S01.E04: Unfinished Business

[dwmarch]

One thing that stands out to me about this show is that a topic isn't created for each episode the night it airs. I don't mind creating the topics myself but I should note that I'm not a super-fan of this series. I'm just doing my duty to keep the discussion flowing.

Having said that, it could be because this episode is basically hour four of the first episode, now with maggots!

The biggest criticism I have is that sitcom moment where the heroes are literally directly above the people who need help but can't hear three women screaming and banging against a metal container. Well, they have a moment of "I thought I heard something" but a Skyrim bandit with an arrow sticking out of his ass they dismiss it as their imagination because Ronald's sneak skill is so high. Human sounds of distress are piercing and distinct and don't really sound like anything else you're going to hear in a creepy old barn.

Ah, DEK, patron saint of creeps. Ronald's awkward game works on Legarski's lonely wife and she has a lovely time dancing her way out of her loveless marriage. At least that was some forward momentum and I'm curious to see what it's going to look like when that one hits the fan.

I guess Ronald's mother is real considering she picked up objects and had a bowl of cereal dumped in her hair. I wonder if she'll somehow stumble across the barn where the girls are and then either get killed or trapped depending on whether or not it's Ronald or Legarski who finds her first. I think Ronald would throw her in the trailer while Legarsky would probably wring her neck.

As much of an easy to hate character as Legarsky is, I'm starting to empathize with his frustration at getting asked the same questions over and over by every person he meets.

Does the secretary on this show do anything other than tell the other characters that they can't do stuff? Is she related to Skyler White or something? The only reason she is interesting is because I recognized the actress but couldn't place her. I finally remembered she was one of the parents on Marvel's Runaways. (Edit: I might be wrong about this but they sure look similar.)

Edited December 10, 2020 by dwmarch

[Court]

I'm still dying over the line, hey quilt lady. Quilt lady!

 

[thuganomics85]

Hey, finally got an episode thread!  I mean, sure, this show isn't exactly "great" or even good, but it's nice to discuss something since my television viewing this season has been limited to this, The Good Doctor (which is already on break), Star Trek: Discovery, and The Mandalorian!

I will start things on a positive note for once by saying that the scenes between Cassie and her dad were actually kind of nice, and well-acted by Kylie Bunbury and Jeffery Joseph (the actor playing the dad.)  Maybe almost too good for the rest of this show, but I'll take it!  Although, I'm curious about Jeffery Joseph's age, because he honestly looks pretty young to be playing Kylie Bunbury's dad.  Eh, maybe he had her young or just aged really well!

No surprise, despite being the one with an infected wound, Grace is badass enough to come up with the idea to attract maggots and actually have them go on her wound to heal it, while Jerrie is at least willing to be the one to pick up those critters and do it.  Meanwhile, Danielle... stands in the corner and says she's going to be sick.  Classic Danielle!

Rick once again finds himself in a scene where he is spouting bullshit that sounds like it came straight from message boards in "nefarious" websites or comment threads: this time bitching about "Blue Lives Matter" and anti-police feelings, and basically saying that Cassie only hates him because she's black and he's a white "officer of the law."  I still have no idea if he is a true believer of all of this crap, or is he trying to throw everyone off the scent over what he is actually doing.

I was confused over if Ronald actually knew Merliee was Rick's wife and was flirting/dancing with her as some kind of game, or if he simply did just find her attractive when they met.

Another Cody flashback.  If he got paid his normal rate per episode, I imagine Ryan Phillippe got a hefty sum for what was probably only a couple of hours each week!

At this point, I'm honestly starting to wonder if Denise/the secretary is secretly in league with Rick/Ronald, because her over-the-top Rick love is raising so many red flags. 

It was so obvious that Cassie and Jenny weren't going to hear the prisoners screaming in the final scene, but it didn't make it any less frustrating.

 

[CrystalBlue]

This show is weird because the bad guys are root-able, and the good guys, or gals in this case, are annoying.  Add dumbasses to that because while Dewell is saying she heard something, Hoyt dismisses it and insists on looking elsewhere because it's a big building and they have a lot of ground to cover.  Never mind staying put to see what Dewell is hearing.  Grace is likeable and so is Jerrie, but Danielle is a dumb blonde stereotype.  I love Brooke Smith and feel bad for her loveless menopausal marriage, which looks like will be ending soon.

Trooper Legarski aka The Big Rick is a villainous psycho with a badge who dispatches those that prove to be inconvenient at the drop of a hat, but his points in dealing with Dewell and Hoyt are accurately funny.  Ronald has the weirdest mother ever, so no wonder he went off the rails a long time ago.

