American Gothic (1995) s01e12 – Ring of Fire

Paige Turco has been one of “American Gothic”’s more unsteady actors to this point. She’s had some good moments, but she’s had more uneven ones, and the show doesn’t seem to know what to do with her in general. She vaguely flirts with Jake Weber, vaguely hate-flirts with Gary Cole, and vaguely hangs out with little cousin Lucas Black. But her whole arc about uncovering the secrets of her parents’ deaths? It’s been stalled for ages.

Until now.

For better but really just worse, “Gothic”’s resolving Turco’s history arc. Left unresolved will be relationships with Cole and Weber—though Turco’s first scene with Weber has her tracing his hands with her fingers, which is shockingly intimate. Especially when Weber later on makes fun of her dead parents.

After discovering she’s got repressed memories—which appear in “Gothic”’s established vision visual motif—caused by tweenage trauma. There’s also the Private Ryan thing where Turco’s recovered memories include events she wasn’t present for. Unless, of course, she’s psychic and could have connections to her family home.

CBS didn’t air Ring of Fire (at all, not even summer burn-off), which means Turco’s history story was left entirely unresolved. But it should’ve come about halfway through the season, which makes sense. They’ve explored some of the other characters; now it’s Turco’s turn.

Only she’s been in the creepy little town for months. This episode, we find out she hasn’t been back to her parents’ house since returning in the pilot. She also didn’t investigate whether or not her family’s summer cottage was still around. She hasn’t even asked the nice old lady at the newspaper any questions about her parents’ death. She just tells everyone she’s investigating Cole for it but hasn’t actually done anything.

Cole’s fed up with the slander and the crimes against property—Turco breaks into his house, marking the first time we’ve seen the police chief’s mansion, and it’s pretty impressive. However, Cole’s been talking about it since the pilot, so it’s also a little late. Turco can’t find any incriminating evidence sitting out in the open so Cole offers to tell her the truth if she asks nicely.

Fast forward through some visions and nightmares—and the episode male gazing at Turco, who’s spending the entire episode traumatized in one way or another. Director Lou Antonio does a terrible job this episode, but he’s also super duper sure to peep a glance at Turco whenever possible. Antonio’s composition is occasionally shudder-worthy and causes plenty of jarring cuts.

Michael R. Perry and Stephen Gaghan get the writing credit. Unfortunately, it’s not a good script. Not just because of the nothing-burger (except maybe some kissing cousins) of a reveal for Turco’s subplot but also how the episode characterizes everyone else on the show. Weber and Black are the worst, but Cole’s a little different too. Brenda Bakke and Nick Searcy show up for the episode’s “subplot,” which has Bakke jealous of Cole and Turco and Cole supposedly unaware of it. It’s two and a half scenes. It’s nothing.

On the one hand, CBS shouldn’t have messed up the air order… on the other, it’s a terrible episode.

American Gothic (1995) s01e04 – Damned If You Don’t

Even in 1995, “American Gothic” knew not to cast an actual teenager as the fifteen-year-old Brigid Brannagh plays. It just didn’t know not to still ogle early twenties Brannagh as she plays that teenager. While, sure, it’s Southern Gothic, it’s also contorting itself to allow objectifying Brannagh, even though she’s in constant danger of rape from Max Cady-lite ex-con Muse Watson. Watson’s just out of jail and surprised to find Brannagh grown up (though he never would’ve met her before); she’s the daughter of his former employee, Steve Rankin, who’s gone on to buy Watson’s junkyard and, presumably, move into his house.

While the episode shows off its crane multiple times for the junkyard location, it never shows Rankin’s house actually being near the junkyard. So there’s a little bit of a disconnect.

Rankin has to put Watson up a few days as a favor to town sheriff and likely demon Gary Cole. Cole did Rankin a favor in his youth when he was messing around with the boss’s daughter; first, Cole wanted Rankin to let Brannagh work at the sheriff’s station as an intern under Cole’s wing. When Rankin doesn’t go for it, and there’s a mysterious household accident, Cole comes up with the temporary halfway house favor. Now, presumably, someone had an idea why Cole would want Brannagh as a sidekick (he’s not creepy to her), but since Cole’s always an enigma (or limited by the writers), the episode often feels too constrained.

The A-plot with Cole and Rankin is basically just a guided “Twilight Zone” with occasional crossover to the B and C plots. B plot is Lucas Black wanting to make a tornado machine for his science fair; it’s fantastic. He gets different offers of help from Jake Weber and Cole while weighing his new friendship with cousin Paige Turco, as well as disappointing ghost sister Sarah Paulson. Black and his friends start the episode, actually, at the junkyard. The show does a great job sharing plot points and characters, like Turco questioning Rankin about her parents’ death. Of course, Watson knows something about it, but the script seems to forget. It also misplaces Watson’s family, who presumably still exist somewhere.

Turco’s town investigating plot is dawdling, so when it seemed like Watson may pay off, it got some energy back. The stuff with Turco and Black is good, the stuff with Black and Weber is good, Black and Cole—there are no problems with the B or C plots in this episode. Not when the A plot’s got so many different ways to be problematic. In addition to the objectifying, director Lou Antonio also goes for exaggerated angles. This episode has lots of bad video editing and montages; visually, “American Gothic” ages terribly.

Thank goodness for the actors and much of the writing (script credit to Michael R. Perry and Stephen Gaghan).

Michael Hayes (1997) s01e16 – Under Color of Law

“Michael Hayes 4.0” continues with zero emphasis on David Caruso’s character, other than his potential as a righteous savior. And writers Ray Hartung and John Romano (it may be Romano’s best episode or maybe second best, but it’s aces compared to his usual) find a great place for him to save—upstate New York cop Brian Wimmer pulls over a young woman, rapes and murders her, gets away with it because he’s a fucking cop. Only the prosecuting attorney (an in-it-too-little Jenny O’Hara) knows it’s just the kind of wrong Caruso will want to right, even if the Attorney General of the United States is behind rapist, murderer cops.

Caruso hangs around the office most of the time, bickering with Peter Outerbridge (who wants to suck up to the Attorney General because white man) and getting updates on the case from Ruben Santiago-Hudson and Rebecca Rigg, who do all the legwork for the first half of the episode, until it’s time for Caruso to menace the truth out of the lying witnesses for Wimmer.

The biggest change—other than brief backstory about Caruso turning in a father figure when he was a teen for hurting people (is it supposed to scream Catholic priest?)—is the Attorney General no longer being an offscreen, implied Janet Reno, and rather Holland Taylor as a Mrs. Big type villain who just wants the system to prevail. Taylor’s not great playing an advocate of white supremacy, but kind of kudos to a show acknowledging it in 1998?

There’s some good acting in the guest stars: David Dukes as the victim’s father, Cynthia Ettinger as one of the witnesses, Phill Lewis as the Black cop who stands by racist Wimmer because small towns right. Sadly, Kyle Howard’s terrible as Ettinger’s teenage son. Wimmer’s great. Not sure it’s a compliment.

There are way too many poorly realized flashbacks—Lou Antonio’s direction is fine but bad flashbacks are one of the few things “Hayes” has kept going since jump; they make sense given star witness Howard certainly wouldn’t have been able to appropriately convey in exposition dumps, but they’re still poorly realized. “Hayes” flashbacks are black and white shaky cam.

It’s definitely better than I was expecting from new show runners Michael Pressman and Michael S. Chernuchin, even if it’s exploitative as hell and fairly thin. Bringing Taylor in has the whiff of defeat and Outerbridge being outright “raped murder victims deserve it,” which sets him up as a sub-villain now….

“Hayes”’s finite future is no doubt going to be bumpy.