Sharp Objects - Fix - Review: Just Survive

"Be dangerous."

Amma gets home shit-faced and Camille brings her into her room so Adora won't see her, this means the sisters have a longer intimate scene for the first time since she came back to Wind Gap and it brings some interesting conversations. Amma is definitely a popular girl bored by people's adoration of her, and yet, of course, constantly seeking it. She says there's never anything fun to do around town and brags about her subserving posy, but she seems jealous of the attention Ann and Natalie are getting, especially from Camille.

"I just want to know you."

Amma starts asking Camille questions, whether Camille wants a normal life, a “man”, a baby, she says she can practice taking care of her little sister, and there’s something sultry about the whole thing that looks unwholesome. She seems desperate to finally have a sister, someone who truly understands her and her darkness, someone who’s her equal and feels the same hatred for the place and the house they were brought up in. But Camille feels uncomfortable around Amma, she's probably worried about what darkness can do to her, and rejects her little sister in a way, she refuses to really acknowledge her incendiary comments, and this only enrages Amma judging by her behavior later on.

"You love dead girls."

Willis and Vickery continue to bump heads, the latter is seemingly closed off with everyone but Adora, and Willis pushes away the only "city-minded" ally he could have in Camille. But the main reason they can't work together is that Vickery is offended by the idea that someone from the town could be the killer, and is worried that Willis is willing to drag the town through the mud just to advance his career. And I have to say these two are amazing in this scene, the performances are brilliant and the banter is sharp and hilarious.

"Well, I've got to think of the bottom line, all the small-town-sit-on-your-ass jobs are taken."

It seems the article she wrote is opening up some doors but also making some things harder to discern, many want their fifteen minutes of fame but they might not be so genuine. Ashley Wheeler, for example, is John Keene’s girlfriend, she offers to help Camille by convincing John to talk to her, she says she wants the town to see his side of things, but then she dresses in her cheerleader outfit for the interview and talks for him constantly.

Camille is good, she mentions what people say about him to get them rattled and talking. He says he was driving around the night of the murder which doesn’t look good as an alibi but Camille feels she can relate to. They both seem to connect with what he likes about the city, about being anonymous. Then he gets caught up in the memory of his little sister and gets angry about someone taking her away from him, he's angry at the town itself, he says he wishes they’d never moved to Wind Gap to the dismay of his girlfriend who says they wouldn’t be together if they hadn’t, talk about self-absorbed.

Camille also talks to Anne Nash’s dad again, which seems a bit unnecessary, but Will Chase does such an amazing job I can't really complain. Bob Nash finally admits his wife left him, he also says the police have no idea who killed his little girl if they’re only looking at him just because he has a temper and a record. He does mention that there seemed to be something off about John's relationship with Natalie right before Adora interrupts them and kicks Camille out.

"The women around here, they don’t kill with their hands they talk till you’re dead."

On her way back Camille sees Amma and follows her to the hog farm where she seems to go out back with a pig, maybe to slaughter him? It looks creepy any way you slice it. Later at the house, it looks like Adora thinks Camille is a danger to Amma, she even tells Amma that her sister is not someone to be admired, that she's more like a cautionary tale of what can happen if you don't listen to your mother. Adora seems to blame everything on Camille, even things that make no sense whatsoever.

"You never mean to do anything and yet you cause so much hurt."

Amma is interested in who Camille thinks the killer is, she says she thinks John is probably innocent, that he cries a lot but is an okay guy, she also mentions that he looks at her at parties but he's not really her type. Then she asks Camille to go out with her but Camille says no and makes her promise to stay in and be safe. Later, Camille goes into Marian’s room to look at the pictures and sees Alice again, dead on her sister's bed, so she goes straight to the bar.

Over there she sees Willis and tries to patch things up with him, he says he's a pariah, that no one wants to talk with him and that makes his job harder. So he tells her if she shows him around Wind Gap and gives him a history lesson he’ll answer three questions for her. So they go to drink somewhere else and things get flirty until Amma and her posy show up, they even taunt both of them with no respect of fear whatsoever. Amma even jokes that if Camille killed her right then and there Willis still wouldn’t be able to figure it out, they both reproach each other about not staying in and things get spicy.

"I guess you can’t trust Adora’s girls."

During the whole episode, we see flashbacks of Camille's time in rehab as the memories flood her constantly, which is not surprising since she's been only out for a few months. As soon as she turned herself in, she met her roommate, Alice, one of the ghosts that seem to follow her. We learn the phone and earplugs Camille has with her all the time and listens to when she goes to bed were Alice’s, they were her way of escaping her own mind. It looks like they grew closer, talking about their experiences and their respective mommy issues. Alice says she thought cutting was something you grew out of, but maybe Camille was proof that that wasn’t the case, which can't be good for a young girl in her situation.

"I’ve just never been good at the adult thing I guess."

We learn that one of those nights, after visitation didn't go well for either of them, Camille told Alice things didn’t really get better when you were older, that all you could do was survive. And even though she tried to make her feel better afterward, just surviving might not sound like enough to someone who struggles with depression. So while Camille went out to talk on the phone, Alice killed herself drinking a bottle of window cleaner. When Camille went back and saw her, she immediately tried to do the same by cutting her wrists with a screw from the toilet, which begs the question of which kind of hospital would keep two people with depression together, it feels like it can only make things worse.

Camille seems to be vividly remembering her conversations with Alice, even muttering the responses out loud while she drives, she's listening to that same music and speeding after her encounter with Amma until she sees Alice's ghost in the middle of the road, she stops abruptly, but then and sees her behind the car. Sick of being haunted she unplugs the phone and throws it out the window. I really hope this means something for her path of self-destruction.

"Something's been festering."

What did you think about the episode? Do you have any theories? Let me know in the comments.