Woebegone

I don't think the attack was premeditated. I think he has issues of his own and when Eric kept going on and on about his problems -- he just snapped. Eric was the one who used the bottle opener, not the guy attacking him. I don't really know what to say. It seems like this show is just trying dump more and more crap on its characters and it really feels like they've pushed things too far.

I'm pretty much sighing at the description of Episode 8. Really, show? They had to go there too? Not that it isn't an important issue, but with everything else the show is juggling, I think they were better off leaving that out. The description leaves it open to be anyone at Leyland, teacher or student, but I'm pretty sure Leslie is safe and Chris is back in episode 9. I don't think any of the other teachers even have names. For some reason, I don't think Eric or Kevin are going to die -- there's still a fair bit of mileage left in both their stories -- which makes me think it might be one of the other basketball players. Specifically the ones that attacked Taylor. Edited to add, I noticed that in IMDB one of unnamed basketball player actually has a name: Max Wesler. Now why would he need a name?

Hard to say. From what we currently know, this is probably a reference to how he was cheating on Evy, because he obviously lied and messed up there. Or it could be a reference to something else we don't know about yet.

Oh something else I caught was the brief exchange between Taylor and Eric over the phone where Taylor basically says, "I know what happened." and Eric replies, "Yeah, you do know what happened." There's something about how the actor delivered that line like, "You know what really happened, don't you?" Probably the closest we've had from Eric to an admission of guilt or at least that the story he's told so far isn't the true or complete story. Also Taylor is out of the Leyland loop and doesn't know about the suicide attempt because he talks about how Eric gets to just keep living his life like nothing happened (which this episode shows is distinctly not true). Edited to add that when I first watched the attack I thought that Kevin was one of the boys. Then I read an interview with Eric's actor who said that Kevin doesn't know about the attack yet, so I think I just assumed it.

I keep going back in my head to Kevin's talk with the team because it was so odd and I think that means it's probably a major clue as to what else happened in the night of the rape. First off, I think Kevin is actually on Eric's on side, but is playing it cool in front of the team. Second, the way he describes Taylor at the party like "a bitch looking to get turned out" makes me think he knows what was going on between Eric and Taylor before all of this came out into the open. Also, although they're both co-captains, we've never seen Eric command the attention and respect of the team the way Kevin does here. I'm not sure if he's Machiavellian enough to have subtly manipulated the team into attacking Taylor, but he's definitely the guy in charge. Eric's mom's diatribe is unexpectedly one of the highlights of the episode for me because any other show would have made her into hateful one-sided villain, but by showing us how much she's suffering, she came across as a lot more human. She's also a victim of what is happening, even though she is also part of the problem. I guess that could be said about a lot of the people on this show.

I really hope no one dies. This show has enough pain as it is that having someone shot would just put it over the top.

That was an appalling hour of television. Just.. ugh. I still don't really know what happened at that party, but there was something off about Kevin's little rant to the team. Like he's looking at this whole thing from a very unique perspective. Eric's mom is a mess. Despite her cringeworthy homophobia, I felt really bad for her. Poor Taylor. It looked like he was just starting on the road to get past what happened to him, and then... Sigh.

I guess it's all really subjective, but I'm in agreement with Tarutaru that Eric is playing the tough guy and that he's not as big a douche as people think (which is not to say that he's not a douche...). I actually think it's great though that the actor has played the character so ambiguously that people can watch the same performance and come out with completely different interpretations, irregardless of whether they are right or wrong.

I actually don't think either are lying. I think that they're both being mostly truthful about what happened. What I find strangely inconsistent about Taylor's story is how he describes the rape. If Eric is so forceful and 'out of control', then why did the rape sound so cold and deliberate? Taylor wasn't aggressively held down and violently assaulted. Instead, he was drugged and lay there helpless while the rapist just did his thing. It sounded a lot more like a power and control trip than an exercise of anger and hatred. But Taylor has already lied about the rape. He lied about why he was at the party. He lied about his relationship with Eric. I mean, we're talking about a guy who brought his girlfriend to a party she didn't want to go to so he could get an extra thrill out of cheating on her in the next room. None of this changes the fact that he was raped (which I believe), but he has a track record of hiding things that would hurt the people he cares about.

Ok, but Taylor does know or said he does because he said he confronted Eric about it the next day. So unless he was lying about that and he doesn't know and just assumes it was Eric... Also, I'm not sure if Taylor knows about Eric's suicide attempt. The police only told Anne about the texts and emails, not the suicide. And neither Taylor, Anne, or Evy have mentioned the suicide either.

