S01.E01: Arrangement in Grey and Black

[formerlyfreedom]

Quote

In the series premiere, a prominent Boston family discovers their recently deceased patriarch is linked to a series of murders across several decades.

[Primetimer]

What happens when a member of a prominent Boston family is a suspected serial killer? It's not a laugh every minute.

View the full article

[ChlcGirl]

A cat's tail is cut off in the first show? I'm outie.

[The Real Chon]

Is this going to make us miss Lucas Buck?

[Snookums]

Oh, Jamey Sheridan! He's making a real niche for himself playing rich fucked up dads not that he's not playing a cop anymore!

*reads rest of article*

Soooo...the drug addict divorcing parents with the sociopath animal mutilating Dr. Moreau Jr. kid aren't the black sheep?...'kay.

[Angela Hamilton]

Oh, Jamey Sheridan! He's making a real niche for himself playing rich fucked up dads not that he's not playing a cop anymore!

*reads rest of article*

Soooo...the drug addict divorcing parents with the sociopath animal mutilating Dr. Moreau Jr. kid aren't the black sheep?...'kay.

Somehow not, though if we are expecting sensible things to happen on this show we are asking too much.

[Sandman]

7 hours ago, The Real Chon said:

Is this going to make us miss Lucas Buck?

I thought that was what NCIS N"Awlins was for.

Quote

... a creepy af nine-year-old son who is obsessed with mortuaries and embalming fluid and who for some reason is neither reprimanded nor sent for therapy after hacking off the neighbor's cat's tail with a pair of garden shears, which, why, but also, WRITERS, SERIOUSLY, WHY.

Co-signed!

Also: Is Virginia Madsen really a bigger name than Jamey Sheridan? I ... guess? I mean, I mostly think of her as Princess Irulan, but there was poor Helen in Candyman. (That movie's also a SERIOUSLY, WHY, CLIVE, WHY?? kind of experience for me.)

Edited June 23, 2016 by Sandman

[Shermie]

It was entertaining enough, like the article above says, packed with cliches.  It really seems like The Family, complete with generic long straight-haired blondes, a political campaign by a woman (natch), psychologically tortured brother, perky optimistic sister, serial killer, family secrets, and so on and so forth and what have you.

Is it 13 episodes? Too many, that drags it into September, when it feels like summer shows should be wrapped up, 10 eps is plenty for this stand-alone stuff.

[bmoore4026]

Well, this show makes me miss Under the Dome.

Of course there's some creepy ass child that's an insult to everyone on the autism spectrum.  Of course there is.  Because TV writers suck.  And he's unimaginative to boot. 

You know what's nice.  Light.  Light is nice, especially on TV shows.  Everything on this show looks like it was lit with an energy saving light bulb.

When the hell is Zoo coming on?

[Anela]

10 minutes ago, bmoore4026 said:

Well, this show makes me miss Under the Dome.

Of course there's some creepy ass child that's an insult to everyone on the autism spectrum.  Of course there is.  Because TV writers suck.  And he's unimaginative to boot. 

You know what's nice.  Light.  Light is nice, especially on TV shows.  Everything on this show looks like it was lit with an energy saving light bulb.

When the hell is Zoo coming on?

LOL! I just finished watching the show, and was amazed that Zoo got a second season. 

I only tuned in for Antony Starr. I missed parts of it, but are we supposed to think the boy has hurt the cat? Someone above mentioned a cat without a tail (I missed that). 

Is the one sister having an affair with her campaign manager? And is the mother protecting herself, or another family member? 

I don't know if I'll have the patience for this. I might record the episodes and watch a few at a time, and see how I feel about it as it continues. The title confused me, because when I was younger (21 years ago), I liked another show called American Gothic. 

Edited June 23, 2016 by Anela

[Chaos Theory]

OK I am in.

 This was all kinds of awesome. I especially liked that the show went there and had the mother be all evil and creepy and killer.   I love everything about the show.  When I first heard about it I thought it sounded like it might be in my wheelhouse and watching it...it so so much is.

I don't give a damn about  cliches if they are entertaining cliches.  I don't need every show I watch to be shiny and new.    I just want the characters to be interesting and the storyline to be entertaining and what isn't entertaining about this?   You have a brother and sister go with some possible murder evidence to their sister who basically says "Well yeah but then I won't get elected."    You have a creepy kid who is actually entertaining weird and not boring weird.  And you have an family who has geniune chemistry with each other.   

I am actually curious who the killer really is.  I am guessing it is not really the mom.  Please be the nice sister.  Please be the nice sister.

I am putting my bet in now that is the nice sister.  