Dewell is not a likeable person and Hoyt isn't much better.  I'm sick of Cassie mooning for the unbeknownst-to-her dead lover, Cody.

[Dowel Jones]

If Ronald poured cereal over me, he would be chasing his teeth down the hallway.  What a weird reaction.

Taxi dances?  The 30s called; they want their meme back.

Sorry, show, but "We'll Meet Again" has been typecast.  Nobody else can ever use that song without bringing up memories of Dr. Strangelove.

[LakeGal]

They really made a point of letting us know how loud the wind was before the women went in the old building.  Of course it would keep them from definitely hearing the trapped females yelling for help.  It has become tiresome to watch them held captive.  I do wish the storyline would move on.  

[Madding crowd]

How are places having ‘taxi dances’? I am 60 years old and these were in my grandmothers time. Ronald seems beyond creepy but considering who she is married to, quilt lady must see him as a trade up.

[red12]

Even as annoying as some of the other character's actions can be, I cannot imagine a world in which I root for Ronald and Legarski. I also would be shocked if the victims we saw (and possibly his wife next week) are the only people Legarski has murdered when he didn't want to be held accountable for something or was generally pissed off. I'm just glad he is in the fictional, lightly populated town of this universe and not a densely populated or diverse city.

[tennisgurl]

Look, an episode thread! We found it much faster than anyone is going to find the missing girls! I knew that Cassie and Jenny wouldn't find them so quickly, but I was so frustrated when they walked away even when Cassie thought she heard something. 

Seriously, how has Rick not been caught yet when he acts as suspicious as possible at every possible turn? All he had to do was give a nonspecific "yeah we are doing all we can to look for these missing women" to the sheriff, especially since they already know each other and seem to get along, but instead he refuses to answer his questions and instead just starts going on some stereotypical angry Boomer rant that you would find in the most insufferable comment sections, and even the sheriff caught on to the fact that he is clearly trying to avoid the question, and then gets all pissed off at the mere suggestion that he answer the guys questions. I guess he has been really good at picking women who people might not notice are gone or are off the grid anyway, because he would have fallen apart in five minutes under any serious questioning. I don't even know if he is for real with all of his "America is going wrong because people don't trust cops without question anymore because of whiny black people" racist rants or justifying selling women he doesn't approve of into slavery as "cleaning up the country" or if this is just stuff he says to put people off or make himself feel better, but no matter what I am really excited to watch him get taken down. He probably does believe a lot of that Blue Lives Matter stuff, but mostly just seems to be using it now to distract people by pushing buttons or disguise his discomfort with the investigation as just being another defensive small town cop waving their fist at social justice and not a corrupt cop trying to hide his illegal activity. And to remind us that he is the bad guy, in case the human trafficking didn't clue us in. These guys just need to get caught right now, not only is he engaging in an evil plan, but he is bad at his evil plan, which somehow makes it worse. 

The status quo of the bunker women remains pretty much the same. Grace is awesome and can even do her own medical treatment, Jerri is supportive, and Danielle is mostly useless. At least she is being less of an ass. I continue to be baffled that the three women cant take Ronald down, especially when he was crouches down next to Grace, they could have easily just lunged right at him, even while he had his apparently terrifying taser of doom. Seriously, why don't they give him a gun instead of a stupid taser? I cannot believe that its that hard to find a gun in Montana! 

The scenes between Cassie and her dad were actually pretty nice and well acted, and we finally got Cassie and Jenny actually investigating beyond asking a few questions, a real issue with the show has been that our heroes have not done a whole lot yet or been given a lot of characterization. I don't know much about them as people and they are only now getting really proactive beyond just asking obvious questions, so its hard to get invested in them as our leads. We know more about Ronald and Rick than we do about them as of now, so we end up cheering for the heroes mostly on principle and because the bad guys are so terrible than because we are that interested in them as characters. 

Taxi dances? The show does know that its the 21st century in Montana too right? Its not somehow 1937? So what is Ronald's game with Ricks lonely sad wife? Is Rick about to murder her?

Edited December 10, 2020 by tennisgurl

[AnimeMania]

I can't believe they wasted an entire can of that delicious "Hamm", they only needed to smear a little bit somewhere in the corner of the trailer. They might regret not eating it if they run out of food.

[Dowel Jones]

5 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

We found it much faster than anyone is going to find the missing girls!

Cassie and Jennie would have heard them a lot easier if they hadn't been blasting 'House of the Rising Sun' the whole time...

