The Orville (2017) s03e09 – Domino

Once again, I don’t know how “The Orville” gets away with it. A lesser show would be entirely undone by the strange John Debney score. It’s bombastic and enthusiastic but altogether over-the-top. Despite Domino being a not-even-loose remake of Episode VII, ending with a combination Deaths Star and Starkiller Base homage (the latter already being an homage to the former), Debney doesn’t do a Star Wars score. He does a… I don’t know what.

And then, at some point… it starts working.

Because Debney’s score doesn’t have to handle the gravitas of the situation, the situation’s got its gravitas. The first half of the episode is awkward, too; the plotting’s rushed, and director Jon Cassar’s got no summary flow. So the episode digs itself a relative hole (especially since it isn’t as obviously strong as last episode) and then launches itself out to excellence. Not the best episode of the season, but in serious contention for second and a phenomenal hour and twenty minutes of television.

Domino is very much television. The commercial breaks in the action are very noticeable and sometimes jerky in this episode. The smoothness and gracefulness they’ve found with the “network on streaming” format are gone here. It’s very much commercial break for emphasis stuff. But it still works by the end. It’s marvelous.

The episode starts with the Krill and Moclans making peace; if the Moclans can handle having a female partner in Krill chancellor and Orville captain Seth MacFarlane’s baby’s mama, Michaela McManus. They’re both sick of the Union and their progressive ideals, which the episode will put to the test because the supervillain team-up is only half the main plot. The other half has MacFarlane and crew making a Kaylon maker. The Krill and Moclans are teamed up against both the Union and the Kaylon, but the Kaylon’s are after all biological lifeforms.

Anne Winters, this season’s new cast addition, hates the Kaylon. Her being shitty to Kaylon defector and “Orville” Data Mark Jackson has been the main subplot this season. Except it’s not really a subplot because it ends up tied directly to the main plot, as she’s got to deal with the Union wanting to take her Kaylon-killing super weapon and not use it to wipe out the robotic aliens.

The second half is two parts Death Star homage (because there’s the space battle alongside the trench runs), one-quarter Adrianne Palicki action hero stuff (I really hope she does something good next), one-quarter Winters and Jackson working their shit out on a Kobayashi Maru. Even though it’s kind of obvious where the episode’s going the entire time—including the traitor’s identity—it’s obvious because it’s the right story. Cassar, the writers (script credited to Brannon Braga and André Bormanis), and the cast do a fantastic job.

There’s some terrific acting from Jackson this episode, and MacFarlane does well with the more than usual he has this episode, though he’s still primarily support.

It’s great. I can’t believe they got away with it.

The bar’s even higher for next week’s season (and de facto series) finale.

The Orville (2017) s03e08 – Midnight Blue

Midnight Blue is less an extended regular episode than a combined two-parter or even an “Orville” TV movie. It’s entirely dependent on previously established subplots and story details—going back to season one of the show—but it’s also completely self-contained. It’s an incredible hour and a half.

Jon Cassar directs, contributing his best work on the show so far. He doesn’t have much time left to top it. There’s a great score from Joel McNeely, also his season best. But the script—credited to Brannon Braga and André Bormanis—is the far and ahead winner of the episode, which brings closure to the season’s subtly developing Moclan arc. The Moclans are the all-male (they just surgically alter the occasional female to be male at birth) warrior society in the Union. Everyone’s getting sick of them being gross and physically and psychologically abusing their children, but the Union needs them to stand up to the Kaylon.

I swear “Orville” makes spelling the alien species names worse than any other franchise.

Anyway.

This episode’s all about Imani Pullum, who was born in the show’s first season and grew up to her tweenage years incredibly fast. She’s a Moclan female who was surgically altered and who’s recently been restored. She’s also the season’s protagonist; at first, it seemed like it’d be Penny Johnson Jerald (who’s reduced to a cameo here), but it’s definitely Pullum. Including her asking her first crush out to dinner in a phenomenally awkward scene. And the episode’s only comedic relief. They open with it, clearing the room of distress vapors, then just pour in the tension.