Edited June 23, 2016 by Chaos Theory

[Sandman]

1 hour ago, whimsey98 said:

I remember her well from "Sideways" and she has quite a resume.  I don't know that she would be considered a bigger name than Jamey Sheridan...in my mind, they would be rather equivalent.  Good actors, dependable actors, and ones I enjoy watching.

Oh, yeah! I can't believe that one slipped my mind -- I loved her in Sideways.

A show that makes one miss Zoo might just be the last word in Not Good.

Edited June 23, 2016 by Sandman
Because Zoo.

[pezgirl7]

40 minutes ago, Anela said:

I missed parts of it, but are we supposed to think the boy has hurt the cat? Someone above mentioned a cat without a tail (I missed that). 

Is the one sister having an affair with her campaign manager? And is the mother protecting herself, or another family member? 

I don't know if I'll have the patience for this. I might record the episodes and watch a few at a time, and see how I feel about it as it continues. The title confused me, because when I was younger (21 years ago), I liked another show called American Gothic. 

The boy cut off the cat's tail with garden shears as an experiment to see if it could cut through bone. He didn't seem remorseful. Hurting animals as a child is an early sign of serial killers, so I'm thinking it runs in the family. I have no idea who the murderer is. Seems like it would be someone less obvious than the dad, mom or older son.

I do think the one sister is having an affair with her campaign manager. Her husband probably knows. He didn't seem very happy.

Another poster above mentioned Lucas Buck from the 1995 American Gothic show. I watched that one too!

[Cardie]

Although this show does not promise the delirious absurdity of Harper's Island, pulpy whodunits that wrap up in 13 episodes are my summer catnip. I wonder if the DNA from the belt will reveal the killer's gender; all the women seem more likely than the men, although this sort of killing is not usually a female specialty. I wish the Addams-family kid hadn't done that to the cat, as he's not really obnoxious, just morbid. But animal mutilations are Psycho 101.

The parents obviously think they know that one of their kids is Silver Bell and have tried to handle the situation. Mom is of course willing to off Dad to keep her precious offspring safe. A good twist would be that creepy brother, though innocent, has taken the rap and gone into exile, so parents didn't really know the score. Family's name of Hawthorne is surely a shout-out to Nathaniel Hawthorne and his many spooky stories.

[hatchetgirl]

Quote

. A good twist would be that creepy brother, though innocent, has taken the rap and gone into exile, so parents didn't really know the score.

Agree! It's totally the older sister.  The young one seems too young to have done it.  

[justmehere]

With the exception of the kid mutilating the cat (please don't keep going that route; the morbid fascination with death was quite enough), I thought it was pretty good. It made me curious enough to want to keep watching, plus, Antony Starr -- and Dylan Bruce, though I hope he gets a line to say here and there somewhere. I liked the younger brother and sister together too.

[shrewd.buddha]

It felt like this show was trying to cover all the bases .. to the point that the younger sister needed to be married to a policeman who was a minority. 

I sat through it, but wasn't pulled in very far by the story. The younger sister appears to the most normal child and sort of the center of the show - - but she came off as somewhat bland and naive. 

I am guessing the serial killing will begin again and things will pick up. This episode felt really slow because of all the setup, history, character introductions, etc. I could easily imagine this unraveling into a big mess with lots of bad twists : "he's the killer ! ... no, she's the killer ! ... no, it's the mother ! ... "

[Cardie]

If I were writing this, the father would be the killer and not a psychopath but someone who needed these six people dead and made their murders look like the work of a serial killer. Thus they stopped when he'd eliminated his targets. His wife felt that his confessing would ruin the family but the suspicions among the children would destroy the family far worse than a confession by the patriarch ever would. The murderer turning out to have died in the first episode is not a satisfactory conclusion for this sort of by-the-numbers show, however, nor would it permit the inevitable resumption of the killings.

[NorthstarATL]

17 minutes ago, Cardie said:

If I were writing this, the father would be the killer and not a psychopath but someone who needed these six people dead and made their murders look like the work of a serial killer. Thus they stopped when he'd eliminated his targets. His wife felt that his confessing would ruin the family but the suspicions among the children would destroy the family far worse than a confession by the patriarch ever would. The murderer turning out to have died in the first episode is not a satisfactory conclusion for this sort of by-the-numbers show, however, nor would it permit the inevitable resumption of the killings.

Oh, someone can always take up the family business! That's what kids are for! When the good sister asked Garrett where he had been for so many years, I wanted him to say "Well, I was sort of a Sheriff in this weird town..."

I cracked up at the Whistler's Mother homage that ended the ep. I'm in.

[candall]

12 hours ago, bmoore4026 said:

Well, this show makes me miss Under the Dome.