It's possible the DNA test was conducted, but isn't being mentioned because it doesn't add anything new to the narrative (ie. There is only one set of DNA and it matches Eric). But it's also possible that they're sitting in some laboratory backlog and the game-changing results will come in at some conveniently timed moment in the storyline. Here's a question though: if Taylor knows (or thinks he knows) who his rapist is, why did they go through the whole rigamarole of testing the whole team? They could have just asked him who it was and they could have just brought Eric in by himself rather than the explosive threat of testing an entire team of kids with rich and influential parents.

Something I wonder about is how quickly (or slowly) information is being disseminated. Like, has Kevin and the rest of the team heard about the suicide/confession? The school already knows about the dirty details of the texts and Eric being in the hospital, but no one in the LaCroix household or at the basketball team meeting even mentioned it. I'm a bit of an Eric apologist, but I don't think Taylor is the bad guy here. I agree that he is being fairly honest in his testimony of what happened, but by his own admission he was drugged and therefore not a reliable narrator of the events of that night. I mean, there very could well have been a hazing or something like that, but then we would have to throw out Taylor's entire testimony because his version of events only has him and Eric alone in a room. As for Eric, I get why people think he's this very angry and hateful person, but I'd like to point out that other than the fight with his brother (which, let's be fair, his brother started on purpose), he hasn't lifted a hand to anyone. I mean, Taylor has effectively ruined his life with the rape allegation, but instead of trying to find him and beat the crap out of him, he just.. gives up. There's a lot of bark and bluster with this character, but not much bite.

Interesting discrepancies between Taylor and Eric's stories. The show doesn't seem to be taking a side, treating both of them as if they were victims. I feel equally bad for both of them. I have to say though that at this point at least, Taylor's story rings the least true, because Eric doesn't sound like the kind of guy who would premeditate a rape like the one Taylor is describing. He's rash, defensive, reactive, and wound very tight, but not really sly or a horndog. The scenarios that I had imagined that were plausible were Eric angrily reacting to something Taylor did, or being really wasted and not realising what he was doing, but he says he wasn't that drunk (and agian, he drove Evy and Taylor home, so...). I'm wondering if something else happened that evening after Eric left him, that he was assaulted by someone else, and that he's misremembering it as also being Eric. I wonder if we'll ever find out the truth, since it seems like the criminal case is over and that the next few episodes will be about a civil suit that Anne is going to bring against the school for negligence (jeebus, she can't leave it alone now can she?). Also, is this the first episode that didn't end with a shocking cliffhanger?

There's no indication that Eric ever bullied Taylor, but other than that, your questions are ones that I've had all season. So far my guess is that the writers were too busy getting the pieces in place that they didn't stop to think about why the pieces would be there in the first place. It's true that blood and even bruising can be part of even consensual anal sex, so the physical evidence does not by itself prove rape. The drugs are a better indicator, but we do not know when he was drugged, or who did the drugging yet. The text and email exchanges are intriguing, at least partly because they didn't indicate who was saying what. My guess is that it was Taylor who was the one asking the questions and looking for what Felicity described as a "rough encounter". If so, that certainly doesn't help his case.

I don't think the DNA results are in yet? I mean, it's possible that they were conducted and the show just left it out of the narrative, but I don't think we even saw the students get their DNA samples taken. The show has done a good job of showing two sides of Eric so that we can see how he could have been a rapist in the circumstances of that party, but also left a lot of room for why we'd be skeptical -- why we would even want to be skeptical. He's a complex character, rapist or no. I'm pretty sure she's a sociopath. No empathy for other people? Check. Only care about her own self-interest? Check. Is capable of acting like she cares for the sole purpose of manipulating people? Check. There's this line of dialogue he has with Terri: "I just don't want him to get in trouble for something... I just don't want him to get in trouble." Yeah, he knows something.

I kind of wonder what was going on in Taylor's head as the investigation progressed. We saw Eric getting more and more distressed as his worst case scenario drew closer and closer to reality, but Taylor seemed somewhat removed from it all. Was he really just hoping it would go away if he did nothing? Surely he should have foreseen that Eric would use the texts and emails to defend himself when it came between being ousted or being convicted of rape (and even if his suicide had succeeded, the evidence would still have come out). There's also this disconnect between what Taylor said happened (almost nothing), what he remembers happening, and what actually happened. Eric looks like the guilty one right now because he admitted to sex with Taylor that night, but he hasn't been formally accused, and even if he were to be, the victim's testimony isn't entirely reliable. Did Taylor give consent and then withdrew it? Or did he give consent and, after being drugged, doesn't remember giving it? Blackouts can cover more than the drugged period and we know that Taylor went an entire week without realizing that he had been assaulted. In a strange way, I'm hoping that Eric is innocent because what we've seen of him so far doesn't fit the stereotype of a rapist and I have trouble reconciling with the idea that a seeming non-monster could be guilty of something like this.

