What did you miss? For a review of the last episode, click HERE

 from the Review Geek: https://www.thereviewgeek.com/clickbait-s1e3review/

Clickbait S1 Ep 3: The Wife

Clickbait – Season 1 Episode 3 “The Wife” Recap & Review
26/08/2021 by Greg Wheeler



The Wife

Episode 3 of Clickbait Season 1 begins with Sophie receiving the devastating news about Nick. There’s visible signs of head trauma too but the autopsy should reveal more. For now, we’ll have to stick with the family secrets. Strap in guys, there’s some juicy details about to be revealed.

At the police station, Sophie is called in for questioning again and shown the bar fight footage. She feigns ignorance but that doesn’t last for long. As we soon come to learn, this man is Curtis Hamilton, a former colleague that worked with Sophie. The last time she saw him was 6 months back when he resigned from his position. She claims they were just friends but a stray tear and a couple of revealing flashbacks confirm that they were very much having an affair.

At the police station, Pia tries in vain to see Nick but his body is at the coroner’s and there’s no way she’s going to be let in. While she wallows in her own grief, Sophie breaks the devastating news about Nick to her children. In the wake of this, Sophie speaks to her Mum about the allegations about Curtis,exhibiting concerns about the initial lies she’s told the police.


With Pia crashing at Sophie’s that night, Sophie decides to head out and confront Curtis herself. According to him, he met with Nick because he messaged Curtis out the blue and wanted to know every detail surrounding their affair. According to Curtis he listened calmly before going on to mention Nick attacking him. Now, given the footage we’ve seen, that’s not how this went down.

Just then, De Luca and Amiri show up to see Curtis, armed with a warrant. As Curtis tries to resist arrest, Amiri notices Sophie inside too and brings her in for questioning, realizing that she’s lied to them.

Now the truth about their affair comes out, along with additional details that Sophie broke the news to Nick, who looks absolutely devastated. The look Nick gives her after, as this shock turns to anger, followed by the forceful way he pushes her down on the bed, could well be another crucial puzzle piece in this.

As news of this affair spills over to the family, Sophie finds her life turned upside down when a woman named Emma Beesley shows up.

According to her, Nick was having an affair too and was in a relationship with this woman, going under the alias of Danny and meeting on a dating app.

It would appear that Nick actually hooked up with this girl to get back at Sophie and the social feeds for both seem to reinforce this. The only trouble is, Nick’s profile on this app was created 2 years ago, not six months. Could it be that he was seeing other women on the side?

The Episode Review:

The plot continues to thicken as Clickbait switches the focus across to Sophie and reveals some pretty juicy secrets. What seemed to be a simple cat and mouse story has now descended into something much deeper and personal.

Secrets are being kept in this marriage and it’s clear now that Nick isn’t the saintly figure everyone seemed to paint him as. In fact, the ending seems to hint that he’s been a bit of a player and could well even be the abuser those placards mentioned.

At the same time, the police work has been suspect, to say the least. How no-one has thought to work with the cyber-crimes department is beyond me – or at least interviewed the delivery company in charge of these vans.

As we approach the halfway point, there’s certainly some holes and contrivances popping up but an enticing little mystery forming too. If you can go into this one and not think too hard about the logic, you should find enough to like here.

What did you miss? For a review of the last episode, click HERE

From Den of Geek: https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/black-sails-season-2-episode-5-review/

Black Sails S2 Ep 5

Black Sails gets its rocks off breaking walls and keeping to history. Here's our review...
By TS Rhodes|February 23, 2015|



“Fire!” That’s how the last episode of Black Sails ended. With Flint’s irrevocable decision to wage war on Vane and Nassau island’s fortifications.

I love this show.

Black Sails has been showing us twists and turns of plot and character development all season. This is one of the big payoffs… As big, I’d say, as the grand finale last year. Don’t watch this if you haven’t seen the rest of the show. But if you missed an episode or two, get yourself off to the Starz website and catch up. You won’t regret it.

While Flint is bombarding the fort, and Jack Rackham is designing his new pirate flag (“Great art has felled empires…”) and Vane is making plans to pull victory from the rubble of his rapidly disintegrating stronghold and Eleanor is fighting with her father and putting out fires (literally) we get to go back to the situation that brought Flint and Miranda to the pirate isle in the first place.

What’s been going on is manifold. Flint (in his alter-ego as a navy lieutenant) has been consulting with Miranda’s husband on the problem of pirates in Nassau. He’s also been carrying on an affair with Miranda, with the husband’s complete compliance. The plan has been to pardon the pirates, thereby turning them from liabilities to productive citizens.

Historically, this is what happened. But historically this is years away, so we’ve got a lot of playtime left, assuming that Black Sails follows its so-far-excellent convergence with the known world.

