Sunday, May 29, 2022

What I’m Watching: The Staircase

The Staircase: Season 1, Episode 4 “Common Sense” (B+)

It’s interesting to see how this show is structured, with the film crew very much a part of the story, and Juliette Binoche now introduced as someone with her own perspective who apparently believes strongly that Michael is innocent. His desire for people not to remember twenty-five years ago is hardly the best defense, and his desire to testify made sense given how much he wants to yell at everyone that he didn’t do this, but it surely wouldn’t play well with a jury that would see him how this has portrayed him, which is someone whose arrogance makes sympathy more difficult. We saw yet another depiction of what might have happened, with Kathleen confronting Michael about the gay porn on his computer and telling him that she wished it could have been something they shared together, and ending the way we knew it would with Michael very much at fault. His sentencing of life without parole befits that crime if it indeed did play out like that, and what was most jarring to me is how he was left alone in the hallway, seemingly free to run and not treated like the convicted criminal that he now is. His having been injured but not in the war brings up more questions, and it’s starting to divide his family even more. Clayton’s relationship with Kathleen was obviously very complicated, but he’s the one who seems most interested in defending her now that she’s no longer there, finding the blow poke and bringing its existence to his siblings.

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