1x08 Witness Marks

[7.5/10] It would be too much to call this one a format bender, but I appreciate that this episode breaks from the usual structure of this show thus far, and instead gives us a pair of conversations: Hugh and Steven on the one hand, and Shirley and Theo on the other. Both conversations get at uncomfortable truths and confessions, and while this is, by necessity, kind of a talky episode, for the most part it works.

(Incidentally, I know what witness marks are thanks to the fantastic Serial podcast, which took some of the stuffing out of Hugh’s metaphor for me, but hey, not the show’s fault!)

The closest we get to the “here are some informative flashbacks” routine the show usually does has us circling back to Steven’s childhood. It’s mostly to show us the idea of him seeing signs of mental illness (or, depending on you want to interpret the show, legitimate haunting) but not recognizing them or knowing how to fully interpret them because he was a child. The scariest scene in this episode, and maybe in the show, is him restoring that vanity for his mom (replete with witness marks on the bottom) and her smashing the mirror out of nowhere. It’s the kind of real, frightening moment that rings true in a fashion that the other, more traditional attempts to spook the audience (like the jump scare in the care with Shirley and Theo) can’t quite hit.

I also liked the premise of the episode, where Luke is off to go burn down the Hill House and maybe end all this misery, leaving two pairs of the remaining Crains to chase after him and hash things out for themselves. It’s simple, but it’s an immediate crisis that provides a structure and motivation within the episode that works.

We don’t really learn much about Steven from those flashbacks. They’re more to do with the animating idea that there were signs he wasn’t privy to. But we do learn that, unbeknownst to us, he’s a complete and total douchebag! I try not to spend too much time standing in judgment of people, especially fictional characters, but Steven never telling his wife about his vasectomy, to the point that they tried to have kids for three damn years, is straight up monstrous and cruel. No wonder she kicked him out. I’m sympathetic to the idea that he was worried about his family’s mental illness and found that hard to talk about, but good lord, letting his wife go through all of that in search of false hope is just horrifying, to the point that it feels contrived and unbelievable as something a real human being to do. It ultimately feels like more of a fault for the show than for the character since it feels beyond belief that a person would really do that.

This is also a monologue heavy episode (aren’t they all?) but a good one. Hugh’s speech to his son about Olivia being a kite and him being a string is a beautiful metaphor. I don’t know if Hugh gets a redemption here (especially with the details of what happened to Olivia that Steven describes), but more and more the show seems to be suggesting that there’s more going on with Hugh than we know, that he’s someone worthy of empathy who loved his wife and wanted to protect his kids, even if that’s all a setup to pull the rug out from under us later.

On the haunting front, I at least like that we’re doing a bit of mythos here. Sure, it’s convenient that the same member of the Hill family that Steven remembered hearing about is the one who sneaks up behind Luke in the ending, but still. I like the idea that Hugh knows more than he’s saying and that the house will try to defend itself from Luke’s attacks, and that Steven is in the most danger given what he wrote about it.

Last but not least, I both liked and felt frustrated with Theo’s monologue. On the one hand, I like some of the imagery a lot -- the sense that Theo was completely dumb and surrounded by darkness and emptiness after touching Nell. It provides a plausible and psychologically rending account of what happened between Theo and Kevin. That whole thing felt like a misunderstanding from the beginning, and again, it’s a little convenient that Shirley is so angry and dug-in that she doesn't want to hear anything about it until it can spill out an appropriately dramatic moment But she and Theo have a lived-in sisterly dynamic that comes across on the screen, so as hokey and overwrought as that monologue becomes at times, you buy the two of them having a breakthrough after all of this because of that dynamic and how it’s been developed.

Overall, this one is a bit different from prior episodes, but I like the setup, with recriminations and confessions and corrections coming between father and son and big sister to little sister. There’s a lot that could be written about the “witness marks” metaphor, but suffice it to say, it’s interesting to see these people taking stock of their scars and using this moment to piece them all together to determine what really happened.