One of the many things I like about this process is that it doesn’t happen all at once. There’s politicking to be done, votes to sway and opinions to be changed. All of this takes time. Enough time for Flint to make a roundtrip to the island and back, and assess the situation.

And the situation is not good. The pirates have been… being pirates. They’ve killed the wife and child of the previous governor, and thrown the governor himself off the island. Flint still wants the pirates pardoned. Miranda’s husband still wants the majority of them pardoned. And they have the help of Lord Ash, who sees that this is the best way to clean up the pirate problem.

But then Miranda’s father-in-law makes his presence known. And in spite or Miranda trying to make herself scarce, in spite of all the good work that the group has done, he’s able to stop everything.

Back in port. Flint has the upper hand. He batters the fort to bits, as Vane and his most trustworthy men stay secure in the dungeon with Vane’s captive, Abigail. This is another thing that the series excels at. Instead of giving us the nuts-and-bolts of a bombardment, we see this battle through the eyes of the town’s inhabitants, from a mother fleeing the wreckage carrying the dead body of her child to Jack Rackham, whose main concern seems to be covering his rum when dust sifts down from the rafters.

By watching the reactions of all these people, we not only learn about what’s happening, we see the characters and learn more about them. Eleanor Guthrie’s network of employee loyalties seems to be holding up under the stress, even as her warehouse catches fire. Jack’s calm in this situation, one of the few proofs we have that he’s stronger than he appears. Max and her girls don’t give a damn. Whatever group of men wins the fight, they’ll still want company and have to pay for it.

Miranda alone is taking real action, rushing off to see Flint. In her determination to make a difference in the outcome of this battle, we see her as the noblewoman she once was.

And Miranda has a point. Yes, she alone knows why Flint is here, what drove him to be a pirate. She sees the leverage that’s in town, knows how it can be used to obtain the goal that she and her husband and Flint set out to gain so long ago. And as we watch along with the flashbacks, we slowly see it too.

The question remains. Why did Miranda and Flint end up in Nassau? Why did the navy lieutenant become a pirate? Why is the determination of a frontier city 4,000 miles from London so important that Flint is willing to risk his life, destroy his honor, murder his friends in order to bring about the resolution he holds in his heart?

We see this coming in the last flashback. We see the disaster that Miranda was trying to avoid, we see the outcome. It’s terrible, and it would have been real.

But I’m not going to spoil it. You have to see this for yourself. I’ll just say, as a pirate historian, that all my concern about how badly the “powers that be” responded to the outing of Flint’s affair was not at all justified. What happens at the end of this show is a good example of how things can turn out when you have powerful people on your side, and the ugly truth comes out.



At least, in 1715.

We end on yet another cliffhanger, when Vane lives up to his promise to “cut the head off” the advancing army of pirates. Not a bad idea to go out on a knife fight. It’s just in this case it was anticlimactic.

The Many Saints of Newark (2021)

 from Roger Ebert.com: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-many-saints-of-newark-movie-review-2021

The Many Saints of Newark

by
Glenn Kenny October 01, 2021

May contain spoilers

While the storytelling intentions behind “The Many Saints of Newark” may be pure, the expectations the project is meant to satisfy constitute a mess that points to impossibility. Yes, this movie is billed as “A ‘Sopranos’ Story.” Set in 1967 and the early 1970s, it’s a prequel to the groundbreaking television series that has to serve the function of setting up the characters fans of that series know and, weirdly enough in a way, love. But it’s also got to stand on its own as a compelling narrative about family, loyalty, crime, all of the Italian-American gangsterism variety. And beyond that this movie reveals another ambition: to say something meaningful about race relations and Black crime relative to the explosions of urban violence that rocked the nation in the late 1960s, Newark being one of the places most rocked.

What we get in the movie, directed by Alan Taylor from a script by “Sopranos” capo David Chase and Lawrence Konner, is two hours of reach exceeding grasp, a jumble of moments that often only toggle between the exasperating and repellent.

The movie opens with an evocative crane shot, that turns into a dolly shot, of a cemetery; the voices of the dead on a rainy afternoon crowd the soundtrack. One voice begins to take over: that of Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli, of the series, contributes his voice), who discusses his life and its end. “He choked me to death,” he says flatly about a key character from the series. This arguably teases the notion that here, you will find out why. At least if you don’t know the series. If you do know the series, you do know why. Or at least you know it takes place in a world where “whys” can be provisional, fleeting, flaky, in part because it’s a world of psychopaths, not to put too fine a point on it.

