- I love how the opening credits are accompanied by a different song each time. Same images, different feeling every time.
- Holy shit, Adora is such an awful person. Every time it seems like she might be actually preparing to do something motherly and kind, it’s just setup to stab the knife deeper.
That last episode was supremely unsettling for me. Whatever Adora and Amma are up to is freaking me out, and then you have Alan and whatever his hidden rage and perversion are.
My wife is predicting that Adora poisoned Marian back in the day.
I think there was a definite suggestion of poisoning there, yes. I also feel like it was tied to Camille’s rehab roommate, though, and the only linking factor there seems like it would be Camille. “The protagonist was the killer all along” would be a really terrible twist in this context, though, so I hope I am overthinking that.
Yeah - the Camille being the killer all along angle crossed my mind, with some sort of weird split personality thing going on… but I’m not really buying that yet. I hadn’t really thought about Camille’s rehab roommate flashbacks from earlier in the season… I will need to consider that.
Adora, Amma and Alan are developing nicely and creeping me the hell out.
Given that the first death occurred while Camille was in St Louis its seems a little unlikely unless there is some shenanigans going on.
I appreciate Camille’s character is ‘broken’ but what she did in the most recent episode seems to be ridiculous in the context of how she was portrayed till that point.
It bothered me, too. Camille is consistently self-destructive, but that seemed a bridge too far.
Still, the show is great. I love how they depict memory and its after effects. I can’t remember a better depiction of how a damaged protagonist views the world.
As the Gillian Flynn starts to come out – the story can only delay it for so long – it doesn’t hold up so well. Also, I feel Amy Adams is still a bit too lightweight to pull it off unless she’s sharing a scene with Patricia Clarkson or Eliza Scanlen. Those two women are tremendous actors with a ton of range and nuance, so they can do the heavy lifting opposite Adams. But when she’s with Chris Messina or Distraught Prettyboy Brother Suspect, it starts to ring a bit hollow.
Still, Jean-Marc Vallee carries the day. There’s a scene early in the episode when Amy Adams and Patricia Clarkson are having a conversation. When Adams leaves the room, she swings shut a door with a mirror on it. Any other show would have the mirror positioned to show Clarkson when the door shuts. Not Vallee. He gives us a half-second glimpse of someone else entirely. Most TV doesn’t demand and then reward your attention that way. That’s why I watch Sharp Objects.
-Tom
I caught that and just felt it was an important foreshadowing for the rest of the episode…and damned if that feeling wasn’t spot on. I even had to rewind to show my wife, who missed it the first time. I agree completely that little touches like this scattered throughout the series have kept me riveted to the screen and enhanced my overall enjoyment of the episodes.
As for the hotel scene:
I felt like it was within Camille’s character to do what she did, given the circumstances. She obviously did not set out to find John, drag him off to a motel and have sex with him for kicks. She was looking to get his story without his girlfriend or anyone else around to act as a firewall, and since she was convinced he was innocent, she thought taking him somewhere to dry out would help protect him from his current self-destructive bent, something she relates to in a way no one else could. When he saw her secret, and his response was to “read” her as he uncovered more, it unlocked a level of acceptance and intimacy that had been missing from Camille’s life for a long time. It’s perfectly understandable that in that moment she would make a poor judgment call for the sake of feeling that deeply understood and connected to someone again.
What was odd though was that I thought she was the one who tipped off the detective about John’s location, so given how small the town is, wouldn’t she have known that the police could arrive at any moment?
So the mystery of the sister’s death years ago seems pretty obvious now…and shed’s a lot of light on Camille’s behavior, and Alan’s and Adora’s as well. The dots it doesn’t connect are between Adora’s own daughters and the girls who were killed. Why? There is a huge disconnect there in both method and motive. And who will save Amma? Will Alan finally grow a pair? Will Camille be able to face down her mom? Will the Sheriff finally see what’s been staring him in the face the whole time?
This show has become very interesting and compelling television. Is next week really the finale?
Yep. And the showrunner has already said there will be no season two. This is a self-contained story.
I do not expect the resolution of the murder to be particularly satisfying. This is more of a character study, like True Detective, than a mystery.
Wow. That kinda sucks, but I get it. A Season Two would just feel tacked on at this point. Still, ending it next episode pretty much points to a severely depressing for certain and possibly unsatisfying as well end to the show.
Watch through the end of the credits tonight, for the series finale.
I’m not sure why that’s important, but several people who have seen the episode say it is. They also say it’s a fantastic piece of television. This seems like phone off, darkened room, total focus time :)
And it’s followed by Ballers. I like Ballers. But I have to assume the audiences for these two shows are just a little bit different ;)
Good finale tonight. Thanks for the tip about watching the credits
Quite a finale. Wow. The Led Zeppelin riff right at the end was perfect.
If you had trouble making out the post-credits scenes, here are some EXTREME SPOILERS screenshots:
Gonna be honest, the (actually mid) credits scene felt unnecessary and over-egging to me. The final scene before the credits is imo the right note to end on and the credits scene kind of dilutes it by telling us more explicitly what was already implied. Still loved the series and the finale both.
I liked the show over all but I felt like it was a bit too long and could have benefited from about an hour of trim. I like Flynn’s writing quite a bit and I’m glad this was the only book of hers that I haven’t read. The end scene, which I shouted out (like an idiot) “the teeth are in the dollhouse!” about ten seconds before the reveal and I felt pretty satisfied that I had figured it out. Then the credits scenes came, and I realized how great the twist was.
The writing was pretty good, but as with any show, you can have the best or worst writing in the world, and the actors are going to give it their own spin. I’m sure Amy Adams is going to win a new shelf full of awards for Sharp Objects.
Yep, that was a Gillian Flynn script all right. Ugh.
But I really liked it while it was a Jean-Marc Vallee movie about a really fucked up woman in a really fucked up town.
-Tom
A satisfying end to a very well-acted show. @Crusis is probably right about Adams scoring award nods for Sharp Objects, but hopefully Patricia Clarkson is rewarded as well, and to pass up Eliza Scanlen would be a crime, as in my opinion she was the absolute highlight of the series. For an actor her age to be able to slip seamlessly between all the varying attitudes and emotions she needed to as Amma, and be able to express the range she did with just her face in so many scenes, that’s real talent. I expect we will see a lot more from her after this, as it definitely qualifies as a breakout role. “Don’t tell mama.” was probably the best possible closing line for this show, and she nailed it.
So as for that ending :
Adora got what she deserved, even if it was for the wrong children. One would assume though that her conviction would be overturned if the truth came to light? As for Amma, the quick takes during the credits seem to show her little friends assisting with the murders of the two town girls? So it’s not just Amma that’s is psycho from her mom’s influence, she corrupted her friends too, and they all kept perfectly quiet about it for all that time. Creepy as hell.
The thing about Eliza Scanlan is that she’s another one of those damn Aussies coming over here taking jobs away from perfectly good Americans like Selena Gomez and Chloe Moretz Grace!
That was a great way to reveal the actual whodunnit. A series of hauntingly unexplored blink-and-you’ll-miss-them unresolved assertions. Very much in character with how Vallee told other parts of the story. I can only imagine how torturously detailed it must have been in the book.
-Tom
Seriously. We let Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman come over a couple of decades ago and before we knew what was happening the Aussies had set up a chain migration and had infiltrated every major studio and production company. They’re worse than the Brits! When will it end? When we have a Vegemite truck on every L.A. street corner?