There's talk about how things are degrading at the mall, but we only get glimpses and a lot of those don't even make sense. I can understand that one lady resenting Alex for being spared when her daughter died, but asserting that Alex is part of the mist is just stupid. The fact that people start to go along with her is even stupider.
I said before that the show taking its time with the crumbling of polite society was going to work in the long run, but they overshot it and its moving too slowly. It makes the attempts to depict that seem jarring and it makes the show feel very inconsistent.
There are bright spots, however; they come mostly in the episode's second half. It, at least, allows the show to end on a high note as there are several "wham moments" presented in rapid succession.
If you haven't seen the episode yet, I'd advise watching it first before proceeding because we're going into spoiler territory here.
Ready?
Not yet?
OK, we should be good.
The first, and most notable, twist is the revelation that Adrian was the one who raped Alex at that party. I'm not going to say that I called it, though apparently many did. I did, however, hope that it was the case. Having the popular quarterback do it would have been too cliche and Adrian started off as a very obnoxious character, so yeah I wanted him to turn out to be the villain of the piece.
How does he fare as such? Well, it depends. The twist doesn't really jibe with what we had seen before. They try to throw in some last minute character development to justify it, but that should have been established and built upon throughout. Although, it does put that mental patient's targeting of Adrian in an earlier episode in a very different context.
On the plus side, Russell Posner acted the hell out of those scenes. You really believed that he was this broken, disturbed, desperate individual. It managed to balance sympathy with creepiness (kind of like the mental patient who took him hostage) and it worked really well.
It gets even more unnerving when you see how he manipulates the people around him. Adrian first convinces Kevin that he killed his dad in self defense, then after holding Kevin at gunpoint, Adrian knocks him out, leaves him to the mist and tells the others that Kevin was a victim of his father's fictitious rampage. It's cold, calculating stuff.
In an odd parallel, we see Gus pull a similar stunt at the mall. His murder of mourning mom could be seen as "justified" given that she was about to undermine his authority and exile him to the outside. His telling the others that Alex did it just to save his own skin was just deplorable and low. I remember a lot of reviewers commenting on the fact that his character was a spineless coward, but this was the first time when that character trait really became clear. Honestly, his attempts to keep everybody calm and remain levelheaded were downright commendable in my opinion.
Frances Conroy continues to shine as Natalie. She's probably the most developed character on the show as she has gone through notable changes as a result of what's happened. Not only does she turn in a compelling performance, but she's also the only one who has any interest in finding out what the mist is all about.
We still know literally nothing about it, which at this point is ridiculous. I'm not sure I buy the "black spring" idea. I was OK with it when it was but one of many possibilities, but it seems like they're locking in to this being some form of "Gaia's revenge". It could work if done right, but so far I don't think the writers are up to the challenge.
I don't see how what happened to Alex is the catalyst for this. It seems too small. Having it be Earth retaliating against mankind for pollution or something would have likely resulted in some eye rolling from the audience, but it's firmer ground than what Natalie is putting out there.
Of course, disagreeing with her at this point is a bad idea as she clearly has no qualms about locking you in a building and then setting the building on fire. Which is kind of like what happened to Alex...huh. Still, it was a pretty disturbing sequence and another one of the big moments that I referred to earlier.
It's clear that this won't be wrapping up in two episodes. There's still so much that needs to be covered regarding the nature of the mist and the things that lurk within it. I did like that this episode started having everybody converge on the mall. I think it'll make for a more cohesive final two episodes. I thought that expanding the scope would work in the show's favor, but that didn't really turn out to be the case.
I don't know if Spike signed for a second season. At this point, it's hard to believe that it'll happen, but it could. I don't know whether getting a second season or having it end here with so many open plot threads hanging is the worse option, but it's looking like those are the choices presented to us.
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