You know what's nice.  Light.  Light is nice, especially on TV shows.  Everything on this show looks like it was lit with an energy saving light bulb.

A 60-minute test pattern wouldn't make me miss the Dome, but I don't see why we couldn't have invested this budget into season two of The Family, where the groundwork for these same people has already been laid.  And I prefer everyone hating a pedophile who controls his impulses over an animal mutilator who doesn't--cue the blank expressions.

The lighting was ridiculous.  I had to pull out my special User Mode, normally reserved for Game of Thrones.  I know GoT, sir, and you are no GoT.

 

Agree that ten episodes would have been preferable--I think this story could've been told with three fewer hours of misdirection.  If this were a book, I'd skip ahead, skim the last few pages and decide whether the destination justified the journey.

[peacheslatour]

15 hours ago, Shermie said:

It was entertaining enough, like the article above says, packed with cliches.  It really seems like The Family, complete with generic long straight-haired blondes, a political campaign by a woman (natch), psychologically tortured brother, perky optimistic sister, serial killer, family secrets, and so on and so forth and what have you.

 

It has the same basic story structure as Dark Shadows, I'm so in!

[sjohnson]

Virginia Madsen killing Jamey Sheridan by pinching his oxygen tube was so weird it was kind of funny. Cute trick putting the pulsox meter on her own finger. But they missed that the IV stand would have been beeping maniacally. Nurses are pretty quick to get those because the sound will drive them mad toot sweet. 

For some reason like the druggie cartoonist and the dippy cop's wife and am amused by the cartoonish pol-ness of the pol sister. So I'll try it an episode or two more. If only to find out how Garret can go out in public without people calling the police because they're frightened.

[Ms Lark]

1 hour ago, NorthstarATL said:

I cracked up at the Whistler's Mother homage that ended the ep. I'm in.

I did wonder why they called the ep Arrangement in Grey and Black, since that's the actual name of the painting, until they did the homage at the end. Uh, huh, ok. So far we have American Gothic and Arrangement.

Spoiler

Looking at  the upcoming titles (Jack-in-the-pulpit, Georgia O'Keefe and Nighthawks, Edward Hopper) it seems each will be pieces of famous American art.

I still wonder how it factors in, since all we have are a cartoonist and a morbid young artist who, while talented, are not producing museum-quality fine art.

Nonetheless, I'm in, too, even though "someone's [not] at the door."

Edited June 23, 2016 by Ms Lark
Grammar (in grey and black)

[Gudzilla]

On 6/22/2016 at 1:47 PM, The Real Chon said:

Is this going to make us miss Lucas Buck?

Well it has notLucas Hood.

[Sandman]

5 hours ago, Ms Lark said:

I still wonder how it factors in, since all we have are a cartoonist and a morbid young artist who, while talented, are not producing museum-quality fine art.

Nonetheless, I'm in, too, even though "someone's [not] at the door."

Are we meant to suppose that the killer considers himself or herself an unrecognized artist? (This idea carries shades of the (in my humble(ish) opinion) execrably self-serious twaddlefuckery of Hannibal, but there it is.)

Edited June 23, 2016 by Sandman

[partofme]

I really want to like this but the pilot was boring and I was really confused by the characters and who was who.  The "Norman Rockwell" family showed up and then we never saw them again unless I missed it.   I really miss The Family on ABC, that show set the standard for me.

Edited June 23, 2016 by partofme

[ChlcGirl]

22 hours ago, Sandman said:

I thought that was what NCIS N"Awlins was for.

Co-signed!

Also: Is Virginia Madsen really a bigger name than Jamey Sheridan? I ... guess? I mean, I mostly think of her as Princess Irulan, but there was poor Helen in Candyman. (That movie's also a SERIOUSLY, WHY, CLIVE, WHY?? kind of experience for me.)

I am showing my age here, but I will always think of her as Kelly in Modern Girls.  When I saw that movie, I wanted to be Kelly.  And then I love was renewed when I saw her in Gotham, with Tommy Lee Jones.

And then I forgot about her.

[tanita]

I'm guessing that the older brother accidentally caught dad/mom/older sister killing and he left because he couldn't deal with it or was forced to leave to protect the killer. Older sister is my no.1 suspect, especially how he was eyeballing her in the hospital and the look he gave to her twins before the dad had a heart attack. I doubt it's the youngest sis, she was like 13 when the murders stopped and it's already borderline unbelievable that a woman could strangle a man with a belt, let alone a child. the younger brother has a drug problem and being a serial killer is too much. older bro and dad are too obvious and mom just offed someone so i doubt it.

