S01.E05: A Change Is Gonna Come

[Guest]

A South Central murder investigation ratchets up tension with the Black Panthers; Emma goes MIA; Hodiak loses control... and Shafe comes to the rescue.

 

[sinkwriter]

I was frustrated with this episode because I felt it glorified Manson a bit, made him seem like the victim somehow, with the guy working for/with Emma's dad threatening and mocking Manson, and then Sam beating the shit out of him. It seems like it gives off the message that Manson had a reason to hate the "pigs" (cops) or eventually "fight back," because they tormented him when he was "innocent," just hanging out with his girls, smoking and singing songs. Give me a damn break.

Edited May 31, 2015 by sinkwriter

[sinkwriter]

One part that gave me the creeps: Susan Atkins introducing herself to Emma's mom. Has she said her real name up to this point? I didn't think so. I thought she was only known by her nickname. So it's chilling to finally hear her say the name that is so well known in history.  

 

Yeesh. *cringe*

[Amalthea]

I don't think the depiction of Manson has been innocent at all -- we saw him cut the shopkeeper's eyes out, and pimp out 16-year-old Emma to the record producer.

[sinkwriter]

I don't think they're depicting him as innocent (your post provides excellent examples proving him as otherwise).

 

I'm just saying I don't like when they make it seem like he has all this stuff going on that helped make him who he is. Between the unprovoked beatdown and mention of his mother and other things that happen in episodes beyond this one, I just don't want them painting him in any way as a victim of his circumstances or other people. I don't want him glorified in any way. It makes me highly uncomfortable. The dude was a violent and manipulative psychopath (or was he a sociopath? I'm not clear on the difference between the two). 

Edited June 1, 2015 by sinkwriter

[riverheightsnancy]

I don't want him glorified in any way. It makes me highly uncomfortable. The dude was a violent and manipulative psychopath (or was he a sociopath? I'm not clear on the difference between the two). 

When I was active in the field we often used the term interchangeably, however, the new DSM-5's  official term is Anti-Social Personality Disorder. I think the terms psychopath and sociopath were used clinically in earlier editions of the DSM (I would have to check them to be 100% though). 

 

For myself, when I hear about the abuse that Manson suffered and all of the jail time (and what his mother did), it reminds me and makes me think that "if" he had received love and no abuse, "could" he have turned out differently? There is interesting research regarding how sociopaths (serial killers and mass murders) are formed. James Fallon (Not Jimmy!) is a neuroscientist that actually studies and performs brain scans on serial killers and has a fascinating back story regarding same. He thinks that there are 3 critical things that can make a serial killer 1) genetic predisposition (i.e., lack of empathy or violent tendencies) 2) Lack of love or nurturing when young 3) Extreme deprivation &/or abuse.  He talks at length regarding the research on killers and how they tend to have all these three of these factors. However, if the person is given unconditional love, that may be a strong enough buffer to help steer the person in another direction, even if the other factors are present. If anyone is interested, James Fallon has a bunch of videos on YouTube and many TED talks. He is worth a listen, to try and understand how a person could become a "monster" (not excusing their actions at all though!).

 

Personally, I am really loving all of the different layers woven into the overall narrative. Really enjoying the show and thought it was just going to be about Manson (which would have been fine), but due to all of the side stories, has quickly turned into my favorite drama right now. I hope that it goes forward. The show started in 1967 and they get arrested in 1969, so If they can do 1 year at a time (for a season), I can see at least a 2 or 3 year run, until Manson is caught. I hope that was the idea when they thought of the show. I have to say that I am loving Mulder (Duchovnny) being back on my TV. I loved X-Files and I am really enjoying him in this. A little surreal to see Gillian on the commercial for the Bride of Hannibal on the commercial breaks though! Yikes! 

[Primetimer]

A ranking of vintage romantic dysfunction.

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[sinkwriter]

Sarah, thank you for making this point!

 

 

You don't want her to run off, maybe stay home and spend time with her, try to figure out why she split to start with.

