Odessa Young – The Stop Button

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.

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.