Prodigal Son 1.17: Stranger Beside Youby Wolfen MoondaughterReviews may contain information that could be considered 'spoilers'. Readers should proceed at their own risk. Network
Credits Grade: 9 A mommy-blogger's husband is murdered at a party celebrating their new baby. Eve's secret comes to light -- how will the Whitly family react?The whodunit aspect is great in this episode, well thought out, and full of really great twists / misdirections and a lot of poignancy! The mystery involved a falsehood that could actually easily be refuted with a little time, but it was a lie that was easily believed, and the investigation would have had to continue in the meantime anyway. Mystery-wise, this is probably my favourite episode to date (outside of the ones involving Paul). The stuff with Eve is really good too, emotionally complicated. I was actually a little surprised at the resolution -- they did a nice job making me think it was actually going to go in a different direction, and then pulling the rug out! Of course, any time Malcolm is put through the emotional wringer, I'm going to eat that right up, and this ep provided well on that front, but the angst was just as delicious when coming from others, too! Bonus, there are not one, but two really lovely scenes between Malcolm and TJ! I'm very pleased with how their working relationship has been evolving into friendship, with TJ coming around to respect and even care about Malcolm rather than just be annoyed by him! Spoiler time. Still with me? Okay. Loved the little throw-in of Gill still missing his car! I'm a bit disappointed that Edrisa's moment of heroism was turned into a failure (since Malcolm didn't actually end up needing to be saved) and a joke / awkward unrequited crush moment. Jessica's line to Eve after Ainsley, having grilled the woman for a minute, cheerfully reveals that of course she looked Eve up: "My children can be socially bizarre, but it's best to find it endearing, and not deranged." Pure gold! The two plots are subtle in correlating to each other this ep (there's more correlation between the case and TJ's life -- a fun point -- than the other plot), but I appreciate the common theme: how it's actually pretty common for people to create illusions about themselves. In the cases of Eve, the au pair, the victim, and the mommy-blogger, their lies were not meant maliciously, but of course the lying was quite malicious on the part of the killer. The mommy-blogger and her husband projected the life they wished they had -- and more or ls made it happen, too, even if they were kind of profiting under false pretenses! The au pair was understandably afraid for her life. The killer's image -- as a loving husband -- enabled him to evade suspicion for a while, and deflect blame to his wife. The bit on the bridge, where it looked like the mom, Alessa, was about to drop her baby from it, was a fantastic bit of misdirection! So was Alessa's claim that au pair Christine was her surrogate -- she had good reason to hide it, since her baby might have been taken away, since Nina wasn't hers biologically or legally (since Christine was basically giving baby Bina to a couple she felt would be better parents, but was afraid of her abusive husband finding out). I would tell Malcolm that the mother is NOT going to be okay after all this, but then again, by his standards ... sure, she'll be fine. Eve had good intentions -- trying to learn the truth about her sister -- but really, it would have made more sense to be up-front from the get-go, considering that Jessica clearly wanted to know the identity of the owner of the bracelet, and so wouldn't have tried to stop her. I mean, if Eve had just said, "Oh my god, I think that's my sister's!", she would have gotten answers that much sooner, and I don't really see a feasible reason for her to have not done that, aside from contrivance to create drama. At the same time, I don't think Jessica has grounds to be upset -- the woman was looking for a loved one Jessica's husband killed. Jessica should have more sympathy for how the woman might do anything to learn what happened, especially considering that Eve has only been helpful to their family, not harmful. Thankfully, Malcolm is ultimately more level-headed and reasonable. I knew immediately knew that the opening scene was a dream -- like, the moment we heard the music -- but I wish, for Malcolm's sake, that that little domestic moment had been real (except for Dream-Eve lying, of course). I loved Malcolm's self-awareness within his dream, when Dream-Eve asked him what was wrong: "I think it's just, ah ... this is when the scary thing usually happens." And considering what happened the last time he slept around Eve -- him waking up delusional and trying to kill her -- Eve being at his side as he woke up, accepting that this is his "normal" and being supportive, was very sweet. I mean, I suspect Malcolm / Dani are endgame, and I'm very good with that, but I do like Malcolm / Eve a lot, and wouldn't really be upset at this point if the show decided to go that route instead (aside from their lack of diversity compared to Malcolm / Dani). I am glad, though, to see Whitly ultimately be against Dani (despite initially sounding creepily supportive) -- it's a point in that relationship's favour! Symbolically speaking, if Whitly had been all for it, I would have taken that as a clue that it's actually a bad idea. And extra-narratively speaking, it's certainly an interesting thing to have Malcolm ask Dani, one love interest, to run a background check on his other love interest, and her refuse! I think most shows would have had her do that herself, as a jealousy thing -- it really paints her in a good light that she won't do that (and hopefully they don't have her change in that regard). The phone conversation between Whitly and Malcom was pretty interesting! Whitly is still cleaving to this notion that Malcolm is avoiding him; considering how he'd been ready to blackmail Jessica when he thought she was keeping them apart, that doesn't bode well. I love that, when he said he accepted Malcolm's apology, Malcolm said firmly that he wasn't -- I'm glad to see this sign that he's gotten past his guilt (or that he at least understands that he has no reason to feel it, even if maybe he still does). Whitkly gave him permission to stab him, in order to save a life. And that none of what had happened would have happened if Whitly hadn't been a murderer, spurring the other guy to seek revenge. Malcolm really has nothing at all to apologise for! Whitly and Malcolm's dinner conversation was also very interesting. On the one hand, I can see why Malcolm would want to consult a pro, especially as Malcolm is NOT a natural liar himself, but on the other hand, why would he expect a liar to tell the truth? Also, he's a profiler -- Malcom should already be an expert on this subject (and has demonstrated on multiple occasions that he is), even if he's not proficient at lying himself. (At least Whitly's medical expertise also proved insightful!) But I do appreciate that Whitly reminds us that not everything a liar says IS a lie -- indeed, the more truth there is in the lie, the stringer it is. So was Whitly telling the truth here when he said that he did love his family ...? And it's beautifully ironic that what he says about accepting that people have secrets -- that it's a natural part of human nature, and falling in love means accepting the risk of being duper -- would, in normal circumstances, be good parental advice, but proves terrible when actually applied to him! It's also both bittersweet and creepy that he points out that Malcolm wouldn't exist if he hadn't taken that risk -- it's Jessica for whom it proved a bad gamble, but her children still wouldn't exist if she hadn't taken it. I appreciate that Malcolm squashed Whitly's attempt to "have a moment". Of course I loved Malcom's heartbroken throwing of his phone, his mother and sister's worry for him, and especially his refusal to take a break from work after Eve had just broken his heart, wanting to deal with something he could fix instead of something he didn't believe, at the time, could be fixed. And I'm glad that he opened up to Dani enough to clue her in when she asked, even if he didn't want to actually discuss it. I appreciate that Malcolm did forgive Eve, and his wisdom about determining if the girl really was her sister, even as I totally understand why Eve would think it was better to forget and move on. I actually thought it was going to turn out that the girl in the box wasn't her sister after all, that this would be an ongoing mystery for the series! I'm glad, though, that they aren't dragging it out .... Written: March 29, 2020
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