when she’ll come back to take him. Because a normal life is not what he wants. He’s got that nasty gene somewhere deep down.
We discover more of the secrets hiding amongst the Hawthornes. Alison knew a long while ago that Sophie was the accomplice. She revealed it to her former sister-in-law. Hmm. She even kept one of those bells instead of tossing them all. Thing is, Alison made a deal: don’t kill anybody else, just mom. Holy. Shit. Kills her mother, essentially, and creepily she’s JUST LIKE HER MOTHER. What a twisting, turning, strange little end.
With these last words, Alison ends her interview and the mini-series: “You can be a victim of your circumstances, or you can summon the strength to push through; no matter what. Today our family is thriving. I think my mother would be proud.”
The end personally surprised me, from the opening of this episode to the finish. Far as I know this is only meant to be a mini-series. I dig it that way. Leaves you not with questions, but with a deeper idea of the corrupted roots of the Hawthorne family. What was done cannot be undone. It begets more of its own violence, the secrets of their family. Lots of fun, weird stuff that happened, too. Throughout the whole series. I had a blast, honestly. Didn’t expect to get so into it. Yet here I am. Hope some of you reading have enjoyed as much as I have. A stellar finish, way better than anticipated!
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American Gothic – Episode 10: “The Veteran in a New Field”
CBS’ American Gothic
Episode 10: “The Veteran in a New Field”
Directed by David Barrett
Written by Aaron Fullerton
* For a review of Episode 9, “The Oxbow” – click here
* For a review of Episode 11, “Freedom from Fear” – click here
Boston is now terrorised by The Silver Bells Killer, all over again.
Detectives Brady Ross (Elliot Knight) and Linda Cutter (Deirdre Lovejoy) are still working the case, as Madeline Hawthorne (Virginia Madsen) does her best to get her son Garrett (Antony Starr) out of legal trouble.
There’s a silver bell found at Jennifer Windham’s murder scene. One with the same indentation as the ones left in the original crimes. So, it couldn’t be a copycat. It has to be the accomplice himself.
Alison (Juliet Rylance) and Madeline both have to cooperate with the detectives. However, we know for sure that Mama Hawthorne has big secrets to hide. Mostly Alison has a couple skeletons – sexual in nature – but her mother has festering, rotten things hiding in her past. We’re soon going to see them start spilling out. I can feel it.
Well, Garrett meets with his younger sister Tess (Megan Ketch). She wants to know why he wouldn’t answer her question last episode, about whether he actually killed anybody. Her trust and belief in him is broken. “Cryptic comments” and “evasiveness” have her less than impressed. Then he tells his sister about Al Jenkins, that old chestnut. A mercy killing, essentially. But Tess understands. She isn’t disgusted or scared of her brother. Now, they have a closer connection, as he’s never told anyone else about Al’s death. He further reveals Christina (Catalina Sandino Moreno) is pregnant, even if their relationship isn’t exactly stellar. Can the will to love a child overcome the genetics of the Hawthorne family? It’s like a gamble having a baby in that clan.
Meanwhile there’s Cam (Justin Chatwin), whose time in rehab is coming to a close. He’s done well, obviously. He wants to get to know April (Bethany Joy Lenz) more, although she sticks pretty closely to the whole concept of rehabilitation and not pursuing romantic relationships so soon out. We’ll see how well that sticks.
Cutter has Alison in for a chat, a.k.a interrogation. When Brady finds his partner giving his sister-in-law the third degree, he isn’t happy. Not that anybody needs to protect Alison; she’s a bad ass. Either way, she and Brady get to sit down for a conversation instead, which leads to her admitting she may know who murdered Jennifer – Mayor Conley (Enrico Colantoni). Reason being is that Alison asked Jennifer to dig into him, his past, et cetera. Then she ends up dead. Alison gives Brady the pictures of Cutter with the mayor, and now he’s becoming a lot more interested in this seemingly wild conspiracy theory. It’s a tall accusation. If it’s true there is no telling who’s to trust. Both Brady and Alison understand this already.
At home, Madeline finds a window open and several belts all laid out on a chair. Eerie. She thinks perhaps Jack (Gabriel Bateman) did it, and y’know, it isn’t exactly out of the realm of possibility. Yet she doesn’t think much more of it after the kid denies. Even eerier.
Then there’s Jack’s mother Sophie (Stephanie Leonidas). She encourages the weird behaviour of their child by doing a project with him that consists of plenty blood (fake stuff). She needs help, but doesn’t have the self-awareness of Cam. I’m not looking forward to how things play out with this little family simply because of the drugs involved; you know there’s bad business on its way.
