Here’s something fascinating about Sharp Objects: every episode takes place over a single day. With the exception of the season premiere, this show tells its story in day-to-night increments. Every installment begins in the morning, when Wind Gap is serene and idyllic, the pace of life molasses-slow. That superficial calm is gradually chipped away over the course of the day, and by nightfall chaos reigns—case in point, the exhilarating and deranged climax of last week’s episode. The consistency of the day-to-night device makes the two faces of this town starkly clear: this is a dangerous place masquerading as civil.
Except in this week’s episode, things are openly repugnant, even in the daylight. Calhoun Day is finally upon us, which means the townspeople all gather in “celebration” on the grounds of the Crellin house to watch teenagers reenact a brutal and creepy chapter in Wind Gap’s history. According to Adora, this day “celebrates what is immoveable about this place, and about us,” which may inadvertently be the most telling thing she’s said in the show yet, if “what is immoveable” is racism and violent misogyny.
That play that Amma unsuccessfully tried to rewrite does not end with her character Millie forming an all-female militia; it ends with Millie being gang-raped and tortured by Union soldiers for refusing to give up Confederate secrets. And while Amma seems calm and even amused while she’s reenacting this horror, she becomes suddenly distressed when a fight breaks out between Bob Nash and John Keene afterward, and flees into the woods. Camille immediately knows where to look, and when she finds Amma hiding in that creepy shed (which, it turns out, is an old hunters’ cabin) she seems haunted and fragile, immediately crying in Camille’s arms. We’re led to assume that her freak-out is the direct result of dropping acid with her cast mate right before the play, but there’s clearly something much deeper wrong with Amma. Last week’s ending was a red herring, but that doesn’t mean she’s not in danger.
As the episode’s title suggests, the sisters are growing closer: Amma is confronted for the first time with the depth of Camille’s pain, thanks to a monumentally cruel bit of manipulation from Adora. Adora forcing Camille to walk out of the fitting room in her underwear, revealing the full, horrifying extent of her scars to Amma, is the most difficult scene to watch in the show yet—by some distance. It’s close to unbearable, even before Amma leaves and Adora starts in on Camille, telling her it doesn’t really matter that she no longer cuts herself, because she’s “ruined.” Tellingly, Adora calls Camille’s actions “spite.” Her self-absorption is so all-consuming, Adora can turn her daughter’s self-harm into an attack on herself, and now that she sees her daughters forging an alliance, Adora’s treatment of Amma is becoming similarly abusive. “You made me bleed—both of you,” she whimpers to them in the store. Moments later, Camille muffling a scream into a pretty pink dress feels well-earned.
Adora has by now realized that Richard represents a kind of sanctuary for Camille, and so naturally, she does her level best to poison him against her daughter. While she’s less direct than Vickery, who straight up warns Richard that Camille is “a bad apple from a good tree,” Adora invites him into the house and tells him just enough syrupy half-truths about Camille to make him wonder. She says Camille is recovering from a recent episode, and that she’s “delicate… a rare rose, but not without thorns.”
Adora does stop short of telling Richard about her daughter’s self-harm, but after nightfall, she asks Camille to have a drink with her on the veranda and brings up the issue. When Adora starts to apologize, Camille is heartbreakingly quick to take the blame herself, assuming that her recent article about Wind Gap is what provoked her mother. Camille assumes that it’s her fault, that if she were different, if she were better, Adora wouldn’t treat her this way. It’s a classic abusive dynamic, and yet I—like Camille—keep expecting better. I keep expecting a moment of true tenderness from Adora, particularly in this scene where Camille’s talking about her intimacy issues. “I never get close,” Camille admits, and Adora responds by telling her that her father was the same way, “and that’s why I think I never loved you.” She slides the knife in so gently. This scene is devastating.
Shattered yet again by her mother, Camille goes straight to Richard’s motel for another erotic and emotionally charged sex scene. She strips him down completely but keeps her own clothes on, insisting that they do this her way. He complies, just as he did last week when she put his hand inside her underwear, and in this relationship Camille is able to find something like power. But it’s a brittle kind of power, and this is not a show where the love of a good man will save Camille. Curry, who has the genuine parental love for Camille that her mother lacks, is beginning to realize what a severe error in judgement he made when he sent her back to Wind Gap. He tells her how good she is – one of the few decent people he knows – but after only a few days, Wind Gap has its claws deep into her. When an entire town is telling you that you’re poisonous and dirty, it’s hard not to start believing it.
Key clues:
If you or someone you know is struggling with self-harm or substance abuse, call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
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