TERRY

Last week, Joe, you said in the beginning that you were struggling with every fiber of your being not to chat about the way the episode ended. Well, “In the Pines, In the Pines” seemingly felt the same way because it doesn’t start with Holly (Cynthia Erivo) driving Jack (Marc Menchaca) to some uncertain place. It begins with an ominous overhead shot of a forest and a beetle that’s stuck on its back before transitioning to Ralph (Ben Mendelsohn) getting up in bed. It’s the quickest cold open The Outsider has given us, but it seems to suggest that Ralph is still stuck on his metaphoric back, unable to come to terms with the supernatural situation he’s found himself in.

What I find interesting about Ralph in this adaptation is how different he is from the Ralph in Stephen King’s book. In fact, they almost seem to be the inverse of each other. Novel Ralph is very adamant Terry Maitland (Jason Bateman) killed the boy. There’s no room for doubt. It’s not until after Terry’s death that Ralph begins to even court the idea that it wasn’t him. But TV Ralph has doubts almost from the beginning; once the enigma of Terry being in two places arises, he regrets jumping the gun. Then, the exact opposite occurs when Ralph is presented with Holly’s findings. Novel Ralph, with coaxing from Jeannie (Mare Winningham), is more open to the explanation that Holly presents at her meeting. TV Ralph, meanwhile, stays hard-nosed and resilient that it’s all a bunch of crap.

We get a couple quick scenes to bring us up to speed. Andy (Derek Cecil) packs his overnight bag and heads to Cherokee City to meet up with Holly and I wrote here in my notes “Calling it: he’s a disposable character.” I don’t think he’s long for this world, Joe. Meanwhile, Ralph realizes that a spooked Jeannie has moved the fourth chair--the one The Outsider sat in--outside and has already ordered a replacement. She doesn’t want it in the house...and I can’t blame her.

Another quick scene of Howie (Bill Camp) chatting with Glory (Julianne Nicholson) sets up the Checkov’s Lawsuit that you know is going to come back around later in the episode (spoiler: it does). He wants her to sue sue sue and, again...I can’t blame him. Her life, as we have seen over the previous six episodes, has gone to shit since Terry was arrested and this episode continues the trend. She needs to get back to work because the pantries are getting bare, but it’s obviously going to be an uphill battle to start selling houses again.

There’s a lot of setup going on in this first part of the episode, but it hums along. I didn’t find myself bored, even as I wanted it to get to the Holly/Jack action. But, like the show, I’m going to take a measured approach to get to it because something happened last episode that I didn’t really understand the meaning of until now. Claude Bolton (Paddy Considine) got in a fight at the bar in “The One About the Yiddish Vampire” and I guess I don’t understand how bouncing works. He was told to cool off and went outside, but apparently he was fired (with an envelope of cash for severance). And in a conversation with the bar’s owner, we learn that the scratch on his hand doesn’t just allow The Outsider to change into him but it also seems to affect its victim. Claude mentions that he doesn’t quite feel himself and, while the owner laughs it off, we know it’s not the town. It’s El Cuco.

Which finally leads us to the main event. What did you think about this episode, Joe? Now that we’re finally with Holly and Jack, how did their scenes play to you? What did you think of Holly’s switcheroo in the bathroom? And did this episode make you feel a little bit sad for Jack?

JOE

This is an interesting one, Terry. It still feels a bit like a placeholder - an episode that slooooows things down so that a few characters can play catch up before the series inevitably hits the gas pedal in the ramp up to the finale. Yet, I, too, found that I wasn’t bored. Unlike a few episodes ago with “Tear-Drinker”, this episode really feels all about Ralph coming to grips with the fact that his Scully-esque beliefs aren’t going to help him solve the case. He has to “let go” in order to “let something in”; otherwise he’s just standing in the way of progress, as both Holly and Jeannie yell at him (more on that in a bit).

