It appears as though Annie no longer has her ace in the hole. I mean, of course, Ace Merrill's corpse being buried. Man, my wordplay is on point with this season. The fact that it all seems to be centered around holes is a little weird, but whatever.
Anyway, Annie's encounter with a seemingly revived Ace Merrill has her a little spooked. To her credit, Annie is aware of her condition; thus takes into account the possibility that it's all in her head. The first thing she does is try to go back to where she left the body to confirm that it's still there. Unfortunately, she's unable to, so there was no closure on that front.
Even with that, though, she later comes to the conclusion that her new batch of medication was altered and that she's suffering from side effects. It's a logical conclusion to come to, though really it seems like it's more there to give Annie a reason not to take her meds when Joy is brought into the fold and starts to think that her mother is spiraling.
You can't fault Joy for coming to the conclusion that she does. The apparent reveal that Ace is alive and well only lends credence to it. All in all, she acts very intelligently throughout the episode. She still doesn't have the whole picture, but you can see that she's putting pieces together.
Speaking of Ace's state, he's in surprisingly good condition given what happened to him. Joy may think that Ace's murder was a hallucination or an outright lie, but this is one instance where we know better. Besides, it would be a shame to negate that awesome moment. You'd think that other characters seeing Ace alive would confirm that Annie is right, but given his aforementioned state and the fact that she was the only one who was ever aware of the murder, it still leaves the option for his never being killed in the first place.
The episode manages to have its cake and eat it too. It's a very well done psychological drama, but it also does a great job of integrating more supernatural elements into the plot. It's compelling as all get out and it keeps you gripped for pretty much the entire run time.
Lizzy Caplan has been doing a great job as Wilkes, but she really gets a chance to up her game here. The opening sequence where we see her running around from the perspective of a camera right up in her face was a bit gimmicky, but you get what they were trying to go for. Other than that, though, she's nailing it. Her psychological issues coming to the forefront allows her to be at her most chilling, but her love for Joy is still apparent and genuine. That speech she gives to Joy about having done bad things to ensure her happiness was chilling in its own right, but also moving in that she really means it.
Her escape also gives the character another highlight moment. It doubles as a nod to Gerald's Game, but even ignoring that, it was jaw droppingly impressive.
Speaking of nods, I'm surprised that the episode didn't do more with the 'Stand by Me' shout-out. I figured Joy and her friends looking for Ace's dead body would have been a whole sub-plot, but it gets wrapped up surprisingly quick. The stuff with Annie and Joy was amazing, so I get it, but if you're going to do the homage, why not go all the way through with it?
While Abdi and his sister don't get a whole lot to do, what screen time they have is well used. Abdi admits that he didn't save Pop for Pop's sake, but because Nadia cares for him and he didn't want to see her hit with another tragic loss. It was a good moment between the two. On Nadia's front, she does come to check on Annie after getting a frantic call. Joy sends her off, but the fact that she went through the trouble to come offer help was still pretty nice.
The episode also ends with one hell of a wham note, as a mysterious figure warns Annie that the story is going to end with her having to kill Joy.
This episode was really good. It made all of the elements work in its favor. The character stuff was very well done, the acting and writing were top notch, it was suspenseful and built up both atmosphere and tension as things progressed. Really, my only two quibbles are Annie bouncing back and forth between "the drugs are making me see things" and "Ace is really back for the dead and he's coming for us". You'd think that she'd play up the prior, especially when Joy starts to question Annie's sanity, but she sticks to the latter. I was also disappointed to find out that the cop who approaches Ace wasn't Greg Grunberg. It really looked like him.
All in all, though, this raised the bar for the season. There's plenty of momentum to go forward so I'm excited to see where the season goes. I'd hate to think that the season peaks this early, but this did set a pretty high precedent. I'll just have to see how things work out.
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