Is psychopathy hereditary? One can’t really say. One can say that both Dickie Moltisanti, Christopher’s father, and “Hollywood” Dick Moltisanti are guys with one if not more screws loose; brash, violent, impulsive men. “Hollywood” steps off a boat from Italy with a trophy wife maybe a third his age who catches younger Dickie’s eye, but one doesn’t make too much of it because one can’t really. Soon we’re getting a peek into a part of the family business, a numbers-running operation aided and abetted by some African-American hustlers, chief among them Leslie Odom, Jr.’s Harold. In a dispiriting early example of the all-caps EXPOSITIONAL dialogue, one character in an African-American home proclaims, “The numbers are the only way black folks got to get out of this sinkhole city.” Thanks for the tip.

As the series “The Sopranos” evolved, growing in smarts and refinement even before its first season concluded, its expansiveness allowed for more and more authorial detachment and performance nuance. The viewer was afforded the opportunity to step back and really feel the humanity of characters that persisted beyond the awful actions those characters so frequently committed. One of my favorite “Sopranos” moments is at the end of the seventh episode, in which Tony makes ice cream sundaes for himself and A.J. Aside from being a virtuosic bit of acting from James Gandolfini, there’s a powerful sense of affinity and restfulness here that makes the viewer understand there are some laudable values that Tony has some connection to. For now. There’s none of that in “Many Saints.” While the film strives, none too mightily, to establish a duality for Dickie Moltisanti, Alessandro Nivola’s performance in the role never catches enough of a groove to make such an idea signify.

Dickie commits an entirely heinous act in the movie’s first half hour, but then shows genuine sincerity in his desire to do a “good deed” by bringing an ostracized family member not back into the fold (he’s in prison and not likely to get out) but supplying him some creature comforts. This character requests a phonograph record by Miles Davis, which Dickie duly brings. Along with other not-exactly-apt LPs (Al Hirt, for instance—“trumpet,” Dickie points out.) This bit culminates with a mob-movie in-joke so flip you can’t believe the creators thought their piece would be taken at all seriously afterwards. (The imprisoned character is played by Ray Liotta in a dual role—he’s also “Hollywood.”)

The movie’s flabbiness, its unfocused flopping from scene to scene, its disinclination to provide any individual scene with any dimension beyond its immediate impact, practically vitiates the entire theme of Dickie’s ostensible mentorship of Tony Soprano. Michael Gandolfini, stepping into his father’s shoes, has remarkably expressive eyes and the proper bearing. If he can’t establish a coherent character it’s because he’s not given one to build. Similarly, the other powerhouse actors in this movie’s voluminous cast—Corey Stoll, Vera Farmiga, Jon Bernthal among them—wind up confronted with a sort of performance Hobson’s Choice. Do they signal the actors who play them in the set-in-the-future series, do they put their own stamps on the characters, do they do both, can they do both? In the end it hardly matters. After gallons of blood are spilled—sometimes the depictions of violence are upsetting and other times cartoonish, but they’re always more than enough—the movie merely slows to a crawl and comes to an unimpressive halt, like a car that’s jumped a guard rail and gone down a grassy knoll.

What did you miss? For a review of the last episode, click HERE

From Vulture.com: https://www.vulture.com/article/the-white-lotus-recap-season-1-episode-5-the-lotus-eaters.html

The White Lotus S1 Ep 5:
The Lotus-Eaters

The White Lotus Recap: Hateful Is the Dark-Blue Sky
By Amanda Whiting



Photo: HBO

In Homer’s Odyssey, the lotus fruit is so enchanting that Odysseus’s men who unwittingly eat it lose all desire for home — not a bad analogy for a good vacation. But by the time Tennyson’s mariners wash up on the peculiar island, getting high on lotus is an act of moral rebellion: “Ah, why Should life all labour be?”
My Week In New York
A week-in-review newsletter from the people who make New York Magazine.


These are “The Lotos-eaters” of Armond’s oratorical flourish, when he joins Belinda to finish off a bottle of white, compliments of Tanya. It’s a dark coda to an episode that shifts the series’s tonal register: Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s trippy score turns somber, the tracking shots increasingly evoke horror movies, and the jokes barely dribble in. Until this week, I didn’t appreciate enough that Murray Bartlett’s hotel manager is the show’s charismatic core, burdened with preserving its balance of humor and pathos. But with Armond rarely in the picture in “The Lotus-Eaters,” the White Lotus Hotel on tropical Maui becomes a dour place to stay.


The episode picks up where the last installment left off. Dillon is buttoning his clothes while Armond reneges on the promises that convinced him to take them off in the first place. Greg, too, can’t get dressed fast enough after his tumble with Tanya, maybe even faking a bout of emphysema to avoid questions about when he’ll call. Neither do our young lovers Kai and Paula escape the post-coital comedown. Kai made Paula a necklace with a sunny shell charm — the same shell he combed for as a kid before falling out with his brothers. He wants her to stay on the island. “I doubt we’ll ever see each other again,” she tells him, then takes off the necklace before Olivia can see it. For all her good intentions, Paula’s swift, brutal rejection of Kai might be the most damage any single guest has inflicted on the White Lotus staff … so far.