In addition to Pullum, this episode’s main characters are Adrianne Palicki, Peter Macon, guest star Rena Owen, and then Seth MacFarlane in a distant fifth. Everyone else gets a story arc; MacFarlane’s just the captain. Owen’s a Moclan female who started a colony for the other females; she’s a repeat guest star, basically once a season. The sanctuary is a political minefield for the Union and the Moclans. First officer Palicki and recently divorced now single parent to a daughter Moclan Macon are going to inspect the sanctuary. Pullum wants to go; Palicki helps her talk Macon into it.

While the trip is inspiring for Pullum, things soon go wrong—the Union inspection is timed with the Moclan inspection—and the sanctuary quickly becomes dangerous. Palicki and Macon will execute an impromptu “black bodysuit” “Star Trek: The Next Generation” mission while MacFarlane finds himself in a diplomatic nightmare thanks to Owen, who’s obstinately no help.

Good thing the show’s got a baller guest star to drop.

It’s a taut action and political thriller. Many of the scene setups harken back to Star Trek IV and VI, with a fantastic Tony Todd cameo as the Moclan ambassador. Excellent acting from Owen, Pullum, Macon, and Palicki. While Pullum’s the de facto season protagonist, Palicki’s the show protagonist. She’s gotten really good at this part. Hopefully, it translates to something else in the future. And Macon’s acting-in-makeup is sublime.

Only two more “New Horizons” to go… Midnight Blue’s raised expectations for them.

The Orville (2017) s03e06 – Twice in a Lifetime

I was expecting a lot more from a time-traveling romance episode written by Seth MacFarlane. “The Orville: New Horizons” seems to be focusing on a character an episode, sometimes a character and a half, but usually a character. There are nine principal cast members. There are ten episodes. They should get to everyone (it’s going to be weird if they don’t, especially since Penny Johnson Jerald got two episodes). For this episode, it’s Scott Grimes’s turn.

After a comedy opening—Grimes is throwing a party where he plays acoustic guitar (it ties into his later arc but isn’t important)—he shows off his replica iPhone to Anne Winters. Grimes got the iPhone in a previous episode from a time capsule, which had him falling for a long-dead twenty-first-century woman (Leighton Meester). Meanwhile, robot Mark Jackson asks J. Lee for help bonding with Winters. Winters, of course, is angry Jackson helped his robot species try to annihilate humanity, including killing her best friend. Winters’s unforgiving animosity is “New Horizons”’s longest-running subplot, and I really hope it pays off because it’s leaden.

Once the seemingly unimportant but actually essential setup is done, it’s time for the first act sci-fi action. Lee and Jackson have developed a time laser, which can easily be weaponized, so the Union wants it protected. Only the Kaylon (Jackson’s robot race) somehow already know about it and ambush the Union convoy. The Orville manages to escape after doing a previously untried energy pulse maneuver. That energy pulse activates the time laser and zaps Grimes into the past.

“The Orville”’s time travel operates with Somewhere in Time mechanics; your subconscious wills you to your location, so obviously, Grimes goes back to crush Meester. While it’s entirely obvious what’s going on to the audience, the Orville crew are completely bewildered at Grimes’s eventual destination. In the present, they quickly discover he’s missing, then where he’s ended up. They can use the device to get back in time to save him, only it takes up too much fuel.

Actually, it seems like it was always going to take too much fuel, and they shouldn’t have been surprised. Regardless, Jackson and Winters will have to team up and head to the naval base in Alameda, where they keep the nuclear wessels. MacFarlane and Adrianne Palicki are going to go get Grimes back. In another apparent gaffe, neither MacFarlane nor Palicki read the lengthy obituary of time-stranded Grimes because they’re surprised when they discover details mentioned in that obit.

Jackson and Winters have a somewhat comedic subplot, with some great acting by Jackson, but it’s getting hard to sympathize with Winters. Especially since her big reveal, this episode isn’t a reveal at all. The audience knew about it in the season premiere. The scenes are decent enough, just redundant and familiar.

MacFarlane and Palicki also get a less than fun arc as past Grimes doesn’t want to go back to the future. Instead, he’s tracked down Meester and wooed and married her using information from her smartphone. There’s some surprisingly good acting from MacFarlane—little, textured stuff, which he usually can’t do—and some unfortunate characterization and acting from Meester. It’s a bad part, but still.

