1x06 Cherry

[7.8/10] I mentioned earlier that a big chunk of Sharp Objects reminds me of Twin Peaks. Well, “Cherry” reminds me much more clearly of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, the cinematic follow-up/prequel to the television show that is as much a portrait of abuse and denial as it any sort of plot continuation. Sharp Objects has been about many of those same things -- the corruption of innocence and “the evil that men do” (or at least that people do) -- but the final sequence of “Cherry” puts that idea into relief.

The most compelling piece of “Cherry” is its final fifteen minutes or so where Camille, feeling discombobulated after her mom’s devastating pronouncement, her tryst with Richard, and her odd reconnection with her high school peers, gives in to her little sister’s world. The ensuing, hauntingly-edited phantasmagoria as Camille takes ecstasy and follows Amma through the local scenes of teenage debauchery are haunting and compelling in the same way that the pink room sequence in Fire Walk with Me is.

There’s the same sense of giving into hedonism as an escape from boredom and the looming shadow of something unknown and ominous in the background. There’s the same sense of having lured someone into that world, only to be afraid at how far things might go. And there’s the same haunting flashes of something that may be supernatural, or which may just be a psychological horror, that taint the edges of the frame and put everyone in a state of unease.

As the music, the imagery, the atmosphere combine to create something both inviting and foreboding, Amma and Camile’s drug-fueled interlude is the showpiece of the episode, and the part of it that grabs you and wraps you in the show’s elliptical headspace for minute after minute.

The catch is that the episode spins its wheels for much of the lead up to that point. Camille has a predictable reunion with her old high school “friends” who have stereotypical “live laugh love”-style lives and opinions. There’s the sense that this is all an act, one upheld by communal expectation, but it’s not especially interesting, and Sharp Objects has done it better elsewhere.

It’s also done the whole symbolism thing better elsewhere. In a post-high school reunion catch-up session, the sole woman in that coven Camille can actually connect with lays the “cherry” metaphor on way too thick. We get it -- the “juicy on the outside/dark pit on the inside” thing is made clear without having a character spell it out. And by the same token, the flashbacks and nods toward Camille’s past in the town don’t do much beyond outline things the audience could already have surmised without the show signposting it so hard.

That’s the thing, it captures that sense of sweetness and innocence on the outside but something dark lurking on the inside much better in the simple interactions between Camille, her mother, and her little sister. The distance between what’s presented in public and what a person feels deep down is colored by the private and public faces of all the Crellin women. The one illuminating bit we have in all of this is that Adora’s mother was herself emotional abusive, suggesting that the original sin did not start with Adora, but rather is something her family has been processing, and being corrupted by, for generations.

The other illuminating piece of plot, or at least whodunnit clue, is Ashley Wheeler’s declaration that John Keene couldn’t have murdered those girls because he doesn't want to be popular. I’ll cop to nursing a few theories about the killer. Amma’s friendship with the two deceased girls, and her apparent leap in popularity, suggest her involvement. And Adora and the chief’s more than friendly relationship, in addition to the power that Adora wields over Wind Gap, suggests a motherly cover-up. Even if that’s all wrong (and I’d put my confidence at about 30%), it suggests the same sort of curdled blackness beneath the pristine image of youth and vigor the town seems obsessed with.

Then there’s Richard’s pretty creepy digging into Camille’s past. I don’t know how to feel about this, because on the one hand, it feels like a massive invasion of privacy for his pseudo-girlfriend. The idea of asking around, conning his way into a mental hospital, and digging up that sort of dirt rather than just asking directly feels shady as all hell. On the other hand, if she, and it, are relevant to this ongoing investigation, then maybe it’s justified. But if that’s the case, then he definitely shouldn’t be flirting/dating/sleeping with her. So Richard, who’s seemed like one of the few decent people in this thing, adds to his moral gray area a little bit.

But the moral gray area is still firmly present for Adora and the chief, who huddle about the little girl’s bike fished out of the lake near Adora’s hog processing facility, in a way that suggests cover-up or at least P.R. It leads to a contretemps between Camille and Adora, and a turning point to where Adora tries to use Alan to get rid of Camille. It goes about as well as anything does for Alan, but hints at Adora reaching a breaking point, or worrying that Camille or Richard or someone is getting too close to the truth, or becoming too much of an influence on Amma.

Maybe that last part is true. It feels much more like Amma is corrupting Camille than the other way around, but as the pair give into their wide-worn drug trip, the show seems to suggest each of them being pulled down together toward something dark. There is release an escape for both of them in their psychotropic adventure, but also the sense of it as a last resort, an effort to put a wall up between them and something frightening, a wall that can only last for so long before something peeks in through the cracks. That same sense of ominous gravity, of inescapable darkness, fueled much of Fire Walk with Me, and this spiritual successor seems poised to show its heroes consumed in the same sort of flames.