 

Yes! For crying out loud, I forgot about this, but YES. I couldn't believe that the same mother who spent so much time trying to find her daughter and bring her home would then take off without spending any time with her to deal with why she left and what happened to her while she was with Manson. There was no care whatsoever. She just tra-la-la'd off to Hodiak's place and acted like it was any other day of the week. I found myself shaking my head, completely baffled, saying to the TV, "Are you kidding me? She's seriously not going to be with her daughter after all that??"

 

I don't know... maybe it's meant to show the lack of care she truly has for the people in her life, how quickly and easily she gives up on them when things get too hard (like how she verbally slaughtered Hodiak when he wasn't doing what she wanted him to), or - like Sarah said - her issues with control and denial. Maybe she's too afraid to look too closely at why her daughter left and joined such a group in the first place because it might mean there's something wrong with her (Grace) and their family dynamic and she can't handle it.

 

Whatever it is, it doesn't make her look good, that's for sure. And in some ways it makes her look really stupid, because her daughter was screaming and desperate to return to Manson and her new "family" so I would think the mother would be more controlling in the face of all that, and paranoid that her daughter might turn around and leave again. To leave her daughter alone and instead go off and hook up with Hodiak with seemingly little concern for how her daughter was doing, coming off that high, or what her daughter was doing, or where she might be going, just makes her seem like a clueless jerk.

 

Maybe she is clueless, because she thought her daughter would simply tell her the truth and go back to school and behave like none of it ever happened. Wow, lady... that's some hardcore denial.

Edited June 2, 2015 by sinkwriter

[riverheightsnancy]

It seems like it was all about appearances. None of the friends knew that Emma was missing. It was kept hush-hush. So, for anyone to suggest therapy, would probably not even be a consideration. If it were my kid, I would be distraught that she had been raped, or brainwashed, however, I think that the mom just believes that Emma is being willful and wants to have a good time and not anything else. I think that the idea that a person can be coerced and persuaded to do things they wouldn't normally do, are not quite accepted psychological theories (yet). It is coming, but it is not quite there yet. The Patty Hearst situation, I think brings that into more prominence. (That was 1974, so that is a full 7 years later)

[Milburn Stone]

I'm loving Duchovny in this. Who knew a story about the Manson Family could have so many laughs?

[thuganomics85]

I certainly didn't feel sorry for Manson; knowing what he is and what he will do; but I certainly was shaking my head over how Hodiak completely went off the rails like he did.  Granted, it sure felt like almost every bad thing possible happened to him going in (not being able to solve the case, his son, Grace being an absolute jerk to him), but that was so, so not way to go.  Only possible good thing was that it allowed Shafe to possibly get closer to Charles.

 

I usually find Ken to be the absolute worst, but Grace was really getting on my nerves at the end.  How in the hell was it Hodiak's fault for Emma escaping again?  You were the big idiot that automatically tried to act like things were back to nomal, and not thinking to yourself that maybe Emma wasn't going to be down with that and would try something.  Take some responsibility, please.  And while Ken certainly deserves some/a lot of your anger, you aren't doing yourself any favors by stepping out with Hodiak. Ugh, I'm starting to dislike her as well.  Between her and Ken, no wonder Emma is looking for someone else.

 

Bunchy is back as a Black Panther now, and clearly being a thorn in Hodiak's side.  It sounds like it was that particular treatment that led to this change, so I guess Hodiak is seeing that there are consequences to his action.  I do wonder if we'll get a follow-up on these cases, since Tolson was played by a decent known actor (Drew Powell from Gotham.)

 

Second episode in a row with no Charmain.  Boo!

[Milburn Stone]

I was frustrated with this episode because I felt it glorified Manson a bit, made him seem like the victim somehow, with the guy working for/with Emma's dad threatening and mocking Manson, and then Sam beating the shit out of him. It seems like it gives off the message that Manson had a reason to hate the "pigs" (cops) or eventually "fight back," because they tormented him when he was "innocent," just hanging out with his girls, smoking and singing songs. Give me a damn break.

 

I agree that was a little clunky, but in general I think the show is doing an excellent job of making the case that the more disruptive elements of the counterculture (Manson Family, AWOL whistle-blowing soldier, militant Blacks) wouldn't have happened without a repressive power structure doing a lot of bad things. There are a lot of "center cannot hold" threads in this show, and the one thing that somehow accounts for all of them, the one thing that is somehow at the center of the vortex, is that Nixon-Reagan fundraiser.