Andrew Cottee does the music again, and it’s great. Jon Cassar’s direction is pretty good. But it’s not quite the episode it should’ve been, especially for Grimes; it’s “his” episode, but it’s entirely disposable.

The Orville (2017) s03e04 – Gently Falling Rain

Gently Falling Rain came out on June 23, 2022. One of its briefest plot points would play differently if it had come out on June 24, 2022. The episode compares and contrasts future cultures; there’s the Union (the Federation), inclusive, diverse, progressive, and there is the Krill. They’re a combination of Romulan and Klingon, but they’re also religious fanatics who are xenophobic fascist capitalists. Abortion comes up eventually. The scene goes hard and then harder. It’s a very brief scene—and doesn’t come back later when it seems like it might—but it’s rough. I’ve been wondering how media will adjust, and Gently Falling Rain is a jarring reminder from the immediate but significantly different past; life’s constantly getting worse, just maybe not for as many people.

The episode plays like Seth MacFarlane’s Star Trek: Nemesis, sadly without any dune buggies, though there is a big future car chase. Only MacFarlane didn’t direct and doesn’t have any script credit. So instead, it’s Brannon Braga’s Star Trek: Nemesis, with co-writing credit to André Bormanis, with Jon Cassar directing. The Krill and Union are going to sign a peace treaty, which gets the brass—recurring guest stars Victor Garber, Ted Danson, and Kelly Hu—very excited. Garber’s going with the president (Bruce Boxleitner in full makeup) to the Krill home world to sign the treaty.

Only we’ve already seen the Krill home world, where populist upstart Michaela McManus is campaigning for the chancellorship on the peace treaty being weak and un-American. Oh, I mean, un-Krill.

Sure I do.

McManus is also a returning guest star; long time ago on “The Orville,” she had genetic surgery to appear human and seduce Orville captain MacFarlane in order to ruin him as payback for destroying a Krill vessel. She’s been back a few times since, with the two having an adversarial relationship with some underlying… romance might be too far, but something. This episode explores why McManus might feel a connection, also clueing MacFarlane in. I have questions about the timeline; the episode seems to have questions about the timeline; they do not get addressed, instead focusing on the character relationship and specifically how it plays out for MacFarlane.

MacFarlane’s a Captain Kirk in a Captain Picard episode of “Next Generation.” It’s a good episode for him, but it doesn’t give him anything particularly challenging to do, so he never gets to achieve (or fail). It’s intentionally constructed to get around MacFarlane maybe not having the most depth as an actor, no matter how hard he tries (though they’ve never tried bringing in a director who isn’t doing “Orville” style).

Anyway.

MacFarlane goes down to the planet with the away team; things go sideways; he tries to reason with the Krill. Meanwhile, up on the Orville, Adrianne Palicki is ready to nuke them from orbit if anything happens to the away team.

The finale’s not good. There’s a good car chase through the alien city, but everything preceding it is blasé. They go for a cheap resolution, entirely shifting the dramatic weight from the show to MacFarlane but then away from him again. But then the wrap-up scene’s really good.

It’s the best “Orville,” not “New Horizons,” episode of the season. It feels very much like regular “Orville,” in good ways.

McManus is a great recurring villain for the show, but since this episode’s four of ten, it seems unlikely she’ll have time to come back.

There’s some good comedy early in the episode, but the show seems to resent including it, just using it to give Anne Winters another chance to be an asshole. She gets some more later on, but her character’s been entirely one-note since the season premiere. To the point I was wondering if she was going to get Yar’d this episode.

But, otherwise, smooth sailing.

The Orville (2017) s03e03 – Mortality Paradox

Well, here’s where it turns out “Orville: Season Three: New Horizons” is not making Penny Johnson Jerald the de facto series protagonist. Instead, Jerald’s in a scene or three but entirely superfluous to the main plot. Though the main plot is also entirely superfluous, so she didn’t miss much.

I wonder if this episode would play better if you’re unfamiliar with its sub-genre of “Star Trek” episode. It’s modeled after an original series episode, with the flare (and budget) of later series and the inevitable punchline out of “Next Generation.” Though there’s one more sci-fi franchise reference—non-“Trek,” non-Wars—and it’s arguably the cutest. Though they miss a golden opportunity for a “Simpsons” dig.

Anyway.

