[S2E3] The Freak Show
We all get freaked out from time to time, but we keep trying because you have to figure, if the world fattest twins can find love there's hope for all of us. Somewhere, out there, there's another little freak who'll love us, understand us, will kiss our three heads and make it all better.
[S2E3] The Freak Show
Because right now, this show looks and behaves like a good show in certain ways, but it is not actually a good show. Pretty and glamorous, yes. It is well-lit! It is beautifully costumed! It is impeccably designed! But as a story, it is ... well-lit. This episode feels like table-setting for episodes that are yet to come, but (so?) there's a lack of momentum and tension about the events that are actually unfolding.
I am begging this show: Less of the stuff like Alex waiting out Laura at the interview, trying not to go out of her dressing room area first. There's a reason people call petty power moves petty! They are petty, in that they are trivial, in that they are not compelling, in that they lack meaning unless they are imbued with it from elsewhere! Even if they are true to life, they are not interesting. We already know Alex is a spoiled celebrity; this does not offer new information.
Elsewhere in the great big world of ethical compromises, Alex freaks out when one of Laura's questions seems to carry an implication that perhaps she slept with Mitch at some point (reminder: she ... did). So Chip re-edits the footage of Alex's stammering and evasive response so that it doesn't look as incriminating (tired: lying for Mitch; wired: lying for Alex). Still, it's hard for Alex not to worry about where, exactly, Laura got that question, particularly because Laura has an excerpt from Maggie's upcoming book.
I am extremely here for a romance between Bradley and Laura, let me be clear. But did this have to be the way this started? Does everything that happens on this show have to be ... you know, gross? Alex covering up her relationship with Mitch, Chip helping her, Laura making out with her mentee/subject, Mitch being pure of heart all of a sudden ... and most concerning, are all the things these people do supposed to be gross (or at least gross-adjacent), or is it supposed to just be one of those It's Complicated situations? You can certainly make a show where everybody is terrible, but you have to know that about it as you're writing and casting and directing it, like Succession does. This, on the other hand, is a show where everybody is gross, but all the actors are ones who trade on your ability to like them.
Think about the actors who play the family on Succession: Jeremy Strong, Brian Cox, Sarah Snook, Kieran Culkin, Alan Ruck ... whatever you can say about those people, they're not trying to play those characters America's-Sweetheart-style. They're going to have to work hard to ever play anybody who's not a monstrous stain on humanity again. But then think about Aniston, Witherspoon, Carell, Margulies ... all of those people have pasts as "beloved" actors (which is not to say they haven't done other things and sometimes done them well, so don't email me, Tracy Flick). The show leans on their likability to protect the characters they're playing. There's an unwillingness to let practically all these characters be what they really are, which is mundanely disappointing rich and powerful people. Not villains, not dastardly monsters, just the kind of careless, oblivious, money-poached dodos who make the world a little bit worse.
Over and over, the show is sort of noncommittal about its central figures, not in the way that suggests nuance, but in the way that suggests a muddy quasi-moral point of view that's not fully thought through. But at least in addition to reliving COVID, we get to relive the most recent presidential election. Wheee!
Are all men freaks? Carrie dates a bunch of freaks before she meets Ben, then ruins a great thing when she turns into a freak; Samanatha goes on a first date with a man who wears dog collars and likes to be slapped around; Charlotte dates "Mr. Pussy" but realizes that's all he's good for; Miranda gives up on dating entirely.
Carrie turns freakish herself after dating a string of freaky guys. Miranda dates "Manhattan Guy", a guy who hasn't left Manhattan in 10 years. Charlotte dates "Mr. Pussy" and tries to make a real relationship out of it. Samantha decides to get plastic surgery.