Edited June 23, 2016 by tanita

[Happytobehere]

On June 22, 2016 at 1:47 PM, The Real Chon said:

Is this going to make us miss Lucas Buck?

Gary Cole's presence can only help the show.  He could be dead Daddy's brother (I knew Sheridan would buy it the first episode, just didn't know VM would kill him until his let's tell the truth moment in the hospital).  Since we are going with cliches, Cole's character would be having a long standing affair with Virginia Madsen and is the bio dad of at least one of the four kids; plus he can serve as another potential suspect.  

Good casting with the older daughter, she looks like she could be Madsen's daughter.  The dark hair and beards make the actors who play the brothers look like they could be related.

Show was okay otherwise.  I will give it a few more episodes to see how it's progressing. This and Outcast might be my summer shows since Preacher has disappointed thus far.

Thanks to the poster who mentioned Anthony Starr as the older brother.  I was going crazy wondering where I knew the actor from.

[Sandman]

I agree about the effective casting for family resemblances; I think the actresses playing the sisters are both plausible as Madsen's daughters. At the same time, though, the casting is kind of creeping me out because I keep wanting to call Alison "Amazing Ali," or "Mayor Gone Girl." Juliet Rylance resembles Rosamund Pike in a way that unnerves me. I suspect that it's meant to. (It might be just me, but I also keep seeing similarities between Tessa (Megan Ketch) and Mamie Gummer.)

The final image of Maddie as Whistle-Blower's Mother was fairly chilling.

Edited June 25, 2016 by Sandman

[Black Knight]

4 hours ago, partofme said:

I really want to like this but the pilot was boring and I was really confused by the characters and who was who.  The "Norman Rockwell" family showed up and then we never saw them again unless I missed it.   I really miss The Family on ABC, that show set the standard for me.

The wife in the "Norman Rockwell" family is the older daughter who's running for mayor, so we saw a lot of her. We also saw a fair amount of the kids, her twin girls - she introduced them to Garrett, and found out from them at the end what Garrett had actually said to his father. The only one we didn't see much of was the husband, played by Dylan Bruce - we just saw him exchanging looks with his wife a few times during the big family group scene with the consultant, and then sleeping in bed at the end of the episode while she went off to text her consultant.

[Jordan61]

11 hours ago, sjohnson said:

Virginia Madsen killing Jamey Sheridan by pinching his oxygen tube was so weird it was kind of funny. Cute trick putting the pulsox meter on her own finger. But they missed that the IV stand would have been beeping maniacally. Nurses are pretty quick to get those because the sound will drive them mad toot sweet.

Thank you! I said the same thing to my husband. Plus, could you even kill somebody by pinching that thing off? I had to wear one after a surgery but I occasionally  took it off when it was bugging me and I was fine.

Another nitpick: the cop husband told the campaign manager you have to turn in your uniform when you make detective. Of course that's not true, do they think we haven't seen the billions of movies/TV shows with cop funerals when they all wear their uniforms?

Husband & I thought it was hilarious that Antony Starr slept on the floor just like in Banshee!

All in all, pretty cheesy and bad. Which is a shame, because it's full of actors I like (Justin Chatwin-Shameless, Juliet Rylance-The Knick, Stephanie Leonidas-Defiance, Virginia Madsen, the aforementioned Antony Starr). 

Lastly, I LOVED the original American Gothic, watched it from the first episode and was so disappointed when it was cancelled. I have the DVD set around somewhere, I might have to dig it out and give it a rewatch.

[thuganomics85]

Man, what does Jamey Sheridan have to do in order to survive past a pilot?  Then again, maybe he like this.  I guess it isn't a bad gig.  You don't have to be tied to a show, but your character will continue to have significance; wherever it is causing your son to put on a green hood and shoot people with arrows or have your family wonder if you are a serial killer!

Not a bad way to past the time, but this totally reminds me of The Family, with all the political drama and focus on maintaining a perfect "family image", despite insanity going on behind the scenes.  Of course, the whole serial killer things is different at least, but I suspect there will be a lot of family dramas, hiding the truths, mysteries, and backstabbing.

Virgina Madsen is always great.  Cracked up over seeing both someone I know from Under the Dome (Megan Ketch) and Revolution (Maureen Sebastian, the campaign advisor, in this.  Also seeing Stephanie Leonidas as a human and not as an Irathient/alien like on Defiance, was nice.  Glad that Merlin/Elliot Knight apparently made it out of Once Upon a Time after-all.  And then two former Orphan Black guys with Justin Chatwin and apparently Dylan Bruce, although I don't even remember his character.  Feels like he might end up being recast or something going forward.

Jack's insane, y'all!  Poor Caramel!  I don't care if he's blood; family should like that kid up in a padded room and hide the key.