The episode begins with Jessica Szohr returning from leave, which will be important later. Doing routine long-range scans, the ship discovers a settlement where there shouldn’t be a settlement. Some barren rock in the ass-end of space. The Orville goes to investigate, the ship’s sensors reading signals while the visuals don’t match. Captain Seth MacFarlane, first officer Adrianne Palicki, helmsman Scott Grimes, security officer Szohr, and second officer Peter Macon head down to investigate.

Instead of a bustling civilization, they find a Class M planet with endless tree coverage, which is just as inappropriate on this particular planet. Walking through the forest, they find themselves at a twenty-first-century high school.

The planet will continue to change locations, making one appropriate for each of the crew members to have a close call with impending doom. Though it seems like Grimes gets the brunt of it. Everyone else has relatively quick brushes, while Grimes gets a double in the first setting, then has to do all the work in the second.

The episode’s also got more “we moved to Hulu late” commercial breaks than any of the previous entries and doesn’t fit the “mini-movie” or extended episode vibe of the two previous episodes this season. It’s stretched to fit its hour, not scrunched. Given the eventual reveals—which both drain the dramatic heft of the proceedings—it’s doubly pointless filler material.

There’s some good acting, at least. Grimes gets the most to do in a while, ditto Macon. MacFarlane gets a Jim Kirk moment, which is fun, though otherwise, he and Palicki are in the background.

Jon Cassar’s direction is good enough. He’s not great at segueing between physical locations; it often feels like the crew’s going through a funhouse, but with poorly executed transitions. The reveal suggests the transitions should be better. Or at least different.

And then I was going to compliment how much John Debney’s score sounded like a John Williams riff, but Joel McNeely actually did the music, and Williams riffs are his whole thing, so no wonder. Music’s solid.

The problem’s the plot and the eventual reveals. If there’s a way to do this episode well, the script (credited to Cherry Chevapravatdumrong) didn’t crack it. The reveal also requires a lot of familiarity with previous “Orville” episodes, which seems like a flex for a show advertised as “New Horizons.”

But it feels most like a script intended for an ongoing broadcast television series, not one in its final (for now) season on a streaming service.

The Orville (2017) s03e02 – Shadow Realms

I guess the next episode will be the deciding point—or at least forecast it better–but this season of “The Orville” isn’t treating Penny Johnson Jerald as the “heart of the show” so much as its protagonist. This episode, like last, is mostly about her, which is excellent. Jerald’s fantastic; there’s also some subtext to nineties “Star Trek” writers (Brannon Braga for this episode, co-writing with André Bormanis) doing a show where the lead is the ship’s chief medical officer and her kids aren’t annoying.

This episode’s full of callbacks and homages, though. The last episode felt like “Orville” Star Wars at times; this episode feels like “Orville” Alien. Down to the music: John Debney does an excellent Jerry Goldsmith but peppy score for the episode.

It’s also the Borg episode. It’s also a “truth behind the religion” episode, calling back to original series “Star Trek,” and it’s also an homage to schlock sci-fi of the fifties. The monsters look like—terrifying, grotesque—rubber fifties monsters.

There’s also the episode’s “micro-movie” feel. It doesn’t feel like an extended episode or a truncated two-parter; it feels like an “Orville” adventure. The Orville Into Darkness, actually. Quite literally.

The episode begins with guest star James Read arriving on the ship to conduct negotiations with the former bad guy, current tenuous ally aliens, the Krill. The Union wants safe passage through their space to explore beyond their star empire’s borders. The Krill haven’t explored it because it’s full of soul-sucking demons with eight eyes.

The Orville crew, mostly Seth MacFarlane and Adrianne Palicki, give the religious mumbo jumbo an eye-roll, and the Krill don’t care if the ship goes off and gets soul-sucked, so they get the go-ahead. The beginning of the episode is a very “Star Trek” diplomacy bit. After that, it becomes an undiscovered frontier exploration episode—the “New Horizons” subtitle suddenly makes more sense for the season.

Well, at least for a while.

But the bigger deal is Read’s former relationship with Jerald. Twenty-five years ago, he was one of her professors and something more, but it’s not something she talks about anymore. He’s interested in rekindling; she’s not. Read’s continued interest leads to him consulting with AI robot and Jerald’s ex Mark Jackson for a sidesplitter scene.