[Jennabelle88]

21 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

I was confused over if Ronald actually knew Merliee was Rick's wife and was flirting/dancing with her as some kind of game, or if he simply did just find her attractive when they met.

Remember earlier when he told Legarski that he, Legarski, didn't know his, Ronald's, "insurance plan?" Meet Merilee, AKA "insurance plan." 

[CrystalBlue]

13 hours ago, Madding crowd said:

How are places having ‘taxi dances’? I am 60 years old and these were in my grandmothers time. Ronald seems beyond creepy but considering who she is married to, quilt lady must see him as a trade up.

Being the tender age of 64 myself, I have never heard of taxi dances.  I have, however, heard of dime-a-dance girls, but that would be the other way around and Mrs. Legarski would have been the one who was ten cents richer for it.  A quick check on Google reveals that "taxi dancer" was a thing, starting in 1849 in the Barbary Coast district of San Francisco.  That's where the dime-a-dance girls got their start.

I quite enjoyed "Blue Bayou" being played at the dance hall.

[CarpeFelis]

On 12/9/2020 at 9:36 PM, thuganomics85 said:

I was confused over if Ronald actually knew Merliee was Rick's wife and was flirting/dancing with her as some kind of game, or if he simply did just find her attractive when they met.

I think he did know who she was and is using her as his “insurance policy”. Why else would he visit a quilt shop?

Speaking of which... not only did the “exquisite hand-knotted quilt” look extremely out of place in a quilt shop because it was, by definition, not quilted, but it wasn’t “knotted” either, it was obviously KNIT in stockinette stitch. Maybe the script was supposed to say “knitted” (which would be grammatically awkward, but at least the right craft) and nobody caught it?

It was creepy AF at the end to show Merrilee sleeping and Legarski heading up the stairs with an angry expression and a hammer in his hand. Is he going to threaten her or just murder her in her sleep? (Gosh, how DARE the wife he basically ignores go out somewhere without him?)

[CarpeFelis]

16 hours ago, Dowel Jones said:

Cassie and Jennie would have heard them a lot easier if they hadn't been blasting 'House of the Rising Sun' the whole time...

Could be worse. In Britannia, they keep using ‘60s music in the soundtrack and as the theme song even though it takes place in the first century. It takes me right out of the story every blasted time.

[Dowel Jones]

14 hours ago, CrystalBlue said:

Being the tender age of 64 myself, I have never heard of taxi dances.

The only reason I knew of it was that Madonna's character in A League of Their Own makes reference to taxi dancing, so I had to look it up on Wiki.  It's a long gone practice.

[watch2much]

I don't know if I can hang in much longer.  I do like Grace a lot and wish there was more opportunity to see and hear her.  Cassie is ok, but Hoyt is too much...the swagger, etc.  if next week's a cliff hanger I don't know if I'll be back.

[Rickster]

To me, “Root-able” is not the right term for the bad guys, but there is something very strange about this show in that the bad guys and I guess the captives are so much better developed as characters and get so much more screen time than our two detectives.

[CrystalBlue]

9 hours ago, Rickster said:

To me, “Root-able” is not the right term for the bad guys, but there is something very strange about this show in that the bad guys and I guess the captives are so much better developed as characters and get so much more screen time than our two detectives.

Please let me clarify my rootable point for those of you who think I approve of kidnapping, torture, and human sex trafficking.  I should have prefaced my sentence with, "If you didn't know the Trooper and the Trucker were psychopathic monsters and killers, ...".  Legarski is so wildly goofball and he does have a point about objecting to Dewell's investigation.  (Not including the racist and sexist comments and calling her Missy.)  Ronald has the weirdest mom ever who he feels compelled to still live with, to contend with.  Her motherly advice of masturbating before dinner is deeply disturbing!

Private investigators don't go marching in to their local law enforcement agency and demand they put their officers and resources to use to solve their case.  That's what the PI is for.  PI's and LEO's don't work together and LEO's certainly don't take orders from civilians.  Her snotty and bitchy attitude is why I can't root for Dewell, oh, and the fact that she screwed Hoyt's husband, which I've covered before.