All I will speculate about the Silver Bells Killer for now is that it would actually be the biggest twist ever if it is actually Garrett.  Because right now, he is so being set-up as the "guy who everyone and their mother things did it, but totally didn't", and it would actually be refreshing if it ended with him all "Oh, no.  I so killed all those folks!"  But I'm guessing that won't be the case.

[Guest]

18 hours ago, Ms Lark said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Looking at  the upcoming titles (Jack-in-the-pulpit, Georgia O'Keefe and Nighthawks, Edward Hopper) it seems each will be pieces of famous American art.

I still wonder how it factors in, since all we have are a cartoonist and a morbid young artist who, while talented, are not producing museum-quality fine art.

Nonetheless, I'm in, too, even though "someone's [not] at the door."

Maybe it's Sheriff Buck.  That's Buck.  With a B.

[Free]

On 6/22/2016 at 8:40 PM, Shermie said:

It was entertaining enough, like the article above says, packed with cliches.  It really seems like The Family, complete with generic long straight-haired blondes, a political campaign by a woman (natch), psychologically tortured brother, perky optimistic sister, serial killer, family secrets, and so on and so forth and what have you.

Is it 13 episodes? Too many, that drags it into September, when it feels like summer shows should be wrapped up, 10 eps is plenty for this stand-alone stuff.

That's exactly what it reminds me of, the lesser version of The Family.

[Catri]

On 2016-06-23 at 9:25 AM, candall said:

The lighting was ridiculous.  I had to pull out my special User Mode, normally reserved for Game of Thrones.  I know GoT, sir, and you are no GoT.

 

Agree that ten episodes would have been preferable--I think this story could've been told with three fewer hours of misdirection.  If this were a book, I'd skip ahead, skim the last few pages and decide whether the destination justified the journey.

I hated the lighting.  I feel that if the story was stronger they wouldn't need the contrived lighting scheme to emphasize the gothic feel.  It actually annoyed me that it was so unrelentingly dark, even GoT isn't dark all the time!

I think I will treat this one exactly like a book and wait until it's over, check in here to see how it ended, then decide whether I want to watch the rest of the eps.

[blackwing]

I loved it, I love big family dramas and I love mysteries, so I thought this was great.  I did have some trouble telling some of the characters apart.  The two blonde daughters look too similar (and Virginia Madsen does not look old enough to be their mother, even though I think she probably is), and the two dark haired sons look too similar.

For my own benefit in trying to keep these people straight, I will list out who I think is who:

Allison - older daughter, in politics, running for mayor, daughter of twin 5 (?) year olds, seems to be primarily concerned with anything that will affect her campaign, dislikes the older brother because she thinks he is bad for her image

Garrett - older son, 38 years old, left town 14 years ago, loner, don't know where he's been, allegedly said to dad that "I'm gonna tell them it was you"

Cam - younger son, cartoonist, semi-recovering drug addict, estranged from his wife who is still a drug addict, father of a creepy 10 year old who is obsessed with dead bodies

Tessa - younger daughter, 27 years old, inquisitive, married to a police detective

Madeline - mother, seems to know the "secret", doesn't seem to get along with Garrett, killed her husband because he was going to spill the "secret"

Brady - Tessa's husband, detective, wants to solve the Silver Bells case to make a name for himself, clearly a diversity addition to the show

Naomi - Alison's campaign manager, got texted by Alison in the middle of the night

Sophie - Cam's junkie estranged wife, has a huge nasty back tattoo, seems to have no issue with her son being creepy

Dylan Bruce - Alison's husband, supposedly was on the show according to previous posts here, but must have blinked and missed him, appeared to be sleeping next to Alison when she got up in the middle of the night?

Jamey Sheridan - buh-bye!

 

I thought this was a good introductory episode, the characters were nuanced and we learned quite a bit about their personalities and what their motivations are.  Looking forward to the rest of the series.

So we are supposed to believe that the Silver Bells Killer was either Garrett or Dad.  I don't get why someone who had done all those killings would have still kept a box of the signature bells even after s/he was done killing.  I'm guessing it won't be either of them, but that doesn't leave many suspects within the family.  Tessa seems too young, she would have been 13 and I don't think a 13 year old girl would have been able to strangle all of those people.  Madeline is certainly a suspect, as is Garrett.  I'm not sure how old Cam is supposed to be, but he has a 10 year old son, so I'll say he is at least 32, which definitely makes him old enough to have been the SBK.

I don't think it is Allison.  You can smell the poop in her panties anytime anyone in the family says or does anything that will hurt her campaign.  The ultimate death of her campaign would be the reveal that she killed lots of people when she was in her mid-20s.