Read’s also gung ho to accompany the ship on the exploration—at the beginning of the episode, it wasn’t clear the Orville would get the mission, but after the negotiations complete, there’s never a question of it. Maybe they cut a scene. Once guest star Victor Garber gives the okay, they’re off to the Delta Quadrant.

Or whatever.

There they discover a bitchin’ nebula and a terrifying section of empty space—the something-something Expanse, where there’s no starlight and a distress beacon going off. Going to the beacon, they find themselves on a bio-mechanical space station of some sort, unknowingly walking into an inspired Alien and Borg hybrid homage.

Jon Cassar directs the episode, doing a fine job, especially with the actors. While the first half of the episode is mostly Jerald, Read, Palicki, and I suppose MacFarlane (he’s the anti-Shatner, making room for everyone else), the second half gives the rest of the crew more to do. There’s an away mission with J. Lee and Jessica Szohr, then Peter Macon gets a bit (Scott Grimes and new cast member Anne Winters get the least—they’re the helmsmen after all—but they had more last episode). It’s a very nice balance.

The episode makes big swings in terms of character development, season baddies, and so on. The resolution’s a little abrupt, but the last scene is absolutely fantastic. No surprise, “Orville” is real good.

The Staircase (2022) s01e08 – America’s Sweetheart or: Time Over Time

“The Staircase” finishes with some highs and lows. It’s got Odessa Young’s best acting in the series and some truly phenomenal work from Toni Collette. Young’s gets to be less problematic than Collette’s, as show creator, episode director, and credited writer Antonio Campos gives Collette a hackneyed final scene. It should be series-best work from Sophie Turner, but it’s not. She’s just okay, which is better than poor Rosemarie DeWitt. DeWitt sat around the whole show with nothing until now, and here she gets a bad wig and flat characterization.

It also ought to be Juliette Binoche’s best episode. It’s not. The show spent the latter half of the episodes setting Binoche up to be some kind of protagonist, only to make her another rube. “The Staircase” treats the audience as rubes; might as well treat its subjects the same way.

The episode does not have three or four possible reenactments of Colin Firth killing Collette, though it heavily builds toward the “truth” at the end. Except it turns out it showed its take a long time ago and then spent six or seven episodes saying it didn’t. There’s only one red herring, which the opening scene establishes, and then waiting the whole episode to see if it’s relevant.

There’s a lot with the kids, only not when it’s important. The episode splits between 2011, when Firth gets out of prison for a retrial, then 2017, when Firth’s giving his Alford plea to resolve that retrial. There’s nothing in between because it would give away the ending. Or at least make the conclusion less of a “surprise.”

Some of the best material in the episode—outside Collette’s final day or two (her white-collar business suspense story’s much more compelling, thanks to Collette, than anything else in “Staircase”)—is Young and Turner finally having their big sister moment.

Sure, they’ve been putting a pin in it for ten plus years, but it’s the closest thing to pay-off. Campos narratively cheaps out on everything else, including Patrick Schwarzenegger’s internal collapse as Firth no longer loves him the most and shuns him, in fact, in favor of previous screw-up Dane DeHaan.

Unfortunately, Campos does a terrible job directing Young and Turner’s scene—maybe his worst work in the episode, which is saying a lot.

Michael Stuhlbarg is around for the courtroom scenes. We find out he’s a rube, too, but it wouldn’t matter because he’s an, at best, amoral lawyer. Tim Guinee might not even get any lines.

But the real kicker to “The Staircase,” after the ending they lifted from “Daredevil,” is the reality. I intentionally didn’t look up the case, but the real guy is not a vaguely debonair, Southern gentleman on the spectrum Colin Firth type… he’s got the style of a used car salesman, and his vibe appears to be Kramer impersonating.

Changes the “based on a true story” thing, even as the episode reveals just how much of the show has been pure, exploitative supposition on Campos’s part.

Even before that Googling, however, Firth’s performance takes a real hit. He doesn’t land any of his scenes this episode, which makes sense because they’re waiting for the big reveal, but still.

Just like I’d worried from the start, it’s an outstanding Collette performance in an otherwise deficient production.

They haven’t created the awards she deserves for believably laughing at America’s Sweethearts.

