Half boom, and half bust, with the former being much more interesting than the latter. There's another thrilling sequence of events in the first half of the episode, followed by slack tide in the second that begins to grow dull as it lingers on.
But let's focus on the part of the episode that works well. Poor, poor Elsworth. It's probably too much and too far to call him an innocent, but he was one of the kindest, most helpful, and most sincerely good people to set foot in this rough and tumble camp. To see him contemplate whether his very presence would upset Alma and Sophia too much, whilst talking to a pretty adorable pup, only accentuates that inherent sweetness and considerateness in him. He wants to help but is worried about being too much of a bother, about upsetting people and breaking routines on an already upsetting day. But he is an inconvenience to Hearst, and that gets him cut down.
It's a tragic scene. And though the direction (and Molly Parker's performance) in the scene where Alma and Charlie Utter discover that he's been killed are both a little odd, it doesn't take away from the shock that Hearst is so evil as to take out so decent a man as Elsworth. There's a charged atmosphere after that scene, from both Alma's bewilderment and the town's general shock at what's happened. Everyone, from E.B. Farnum to Cy Tolliver is ready to see Hearst go. It's an odd comparison to make, but there's a "Who Shot Mr. Burns"-quality to these scenes, where one wealthy, evil man has alienated everyone in town to the point that all corners of the camp want his blood in the streets.
But it doesn't end there. Trixie, who continues to be such a great character on the show, will not let this stand. She grabs her pistol, uses what god gave her to get past Hearst's guards, and shoots him, though sadly not fatally. It's then that everything's truly in flux. We don't know what state Hearst is in. We see Farnum cover for Trixie. We see her flee to Sol who spirits her away into the safety of the gem. We have Utter grabbing Sophia and bringing her to an understandably shaken Alma. Everything and everyone is rattled.
And then the momentum of the episode just kind of stalls out. Bullock gets the telegram while he's giving a speech out of town and races back (a nice enough echo of earlier in the episode where he, Sol, and others, hash out the terms of if and when he should be summoned back to the camp), but it's to the calm before the storm. We spend a great deal of time mulling whether Sophia should be able to see Elsworth's body. We have Al descending into frustration over whether Hawkeye (whose sins against Al still somewhat escape me), We spend more time with the various tertiary characters in Langrishe's troupe, with little narratively to show for it. We see Cy berate and abuse his employees once more, to no particular purpose.
While "Leviathan Smiles" made hay out of the waiting game, made the slow points between bouts of excitement into something slow and meditative, the second half of this episode feels like a lot of just hanging around and filling time before the next big thing happens, rather than developing the conflict in the interim. I'm obviously still interested in what's to come, but I wish we'd gotten there much more quickly, and with a little more gusto. Though maybe Elsworth's untimely end and Trixie's moxie is gusto enough for one episode.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2016-08-03T02:50:31Z
Half boom, and half bust, with the former being much more interesting than the latter. There's another thrilling sequence of events in the first half of the episode, followed by slack tide in the second that begins to grow dull as it lingers on.
But let's focus on the part of the episode that works well. Poor, poor Elsworth. It's probably too much and too far to call him an innocent, but he was one of the kindest, most helpful, and most sincerely good people to set foot in this rough and tumble camp. To see him contemplate whether his very presence would upset Alma and Sophia too much, whilst talking to a pretty adorable pup, only accentuates that inherent sweetness and considerateness in him. He wants to help but is worried about being too much of a bother, about upsetting people and breaking routines on an already upsetting day. But he is an inconvenience to Hearst, and that gets him cut down.
It's a tragic scene. And though the direction (and Molly Parker's performance) in the scene where Alma and Charlie Utter discover that he's been killed are both a little odd, it doesn't take away from the shock that Hearst is so evil as to take out so decent a man as Elsworth. There's a charged atmosphere after that scene, from both Alma's bewilderment and the town's general shock at what's happened. Everyone, from E.B. Farnum to Cy Tolliver is ready to see Hearst go. It's an odd comparison to make, but there's a "Who Shot Mr. Burns"-quality to these scenes, where one wealthy, evil man has alienated everyone in town to the point that all corners of the camp want his blood in the streets.
But it doesn't end there. Trixie, who continues to be such a great character on the show, will not let this stand. She grabs her pistol, uses what god gave her to get past Hearst's guards, and shoots him, though sadly not fatally. It's then that everything's truly in flux. We don't know what state Hearst is in. We see Farnum cover for Trixie. We see her flee to Sol who spirits her away into the safety of the gem. We have Utter grabbing Sophia and bringing her to an understandably shaken Alma. Everything and everyone is rattled.
And then the momentum of the episode just kind of stalls out. Bullock gets the telegram while he's giving a speech out of town and races back (a nice enough echo of earlier in the episode where he, Sol, and others, hash out the terms of if and when he should be summoned back to the camp), but it's to the calm before the storm. We spend a great deal of time mulling whether Sophia should be able to see Elsworth's body. We have Al descending into frustration over whether Hawkeye (whose sins against Al still somewhat escape me), We spend more time with the various tertiary characters in Langrishe's troupe, with little narratively to show for it. We see Cy berate and abuse his employees once more, to no particular purpose.
While "Leviathan Smiles" made hay out of the waiting game, made the slow points between bouts of excitement into something slow and meditative, the second half of this episode feels like a lot of just hanging around and filling time before the next big thing happens, rather than developing the conflict in the interim. I'm obviously still interested in what's to come, but I wish we'd gotten there much more quickly, and with a little more gusto. Though maybe Elsworth's untimely end and Trixie's moxie is gusto enough for one episode.