S01.E11: Your Mother Should Know

[Guest]

Trust is an issue when Bunchy asks Hodiak to solve his brother's murder; the Hodiak family comes together to help Walt; Guapo puts Shafe to work; Charlie's mother visits; Sadie sets up Emma.

 

[thuganomics85]

Well, I guess it is really no surprise that Charles has major mom issues, but that has to be one of the darkest and most disturbing endings to that episode.  Attacks his mom, drugs her up, and then sells her body to Roy and the rest of the bikers, to get his gun shipment.  I guess I really should have known that having his mother raped, would certainly not be a line he would be against crossing. Too bad that real life knowledge means that this is only just the beginning of his terror.

 

Bunchy is back for the case of the week stuff, where his brother is the victim, so he asked Hodiak to take the cast himself since he well, distrusts him the least.  Hodiak solves it (undercover agent in the Black Panthers), but Bunchy has quilt over his last words being harsh to his brother.  Still it ends with Hodiak briefly giving Bunchy a supportive hand on the shoulder, and they part without cussing each other out, so... progress?

 

Shafe is now working with Guapo, but still has to be on guard, thanks to workers stealing the stash, and putting him in the cross-hairs.  At least it led to Guapo now thinking Shafe is some crazy dude who takes pictures of the people he kills, so he's got that going for him.  But now he finds out that the guy he was harsh with during the homosexual club case is dead, so now he's feeling guilt.  Guilt for everyone!

 

Sadie finally had enough of Emma being Charles' favorite, and got her arrested.  Hodiak finds out, but seems content to let Emma remained locked up.  Bet Grace is going to love this.

 

Charmain apparently is not doing so good with the lying on the stand rehearsals, but she at least found Lisa Miller for Hodiak. 

[shapeshifter]

...But now [shafe] finds out that the guy he was harsh with during the homosexual club case is dead, so now he's feeling guilt....

Memory help, please. I know in an earlier episode that we saw the now-dead gay guy leaving the bar with another guy's arm across his shoulder showing the stolen ring of another dead guy--the ring identified as missing by the daughter or wife. Who was the original owner/dead guy of the ring? Art Gladner? Or someone else? There's a lot of murders to keep track of in this show, plus, my brain is too old for these 13-episode arcs.

ETA: It was Raymond Novo, the secretly gay Hollywood guy.

And the guy with the ring stolen from Art (when he killed him) is played by David J. Wright, who is

referred to in the penultimate episode as "a Hispanic guy." (Shoulda been a less anachronistic term for person of Spanish and Native American decent, but whatever.)

...Charmain apparently is not doing so good with the lying on the stand rehearsals, but she at least found Lisa Miller for Hodiak.

This one I've got: Lisa Miller is the hooker who filed a missing person report on the hooker that Charles Manson and/or Ken killed, right?

I was so glad that when Hodiak was trying to comfort Bunchy about his dead brother that Hodiak didn't follow, "Families are..." with "complicated," which would have been a lately really overused platitude, not to mention an anachronism.

Instead he said: "Families are [pause] all the same. They don't work. But they do."

Edited June 12, 2015 by shapeshifter

[Primetimer]

Everyone and their mother (and father) shows up for S01E11, so we had no choice but to rank the parent/child relationships we see.

Read the story

[sinkwriter]

I've learned that binge-watching shows via On Demand means it's harder to have conversations about the individual episodes because 1) I have to be careful to keep my mouth shut about what may or may not happen in the upcoming episodes so as not to spoil anyone, and 2) unless I rewatch each episode I can't remember which detail happens in which episode and what people may or may not have seen yet, so I end up not being able to say anything! LOL. I  want to be able to talk about the episodes, but since I've only seen them once and they're no longer fresh in my mind, I'm afraid I'll say something I shouldn't so I don't participate at all. That's no fun!

 

Note to self: binge-watching the episodes is fun because you get to see them all in succession and get sucked up in the story, but if you want to chat about it with people, either keep notes or don't binge-watch. *GRIN*

 

The only thing I can say about this episode is how horrified I was by what Charlie did to his mother. There aren't enough shudders in the world to convey how repulsive I thought that was.

[reggiejax]

The only thing I can say about this episode is how horrified I was by what Charlie did to his mother.

If it is any consolation, that did not happen in real life. In that time period, between his release from prison and the Tate/Labianca murders, Charlie and his mother met once, and only once. He went to see her to ask for money. She refused him and they never saw each other again. Edited June 10, 2015 by reggiejax

[fastiller]

From the recap:

Hodiak & Hodiak Sr.
Peace officer vs. peace activist! Out-and-proud Jew (that enormous Star of David pendant more than answers Eve's question about Hodiak's dad's faith, I would say) vs. assimilationist American!

 

I read it as "Star of David pedant" - oh what a difference an "n" makes!

[shapeshifter]

If it is any consolation, that did not happen in real life. In that time period, between his release from prison and the Tate/Labianca murders, Charlie and his mother met once, and only once. He went to see her to ask for money. She refused him and they never saw each other again.