The Staircase (2022) s01e07 – Seek and Ye Shall

Okay, so Toni Collette’s work subplot and the bat infestation in the attic have gone unaddressed to this point because they figure into the eventual motive. One of the reasons I didn’t have any interest in “The Staircase” was Collette playing the victim; it meant all her acting would be for naught. Almost to the end of the series, watching her go through the entire arc—I’m sure the final episode will have a “but what really happened was” sequence with Tim Curry narrating (or at least it should)—I was right. It’s a shitty, exploited part. Might get her an Emmy, hope it gets her an Emmy, but it’s a bad part.

Speaking of bad parts, the show does a last-minute reprieve on Parker Posey. There’s a red herring investigation from an innocence project, led by a good Deja Dee, but it’s clear it’s a red herring, so there’s only so much. She interviews Posey about corruption in the DA’s office and the “independent” investigation agency. We find out Posey only got into the prosecution racket after defending too many abusive men. It doesn’t address Posey being a bigot, but it does give her character more depth than… well, almost any other character on the show.

This episode’s main plot involves Juliette Binoche’s latest attempt to clear Firth’s name. The owl thing went nowhere and was just a fun way to burn an episode. She accidentally (or mysteriously) gets emailed an autopsy where the victim has the same wounds as Collette had ten years earlier and does a fake interview with cop Cory Scott Allen. It’s a good episode for Allen, who was barely in the first one but is one of the better performances. It leads to Binoche discovering Firth had affairs with lots of dudes while married to Collette, which somehow escaped her notice from the documentary she edited, including when she rewatches the raw footage of it.

It’s never been addressed before, so it seems late, and it makes Binoche’s character weaker, but then there’s no actual dramatic weight to it because the 2017 scenes—six years later—establish she’s still with Firth, so it wasn’t a big deal, after all. The show’s subtitle could be: “It Wasn’t a Big Deal, After All.”

There’s not much with the kids. In the 2017 scenes, Michael Stuhlbarg low-key gives Firth shit about his kids abandoning him. In 2011, Sophie Turner is now divorced and sad. Odessa Young is content, but Turner doesn’t believe it. There’s the strong implication Young’s never come out to any of her family. She goes to Germany to see her real mom’s place of death, visiting an again excellent Trini Alvarado, then hearing the whole story about Firth beating her as a kid from former babysitter Monika Gossmann. The last time Gossmann was on “Staircase,” it characterized her as an opportunistic liar. This time she’s a truth sayer. Whatever.

The real kick of the scene is it means Turner never told Young all the shit she found out about Firth before Collette died.

Boys Dale DeHaan and Patrick Schwarzenegger only come back for the finale montage, which is hilariously bad and made me feel better about crap-mouthing Antonio Campos’s direction. Campos is real, real bad.

I feel like “Staircase” can’t do only one more “did he or didn’t he” sequence for its final episode next time, and two would be underselling it, so maybe three?

Hopefully, it’ll get Collette (and Firth, though he’s not particularly good this episode due to material) better parts.

The Staircase (2022) s01e04 – Common Sense

The episode begins in the near present with Colin Firth and presumably new wife Juliette Binoche headed off to court. “Staircase” isn’t ready to tell us what Firth’s up to in 2017, so the documentarians take Binoche aside for an interview on this momentous day. Throughout the episode, her monologuing for the interview about justice, fate, and the whole damn thing relevantly accompany various scenes, usually to good effect.

I’m about to trash this episode, but outside the profoundly deceptive plotting, the script’s probably the series’s strongest (credited to Emily Kaczmarek and Craig Shilowich).

The episode’s the trial episode, where we discover every single red herring the show’s been dangling about the case is bupkis. At best, it’s a fantastic example of what reasonable doubt means. Except there’s not much best to it.

It’s also the episode where Michael Stuhlbarg is clearly bad casting. He’s not bad. But he’s just doing a Ron Silver in Reversal of Fortune bit. Or a Dennis Boutsikaris in a Ron Silver part. The show’s already got a bunch of workhorse actors who never get to flex outside the lines—Tim Guinee, for example, though Parker Posey’s bigot isn’t any deeper—and Stuhlbarg’s just one too many. He’s never anywhere near bad; he’s just entirely pointless.

