What I’m Watching: Clarice

Clarice: Season 1, Episode 8 “Add-A-Bead” (B-)

This show has been off the air for almost a month, and I almost didn’t realize that it was back. I’ve been saying for a few episodes now that I’m going to decide whether or not to keep watching, and I think this one sealed the deal. It was moderately interesting but not nearly engaging enough, and that to me seems like a good reason not to continue with it. The dated feel is a big part of the show, but I think it makes it less engaging, which doesn’t help. Clarice digging into her past with Dr. Li was not as riveting as it was meant to be, and while I can appreciate that psychoanalysis was a big part of the original film that featured Clarice, it just doesn’t work anyone near as well here as it did there. Ardelia encountering her latest setback when she was told to write up all of her findings so that someone else could run the task force her research had funded was not a positive development, and her career doesn’t look like it’s headed anywhere good. It did seem like Krendler was going down a dangerous route with his divorce lawyer blackmailing him, but bringing the team in on the information and letting Clarice make the call of whether to continue stringing him along or blow the whole thing was indicative of him doing the right – and smart – thing. I’ll admit I’m a bit curious, but I don’t think I’ll miss this show or its characters.

What I’m Watching: Clarice

Clarice: Season 1, Episode 7 “Ugly Truth” (B-)

I stated last week that I might be giving up on this show but that the final scene had intrigued me enough to try another hour, and I’m not really sure what to make of this follow-up. It took remarkably little time for Clarice to see the man whose face she had finally recognized from her ordeal on a magazine cover on Krendler’s desk, truncating what I had expected would take at least several episodes to play out. Krendler confronted it but also denied what was likely happening, and now he’s in a very problematic spot, blackmailed into keeping the team off his new divorce lawyer’s tail while they’re all fully aware that Clarice has identified him and that he has connections that all but assure his criminality. It makes me wonder what the point is of this show exactly, and where it’s all supposed to end up. Ideally, Krendler would continue telling Hudlin what he wanted to hear while secretly working with his team to follow him and build a case, but I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen, especially as they’re busy investigating dark cases of those who aren’t as adept at covering their tracks and manipulating others into doing their bidding. Ardelia feels like a full part of the team now, though she’s also being pulled in multiple directions by a complicated relationship with her father and concerns about making herself too visible at work. History was certainly affecting Murray as he got very upset with everyone while investigating a case that hit way too close to home.

What I’m Watching: Clarice

Clarice: Season 1, Episode 6 “How Does It Feel to Be So Beautiful” (C+)

I was completely ready to give up on this show, which I hadn’t even realized was coming back so soon after two weeks off the air so early in its run, and then that final scene went and happened, which makes him ever so slightly intrigued to stick around and find out what’s going to play out next. Much of this hour felt like an overdramatic dinner party, which it was, one that was wholly inappropriate to start with and which Ruth never should have organized. The nature of her relationship with Clarice is deeply problematic since she is backing her professionally for personal reasons, and inviting her to come help Catherine cope with the aftermath of her trauma didn’t go well for anyone. Clarice is not in a particularly good place right now either, and she’s pushing herself to the limit to recall information that is going to be critical to the investigation but also put her more at risk. Her colleagues are coming up against major roadblocks that show them how connected the people they’re going up against are, even to the point of a warrant not being issued for fear of repercussions on staff members, and the biggest reveal was the one that was unexpectedly tied to Krendler and his disintegrating marriage. I suspect that the man chewing potato chips like they were scenery is indeed a divorce lawyer, but he’s obviously many other things too that are going to put the entire team is jeopardy as he learns more about Krendler’s personal life.

What I’m Watching: Clarice

Clarice: Season 1, Episode 5 “Get Right with God” (C+)

There wasn’t any chance that Clarice was going to end up getting killed in the fifth episode of a brand-new show with her name as the title, and as a result the suspense factor here was virtually nonexistent. It wasn’t exactly believable that she would be able to concentrate fully enough to perform psychiatric analysis on the woman holding her captive and drugging her so that she couldn’t fight back, withstanding torture designed to weaken her defenses yet somehow maintaining both the intellectual and physical upper hand throughout it all. The hallucinations she was experiencing were undeniably dark, and I think this show tends to drown in that bleak misery, something that I did see to some degree in the films I liked a lot – “The Silence of the Lambs” and “Red Dragon” – but not to this extent. I’m more intrigued by the fact that Krendler has a complicated personal situation, one in which he and his former partner are both dealing with addiction and he isn’t able to get custody of his children since she’d never allow it to happen. Ardelia working closely with Shaan and the rest of the team to find Clarice will hopefully bring her in to Clarice’s life in a work capacity that isn’t simply adversarial, and I’m interested to see what that looks like as they take on cases that are grander than just this one large-scale conspiracy where people involved are more willing to die than to have to answer for what they’ve done or give up who hired them to do it.