“In The Pines, in the Pines” is a bit of an oddball episode, isn’t it? As you suggested, writer Dennis Lehane (!) really takes his time delaying the inevitable showdown between Jack and Holly. While I definitely appreciated her ingenuity (and luck) in forcing an escape at the gas station, it was her tentative questions of Jack and his struggle to...I don’t know…”guide” her without aggravating the thing that is controlling him that I appreciated the most. There’s tension, but I was pretty certain the series wasn’t killing its break-out character, so I was able to relax into their conversation, even as Holly became increasingly certain that she is driving to her own execution.

As for Jack, I’ve never been as interested in him as I was in this episode. I was legitimately frustrated when he became infected early in the season because it’s such a classic (read: boring) Stephen King trope, but Marc Menchaca has really blossomed in the last few episodes as he tries - and fails - to fight The Outsider’s influence. Watching him wrestle with the desire to kill himself in the woods before walking back to the road to hitch a ride in that rig is hugely compelling to me: he’s trying to fight these impulses, which makes him inherently human, even if ultimately we all know that he won’t be successful. The fact that Jack is still free and wandering around at episode’s end, after everyone knows that he kidnapped (and likely intended to kill) Holly, can only mean bad things moving forward.

But really, as much as it sidelines him for a lot of other character vignettes, this episode is really ALL about Ralph and his “come to Jesus” realization that he can’t feign ignorance of all of this weird shit anymore. I love that Jeannie is primarily responsible for driving his two big crises in this episode: first when she challenges him on his lack of interest in Holly’s whereabouts and then, after Holly has driven herself back, when Jeannie (and Holly) take Ralph to task for his willing ignorance.

We’ve talked a great deal about the truly excellent work that Mare Winningham (and Julianne Nicholson) have been doing on this show, and I know that it’s a cheap ploy to give a character a soliloquy or an explosive outburst to rile audiences up; if that makes me an easy mark, I’m fine with it. I literally clapped when Holly and Jeannie snapped at Ralph in the kitchen because it’s everything the audience has been thinking about with regard to his unwillingness to believe these last few episodes. Ralph is a tough nut and Mendelsohn has been playing him with a kind of quiet glower for most of the series, so it’s good to see the cracks in the facade begin to appear.

Lord knows we’re going to need everyone onboard as the danger heats up in the episodes to come.

Terry, I’ll kick it back to you: what did you think of Ralph’s arc this episode, including his extended sojourn with PI Pelley (Jeremy Bobb) and his emergency visit to Dr. Zucker (Steve Witting)? Did his visit with Tamika (Hetienne Park) quiet or heighten our complaints about the way her relationship with Jack has been handled? And does it change anything if I clarify that Claude apparently quit the Peach Crease as opposed to being fired (as confirmed in a throwaway line when Ralph questions the owner, Lenny)?

TERRY

See, I took that throwaway line as a kind of “I didn't fire him, he resigned” because he's chatting with the cops and Claude has had trouble with the law. But maybe you're right, Joe, and I didn't miss anything the previous episode. I love that for me, so let's go with that.

Ralph's arc left me conflicted. On one hand, I appreciated him doing the work and enjoyed the police investigative stuff that led them to where Holly and Jack had their fight. It felt methodical and built tension, particularly with the thrumming score behind it. I don't know if we've talked about the music, but the score by Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans pulses with industrial-inspired beats. It just churns in the background and immediately sets me on edge.

I also enjoyed Alec Pelley having something to do. He’s been more-or-less sidelined after doing the initial investigatory stuff with Terry, so to see him back in his element was fun. I also enjoyed the slightly edgier Ralph, who, when asked, “are we picking this?” in regards to Jack’s door, simply nods. We also get the “gritty cops” talking their feelings in the most “gritty cop” way when Alec tells a story of being lost as a kid and hearing something calling his name. Of course, he has to add “I was a tough little kid back then. I was. Tough as hell” because, you know, masculinity. But when he finally does get into his feelings and admits that, “to this day I’ve never been so shit-scared” the only response he gets from the taciturn Ralph is “Oh.”

Again, cuz you know, masculinity.