He does get to participate in the episode’s “misogyny’s okay if you think the lady’s bad” moment, which is just another disappointment for the list.

There’s very little Toni Collette this episode; the bat problem’s unresolved (Firth’s still not interested), and then she’s got a scene telling step-son Dale Dehaan he’s a screw-up. Dehaan’s yet another disappointment. Not bad, but I wasn’t expecting Patrick Schwarzenegger to act loops around him. “Staircase” isn’t paying off for its supporting cast like I’d assumed. They’re just in it for the prestige value, not because their parts need acting.

HBO gonna HBO, I guess. But, in this case, it’s even more appropriate it’s HBO Max because they’re not getting anything.

Collette and Firth do get a long take acting marathon to get through; Dog Day it ain’t, but they’re able to do it. Wish they were in a better project together.

Also in the background is Odessa Young getting more suspicious of dad Firth and Firth giving her every reason to keep getting suspicious and everyone else pretending he’s not. Eventually, her sister sister Sophie Turner starts down the suspicion path, but it might just be because she’s biphobic. Still, it lets Turner show a little more personality. Finally.

Then the final reveal is another humdinger of “you’ve been hiding this detail for the halfway point to manipulate.” It’d be nice for one of these shows to have confidence in their actual dramatic writing and not just their Shyamalan-lite twist reveals.

The show still hasn’t Westworlded, so I guess I should be happy.

It is, however, the most sympathetic Firth’s ever been on the show. Outside when he’s bullying and gaslighting.

The Staircase (2022) s01e03 – The Great Dissembler

This episode’s mostly about Colin Firth’s sex life. Assistant district attorney Parker Posey’s determined to expose Firth as a practicing bisexual, pursuing past partners, and so on. But it’s not just Posey’s even too bigot-y for 2001 North Carolina investigation; the episode focuses on it from Firth’s perspective too. While wife Toni Collette is stressing out from work or whatever, Firth is setting up rendezvouses. He gets her a massage, then heads to the adult video arcade, bringing home a DVD from Blockbuster when he’s done.

I’m curious about the accuracy of the rental format.

But the episode’s also about daughter Odessa Young having a girlfriend at college and not wanting to tell the family. Finally, it’s about Patrick Schwarzenegger, maybe possibly liking guys, with director Antonio Campos going overboard on the visual innuendo. Lots of love, lust, and sex on display in this episode. Lawyer Michael Stuhlbarg even addresses it, telling Firth he’s got marriage problems.

The episode does a bunch of stops and starts—this person’s testifying, wait, they’re not, this person’s coming out, wait, they’re not, over and over again. Credited to Campos, the script is just one red herring after another. Sometimes something’s suspicious because it lacks historical context, sometimes it’s because of the presentation, sometimes it’s suspicious. There’s an actually engaging scene where Tim Guinee, playing Firth’s brother, confronts him about his sexual indiscretions, calling Firth on the lies.

Even though Firth’s doing a lot this episode—with a whole lot of people—he’s playing an avatar, not a person. He’s a function of “The Staircase,” nothing more. There’s good acting, to be sure, but it’s disingenuous stuff.

Collette’s momentarily got a suspicion plot point, but then it turns out to be nothing. Just like when she heard the creepy noises upstairs last episode. They’re just bats. It’s a big problem, and it’s just going to worsen. Firth’s not concerned about it, though, because sons Schwarzenegger and Dale Dehaan (who doesn’t appear in this episode, just gets the mention) need money. Ex-wife Trini Alvarado doesn’t want to get another mortgage to help them out. Firth can’t do it because, despite his bravado, Collette signs the checks, and she’s almost out of a job.

Or not. Collette’s work subplot isn’t actually important. It’s a bummer she’s in this show so little.

There’s a big plot twist in the last twenty minutes—all these episodes run just over an hour; I guess streaming shows are just embracing possibly unadvisable verbosity—and they do a bunch to set it up for next time.

Alvarado’s great, it’s some of Guinee’s best acting on the show, and the kids are good. Schwarzenegger’s a controlling asshole, mimicking how dad Firth and lawyer Stuhlbarg strong-arm the girls, Young and Sophie Turner, but it’s far from unrealistic. The bullying is effortlessly authentic.

The episode’s got its moments, but they’re rarities amongst the red herrings swimming in circles.