The Mossbachers are fighting over Mark’s unilateral decision to tell Quinn about his affair, which Nicole is still grieving. She thinks he’s selfish; he thinks she’s emotionally closed-off. Even if they’re both right, gormless Mark is way more wrong. Once upon a profoundly homophobic time, his dad didn’t tell him he was gay, and now Mark can’t tell the difference between secrets that belong to him and those that don’t. I do wish I had a better sense of how long Nicole’s been rocking those diamond bangles. When did this affair happen? And when did Nicole find out about it? Ten points to Slytherin for Olivia asking her parents what’s wrong between them — I wasn’t sure she’d notice someone else having emotions.

By the time the guests hit the breakfast buffet, the show is already priming us for death. If there’s any doubt the end is nigh, Armond announces that the Pattons will be moving to the Pineapple Suite, which OG Mrs. Patton immediately deems too pineapple-y. Shane, though, is finally on vacation. He’s got the plunge pool and the general manager’s real phone number and the self-satisfied, shit-eating grin of a man who isn’t happy until he’s made someone else unhappy. Perhaps even more unsettling than Shane lording over Armond is how I’m kind of into his terry-towel aloha shirt, like if a bathrobe and a leisure suit had a fluffy baby.

When Quinn is late for breakfast after canoeing with some local guys, his parents are performatively pissed he didn’t call on the phone he no longer has. “You getting excited, bud?” Mark asks, changing the subject from the canoe, which Quinn was clearly stoked on, to their scuba-school graduation, which no one cares about. Over fruit platters, the fam debates whether the native Hawaiian staff in last night’s hula experienced it as a positive expression of culture or an extension of imperialism. No one suggests actually speaking to a native Hawaiian person directly, but, helpfully, Mark can have an entire conversation about colonialism and reparations by himself. “You shouldn’t kill people, steal their land, and then make them dance. Everybody knows that,” Mark says. BUT, on the other hand, “Should we give away all our money? Would you like that?” If you want to be super-charitable about it, he’s making the same point Quinn did last week: What do your politics matter if they’re not prescriptive? Mark is a low-key troglodyte; Paula is outspokenly progressive. They’re both sleeping between Egyptian cotton sheets on stolen land.

When Belinda catches up with Tanya, she finds her spiraling out over what will happen when Greg reaches her narcissistic, alcoholic center. She attempts to steer the conversation to the wellness center, but it’s no use. Tanya has a new toy with more complicated instructions. She puts on her snazziest caftan to stalk Greg to the pool, where for maybe the third time he promises to get in touch later. It’s hard to watch, but still not the ugliest thing going down at the lido.

That distinction belongs to the confab between the Misses Pattons. Shane’s mom knows about Rachel’s “identity crisis” — her codependent son told her — and wants to reassure her about the gifts she brings to their new marriage. For example, Rachel is incredibly beautiful, and she makes Shane so happy when countless other beautiful women that came before her didn’t. I’m 90 percent sure Mrs. Patton the Elder is genuinely trying, but she doesn’t understand what’s suddenly the problem. To be fair to her, the suddenness of the problem is hard to understand! Everything Rachel’s upset about was just as true the day before the wedding as the day after.

What was less foreseeable is that over the course of a four-day fling with Paula, Kai would go from a really nice dude with a steady job to a jewel thief on the run. With the Mossbachers all now planning to attend scuba graduation at sea, Paula pleads with Kai to use the key card he swiped and the safe code she weaseled from the Mossbachers to steal the Range Rover Nicole wears on her wrist, thereby righting historical injustices. Somehow. “I don’t steal from people,” Kai tells her. It’s all so bad. Paula convinces Kai that he could hire a good lawyer to fight the hotel, but (1) that’s not enough money, and (2) where on Maui is he supposed to pawn the bracelets? The theft will be front-page news.

The heist is hardly The Italian Job. Kai’s a lousy thief, fumbling over the safe, snatching the diamonds but leaving the cold, hard cash behind. He’s still in the hotel suite when Nicole, who decides to skip the boat trip rather than spend more time with Mark, gets back. But Mark runs after Nicole, and Kai is forced to punch his way out of the suite. It’s all so, so bad. Nicole is traumatized; Mark is bleeding. Paula didn’t even get off the boat. When the kids get back, the cops are dusting for prints, and Paula looks stunned, like she never believed she had this much power. What did she think would happen?

