"What's wrong with you?"
Part VI
We pick right up on one of Mason's dumbest moves yet, let's not say ever, I don't want to limit the guy. He goes armed into JD's house but he sees two guys leaving and finds his mortal enemy dead on the floor, he calls the cops from JD's cell phone, and cleans his prints? then he proceeds to go throw the gun he was carrying in the lake (could he look more suspicious if he tried?). Now, I was expecting him to face some consequences for his dumb moves, but he's only questioned, do they think he's too dumb to commit the crime and be able to conceal it? I certainly do. The good thing is later he goes to see Cora and they have a heart to heart, she says she shouldn't have lied to him, but he takes some responsibility for never wanting to find out the truth and never giving her the space she needed to open up to him, which was one of the more honest moments, and very few redeemable ones, of his character.
In the flashbacks, we get to see a little (or a lot) more of Cora and Phoebe's twisted (and getting twistier by the second) relationship and her relationship with JD, also super creepy with that whole threesomish vibe (what's with the people in this town?). Phoebe is feeling left behind once Cora starts dating JD and makes her feel bad about it, and JD does his part tells Cora that Phoebe is a vampire and, if she really loved her, she'd let her live her life. He says she can't have any semblance of a good life if she's always taking care of Phoebe and convinces her to go to the party on the 4th of July weekend and just never come home. But Phoebe can sense something's up and she manipulates Cora into treating her just like JD does, which is super creepy, like, they went way too far on this one for me.
In the present, Harry seems defeated, they tell him to step aside, since he's gotten too close to Cora, and he doesn't even fight it. He almost lets his mistress kill him in a rough moment and freaking out she asks what's wrong with him (we all wonder), she looks at him appalled and breaks up with him too. So he's alone in a motel when he gets a call from Cora.
This was one of the better-acted scenes in this episode, both amazing actors with just a phone, she asks him to take her to the place where it all happened to see if she can remember, when he says he can't you can see her face fall in surprise and disappointment that the only person she had on her side has given up. She tells him she's the only thing she's got right now and manages to get to him. So he plays the only card he has on convincing the judge to let him take Cora to the Beverwyck, which shows just how much he cares.
They give them two hours for a little road-trip which puts the stakes very high on something she can't control, she's afraid she'll remember nothing and it will all be for naught. Indeed, when the go to the club nothing happens (because it's a big ass place and it makes no sense there's only one stair that goes down). They give up, which we knew couldn't last long, and when they're going back to the prison Cora asks to see her childhood home, they stop for a little and bond over not being able to communicate properly and not feeling the same as everyone else, which was a nice moment. She jokes about them running away together but I'm glad she didn't try to manipulate him into it, which I thought she would for a second. Suddenly she gets the idea they can't give up and convinces him to take her back there.
This time he releases her from the handcuffs and lets her roam around on her own, when he steps back to take a call he loses Cora from his sight, so he freaks out when he sees she could've easily run away. He looks for her in the yard, looking everywhere until he finds her still, inside a chalet looking at a door, you can see in his face how, almost like a parent, he goes from angry that she made him think she run to worried about her, seeing her finally come face to face with such a traumatic place.
He even tells her she doesn't have to go downstairs if she doesn't want to, but she knows she does. They start going down together, until she stops and stands still, looking into nothing, into her memory, she says she remembers now. I felt cutting it right there was a little cheap, or at least her words were, did she have to remember everything on the steps? Wouldn't it make more sense that she'd remember more once she saw the room? I think cutting it right before would've been more effective and less cheesy, we all knew she would remember now, it just felt unnecessary and took away from a good ending for the episode, at least for me.
I'm still very excited about what comes next. Are you?
I look forward to reading your thoughts.