I enjoyed all this, but the rest of it just didn’t work for me. Poor Tamika is given even less to work with than before as she fully falls into the “I have a kid now so I don’t want to be in the line of danger” role that women seem to be relegated to. I get it. The sequence when The Outsider was in her home, standing over the baby was terrifying. But is she willingly giving up her years of training on the force and her friendship with Ralph over this? I mean, by withholding information she could theoretically get Ralph and co. killed. I just don’t buy it. I’m also still not sold on his visits to the therapist. I don’t honestly think they add much. And while Ralph is nudging a little closer to believing, we get the image of the beetle, struggling to get off its back. So he’s still obviously not there yet.

I do feel like for seven episodes we’ve kind of ignored the elephant in the room and, to be honest Joe, I’m getting antsy. I feel like I’m seven or eight years old again, watching Jaws for the first time. When I was a kid, my favorite part of that movie was the end when we finally got to see the shark, up close and personal. And I feel the same way here. I want to see their interpretation of The Outsider so bad. I think it’s partly because he shows up a bit more in the book and the way he’s described is deliciously creepy.

Earlier on in the book, Maitlands’ kid describes him as having a play-doh face but what immediately stuck out to me was when she says he had straw for eyes. And even when we don’t see him in the book, he’s always just out of sight (like in Jeannie’s interaction with him) but he has a presence. The only time in the show that I’ve felt that same presence was when Jack first met the creature in the barn. And honestly, Joe?

Show me the shark!

But what about you? Do you care that The Outsider’s presence has been relatively anemic, outside of irritating Jack’s flesh and the dreams he’s been presumably sending the heroes? Or is the slowburn, “don’t show the monster” working for you? Did you like how Glory went all Oprah at the end with “you get a lawsuit! And you get a lawsuit! And you!”? And now that everything is out in the open, is it time for a cross-state sojourn to find Bolton?

JOE

Hmmm. One of the things that I love the most about doing these back and forth reviews with you is when we have different interpretations and/or reactions. I mean, I’m right there with you on Tamika - the show has fumbled the character at every possible point and it’s incredibly aggravating because we KNOW what Park is capable of as an actress (Plus: so much care has gone into Glory and Jeannie, so it’s not like the writers don’t know how to write women).

I’ll confess, though, that I had a different read on Pelley. I took his confession to Ralph about getting lost in two ways: at first, I thought perhaps he had had an interaction with The Outsider as a child, but then I realized that it was more likely just confirmation that there are weird, unknowable things that happen in the world. That may be why he and folks like Yun are more inclined to believe. Because they’ve already been touched by the darkness and the mystery.

My mention of Scully up top wasn’t just a casual opportunity to name drop The X-Files. I truly do believe that The Outsider is treading similar narrative waters - only it is putting the debate between the two protagonists of that FOX show into a single doubting Thomas here. That’s why the therapy session with Zucker did work for me in this episode. Ralph may be near monosyllabic when he responds to Pelley’s story in the car, but his inability to articulate his own conflicted feelings in Zucker’s office, a personal variant of “I Want To Believe”, felt really powerful to me.

This isn’t easy for Ralph, and it’s written all over Mendelsohn’s face in that lengthy extended take, which foregrounds Ralph and leaves Zucker entirely obscured in the background. It’s a touch obvious visually, but it really worked for me. Moving forward, I think we’ll see this facade fall away as Ralph realizes that Holly and Jeannie are right: the only way forward is to “let go” in order to “let something in.”

Judging from the preview for next week’s episode, that absolutely involves pursuing Claude Bolton. Howie mentions to Glory that he understands her reticence to sue because it’s only been three weeks since Terry’s death, and we know the whole series is secretly predicated as a countdown clock. We’re forever inching closer to the end of the 27 day period when The Outsider can come out of hiding and feast again.

As for catching a glimpse of what it actually looks like...I’m wary! Part of the reason that Jaws works is because Spielberg holds off showing you the shark until he absolutely has to. The brief glimpses of the villain have been so effective and haunting because it’s just a tease: glimpses from behind and profile shots, obscured in shadow and darkness. It’s so effective because our imaginations have to work overtime to fill in the gaps. While I’m nearly as anxious as you, Terry, to see the shark, I’m also worried.

What if we see the shark...and the shark doesn’t look good?

Perhaps we’ll get our answer next week when we hop back over to QueerHorrorMovies for episode 8, “Foxhead”?