Dinner is a downbeat affair all around. Tanya doesn’t want to talk about the fact that Greg never called or the wellness center. She’s content to sit across from Belinda in spacey, self-pitying silence. She hasn’t read the business plan; she’ll never read the business plan. When she leaves mid-meal because Greg booty-calls her, even Belinda understands that she was never going to read the business plan.

In a stunning reversal, though, Tanya rejects Greg in an act of deranged self-preservation. She’s just self-aware enough to know that eventually her neediness pushes people away. In a brilliantly batshit moment, she even tries to foist her mother’s ashes on him. Alas, her nerve doesn’t hold. “I still want to fuck you,” Greg tells her. If you squint at it hard enough, you can maybe see shades of Rhett telling Scarlett, “You need kissing badly. That’s what’s wrong with you.”

Tonight is Shane’s mom’s last night with the couple before she heads to her own hotel, so she spends it shit-talking the country-club set with her son, who is wearing a blue ombre sweater with boats and whales and maybe birds on it — his worst look yet. Rachel just sits there, not unlike a trophy wife. Later, she’ll say to herself and maybe her husband, if he’s listening, that she thinks she’s made a terrible mistake. It’s the same realization she has every episode, but for the first time there’s a sense she’ll Google “annulment” before bed.

Meanwhile, the Mossbachers are rallying around each other. At last, Mark is the hero he wants his family to see — and all he had to do to earn their respect was tackle a mostly harmless person.

Which brings us back to Belinda and Armond and Tennyson’s lotos-eaters. The narcotic on this island isn’t release from the obligation of home, but from the world of consequence. Tanya will never care or perhaps even notice the accidents she leaves in her wake. Shane will claim them, like prizes. From her tears, it’s clear there’s not enough lotus fruit on Maui to keep Paula from confronting what she’s done, though of course, she’s not the one who will pay for it. That ache in her stomach isn’t fructose intolerance; it’s her humanity. She should get on a plane far away from these people before she can no longer feel its tug.

What did you miss? For a review of the last episode, click HERE

From Ready Steady Cut: https://readysteadycut.com/2021/03/14/american-gods-season-3-episode-9-the-lake-effect-recap/

American gods S3 Ep 9:
The Lake Effect

American Gods season 3, episode 9 recap – “The Lake Effect”hitting the target
March 14, 2021
Jonathon Wilson0


“The Lake Effect” builds to some big events in a climactic final sequence that (mostly) makes up for a sedate episode.



This recap of American Gods season 3, episode 9, “The Lake Effect”, contains spoilers.

“The Lake Effect” spends most of its runtime feeling a little bit like filler, which is certainly odd after a string of pacey, eventful episodes. You’d have been forgiven for thinking this was the show up to its old tricks, setting up big events just to keep them at arm’s length, but not so fast, dear readers, since this week’s American Gods ends with a bang. Two, in fact. Although perhaps “thud” would be more appropriate.


There’s a lot of time-killing early on. Laura bonds with Doyle, who tries to teach her how to throw Odin’s spear with deadly efficiency but ends up just giving her the lucky coin so she can’t miss. Laura, fearing her potential demise if it all goes pear-shaped, wants to feel needed one last time in the only way she really knows how — by talking Doyle into bed. He’s keen, of course, but she quickly backs out when she realizes that has always been her short-term solution to problems and it has never really gotten her anywhere. I’m glad American Gods season 3, episode 9 took this route.

Elsewhere, in Lakeside, Shadow returns home to the sad news that Derek has hung himself and Alison’s coat has been found in the back of his closet. Naturally, this seems rather suspicious, especially since, as Shadow explains to Marguerite, he went to Florida and asked about Sandy, and it seems like he’s missing too. With the rest of the townsfolk hesitant to rock the boat, Shadow begins to conduct his own investigations while fighting off increasingly vivid and, naturally, prophetic dreams, including one of Marguerite trying to drown him in the hot tub. Eventually, he finds himself almost drowned and frozen in the lake, only to be “rescued” by Anne-Marie, who I think we all figured out weeks ago was up to no good. As it turns out, she’s the one who has been killing children as a sacrifice to the Norse Gods, since they’re into such things, and she considers it a fair trade. Chad arrives, having overheard her confession, and attempts to shoot her, only to find she’s basically invulnerable — but not to the knife that Shadow uses to open her throat in a plume of blood and fire. Oh, and Shadow won the clunker competition, proving his prognostication capabilities once and for all.

