Unearned. I can't recall an episode of TV that was more unearned. I thought the relationship from out of nowhere between the black guy and the white girl was unearned. I thought the pregnancy of the brown girl was unearned. I thought the Prophet who Never Misses suddenly having his daughter hate him for... no reason was unearned. But all of that has nothing on this episode.
The case is a typical serial killer, copycat, and buried alive victim. It's not new but I don't have an issue with that. The main questions are basic, who is the copycat, where is the victim, how did the serial killer do it. But hit after hit after hit has been idiotic. I think it's hilarious that last episode they couldn't tell the kidnapper was the victim faking but here they can tell a psychopath someone who literally can't feel empathy is agitated by a slight question.
For my money the dumbest of the dumbest scenes this episode was when they ask the police office if serial killer has had any contacts. "No-one" the police officer says, "Well there's Lydia the Tattoo'd Lady botanist who volunteers with inmates and has been writing him letters". Are you kidding me? So then "no-one" is a bold faced lie. I mean for crying out loud Lydia ends up being the culprit. It's not even a red herring. There's a kid running out of air in a coffin and you don't consider the botanist anyone important. I suppose one might consider that ironic considering that serial killer doesn't consider her important either.
Serial Killer and Botanist have been talking in code something that was explicitly rejected for some idiotic reason. "We looked at the letters there's nothing in them". Yet later on we find out that the giant code wheel on the ceiling of his cell, which was the first thing we saw in the cell, is actually, hold your breath please, a code wheel that they're using to exchange messages. That one reveal is so disappointing I dismissed it as too obvious. But no one on this show knows how a substitution cipher work because you can't just swap letters around willy nilly and still end up with an alphabet that works. You'll have a lot of nonsense word that would obviously be noticeable. You might say oh they're masking the letters by putting words around them, but according to the fancy graphics they use to show the code that's not the case. It's select words that get processed not select letters. On top of which they're sharing so much literal text that it becomes part of the deduction when they look at the pronouns used in the letters. Sending code is hard and requires effort. It tends to look a lot like... well you know what other form of communication was hard and took effort? Telegrams. When you have to communicate via morse code you charge by the letter and you know what people do? They drop things like unimportant articles and pronouns. You know who you're talking to no need for pronouns. But you're telling me no one in the prison bothered to look at the giant code wheel on the ceiling and think maybe we should consider whether that might be being used in the letters he's writing. It's HUGE. It's not like a hidden code wheel encrypted in the shape of his plants or tucked away where only he could see it lying on his bed. Either of which I would have accepted better. It's giant and dumb and I hate the show for thinking i'm so stupid. Also when someone is dying in a coffin maybe save your questions about what a code wheel is until after you process it brown girl.
The other reveal is that the plant in serial killer's bunk that he called Black Nightshade a cousin to Deadly Nightshade. When everyone around him started dying I assumed it was because Black Nightshade gives immunity to deadly nightshade. Nope. They went even LAZIER. It's just not black nightshade but actually it's really deadly nightshade and he's been microdosing the actual plant. My eyes rolled out of my head and I'm still looking for them. No one bothered to check the plant he's growing? You relied on a volunteer? You let him have a similar plant to deadly nightshade and never thought maybe we should verify this? That's insane. No prison would work like that or have such luxurious cells but whatever.
Then case aside we have so many unearned emotional beats. Black guys gets held hostage for a moment and says "I Love You" to the white girl. The brown girl names her child after the white girl. White girl leaves I guess. But let's go back to that second one. WHY??@? We've seen zero relationship between brown girl and white girl. There's NOTHING to suggest they're so close she would name her fatherless (he's never seen) baby after her. It's weird. Weirder than the black guy white girl relationship that I maintain is coming out of nowhere despite dialog like "We've been dancing around this for so long now". I mean he didn't like her for being a try hard who obviously had a past she was trying to hide, real. He resented her for going around him. Real. She does nothing special to make herself valuable. Real. Now two or three episodes into their relationship he's crying about "I love you?" Lie.