[shapeshifter]

http://previously.tv/aquarius/the-rage-of-aquarius/

...and quit writing 'Mr. Ken Manson' on your Trapper Keeper"...

Hah! If Sarah D. Bunting was editing the scripts there would be no anachronisms.

http://previously.tv/aquarius/the-rage-of-aquarius/

...That bigwig in the garage and Manson's blackmail bullshit

His scathing one-percenter dismissal of Manson's power play, followed by "get off my car" = best...

All it would've taken to deal with Manson was a bigger DB.

http://previously.tv/aquarius/the-rage-of-aquarius/

...Anyone else kind of hope Aquarius would decide to try on an alternate reality and let Hodiak beat Manson to death?...

Only everyone. It was a very almost-killed-Hitler kind of moment, interrupted by Shafe, which leads me to comment on:

http://previously.tv/aquarius/the-rage-of-aquarius/

It's unclear to me how Shafe knew to go after Hodiak at the end of "A Change Is Gonna Come," or where to go in the second place, but that kind of anticipation of your partner's actions means you have a strong relationship

If I followed it correctly: Shafe connected with Jimmy Too Butano, who Shafe thought Manson would like (I think?). They were on their way to Manson's ostensibly so Jimmy could get weed laced with synthetic psilocybin but really so Shafe could re-rescue Emma--as was Hodiak, so no surprise they bumped into each other.

I couldn't believe that the same mother who spent so much time trying to find her daughter and bring her home would then take off without spending any time with her to deal with why she left and what happened to her while she was with Manson. There was no care whatsoever. She just tra-la-la'd off to Hodiak's place....

Maybe she is clueless, because she thought her daughter would simply tell her the truth and go back to school and behave like none of it ever happened. Wow, lady... that's some hardcore denial.

My mother was a lot like Emma's if you swap playing Bridge for the adultery. Sometimes bad things happened to us when no adults were paying attention. This was pre-helicopter parents--and explains why so many of those kids grew up to be helicopter parents. Edited June 6, 2015 by shapeshifter

[stonehaven]

I really loved this episode as the layers came through..it seemed the music was taken down a notch..Manson was allowed to fade a bit to the background...and the atmosphere seemed to dictate the narrative..It was a fast moving hour.. I feel like we are finally getting to the heart of the story...

[helenamonster]

Like the previous episode, I started to get a little frustrated with Show when Hodiak was beating Manson at the end, because I can guarantee that no one watching actually thought he was going to kick him to death, but I'm glad they ended up using it as a way for Shafe to get in deeper with the Family. Although I'm a little afraid that my little cutie pie isn't going to make it out of this series alive. How often to things end well for undercover people on television?

 

Sadie showing up at the Karns' gave me the heebie jeebies.

 

#WhereIsCharmain2K15

 

My mother was a lot like Emma's if you swap playing Bridge for the adultery. Sometimes bad things happened to us when no adults were paying attention. This was pre-helicopter parents--and explains why so many of those kids grew up to be helicopter parents.

 

This is exactly what I was thinking. One of the explanations I'm always hearing for helicopter parents is that they overcompensate with their children because it just wasn't the parenting norm to be extremely involved in your kids' lives when they were growing up. Not out of lack of love, necessarily...both of my parents grew up working/middle class in the '60s and '70s. My dad was the seventh of eleven kids, and got into all kinds of shenanigans because his parents were working overtime to feed them all. My mom only had one sister, but she talked about how her parents never came to any of her field hockey games or band concerts because her father was a truck driver (worked nights and slept during the day) and her mother had to take a job at an insurance agency to pay for braces for her two kids. And these were people who grew up during the Great Depression, where it was very much every man, woman, and child for themselves. Parenting has certainly evolved over space and time, and how each generation parents their children is based on improving how they were parented. Mary from Downton Abbey gets criticism all the time for not being a more involved parent with George, but that's just not how it was done. You spent an hour every day with your kid and the nanny took care of the rest of it.