But the big moment in American Gods season 3, episode 9 comes when Wednesday meets with Mr. World for peace talks, much to the consternation of Czernobog, who it seems would be happy to keep fighting forever. Of course, Mr. World, now wearing a new face, is adamant about proposing the terms, which are to give the Old Gods their lives and the freedom to disappear, lest they be hunted down one by one. It’s not exactly a lively negotiation, so nothing is agreed, but it scarcely matters since when Wednesday steps outside, Laura throws his spear at him. Despite the intervention of Czernobog (he misses Laura, but manages to smack Doyle just as Laura tosses him the lucky coin — he disappears, fate unknown), the weapon hits its target, and Wednesday is skewered to the ground looking very… dead?

Evil S1 Ep 4: Rose 390

What did you miss? For a review of the last episode, click HERE

from TV Fanatic: https://www.tvfanatic.com/2019/10/evil-season-1-episode-4-review-rose-390/

EVIL Season 1 Episode 4 Review:
Rose 390

by Jessica Lerner at October 17, 2019 11:00 pm.


Well that was shocking.

And by shocking, I mean the show's decision to have the parents kill their 9-year-old who showed psychopathic tendencies and tried to drown his infant sister.

That perverse decision was all EVIL Season 1 Episode 4 had going for it, as the series delivered its weakest episode to date.


The obvious two reasons are 1) the lack of Townsend, and by extension, the furthering of the larger mythology at play, and 2) an entire subplot featuring Kristen's daughters.

Creating a straightforward procedural shouldn't be that hard, especially one that hails from the brilliant creators of The Good Wife and its spinoff The Good Fight.

Ben: What about the locks on the cupboards and the fridge?
Mother: He tried to poison us.
Acosta: Why?
Mother: He said he was doing an experiment, and he wanted to see how long it would to feel the liquid bleach in the milk.
Permalink: He tried to poison us.

However, ever since its debut EVIL has struggled to find its footing.

Following EVIL Season 1 Episode 3, I was hopeful the series was adjusting to growing pains, but now I'm not so sure.


These entire 42 minutes were particularly painful, as viewers had to sit through a subpar "case of the week" and the annoying subplot involving four irritating girls.

Part of what hurt the "case of the week" was that viewers couldn't connect with Eric, a seemingly psychopathic 9-year-old boy.

There was very little about his behavior that seemed to indicate possession.

Related: EVIL Season 1 Episode 3 Review: 3 Stars

He wasn't "taken over" by another demon or yelling at an invisible entity; he was just deeply disturbed, and his actions didn't scream "demonic" until his parents revealed he tried to poison them.

And even then, it was hard to hate him because he was still a little boy, even though he did try to kill his baby sister.


He clearly showed psychopathic tendencies, and I don't think anyone on the team -- even Acosta -- believed he was possessed.

The only saving grace to the case was Eric's liking to Acosta. It was a weird dynamic that sort of worked on some levels.

Eric: Do you like me?
Acosta: I don't think I've decided.
Eric: Do you think I have a demon in me?
Acosta: I don't think I've decided.
Eric: If I do have a demon in me, is there anything you can do?
Acosta: I can try.
Permalink: I don't think I've decided.

Eric's fascination with Acosta was most effective when he took Acosta's word to heart, just not the way the priest-in-training intended.

Eric telling Acosta that he had asked God to take away his baby sister was pretty chilling, as he clearly didn't understand what was wrong with that.


The boy's actions solidified that he was essentially a psychopath, and the eventual exorcism was a last attempt to pacify the parents who were looking for any sort of explanation.

Any gray area between science and faith, which has been present in the preceding cases, just wasn't there this time, making it hard to connect with this particular case.

Related: Get CBS All Access via Prime Video Channels for Hit Shows, Exclusive Originals & Live TV!

Instead, that unclarity was found in this episode's most agonozing scenes, which overly featured Kristen's four daughters.

Initially introduced to provide Kristen with a reason to join Acosta and Ben -- she needed the money -- and depict the character as "super mom," this episode thought it would be a good idea to give these annoying little girls an extended amount of screen time.

The concept of the fear-inducing game on the augmented reality goggles was a pretty decent idea, and the presence of the mysterious Rose390 was definitely creepy.

However, all those things lost their momentum by the sheer number of screams from the girls and the constant arguing and talking over one another.

Ben: Hey, don’t freak out when you see a strange man in your bathroom. Your mom asked me to look at the pipes, and your grandma let me in.
Lynn: Is the shower broken?
Ben: No, your mother’s just worried you’re going to turn into psychopaths.
Permalink: No, your mother’s just worried you’re going to turn into psychopaths.

In essence, this plot was the equivalent of a jump scare: Scary at the moment but lacking in everything else.

Even the reappearance of Rose390, who looked like Wednesday Addams, after Ben enabled the parental controls was easily explained away.

There were no lingering questions about the presence or existence of demons; just a throwaway one-liner that wrapped everything up neatly.