Why Taylor disappeared at the party is still subject to interpretation at this point (although this might be answered in the coming episode). Evy doesn't know about the rape, so Taylor could just be avoiding all questions related to the party because he doesn't want to talk about it. I still think that if Taylor went to the party to hook up with Eric, it doesn't make sense that he invited Evy to go with him. Weird thing though, if this story is all over the papers and everyone involved knows that it's Taylor, why hasn't Evy found out about the rape yet? I guess no one in her low economic social circle reads the news?

Even more, it's a demonstrative example of equity versus equality. The people assume the latter is fair, because everyone is given the same conditions and expections. What the Hispanic teacher was emphasizing that equality is not necessarily fair because not everyone is as well equipped to meet those conditions. In this case, the Latino families aren't as well placed to get their kids to school in time for breakfast if time restrictions are imposed.

The argument at the poor highschool was about when meals were served. I'm going on memory, but it sounded like the other teachers wanted to limit the meals to a time in the morning where it wouldn't interfere with classes. The Latina teacher was upset because not all parents have the luxury of getting their kids to school in time for the meal and that this affected Latino students disproportionately for some reason (maybe because they lived farther away?). I can see both sides of the argument so I didn't think she was being as unreasonable as the other teachers seemed to think she was.

I rewatched too and now I'm not sure if it was Eric or someone who just looked like him. And yeah, it looked like he was just browsing general social media, although the camera settled on the picture of the guy longer than the others. I might be reading too much into it though. Something I noticed though is that he's watching a basketball game (that Kevin and Eric are playing in) while he's doing it.

I don't think the article named Kevin as a suspect, just that his house was the one where the rape took place. I dunno who is secretly gay (other than Eric) but it's fun seeing all the theories since just about every guy on this show, including the basketball coach and Kevin's dad are under the microscope by viewers for latent homosexuality. Actually, I'm not even sure Taylor is gay. I mean, why would he invite Evy if he was going to that party to hook up with Eric? I think maybe Eric developed a crush and Taylor didn't think too hard about why the captain of the basketball team suddenly wanted to be friends with him. Ok, maybe that doesn't quite explain why he was looking at a photo of Eric on his phone (and that was a photo of Eric, right?), but it's plausible as anything right now. Add me to the list of people who loath Felicity Huffman's character. I think the show has done a really good job of balancing characters like Terri, who's really obnoxious but also trying to be a good mother and protect her son, but it's hard to find sympathy for someone who is so smug about burying a potential rape just because it's inconvenient to her career. Can't wait to see her on the defense in the next episode.

Powerful episode, as they've all been. The weakest part of the show to me so far is how Taylor just let his him mom go ahead with all this. I think most guys his age wouldn't want this getting out no matter what. His telling her to stop with it seemed a little late. So hard to figure out what happened that night, but I thought the fact that Eric drove Taylor and Evy home that night is probably key. If he drove, does that mean he was sober? Evy said that Eric seemed upset. Was he feeling guilty? Angry? Was he a participant or just a witness? Maybe both? I wouldn't be shocked if the semen turns out to be his, but maybe the writers will throw us for a loop and it will turn out to be Kevin's.

It's a matter of in-cluster versus out-cluster. In-cluster, you can share and visit without eye contact. That's why the 8 can visit each other without ever having met each other. Out-cluster sensates can only visit and even then that requires eye contact beforehand. Whispers and Jonas are both from another cluster, and so require eye contact before they can visit any of the 8.

I don't know why people are forgetting that the connection Whispers had on Will is a two way street. Even if Whispers can read Will's mind to an extent, then do too can Will do the same to Whispers and the latter is much more useful than the former. Will can afford to sit on a boat with Riley for the foreseeable future. Whispers can't afford to do the same.

I think a lot of people said it elsewhere, but I think they're ok as long as they Will isn't conscious anywhere there are a lot of identifying landmarks. Will wasn't able to tell where Jonas was when the latter was in an enclosed cell and the same limitations should apply to Whispers. They just need to keep Will sedated until they're out to sea and they should be safe (for a while). Of course, it's entirely possible that Whispers has abilities beyond the average sensate. He was able to control the lobotomized patient, which is supposed to be something that only someone from the same cluster should be able to do. Also, did anyone notice that Jonas was speaking aloud in his cell even when he was visiting Will? Are these special abilities of Whispers or are they a result of the medical procedures that were performed? There seems to be at least one special ability that Whispers is implied to have -- while he is free to visit other sensates, we have never seen another visit him. Although... perhaps Jonas has and they just didn't show it? How else could Jonas know that Whispers was on the helicopter? It's hard to get a real grasp of what Whispers' motivations are, but we can maybe guess that there exists a cluster (or perhaps more than one) that has managed to achieve some kind of world dominance through the use of their sensate abilities. In order to maintain their control, they need to eliminate or at least manipulate competing sensate clusters. Another possibility is that Whispers is a traitor who has agreed to hunt down other sensates for normal humans.