What I’m Watching: Maniac

Maniac: Season 1, Episode 7 “Ceci N’est Pas Une Drill” (B-)

I’m not overly fond of these episodes that take place almost entirely within the dream hallucinations of our protagonists, especially when they’re not connected like in this case. We also know that Greta is doing something while she’s under, but we didn’t get to see how that was at all. Instead, Owen experienced what was likely an exaggerated version of his own recent history, with his gangster father telling him that he had another brother who apparently lied all the time as a baby and that he was going to need him to pretend to be crazy to take the fall for his latest crimes. I know that Josh Pais tends to be play annoying characters, especially recently on “Ray Donovan,” but I didn’t need to see him get his ear drilled into while the cops listening in didn’t bother to do anything as the music played loudly. It’s hard to spot all the faces we’re supposed to recognize in their hallucinations, but I did spy Jemima Kirke, who plays Adelaide, as one of the cops wiring him for sound. Annie seemed impossibly bored with her elven fantasy, and I was disappointed that her accent wasn’t nearly as convincing as the one she puts on in “The Favourite.” I’ll gloss over the fact that a little bug talked to her after she got knocked out and jump instead to the way that she was able to snap herself out of that dream and realize who she was and who her sister was. Azumi said to James that maybe his mother doesn’t destroying everything, but I’m at a loss as to where this show is heading right now.