 

As for Grace, she seems to be just as bad as Ken when it comes to protecting their reputation. As far as she's concerned, Emma running away never happened because if it had, it would be a very obvious black mark against the family and Ken's political aspirations. I think she cares about Emma a lot more than Ken does, but she thinks if she just ignores the situation it will go away. I don't think she realizes the impact her and Ken's parenting has had on Emma, which was made obvious by that speech where she blamed Hodiak, of all people, for Emma running away again.

[miles2go]

Man, Hodiak really does make bad decisions when he's pickled, doesn't he?  He nearly turned Manson into jelly.  I almost felt sorry for the creep. (almost)

 

And speaking of bad decisions, Hodiak really may have blundered in having a thing with Grace.  I started off really liking the woman, but now . . .I raised an eyebrow over her bringing him (dragging him?) to that political fundraiser.  She doesn't ask him whether he wants to go or not, it's just "I bought you a ticket.  Be there."  And, then, of course, there's that ridiculous "You're a failure" rant.  Opal is starting to look pretty good, in comparison.

 

Hmm, I guess that's all I have to say.  Most other thoughts I had about this ep have already been expressed by others earlier in the thread.  

[shapeshifter]

Elsewhere (a rare, non-troll IMDb thread, for example) people posting about this episode are saying that Emma might be Hodiak's daughter because when Sam asks Grace why she married Ken, she says that she was pregnant and he (Sam) was long gone. Not sure what I think about that.

Rewatching this episode live, I wished they had been more authentic with the hair styles. I wonder if the choice to make them a modern spin on the time period was deliberate. Even just looking at images from that time it's easy to see that Manson, Vickery, and probably Shafe would've had longer hair and beards. Sadie and the other Manson girls would not have had bangs. And, as I've mentioned elsewhere, the "square" women would've had enough hair spray to make their hair stiff, and Hodiak's "stupid hair cut" ( Shafe) would've been shorter.

The good thing about rewatching is that I was able to turn my attention away from the TV during Hodiak's beat down of Manson. I still wonder if anything like that ever happened.

Edited June 19, 2015 by shapeshifter

[miles2go]

Maybe they fudged a bit on hairstyles and beards to make identification of characters easier?  Especially the beards -- if all the "hip" guys had beards I don't think I could tell any of them apart!

[helenamonster]

Elsewhere (a rare, non-troll IMDb thread, for example) people posting about this episode are saying that Emma might be Hodiak's daughter because when Sam asks Grace why she married Ken, she says that she was pregnant and he (Sam) was long gone. Not sure what I think about that.

 

I definitely felt that vibe at least once (can't remember which episode, though). Again, it's so hard to tell the timing of these things with the age difference between McManus and Duchovny.

[smiley13]

I definitely felt that vibe at least once (can't remember which episode, though). Again, it's so hard to tell the timing of these things with the age difference between McManus and Duchovny.

But the age difference between the actor and actress has nothing to do with the characters.

[helenamonster]

But the age difference between the actor and actress has nothing to do with the characters.

 

True, but they don't even remotely look the same age. I generally don't have trouble suspending disbelief (and it helps that Duchovny has...er...whatever the male version of "kept it tight" is) but I can't see these two as high school sweethearts. Hodiak is old enough to have fought in WWII, but Grace doesn't look that old.

[miles2go]

Curiously, I'm having no problem with that at all.  If Grace looks a bit younger, I figure it's because she's had a bit of work done.  She has the economic means to have all the plastic surgery she wants, and she's certainly concerned about her image.

[shapeshifter]

Curiously, I'm having no problem with that at all. If Grace looks a bit younger, I figure it's because she's had a bit of work done. She has the economic means to have all the plastic surgery she wants, and she's certainly concerned about her image.

Was plastic surgery really used that way in the 60s?

ETA: I suppose that with plastic surgery being so common today, and with Aquarius being unabashedly fictional, and also with Aquarius having repeatedly played fast and loose with anachronisms thus far, perhaps there is an assumption that the audience will go along with a wealthy mature woman looking a lot younger since that's the way they look onscreen today.