That being said.... Please please PLEASE let the killer be Allison!

Edited June 24, 2016 by blackwing

[sugarbaker design]

I know Dylan Bruce from Orphan Black, he's a pretty decent actor.  I don't think he would take this role if it were just the politician's supportive spouse.

[blackwing]

48 minutes ago, sugarbaker design said:

I know Dylan Bruce from Orphan Black, he's a pretty decent actor.  I don't think he would take this role if it were just the politician's supportive spouse.

I dunno.... he took on the gig as an assistant district attorney on "Arrow", and it was a fairly do-nothing, ho-hum background character role.  Then the character was written off.  I think this was going on at the same time as his role on "Orphan Black" so maybe that had something to do with the character leaving the show.

Maybe he's the killer?  We haven't gotten enough backstory on him to know if he was around 14 years earlier.  He and Allison's children are fairly young so it's possible he wasn't in the family back then.  But he could have been the killer, met Allison, and then hidden his box of souvenirs in the rarely used shed in the backyard of her parent's estate.

[sugarbaker design]

or he could've been the killer's protege...and then the killer's son-in-law.

[tanita]

given the newspapers with the younger brothers cartoon drawings in the memorabilia, i would assume that the killer is/was family 14 years ago - unless he was with alison back then i would exclude him. or  they better have a killer explanation for it.

by the way, after reading all of you're comments about the 1995 show and sheriff buck, i started watching the original american gothic. awful 90's effects and some questionable cinematography, but a much better story and more dynamic cast. i know it's set in south carolina, but, my god, the southern accents everywhere :p.

Edited June 24, 2016 by tanita

[blackwing]

I never watched the 1995 American Gothic, but I'm seeing a lot of references to it here.  As far as I know, this show has absolutely nothing to do with the 1995 show, right?  They just happen to share the same title?  

Really cool at the end when Virginia Madsen turned and we saw the imagery of Whistler's Mother.  Since all of the episode titles appear to be works of art, it would be neat if the image of each was somehow captured in the episode.  The next episode is called "Jack-in-the-Pulpit", which is a painting of a flower by Georgia O'Keefe.  Will be looking for flowers next week.

[Sandman]

No connection between the shows whatsoever; I think the title must simply prove irresistible to showrunners because of its juxtaposition of the wholesome ( implied "All-American") and the macabre. The 1995 show had a fairly explicit supernatural element its premise, in that Sheriff Buck (Gary Cole) was more-than-heavily-implied but just-less-than-overtly-stated to be, well, Lucifer. He and Gail Emory (the female lead played by Paige Turco) were contending for the soul of a child named Caleb (Lucas Black), who at least gave indications, unlike Jack here, of having one.

I don't think of this show, in spite of its obvious similarities to The Family, as a cheap knockoff. Partly because, as much as I liked the cast of The Family, the characters all absolutely repelled me. I'm not usually one to insist on a show's having only characters I can relate to or admire, but in the case of The Family, I just couldn't handle being around them for more than an episode; even though this family includes at least one murderer, and probably more, I'm intrigued enough that I want to stick around to see what happens, even despite the tail-truncating grossness of Jack's "experiment" and the ooky drawings.

Edited June 25, 2016 by Sandman

[Margherita Erdman]

On June 22, 2016 at 10:47 AM, The Real Chon said:

Is this going to make us miss Lucas Buck?

I have missed Sheriff Buck ever since the original American Gothic was canceled. Such a perfect combination of seducer and creeper, just as Lucifer should be...the original snake in the garden.

On topic? I didn't like this pilot much, and not just because of the animal mutilation (and the family's complete and utter lack of alarm about it — I was relieved they rushed poor Caramel to the vet, but how on earth did they explain the "mishap" to Caramel's owner???).

Youngest daughter Tessa is likeable enough, but dull, as is her husband, and I think they are set up to be the good guys of the piece. Otherwise it's just not that interesting so far.  I expect a lot of exposition in a pilot, which is fine, but there wasn't even much of that. We know there was this Silver Bells killer, but hardLy more than that — who were the victims? What did they have in common? Were there any suspects? What was the deal with Dad's true crime hobby? Etc.

And seriously, it cannot be asked enough, what kind of family dysfunction or habits of denial are in play that a child morbidly obsessed with violent death and rapidly progressing to remorseless torture of neighborhood pets is not headed immediately for mental health assessment and intensive psychiatric intervention? Tessa is a schoolteacher and a mandated reporter for this kind of thing in her professional life. If at school she found a sketchbook like the one belonging to her nephew, complete with a diagram of a dismembered Caramel, she would be required to report it to authorities and get that child in the system for help and follow-up long-term.