Becky awakens in the house they are using as base next to an also awakening Grant Leetham and an awake Ian, who is staring at her. Arby enters, having made the group breakfast, which Grant distrusts. Becky, remembering that he said the SWAT team wanted Christian Donaldson, asks if they can leave, but Arby tells her their DNA is all over the building they escaped from. If they want to leave safely, they have to figure out why the Network wants Donaldson dead, Arby wanting to help because he is "turning over a new leaf." Anton tries to talk to Grant, but he flippantly dismisses him. Arby states that for Donaldson to not be already dead, the decision to kill him must have been made in the past few days. Donaldson admits he recently spoke with his old ex-Network professor Dobri Gorski to ask after Tony Bradley. Grant looks Gorski up and informs the group that he is dead, ran over in a hit and run that morning. On Arby's prompting, Donaldson tells them that Gorski told him "Jimmy Deeshell is a fat man" and Donaldson Googled the name, finding no results. Ian connects the dots and realizes his search for the name is what prompted the Network to go after him. Arby tells them that he knows someone who can help and instructs them to get ready to leave. Washing the dishes, Becky hallucinates blood instead of water on her hands. Ian notices and tries to ask what is wrong, but Becky irritatedly dismisses him. He tells her that he missed her and is disappointed by her initial reaction to seeing him, but they are interrupted by Arby asking "where is Jessica Hyde?" Becky explains they do not know, they last they heard of her being her taking the Utopia Experiments manuscript to Milner, who Arby does not recognize by name. Ian explains she is on their side, but Arby muses that "there are no sides. Just people who help you and people who don't." Exasperated, Ian asks Arby how they are supposed to trust him and if the Network is really after them, and Donaldson interrupts to point out a newscast where Ian has been framed as Joe's killer via edited CCTV footage. Grant shows Arby how to break into a car while Becky checks on Ian. Donaldson interrupts and Becky angrily dismisses him, sheepishly explaining to Ian that she slept with him when she first found out she had Deels because of his knowledge.
An exasperated Geoff Lawson rewatches the V-Day promotional video and arranges to meet with Milner, instead being forced to meet with Leah Gorsand. Lawson insists that the health department's support of V-Day will kill his career and he has the potential to be the Prime Minister, but Gorsand informs him that will not be necessary and tells him to announce it by that evening. He asks where Milner is, and Gorsand tells him she is busy. Milner is watching Jessica in her cell, noting that she has not moved for eight hours. Gorsand warns her that she has delayed work on V-Day for too long, and any longer will render their goal impossible. She begs Milner to let the Network extract the information from Jessica's brain, but Milner tearfully insists Jessica is all she has left of Philip Carvel. She gives in, and a guarded Network doctor comes to collect a still unresponsive Jessica. They take her to a surgical facility and the other doctor steps out to fix a step in the procedure. Jessica rises from the table when the doctor's back is turned and injects him with his own sedative. The other doctor returns and Jessica jumps on his back, jamming a needle of more sedative into his neck without injecting him and showing him that she drowned the unconscious doctor in a medical sink, establishing that she will kill him if he does not cooperate. He instructs her on how to leave and he has her walk her there, still on his back. He takes her to a medical waste chute and pleads for her not to inject hm as the dose of sedative has to be exact, but she does anyway after asking him what part of her brain he was going to remove. Jessica climbs out of a medical waste dumpster covered in blood and runs off.
Lee sits down with Wilson Wilson as they wait to be briefed, calling him "the one-eyed freak who shot me in my lung." Wilson reminds Lee that he put out his eye, stating it makes them even. Lee notes that they are not even by a "long shot," pronouncing "long" as "lung." Milner arrives and informs them Donaldson is with Becky, Ian and Grant, and she is sending Wilson with Lee because he knows them. Wilson tries to protest, but Milner orders him to take care of it as she has "other things to focus on." Lee insists they will make a great team, telling Wilson he can "keep an eye out." Lee continues to taunt him in the car, revealing he was the one who killed Wilson's father. They investigate the house the group was staying in, Lee finding and eating a raisin on the floor, realizing Arby is with them.
The Night Shift was renewed for a second season on July 1, 2014, and when Gabe Sachs received the call, he described it as "the greatest moment ever, amazing." On December 12, 2014, it was revealed that the show would be returning on February 23, 2015 in the post-Voice timeslot.[3] At a TCA Press Panel, series creators Jeff Judah and Gabe Sachs both said that the new timeslot with such a powerful lead-in was "a really big deal for us."[4]
The role of Landry de la Cruz (portrayed by Daniella Alonso), the lone psychiatrist on the night shift, was scrapped for season 2 amid "changes in the creative direction" of the show. At A TCA Press Panel, executive producer Jeff Judah stated that "we're opening up and getting more surgery and more of the paramedic world." Series creator, and executive producer Gabe Sachs added that "creatively we just decided to focus more on the ER stuff."[7] On October 30, 2014, it was revealed that Adam Rodríguez would be joining the cast as a recurring character, Dr. Joey Chavez, a newly hired trauma surgeon. He is an Air Force Veteran who fought in Iraq, and brings an Eastern Medicine perspective to his cases.[5] On November 7, 2014, Merle Dandridge was cast for a recurring role of Gwen Gaskin, "a lead paramedic working at San Antonio Memorial Hospital and the best friend of Jill Flint's Dr. Jordan Alexander."[8] 041b061a72