What I’m Watching: Clarice

Clarice: Season 1, Episode 4 “You Can’t Rule Me” (B-)

It’s good to see that this show employs purposeful and moody cinematography choices and aerial shots in an effort to make it more than just a standard procedural. But, unfortunately, it hasn’t really felt elevated in any respect, especially over the course of this episode, which felt like unnecessary filler. There was no way that VICAP was going to get shut down even though things did not look good, and it all seemed like a dragged-out debacle that was just going to lead to the team feeling more united. They got to have fun with Murray covering for his absent colleagues while they went out and did actual investigating, while Krendler played mind games with Tony, who clearly had a personal vendetta to air with him. He was more than happy to put himself on the chopping block to protect his team, and was all about defending Clarice’s instincts even while acknowledging his own initial doubts about their veracity. Tomas made fun of Clarice’s crappy car but was a good partner for her in the field, and she could use some help right now given the very precarious situation in which she’s found herself. Ardelia getting assigned to investigate VICAP made things very uncomfortable for her and Clarice, and it’s going to be hard for them to continue as friends without what happened getting in the way of that. I do think that Ardelia could be a worthwhile character in her own right, and exploring her more outside of just her relationship with Clarice will likely be interesting.

Take Three: Clarice

Clarice: Season 1, Episode 3 “Are You Alright?” (B-)

This show isn’t getting any more interesting, though I guess it’s better that the current focus is on some sort of widespread criminal conspiracy rather than on a depraved serial killer. I do tend to prefer that kind of storyline, even though this psychological profiler premise is something I knew coming in. Krendler is doing a better job of trusting Clarice’s instincts even if he acknowledges that he doesn’t have the authority to go with the decision he wants to make, and we also saw more of his relationship with the attorney general when she called to warn him that they might not be able to keep the VICAP operation running all that long. Ruth is struggling to defend what she’s doing and having a hard time at home reaching her daughter, and those stresses are likely to push her to get results even if they’re not as definitive as they should. What Karl Wellig being killed while in custody means in a positive way is that the entire team saw it happen and realizes the dangers that only Clarice suspected. I see now that actor Kris Holden-Ried, who played Wellig, is probably most familiar to me from his series regular role as a far more well-intentioned operative in “Departure.” Claiming to have merely been a repairman rather than a hitman inspired a good bit of acting from Krendler and Tomas, not that it got them all that far. Ardelia being present, even if she’s in the wrong division, should help Clarice in the long run since she has an ally who isn’t blinded by chauvinism and is more than capable of advocating for her right to be taken seriously and treated fairly.

Round Two: Clarice

Clarice: Season 1, Episode 2 “Ghosts of Highway 20” (B-)

It seems like we’re headed into very familiar territory here, constantly following this young FBI agent who always knows better than everyone else and yet isn’t trusted because she’s too inexperienced. At least Krendler seemed open to letting her try to succeed by pretending he couldn’t hear her on the radio and then rescinding the request to have her transferred. Encountering a militia like this reminded me very much of a season of “Homeland” and the more recent “Manhunt: Deadly Games,” and I didn’t feel that there was much in the way of satisfying setup with Tim Guinee’s Novak before Clarice was suddenly just in there and trusted not to be actively working to subvert him. She seemed to enjoy the opportunity to point out to him that he wasn’t the respectable hero he thought he was in the story she was telling, and her readiness to put on makeup to convince him that she had put effort into her appearance wasn’t matched by her general energy or communication level. I don’t know why Krendler thinks that she won’t pull similarly dangerous stunts in the future, but at least he’s starting to appreciate her value and that she does know what she’s doing. I liked the honesty that came from Clarke in his conversation with Clarice about how she would have handled a situation she wasn’t in, and I’m hopeful that we’ll see a greater acceptance of different experiences as this show continues and tackles more complex and interesting storylines.

Pilot Review: Clarice

Check out my one-minute take on every new pilot, which is embedded below and you can also watch by subscribing to movieswithabe on YouTube.