[mythoughtis]

Cassie dated ( we’ve seen enough flashbacks to know the difference) Jenny’s  Estranged husband.  Jenny and what’s his name were separated. .  She lives in a house and he was living in a cabin.  They appeared to have been  separated for a while.  Many separated  couples do date other people. Some even  still sleep together while dating others.   Some take years to get around to a divorce.  However most don’t continue working together and don’t date a co-worker on top of it. So that’s a  definite yuck. But  it takes two to tango and what’s his name didn’t appear to have any interest in moving back home.  So let’s blame him as much as Cassie. 
It’s hard to get worked up about the love  triangle thing when the rest of the show has such stupid moments.  Still can’t figure out why Rick thinks nothing is killing what’s his name but can’t seem to kill his captives that he isn’t going to get any money for.  Can’t be a female  thing when we were left to assume he’s going to hit his wide in the head with a hammer. 
and Ronalds going after Ricks wife is a lot more weird than Cassie, Jenny, and what’s his names triangle. 
 

[AnimeMania]

2 hours ago, mythoughtis said:

Ronalds going after Ricks wife is a lot more weird than Cassie, Jenny, and what’s his names triangle. 
 

Maybe not, Ronald might overhear the things that Rick talks to his wife about over the phone and how he talks to her. Maybe Ronald is working some kind of angle from his Masterplan to frame all the abductions on Rick while keeping his involvement secret.

Ronald probably won't be able to keep his involvement secret since all the previously abducted women have seen his face and probably never saw Rick at all. Ronald always abducts women from roughly the same area with the same M.O., so he should be easy to find. Heck, even TwiddleCassie and TwiddleJenny have found Rick's stalking grounds.

[readster]

3 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

Maybe not, Ronald might overhear the things that Rick talks to his wife about over the phone and how he talks to her. Maybe Ronald is working some kind of angle from his Masterplan to frame all the abductions on Rick while keeping his involvement secret.

Ronald probably won't be able to keep his involvement secret since all the previously abducted women have seen his face and probably never saw Rick at all. Ronald always abducts women from roughly the same area with the same M.O., so he should be easy to find. Heck, even TwiddleCassie and TwiddleJenny have found Rick's stalking grounds.

Right, Ronald is pretty much screwed either way, Rick could still get away with things or get to a point, where he needs to find someone either a lot smarter or try a different approach. However, Rick seems to have this very "huh side" to him. I mean he won't officially call it quits with his wife. He can blow away someone fishing, but can't take out who is abducted or even learning one is transgender and that right there should be: "Well, we can't use you." Yet, he doesn't. Something isn't adding up.

[mythoughtis]

7 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

Maybe not, Ronald might overhear the things that Rick talks to his wife about over the phone and how he talks to her. Maybe Ronald is working some kind of angle from his Masterplan to frame all the abductions on Rick while keeping his involvement secret.

I think his intention is to abduct Marlee and hold that over Rick’s head.  He’s just waiting until he can get her off somewhere alone to do it.   So maybe the word I should have used instead of weird is sinister or evil.  

[AnimeMania]

There are a million things that Ronald could do, like give distinctive jewelry from the missing girls to Rick's wife. Just finding it in Rick's house if searched would go a long way. I did not get the feeling that Ronald wanted to hurt Rick's wife in any way. Maybe Ronald might mention something that makes her question how Rick is spending his time. 

[Brian Cronin]

On 12/9/2020 at 10:41 PM, dwmarch said:

I guess Ronald's mother is real considering she picked up objects and had a bowl of cereal dumped in her hair. I wonder if she'll somehow stumble across the barn where the girls are and then either get killed or trapped depending on whether or not it's Ronald or Legarski who finds her first. I think Ronald would throw her in the trailer while Legarsky would probably wring her neck.

I'm not saying she IS a hallucination, but in situations like these, anything that occurs between the hallucination and the person doing the hallucination is typically suspect. In other words, Ronald could be hallucinating the incident with the cereal, as well. We won't know for sure that she's real until we see her interact with someone other than Ronald, and since we're a few episodes in without that happening, I think hallucination is still pretty darn likely (not a given, of course, but pretty darn likely). 

[Tachi Rocinante]

16 hours ago, mythoughtis said:

I think his intention is to abduct Marlee and hold that over Rick’s head.  He’s just waiting until he can get her off somewhere alone to do it.   So maybe the word I should have used instead of weird is sinister or evil.  

If he puts her in the bottom of a shallow well and gives her lotion, I'm out. 😎

[Mstk3000]

On 12/10/2020 at 7:44 AM, Madding crowd said:

How are places having ‘taxi dances’? I am 60 years old and these were in my grandmothers time. Ronald seems beyond creepy but considering who she is married to, quilt lady must see him as a trade up.

Plus were there ever taxi dance places for young men to dance with older women?  I never heard of that even in the olden days.  And Brooke Smith is only 8 years older than Brian Geraghty, and they both look their actual ages, so the whole "I'm so attracted to older women" "But I'm old enough to be your mother" thing makes no sense.