 And did anyone notice the aside from the kid that he was inspired to draw the strangled and disemboweled bodies after borrowing grandpa's iPad? WTF was that about? If I were his dad I'd be snatching up that iPad tout de suite and scouring it for clues.

On June 22, 2016 at 8:02 PM, bmoore4026 said:

Of course there's some creepy ass child that's an insult to everyone on the autism spectrum.  Of course there is.  Because TV writers suck.

As the parent of a child with autism and someone highly involved in the autism community, I don't disagree that TV writers suck on this issue in general and that it has become an overused trope/catch-all unto itself;  I consider myself pretty sensitive to any hint or implication of a spectrum disorder.

But I didn't see that here... just a kid who at first presented with weirdly specific interests. Plenty of gifted or introverted or ADHD or simply quirky kids can have narrowly focused interests, not necessarily indicating a developmental, emotional, neurological, or mental disorder — and anatomy and pathology may just be two of those interests.

But then he attacked that cat and that put him over the line into mental disorder territory — still not ASD. ASD can be co-morbid with an emotional or mental disorder, but they are separate things, separate diagnoses altogether. ASD is associated with a lack of cognitive empathy — the inability to imagine the thought processes and life experiences of another — but generally are in line with the general population with affective or emotional empathy, the ability to identify and to identify with the feeling states of others. I know many ASD children and adults who are hypersensitive to this actually, so tuned in that they can find it unbearable to be around others who wear their hearts on their sleeves. With my son for example I must stay on a very even keel outwardly no matter what I'm feeling, or he gets very very anxious. My husband and I can never raise our voices or yell, not even to each other, he finds it so very upsetting. But I digress!

On June 22, 2016 at 8:13 PM, Anela said:

I only tuned in for Antony Starr. I missed parts of it, but are we supposed to think the boy has hurt the cat? Someone above mentioned a cat without a tail (I missed that). 

Is the one sister having an affair with her campaign manager?

Love Antony Starr, but he was a little too scruffy for me here, even after scraping his face raw with that knife  maybe if he had hacked off some of his raggedy hair also.

Psycho kiddo (son of the cartoonist) hacked off the neighbor's cat's tail with garden shears in the basement — I guess we knew there had to be a payoff to the increasingly frantic visits from neighbor lady about her missing cat. Begs the question where was the cat being kept all that time, though.

Also, not to be too gruesome or nitpick too much, but (I do feel if there is going to be a graphic depiction of animal cruelty it ought to be dealt with realistically and not casually, as if it's easily fixed and no big deal: A) a tail is a limb, like a leg, with a complete articulated skeletal structure and a full set of nerve endings and everything, and it plays a key role in balance, etc., so that cat would have been screaming in fear and pain, alarming the whole house, rather just the brief yowl and flee as if it were merely startled by something; (B) it would have scratched the hell out of the dad trying to capture it to get it to the vet; (C) the blood loss would have to be immense; (D) as far as I know, you're not going to find a specialized veterinary vascular surgeon and orthopedic surgeon on call at an emergency vet some random place to attempt a reattachmsnt, if that's even possible; and (E) on the spectrum going to be obvious this was an animal abuse case, and the kid seems incapable of keeping his creepy-ass mouth shut, so it would seem inevitable the vet's office would call the cops, right???

That late night text sure seemed like the kind of thing you'd send to a lover not a business colleague right?

On June 22, 2016 at 9:02 PM, pezgirl7 said:

Hurting animals as a child is an early sign of serial killers, so I'm thinking it runs in the family.

I do think the one sister is having an affair with her campaign manager.

I'm with you on both counts.

On June 23, 2016 at 9:20 AM, NorthstarATL said:

When the good sister asked Garrett where he had been for so many years, I wanted him to say "Well, I was sort of a Sheriff in this weird town..."

I cracked up at the Whistler's Mother homage that ended the ep. I'm in.

That would have been ten kinds of awesome if Garrett had even just said he was in Indiana instead of Maine.

The Whistler's Mother tableau was one of the few redeeming features of this episode for me. Now if one of the menfolk gets out in front of one of those mansions in overalls holding a pitchfork at some point, I may really commit.

On June 23, 2016 at 11:12 AM, Ms Lark said:

I did wonder why they called the ep Arrangement in Grey and Black, since that's the actual name of the painting, until they did the homage at the end. Uh, huh, ok. So far we have American Gothic and Arrangement.

  Hide contents

Looking at  the upcoming titles (Jack-in-the-pulpit, Georgia O'Keefe and Nighthawks, Edward Hopper) it seems each will be pieces of famous American art.

