1x06 Funhouse Mirrors

(1,017-word review) I couldn't help but notice the pacing, narrative structure, and the division and assignment of screen time for every scene in this episode – in an incredibly positive way to preemptively clear up any potential misconstruing. All of the scenes felt perfectly paced and focused on, while the places chosen with each one to switch to another, in addition to their order and arrangement from those switches, were even better. As such, I also couldn't help but realize that those aspects in the previous episode were slightly "cluttered" and felt hectic – not in the sense that the overall episode wasn't that good, as it was pretty decent: the fact that I didn't even notice it until now. However, that may've stemmed more from the content rather than a latching lackluster nature to those individual components.

The central, most prominent themes seemed that of collision and intertwinement – different plot threads within the two story arcs of our darkness-and-light duo at the helm of this show, bleeding into each other; well, not necessarily the plot threads themselves but rather the characters, who are now getting involved in others besides theirs. At the forefront, there was the guaranteed involvement of Tyrone in Tandy's extensive search for answers underneath the facade of lies regarding the oil rig, her father, and any relevant information concerning the Roxxon Corporation through the character of Ivan Hess. His state of mind is tattered and damaged beyond medical and technological capabilities, as the deeper innards of his psyche are being guarded and blocked by convenient but understandable darkness if you consider the possibility that the current condition of his mental self was caused by the oil rig explosion, which gave Tandy and Tyrone their powers – specifically Tyrone, given the specifics of his.

All the pieces add up to and connect in the form of his control over darkness, which he will use to absorb the darkness inside Ivan's mind or make it dissipate, allowing Tandy to venture further into his head. There's a probable chance he'll go along with her due to how Tyrone's going to have to link with Tandy's hope-seeing ability to arrive at that same place/door instead of his personalized, fear-seeing version unless those two "worlds" within Ivan are meshed together, resulting in him arriving at the same place even if he only put his hand on Ivan instead of on Tandy, whose hand is on Ivan – or maybe that whole journey will be initiated by her hands on both of them.

Next in the line in the order of occurrence within the intertwinement aspect of things was between the minor Tyrone-Duane subplot and O'Reilly's subplot with Connors – both coming into contact with each other, colliding with each other. And the collision was a hard-hitting, impactful one. One of the things mentioned in my review of the previous episode was my fragmented remembrance of Tyrone's confrontation with Duane, specifically the death. My initial interpretation of the fragments indicated that my feelings leaned towards having thought that it was an intense scene. But having seen it a second time, it was more sternly mellow than anything, which was a surprise. It's possible that I was recollecting a feeling from Duane's demise – the actual section of that whole event with somewhat of an imbuing intense vibe – and mistakenly assigned it to the incorrect part.

Most importantly, Tandy will now be involved with Tyrone's story arc further than giving him advice about constructing a narrative to "get to a cop" two episodes ago and now, in this episode, to make an opening and fill it in by using Kev's fear(s) against him – by being there for Tyrone through his emotional disarray after what went down in that situation with those characters. The fact that she couldn't physically comfort him because of the supernatural barrier between them was sad and heart-wrenching; however, that current inability serves as an effectively influential enhancer to the inevitably successful execution of inability to ability. I also liked the parallels in the beginning with the two of them – how she and he did the same thing by playing a character to get close to Mina and Duane, their respective "marks."

As far as the Evita-Aunt Chantelle narrative is concerned, particularly compared to everything else, it was the weakest part, 100%. Its overall point boiled down to divine pairings and the revelation that Tyrone and Tandy are another pair, signifying that there is an impending danger heading to New Orleans or that something within the city is bubbling up and ready to burst – whatever the Roxxon Corporation was/is looking to acquire by digging deep into its inner, underbelly layers is the predictable and obvious guess –, which are both interesting enough. But the most essential point was the cliché proclamation that one will live, one will die, as that was probably the "cycle" with the previous pairings; however, (!) wait a minute (!): Tyrone and Tandy are different and unique – they'll be the first pairing to break the cycle! I don't know. That whole thing wasn't super engaging or as engaging as the accompanying events in this episode. At least the 3D figurine (or whatever those things are called) of Tyrone, created/introduced in the third episode, is on the way to receiving significant progression and explanation.

The main "elephant in the room" in that section of this episode was the aunt. There's a mildly festering "something or other" rising to the surface with her character, casting a spell of sorts, one of negative connotation, on all of those scenes. I can't pinpoint it – whether it's the acting, the directing, the dialogue, the line delivery, or simply a subjective, mismatched viewer-character scenario. I'm unsure if I was one of these people during my first viewing; I'm vaguely positive some disliked her character – no particular, explainable reason for it, only pure dislike/irking irritation whenever she's on screen.

Everything else was top-notch – and so, this came the closest to the premiere, in my opinion, making it this season's second-best episode thus far.