Given the girls' extended screen time, I kept thinking the scary game would somehow tie into the "case of the week," like the game had someone caused Eric's psychopathic behavior.

Related: EVIL Season 1 Episode 2 Review: Do You Believe in Miracles?

It didn't, and I'm still confused why this subplot was included as it did nothing to move the story forward, ask viewers to question the existence of demons or make the hour more enjoyable.

The only real nugget of information that the subplot yielded that Kristen's husband is supposed to return home in a few weeks.

Now that is worthy of a subplot, as viewers have been teased with very little knowledge of Kristen's absentee husband, who's off being a tour guide on Everest.


Acosta: So in the end, they're really not remorseful; they're just faking it.
Kristen: Yes, but what hopefully starts as imitation becomes learned behavior.
Acosta: Fake it until you make it.
Permalink: Fake it until you make it.


Given the show's not-so subtle hints that there's an attraction between Kristen and Acosta, it'd be interesting to see what Kristen's husband thinks of his wife's new collegue.

Heck, it'd be interesting to see what he thinks of her new job. Going from mountain climbing to the exorcism of demons is definitely a change.


Some stray thoughts:

I take it back. No matter how illogical and unrealistic it is for Kristen to keep squaring off against Townsend, I'll take it, as Michael Emerson's character is the highlight of the series.

Did anyone else feel like the series missed an opportunity to have George appear while either the girls or Kristen were wearing the augmented reality goggles? Or has the show just decided to drop that plot thread after the second episode?

Even though there was barely any screen time devoted to Ben, he continues to be a favorite of mine and always has the best lines.
What should we make of Acosta casually telling Kristen that they should grab a drink sometime? Is that supposed to be layered with subtext, or just a friendly drink between colleagues.

What did you miss? For a review of the last episode, click HERE

From the Dexter Wiki: https://dexter.fandom.com/wiki/Episode_103:_Popping_Cherry

Dexter S1 Ep 3:
Popping Cherry

Dexter attends the funeral of a slain cop, Ricky Simmons. As he looks around at the mourners, he thought, “Most people have a hard time dealing with death, but I’m not most people. It’s the grief that makes me uncomfortable. Not because I’m a killer -- really, I just don’t understand all that emotion, which makes it tough to fake. In those cases, shades come in handy.” [He puts on his sunglasses.]

Dexter zeros in on Jeremy Downs, a recently paroled teenage murderer. He’s tracked Jeremy’s story and suspects that he will be a repeat offender.

Rita receives an unpleasant visit from Ricky, her imprisoned husband's drug dealer. When she can’t pay the money owed him, he confiscates her car, forcing to take the bus to and from her job as receptionist at Z Hotel.

Sheri "Cherry" Taylor, a victim of the Ice Truck Killer, is found dismembered on the rink at Miami Blades Ice Hockey Stadium. Debra knew her because she had worked undercover as a hooker. Lt. Maria LaGuerta, ambitious for the media spotlight, directs the department to investigate Tony Tucci, the stadium’s missing security guard.

Dexter observes Jeremy at a swap meet buying a knife. When the knife vendor turns his back to get change, Jeremy practices slashing motions with the knife. Dexter steps up and grabs his wrist in mid-air, startling Jeremy who then quickly takes off.

(Flashback) Harry and teenage Dexter are choosing what guns to use for hunting pheasants when Dexter asks Harry if he had ever killed a person, and what it felt like if he did. After a brief talk, Harry decides they’ll hunt something different. Out in the field, Harry shoots a deer, but it’s only wounded. He pulls out a knife and tells Dexter, “For now, this is how we’ll control the urges you feel.” Dexter willingly takes the knife, approaches the deer, and repeatedly stabs it.

Doakes begins to hound Carlos Guerrero, the drug kingpin who ordered the murder of Kara Simmons. He shows up uninvited to a church party celebrating the confirmation of Guerrero’s daughter. Doakes causes a scene and publicly accuses Guerrero, which leaves Guerrero fuming. Meanwhile, Detective McNamara and his cop friends decide to take matters involving Guerrero into their own hands.

Debra returns to the street where she used to work undercover as a hooker. She hopes the hookers will give her information about the Ice Truck Killer who has chopped up five prostitutes. The girls greet Debra as "Brandy" and welcome her back. However, when she reveals that she is a cop, they feel betrayed. Eventually, they provide a description of the car that Cherry left in on the night she was murdered.

To celebrate Debra’s first official homicide case, Dexter gives her a cactus that he bought at the swap meet and his gesture amuses her. She fills him in on what she’s learned so far. The Ice Truck Killer’s car is apparently one of the thousands of wood-paneled station wagons in Miami-Dade County, but Tony Tucci doesn’t own a car. Debra is convinced that LaGuerta is on the wrong track.