I still wonder how it factors in, since all we have are a cartoonist and a morbid young artist who, while talented, are not producing museum-quality fine art.

 

On June 23, 2016 at 4:15 PM, Sandman said:

Are we meant to suppose that the killer considers himself or herself an unrecognized artist? (This idea carries shades of the (in my humble(ish) opinion) execrably self-serious twaddlefuckery of Hannibal, but there it is.)

My guess is that someone or someones involved with the creation and running of the show has an art history degree that they have decided to bust out and put to work, whether it fits or not from week to week. Do t forget the Norman Rockwell reference at the beginning as well as the "original Pollock" that seemed totally out of keeping with the house and taste of the mom and dad.q

On June 23, 2016 at 8:05 PM, Sandman said:

Juliet Rylance resembles Rosamund Pike in a way that unnerves me. I suspect that it's meant to. (It might be just me, but I also keep seeing similarities between Tessa (Megan Ketch) and Mamie Gummer.)

I love Juliet Rylance but since my only previous knowledge of her has been in The Knick, it is disconcerting to see her in modern clothes (fabulous wardrobe though it is, just my kind of fashion-forward structured dressing) and hair I do see the coldness you're speaking of, though. She seems uninterested in parenting her twins except insofar as maintaining them as darling campaign accessories.

Until I saw your post, I thought Tessa was played by Mamie Gummer, although there was something not quite right about the face and eyes so I was going to double check.

[Sandman]

I agree about Ali's accessorizing with the twins, rather than being a parent to them. I guess I didn't pick up on the Pollock being out of step with the parents' taste -- except that their taste seems to me to be along the lines of "Oh, hello! Did we mention we're fabulously wealthy? And also that we have LOTS of money?"

Of course, if this show were Secrets and Lies (or The Shining) the creepy twins would be the killers.

[Guest]

On 6/23/2016 at 8:05 PM, Sandman said:

 (It might be just me, but I also keep seeing similarities between Tessa (Megan Ketch) and Mamie Gummer.)

The final image of Maddie as Whistle-Blowers's Mother was fairly chilling.

I agree about the cast looking like a family.  The Tess actress looked like Taylor Schilling to me, a bit.  

Good thing I read here about the ending.  CBS All Access ran the credits 3/4 through on my playback somehow which I didn't notice at the time.  

On 6/23/2016 at 9:58 PM, Jordan61 said:

Thank you! I said the same thing to my husband. Plus, could you even kill somebody by pinching that thing off? I had to wear one after a surgery but I occasionally  took it off when it was bugging me and I was fine.

Another nitpick: the cop husband told the campaign manager you have to turn in your uniform when you make detective. Of course that's not true, do they think we haven't seen the billions of movies/TV shows with cop funerals when they all wear their uniforms?

I laughed at pinching a cannula for 3 seconds to kill someone, too.  If only.  

I kind of wondered if the cop saying he had no blues was his way of saying 'fuck no' to the campaign manager.  It was kind of an insulting request, I thought. 

I'm looking forward to this.  I love a short mystery and the kid seems like a novel character.  Though I agree you don't just scoop up a sleeping, mutilated cat and hold it in your lap on the ride to the vet.  You'd have to cage it and it'd be putting up a fight.  Though maybe the drug addict dad shared some downers with it.  

Garrett is too much of a blaring red herring to be the killer.  And the other kids except the councilwoman are too young, right?  Who else would the mother kill the father to protect?  (Actually I haven't watched the end of this ep yet and am not sure if he dies but I'm assuming that was her goal.)  

Oh no.  I just googled the show to see a cast member's name and saw an article that said it's loosely based on a real serial killer who was (don't read if you don't want a potential spoiler)

Spoiler

a deceased patriarch, whose family discovered his crimes after his death.  Here is the link:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/btk-serial-killer-daughter-speaks-out-american-gothic/

Edited June 25, 2016 by Guest

[tanita]

^^^ well, if that's true, it's kind of anti-climactic, though it will probably make sense in the end.

[hatchetgirl]

That will be lame if that spoiler is the true.  So very very lame.  Cam is way too obvious.  His older sister or his mom could have done it.  His mom was far too quick to dispatch her beloved hubby.  

[Guest]

I read a novel that was also inspired by that killer and it was chilling.  I'll spoiler the name and author and further info, just in case.  

Spoiler

Stephen King's "A Good Marriage", which I see now was also a 2014 movie starring Joan Allen and Anthony Lapaglia as the parent couple.  

[Guest]

I'm guessing now it'll be like The Family where you don't wonder WHO the big bad is for too long, but the mystery is who all in the family is involved in the cover-up and how far will they take it, and how will the others react when they find out.