After this episode I did a bit of Googling to see what did really become of his mother since most of what has been covered in the series seems to be at least a version of something that really did happen. All I could find about Manson's mother's death was that she died of unknown and/or natural causes some time later than the time period covered in this episode. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that Manson had expressed a willingness to see such a fate befall his mother as was shown in this episode, or maybe something like it did happen to her, but not at Manson's bidding. So, overall, I think the show has been true to the history in spirit--even when the history is greatly disturbing.

[shapeshifter]

I've learned that binge-watching shows via On Demand means it's harder to have conversations about the individual episodes because 1) I have to be careful to keep my mouth shut about what may or may not happen in the upcoming episodes so as not to spoil anyone, and 2) unless I rewatch each episode I can't remember which detail happens in which episode and what people may or may not have seen yet, so I end up not being able to say anything! LOL. I want to be able to talk about the episodes, but since I've only seen them once and they're no longer fresh in my mind, I'm afraid I'll say something I shouldn't so I don't participate at all. That's no fun!...

I've watched all but the last 2 and plan to watch them at least by the end of this weekend. Then I hope to rewatch as many as possible live and join in the conversation more actively, hopefully noticing things the second time that I might not have the first. Plus, I won't have to worry about being inadvertently spoiled, especially when reading elsewhere.

As binge-ready releases become more common, hopefully it will also become more common to have bulleted lists of plot points at the beginning of episode threads, including "previously" and notes about previews that have been shown with the live episode. Maybe that info will be packaged in the future by the show's marketing people.

Whoops. This was supposed to be an ETA.

Edited June 11, 2015 by shapeshifter

[helenamonster]

I know I shouldn't be surprised by what Manson did to his mother (in the episode, not real life, hopefully) but oh my God. Oh my God. Just...oh my God.

 

Also yes, let's force Mary to have her baby out in the middle of the desert with only strung-out, untrained hippies to help her! Who needs diapers when you've got love, man? Btw, does anyone know what became of Manson's kids? According to Wikipedia, he has three (two of whom were named Charles; Mary's will be named Valentine). Like are they...ok?

 

I'm hoping this will be the last time Emma waffles between her family and the Family.

 

Seriously smart plays by both Hodiak and Shafe on their respective cases. I will give the show this...it doesn't dumb everybody down for plot purposes.

 

So the gay man from the bar did end up dead...I guess this is the part where everything starts to come together?

[shapeshifter]

Re-watching this live last night I was struck by a lot of foreshadowing. For example, Hodiak tells Emma that prison is where she will end up if she follows Manson. And

Manson doesn't want to bother with diapers or other preparations, and his mother points out that he was a "blue" baby with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck who would have died without professional help. It's as if he doesn't want to be caught having not predicted a catastrophe with the baby's birth, similar to how most expectant parents today don't share the news until after the first trimester, which is when most miscarriages occur.

[queenanne]

What happened to that very large plot point where it seemed like Sadie was nuts, as not only did Mary not fling her arms around Sadie and burst into happy tears upon the sight of her; but that Mary, in fact, looked nothing short of dismayed that the bill had come due, and she was actually required to give up her "good, straight job" and follow them into the wilderness?  Since that point Mary has seemed nothing but serene and happy-clappy to be back with the little troupe of dingbats.

[shapeshifter]

What happened to that very large plot point where it seemed like Sadie was nuts, as not only did Mary not fling her arms around Sadie and burst into happy tears upon the sight of her; but that Mary, in fact, looked nothing short of dismayed that the bill had come due, and she was actually required to give up her "good, straight job" and follow them into the wilderness?  Since that point Mary has seemed nothing but serene and happy-clappy to be back with the little troupe of dingbats.

In my mind, as someone who had my first child without the father present more than 10 years after the timeframe of this show, Mary wouldn't have had much if any social support in having a baby without the father around. So I'm guessing she followed Sadie back to Charlie in an attempt at finding a family for her baby. Does that make sense? Mary did still at least try to suggest that they have the baby in a hospital. But you're right, queenanne, they left out a lot of details.

[Dowel Jones]

So the guilty guy is the tip of the iceberg of the FBI COINTELPRO scandal.  And another nice tie-in to the coming firestorm over the Pentagon Papers, with Hodiak arguing about how the documents were classified versus the larger crime of the secret war in Cambodia/Laos.

[queenanne]

In my mind, as someone who had my first child without the father present more than 10 years after the timeframe of this show, Mary wouldn't have had much if any social support in having a baby without the father around. So I'm guessing she followed Sadie back to Charlie in an attempt at finding a family for her baby. Does that make sense? Mary did still at least try to suggest that they have the baby in a hospital. But you're right, queenanne, they left out a lot of details.

 

Good point, and that could be what they were going for; I was just expecting/hoping to find some kind of plot point where "straight Mary" would rat out the Manson Gang, now that she's gotten a taste of a stable/better life.  I guess that's not in particular possible historically, but I was hoping that someone had sense, left, and realized straight jobs were preferable to peripatetic lifestyles.  Mary certainly looked as if she were realizing it when they showed up on the doorstep, heh.