While she’s waiting at a bus stop, Rita Bennett calls Dexter to ask him to wait at her house until she gets home because a social worker is coming by.


Doakes gives a briefing on the surveillance tape found in Tony Tucci’s apartment. The team is told that Tucci has a record for pulling a knife at party in 1997. LaGuerta proudly declares that Tucci is the Ice Truck Killer, but Debra doesn’t buy it. Neither does Dexter. While waiting for Rita, Dexter and her social worker have a pleasant conversation. Dexter assures her that Rita will soon have personal transportation, and social worker says that Rita is doing an exemplary job. Dexter reveals a bit about his background before Rita runs up the sidewalk, announcing, “I’m here!”

(Flashback) Harry is hospitalized and his health is worsening. He tells Debra and Dexter that he won’t be around much longer, and Deb begins to cry. He turns his attention to Dexter, saying that he won’t be able to stop Dexter from being who he is, that he’ll need to do it sooner or later, and to remember their lessons. Debra doesn’t understand what he’s talking about.

Debra and Angel view the stadium’s security tape which shows Tucci carrying and positioning Cherry’s body parts. They notice that he looks off to the side as if someone is giving him directions. They suspect that Tucci is being framed.

Dexter watches Jeremy lure a friend, Lucas, to a local swamp by promising to show him an alligator. Dexter follows them, realizing that Jeremy is trying to recreate his first kill. As Jeremy begins to pull out his knife to kill Lucas, Dexter suddenly appears, scaring them. The two run off, with life of Lucas being saved. On his way out, Dexter encounters an actual alligator. He discovers that Jeremy broke into his car and stole items from his glove compartment.

(Flashback) Back at the hospital, Harry begs Dexter to stop his nurse, Mary, from giving him a shot. Dexter grabs Mary’s arm and there is a brief argument. Before she leaves the room, she gives Dexter a deadly look. Harry says the nurse gives him too much morphine and something else which is killing him by overdose. She’s also killing others in this way. Harry gives the go ahead for Dexter to murder Mary.


Harry: “Stop her.”
Dexter: “What do you mean, stop her?”
Harry: “It’s time. Before she hurts anyone else.”
[Dexter nods.]

Deb explains to Captain Thomas Matthews why she doesn’t think Tucci is the Ice Truck Killer, When he learns that she came directly to him, he chews her out for violating the chain of command. Afterward, Matthews confronts LaGuerta for ignoring Debra’s work in order to further her political career. He gives LaGuerta permission to go ahead with her press conference, but says, if she’s wrong about Tucci, he won’t have her back.

The school calls Rita at work because no one has picked up Astor. Dexter agrees to take her home where he dances with Astor and removes a splinter from her finger. When Astor hugs him, Dexter thought, “If I had a heart, it might be breaking right now.”

After dark, Debra walks around Calle Ocho where she soon spots a wood-paneled station wagon. She approaches the vehicle, expecting to encounter the killer, but she only finds an elderly couple inside it.

Doakes goes for a drink with Detective McNamara and a few other detectives. However, they end up in Coral Gables and McNamara tells Doakes that they’re going to beat up Guerrero’s top lieutenant. Doakes tries to stop them because Guerrero will think he’s behind it. McNamara says that’s part of the plan, while he and his friends don clown masks. Doakes quickly runs away down the street.

Dexter sneaks into the halfway house and finds Jeremy alone, playing a game. When Dexter throws him against a wall, Jeremy asks if he’s going to rape him because he killed the last person who raped him. Dexter relents on killing Jeremy as he seemingly took out the garbage like he does. He then threatens Jeremy, saying, "Look, I really don't want to cancel all my credit cards and I hate waiting in line at the DMV, so give me back the wallet you stole from my car or I'll break your fucking neck!" Jeremy directs him to his backpack. On his way out, Dexter tells Jeremy that Lucas didn’t deserve to die, and to remember that, as it could save his life one day.

(Flashback) Dexter breaks into Mary's house, covers a room with plastic, and puts on a plastic suit with gloves. When Mary arrives home, Dexter attempts to inject her with a tranquilizer but he fails, and is forced to overpower her in hand-to-hand combat. Mary wakes up on a kill table and Dexter reminds her of her crimes via her trophy obits in a scrapbook. Mary claims that she put them out of their misery. After gagging Mary, Dexter repeatedly stabs her. It’s messier than he anticipated. With Mary dead, Harry recovers and lives another year.

Guerrero’s men begin to follow Doakes.

Dexter surprises Rita by bringing her a car that he borrowed from the police impound. She and her kids are overjoyed. “Score one for the little wooden boy,” Dexter thought.