What I’m Watching: Longmire

Longmire: Season 5, Episode 3 “Chrysalis” (B+)

This show has been covering some pretty grim subjects lately, and Cady finding the little girl in the passenger seat of her father’s car in a casino parking lot wasn’t even near the darkest moment of the episode. It did seem like Anne Dudek’s drugged-out mother was likely to have been responsible for killing the father, but her genuine inability to remember what had happened and her coaxing of her daughter to reveal what she saw even if it implicated her suggested that maybe she wasn’t the culprit after all. The news that it was the daughter who, in addition to being his designated driver at the age of ten, killed her own father when she saw a chance to get away, was immensely disturbing and didn’t seem like a win at all for anyone. Vic had a rough episode, getting vomited on by the mother and then going to head-to-head very aggressively with Donna in defense of her boss. Telling Walt that she was pregnant when she wasn’t just to make a point was a bold move on her part, and I like that the episode ended on a positive, funny note after such a dreary hour with Walt trying to remember whether or not they had sex before he was knocked out. It’s interesting to see both Nighthorse and Malachi going to great lengths to prove that they are abiding by the law even though there are so many indicators that they aren’t. Cady is having plenty of trouble easing into her new job, and she doesn’t exactly have a history of dealing with tough situations in the subtlest way.