Sneaky Madeline finds out that the accomplice was likely at Mitch’s funeral, from a new detective on the case. Then, she calls him (we assume it’s a man). Tess hears part of their conversation, not all. Enough to be suspicious.
So, who could it be? Someone we’ve already seen? Or someone brand new to the audience? All we know is, even more so now, that Madeline knows plenty more than she has ever let on. To anybody. And maybe Garrett holds some keys to that knowledge. For the time being, Tess is smart enough to do some Caller ID magic and get the last dialled number: somebody named Caleb O’Connor.
Busy Garrett has things to do. His younger brother doesn’t want him to leave again. He worries for Jack and wants Garrett, admired by the boy, to stick around. “It‘s your call,” Cam tells Garrett. Before his brother heads out again, who knows where.
When the unlikely pair of Alison and Brady suss out a safe in a picture behind the wall at Jennifer’s place, they stumble upon a flash drive full of information on Conley.
Speaking of the Mayor of Boston, he and Cutter are being confronted by Brady and Alison. There’s recorded audio of Cutter and Conley talking about evidence being destroyed. But what evidence? When Morales was murdered, all those years ago, Conley was at his house. A cuff-link was lost, so Cutter was brought in, a young naive cop: $25K to lose some evidence. The Mayor has an alibi, unfortunately. There goes that theory.
At the Hawthorne mansion Madeline finds her purse filled with bells. In the background, a bell sounds. She’s distracted for the rest of the evening. Until Tess asks about Caleb – that’s the affair Madeline had back then. Yowzahs.
Anyway, you know that Jack’s presentation at History Night has got to be something special. He narrates while his mother helps with sound effects in the background. He tells of the big molasses spill. And suddenly, his weirdness is enjoyable, not creepy. Everybody laughs, his mother smiles. Jack is a happy, odd little boy.
Brady’s being put on leave for a conflict of interest, which surprisingly didn’t happen sooner. Strangely enough, he thinks that Garrett might actually have had something to do with the murders after all. Really? There’s so much mystery, it’s hard to tell.
An awkward moment comes when Jack and his father are out for a day together. Jack gets some gummies. When he pays $20 for it, Cam wonders why it costs so much. Mom’s been sending her boy to get candies with drugs strapped on the inside. Certainly not a happy situation. “He never knew,” she says hoping to excuse her behaviour. That’s the last straw. If not, Cam would be insane. He’ll get full custody of their boy and it’s no longer just a possibility. She doesn’t deserve to have that child. I’m just afraid she may do something awful.
Out in a public park, Tess and Alison meet with Caleb. He looks like any other regular dude. Nothing strange, immediately. What they get out of the meeting is that Mitch wasn’t dragging Caleb the night of their fight; so who did Papa Hawthorne pull down the stairs back in the day? What did Cam truly see?
All sorts of old secrets are bubbling under the surface. Madeline is constantly holding them back. When her children confront her, she’s backed into a corner.
The homage to Winslow Homer’s painting, from which the title of the episode comes, happens as Garrett digs a hole out in a field. What exactly is he doing out there? He’s got the machinery to harvest corn and everything.
He hasn’t been digging a hole so much as he’s dug up a grave. Down there sits a skeleton. He starts to take it out, preparing to mulch it into dust. Oh, Garrett: what have you done? Things get much more intense when Brady shows up, having followed his brother-in-law to the field. Uh oh.
What a great chapter! Really dig this one. Things get more twisty, then they take you back for a loop and make you see certain events and plots in a different lot. Fun writing. Next episode is “Freedom from Fear” and is based on a painting by Norman Rockwell from 1943 (the last of a series called Four Freedoms).
American Gothic – Episode 9: “The Oxbow”
CBS’ American Gothic
Episode 9: “The Oxbow”
Directed by Doug Aarniokoski
Written by Lawrence Broch
* For a review of Episode 8, “Kindred Spirits” – click here
* For a review of Episode 9, “The Veteran in a New Field” – click here
The title for this episode comes from Thomas Cole’s View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm. Otherwise known as The Oxbow.
I wonder where the series will give homage to the 1836 oil painting?
Brad Ross (Elliot Knight) is having a rough go of things. But at least now he’s got Garrett Hawthorne (Antony Starr) in custody. He’s got the missing piece and Garrett’s knife matched. Flash to 2002, as Madeline (Virginia Madsen) finds her son, covered in blood, holding a knife. “What did you do?” she asks.
Well, we’re not given a straight answer. He looks incredibly guilty. But what more is there. Much more, I bet. Madeline visits him in jail and tries to start spinning things in her favour, to help her son. Or is it mostly to help herself? For now, Garrett has an attorney working for him, although he’s not particularly worried about what she’s doing. Instead he rattles off quotes from Horace Mann: “If evil is inevitable, how are the wicked held accountable? Why do we call men wicked at all? Evil if inevitable, but it is also remediable.”