Review by wolfkinBlockedParent2021-03-07T15:08:35Z
Unearned. I can't recall an episode of TV that was more unearned. I thought the relationship from out of nowhere between the black guy and the white girl was unearned. I thought the pregnancy of the brown girl was unearned. I thought the Prophet who Never Misses suddenly having his daughter hate him for... no reason was unearned. But all of that has nothing on this episode.
The case is a typical serial killer, copycat, and buried alive victim. It's not new but I don't have an issue with that. The main questions are basic, who is the copycat, where is the victim, how did the serial killer do it. But hit after hit after hit has been idiotic. I think it's hilarious that last episode they couldn't tell the kidnapper was the victim faking but here they can tell a psychopath someone who literally can't feel empathy is agitated by a slight question.
For my money the dumbest of the dumbest scenes this episode was when they ask the police office if serial killer has had any contacts. "No-one" the police officer says, "Well there's Lydia the
Tattoo'd Ladybotanist who volunteers with inmates and has been writing him letters". Are you kidding me? So then "no-one" is a bold faced lie. I mean for crying out loud Lydia ends up being the culprit. It's not even a red herring. There's a kid running out of air in a coffin and you don't consider the botanist anyone important. I suppose one might consider that ironic considering that serial killer doesn't consider her important either.Serial Killer and Botanist have been talking in code something that was explicitly rejected for some idiotic reason. "We looked at the letters there's nothing in them". Yet later on we find out that the giant code wheel on the ceiling of his cell, which was the first thing we saw in the cell, is actually, hold your breath please, a code wheel that they're using to exchange messages. That one reveal is so disappointing I dismissed it as too obvious. But no one on this show knows how a substitution cipher work because you can't just swap letters around willy nilly and still end up with an alphabet that works. You'll have a lot of nonsense word that would obviously be noticeable. You might say oh they're masking the letters by putting words around them, but according to the fancy graphics they use to show the code that's not the case. It's select words that get processed not select letters. On top of which they're sharing so much literal text that it becomes part of the deduction when they look at the pronouns used in the letters. Sending code is hard and requires effort. It tends to look a lot like... well you know what other form of communication was hard and took effort? Telegrams. When you have to communicate via morse code you charge by the letter and you know what people do? They drop things like unimportant articles and pronouns. You know who you're talking to no need for pronouns. But you're telling me no one in the prison bothered to look at the giant code wheel on the ceiling and think maybe we should consider whether that might be being used in the letters he's writing. It's HUGE. It's not like a hidden code wheel encrypted in the shape of his plants or tucked away where only he could see it lying on his bed. Either of which I would have accepted better. It's giant and dumb and I hate the show for thinking i'm so stupid. Also when someone is dying in a coffin maybe save your questions about what a code wheel is until after you process it brown girl.
The other reveal is that the plant in serial killer's bunk that he called Black Nightshade a cousin to Deadly Nightshade. When everyone around him started dying I assumed it was because Black Nightshade gives immunity to deadly nightshade. Nope. They went even LAZIER. It's just not black nightshade but actually it's really deadly nightshade and he's been microdosing the actual plant. My eyes rolled out of my head and I'm still looking for them. No one bothered to check the plant he's growing? You relied on a volunteer? You let him have a similar plant to deadly nightshade and never thought maybe we should verify this? That's insane. No prison would work like that or have such luxurious cells but whatever.
Then case aside we have so many unearned emotional beats. Black guys gets held hostage for a moment and says "I Love You" to the white girl. The brown girl names her child after the white girl. White girl leaves I guess. But let's go back to that second one. WHY??@? We've seen zero relationship between brown girl and white girl. There's NOTHING to suggest they're so close she would name her fatherless (he's never seen) baby after her. It's weird. Weirder than the black guy white girl relationship that I maintain is coming out of nowhere despite dialog like "We've been dancing around this for so long now". I mean he didn't like her for being a try hard who obviously had a past she was trying to hide, real. He resented her for going around him. Real. She does nothing special to make herself valuable. Real. Now two or three episodes into their relationship he's crying about "I love you?" Lie.