What I’m Watching: Maniac

Maniac: Season 1, Episode 8 “The Lake of the Clouds” (B)

It’s still hard to make sense of what’s real and how aware these characters really are, but Annie is definitely alert and ready to get out of this simulation, though she’s being drawn in by what it might be able to do for her mental state. Ellie, still believing that she was Ellia, remembered some things that Annie’s sister had experienced, but wasn’t ready to believe that her world wasn’t real, suggesting the exact opposite. Owen’s father, on the other hand, was the one who had to tell him that he was in a malfunctioning simulation run by a suicidal computer, something that I guess prompted him to turn into a hawk and try to fly to warn Annie of what she was about to agree to. Greta was driving herself crazy doing therapy on herself, and it appears that she bailed out of the drawer before a woman who looked a whole lot like her made a deal with Annie to come with her and stay there forever. Owen experienced both cops around him being shot before his actual brother showed up posing as the long-lost brother, something that I can’t hope to explain but was a pathway to his realization of what he was going through and what it might mean. With just two episodes left, I’m hoping some sense can be made of this show before it ends. It missed out on Golden Globe nominations but did earn Emma Stone a SAG bid – will it all have been worth it?