Back to 2003. A younger Garrett wakes up before his family arrives at the cabin, he takes off into the woods on his own again. While breaking into a cabin, he comes across Al Jenkins (M.C. Gainey) who isn’t exactly convinced with his story of just being out on his own, away from Boston. You can tell there’s more to that relationship.
In the current day, Garrett gets a call from Cam (Justin Chatwin) in rehab. Both brothers in their own respective cages. The older of the two apologises for getting his younger brother close to drugs the last time. Cam doesn’t think he needs to, but Garrett feels guilty generally for never being around. He confides in Cam: “You stayed true to yourself… I‘m so proud of you.” Cut back to the younger Garrett, out in those woods. He chases a rabbit with a knife until coming across Al once again. They have a bit of dinner together around the fire. They bond. This leads to Garrett getting his own cabin after Al leads him to the place of a now dead old man. And the life of the wandering Hawthorne begins. Al teaches him a thing or two about surviving on his own.
In present day Alison (Juliet Rylance) doesn’t believe her brother was an accomplice of any kind to the Silver Bells Killer, their dear ole dad. Who knows what’s left to be done for the elder Garrett brother at this point, though. In other news, Alison has Jennifer Windham (Sarah Power) started on a bit of dirty work trying to dig up dirt on the current mayor. Ah, the greasy Hawthorne ethic comes out strong in this one.
Slide back to 2008. Al tells Garrett about losing a niece, as they bond over family members to which they were close; Garrett talks about his sister Tess (Megan Ketch) and how they were the closest of all the family. Speaking of Tess, she is certainly not convinced about her brother, either. She keeps telling her husband there must be some other explanation. However, Brady does not get her “loyalty” to a guy like Garrett. He suggests confronting her brother, seeing if he’ll confess or deny it to her face.
It’s on!
The painting from which the episode gets its name is all about the confrontation between wilderness and civilisation. We see that represented totally through Garrett. As the years pass, he stays in the woods, away from civilisation. Away from his family. He peeks in occasionally. He buys a newspaper to read Cam’s cartoon Roger’s Cube. There’s part of him that doesn’t want to let go. He gets his number to Tess without being seen, so they can get in touch: “If you need it,” Garrett lets her know. Their bond is so obviously a deep one, a caring one. Great scenes between those two.
When Tess goes to see him in jail things have changed. At least a little. Garrett’s mostly only concerned with his possible niece or nephew coming along. He doesn’t want anybody worrying about him. Tess asks him point blank about the knife. Her brother won’t answer what she needs to hear, casually suggesting his guilt. The change in their relationship is becoming more of a divide. Everyone’s opinion of Garrett has gone 180 degrees.
Jennifer’s been tracking the mayor. He meets with Detective Linda Cutter (Deirdre Lovejoy) in secret. What exactly are they doing?
We see more of creepy little Jack (Gabriel Bateman) visiting his uncle, being weird. Talking about the bubonic plague and other happy things. He mentions seeing Christina (Catalina Sandino Moreno) at the hospital near the ultrasound department; Garrett tries calling her, but no luck in talking much. Then he calls his lawyer, desperate to get out of jail: he’s going to be a dad.
There are big things happening in the Silver Bells case. Mainly the police department is getting their ass kicked by Garrett’s lawyer. She starts bringing up chain of custody, mishandling evidence. Might not be long before Garrett does see the light of day.
Switch back to ’08. Garrett finds Al in pain on the floor, his heart aching. He’s writhing in agony. “This is it,” he says. Death is coming for him. So Al begs his friend: “Help me die.” Of course Garrett refuses. The begging becomes desperate until finally he agrees to help Al along the way. He holds a pillow over the man’s face and eases him into the afterlife.
Seeing this, can we actually now say that Garrett was an accomplice to murder? Definitely not in the first hand sense. He could barely help a dying man go ahead and die. There’s reason to suspect he may not be a killer whatsoever.
Then 2016 rolls around, and Garrett heads back to the city when his father’s ready to die. Present day, he sits behind the walls of prison. On the television he watches Jennifer Windham reporting on the Silver Bells Killer. Someone holds her hostage, making her read a note claiming himself as the true accomplice.
In 2002, after Madeline walked in on Garrett with the blood stains over him, the knife in his hand, she asks what he’s done. The young Garrett replies: “He tried to kill me.”
Everything gets deeper and deeper, with every turn.
A solid entry into the first season. Great episode! Suspenseful, mysterious.
Next is “The Veteran in a New Field” and is titled so after an 1865 painting by Winslow Homer depicting a man using a scythe in an open, empty field. You can find that painting here.