Edited June 24, 2015 by shapeshifter

[miles2go]

Was plastic surgery really used that way in the 60s?

ETA: I suppose that with plastic surgery being so common today, and with Aquarius being unabashedly fictional, and also with Aquarius having repeatedly played fast and loose with anachronisms thus far, perhaps there is an assumption that the audience will go along with a wealthy mature woman looking a lot younger since that's the way they look onscreen today.

 

 

Oh, for Heaven's sake.  Yes, facelifts and other forms of cosmetic surgery have been around for a long time. Yes, even in the ancient days of the 60's. There aren't that many anachronisms in Aquarius, really.

[txhorns79]

True, but they don't even remotely look the same age. I generally don't have trouble suspending disbelief (and it helps that Duchovny has...er...whatever the male version of "kept it tight" is) but I can't see these two as high school sweethearts. Hodiak is old enough to have fought in WWII, but Grace doesn't look that old.

 

While I would agree that the characters don't have to necessarily be close in age to the actors playing them, in real life, Duchovny is nearly twenty five years older than McManus.  He looks good for his age, but in no way would I ever believe those two are supposed to be in the same age range.  My thought is that the character McManus is playing was meant to be played by an older actress.  They've aged McManus up somewhat with the 60's wardrobe, but she doesn't look beyond mid-30s, while the character should likely be in her mid-40s.    

Edited June 28, 2015 by txhorns79

[shapeshifter]

...They've aged McManus up somewhat with the 60's wardrobe, but she doesn't look beyond mid-30s, while the character should likely be in her mid-40s.

If she got pregnant right out of high school and had 17-year-old Emma (is she 17?) at 19, Grace would be 36.

[txhorns79]

If she got pregnant right out of high school and had 17-year-old Emma (is she 17?) at 19, Grace would be 36.

 

That's certainly possible, but then how old is Hodiac, and how would they have met and dated?  I understand that this is just fiction, but I do feel like the storyline is a bit wonky. 

Edited June 28, 2015 by txhorns79

[shapeshifter]

ETA: Even though I'm quoting from the next episode thread, the quoted portion is not spoilery, IMO.

That's certainly possible, but then how old is Hodiac, and how would they have met and dated? I understand that this is just fiction, but I do feel like the storyline is a bit wonky.

I posted more about this in the Whiter Shade of Pale episode thread (the airing schedule of the show is certainly not conducive to linear discussions! --bold added):

I first watched this episode online a week or two ago and then watched it "live" again last Thursday. I noticed a few things I missed the first time around, including a possible explanation of the age gap between Sam and Grace:

In the scene between Grace and her mother, we see a close up of the needle of the record player dropping onto the first song of the last album in the stack, which is Grace and Sam's song, "Time After Time," which, when it starts playing, visibly (to us and to Grace's mother) effects Grace. Her mother has just asked Grace about the state of her marriage and Grace, under the influence of the song, says, "I love my husband," but we (the audience and Mom) know she really means Sam. Mom then comments on the song and how Grace listened to it over and over the summer between high school and college.

So.

This tells us Sam and Grace were in love after she graduated high school, which means Sam did not have to be a classmate or perhaps even in high school when she was. I can imagine my 18-year-old self meeting, say, a 25-year-old Duchovny/Sam and swooning over the "older" man. He might have even been 28, which would not have been too scandalous at a time when many girls married out of high school, but recent high school grad boys were not able to provide for their non-working, soon to be pregnant wives (if not already pregnant) as well as a more mature man with a G.I. Bill education.

This still leaves us with a slightly too young-cast Grace, but that also gives her a young, vulnerable vibe not unlike Emma, who, like Mom, is under the spell of an older man--a man whose world view is not all that different from her father's (if in fact Ken is her father and not Sam). I wonder if they will explore the parallels between Grace and Emma in season 2.

Edited June 29, 2015 by shapeshifter

[Chas411]

I suppose this was the first episode we saw Grace interact and be a parent to Emma. For the past few episodes she's been scared because she thought she was in danger but now she has Emma back under her roof it appears Grace has just slipped right back into her old habits.

 

Is Ken and every other man he works with having secret flings with Charlie?