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Other Reviews in This Series --- Assume Spoilers
Touch
The elder Crane siblings, least affected by the supernatural, are committed to the idea that they can control their environment. The two youngest siblings are forced to be more reactive. They do not shape the world around them, they are shaped. Theo, a consummate middle child, exists between these two paths. She is sensitive, stricken by the world around her, yet still she strives to exert control over her thoughts, feelings, experiences. She has the power and the burden of touch.
The opening stinger sees Theo sleeping peacefully while a pallid arm wraps around her. She assumes it's Nelly, but when she flips around there is no one to be seen. "Whose hand was I holding?" she asks.
This is the first review in which I will venture to critique showrunner Mike Flanagan. His style of connecting dialogue beats with overarching themes can be on the nose. Usually that neatness is a strength, sometimes it goes too far. The scene I just described is visually clear-- Theo's certainty that her sister is behind her, the jarring absence of anyone at all, her consternation at this discovery. Did we really need to make this actor sell the line, "Whose hand was I holding?" like it's an episode of R.L. Stine's Are You Afraid of the Dark? It turns a serviceably spooky moment into a lame zinger.
An even better scene hampered by this episode's insistence on being as obvious as possible involves a dumbwaiter and a hidden basement. Theo reluctantly helps lil' Luke take a ride on the dumbwaiter, and he gets stuck in a spectacularly claustrophobic set beneath the house. The lighting here is spot on: pitch blackness occasionally banished by a beam of halogen light. As Luke's rapid breathing dominates the sound mix, we catch a glimpse of a hand emerging from behind a box. Then, cross cut with Luke's terror, an arm drags itself out, then a whole-ass zombified corpse. It's a great scene, but I have to wonder if we needed to see so much of the monster when that first shot of the hand was by far the most effective.
The episode ends with yet another of these moments. Then-Theo is being ushered from the house in a panic. Her dad grabs her arm, which forces her to psychoempathetically witness the horrors of the evening. "Don't touch me! Don't touch me!" she screams, smash cut with Now-Theo, freshly reconciled with her most recent lover: "Touch me!"
I have been generally impressed with Flanagan's editing structure and the way it privileges psychological continuity over all else. The Touch Me juxtaposition shows us the ways that violence in childhood can resonate through sexuality in adulthood, and it emphasizes Now-Theo's willingness to grow and change despite her hypersensitivity. Still and all, it's a bit on the nose. I can't say with certainty what separates "good" on the nose from "bad" on the nose moments, other than that my hackles raise at the latter. Maybe it's too neat.
The episode as a whole is the flattest so far. The flashes into the past are more or less variations on a theme: Theo touches something, realizes a thing about that thing, then acts on that knowledge (or perhaps more often, doesn't act). It's less dynamic, but not so much that we can't enjoy the ride. The episode does an excellent job of putting us in the position of a child discovering their power / disability / sensitivity. It doesn't shy away from how brutal it can be to come of age under the pressure of such difference, and how much of a relief it is to learn or discover coping mechanisms. A great deal of this episode's success comes on the back of McKenna Grace's performance as Then-Theo, who is a richly drawn tapestry of aloofness, defensiveness, and wry insight. Among the young ensemble she underplays her role the most, to great effect.
I appreciate the characterization that the distant sibling with the most boundaries is also the one who feels the most. Her coping mechanism is to act unbothered-- put up the walls. There's a nice callback to a moment in episode 2: Theo coaches Shirley through grief, instructing her on how to talk to her kids about what happened to Nell with raw honesty, yet also in such a way that best protects all parties involved.
Theo needs such regimented boundaries in her daily life because she has none as a child psychologist. The Mr. Smiley plotline is also somewhat cliché, but it's told with dreadful queasiness. We slowly unravel something we'd rather not confront. Theo gives all of herself because she feels the pain of others more acutely than anyone, and she remembers how her mother reached out to her through the loneliness.
So we come back around to her position as the middle child, bifurcating the siblings. Episode 3 represents a more explicit turn into the supernatural, as Theo is the first child who openly acknowledges its workings in her life (how could she not?). To navigate this world on a daily basis, Theo stylizes herself in Vera Farmiga-esque medium chic. Descending the staircase into a dangerous basement, in her black trenchcoat, removing her gloves one finger at a time, is iconic ghost story imagery, and can thus be forgiven for its indulgence.
It's no wonder Theo is so cold given what she deals with, and what she refuses to let others deal with alone. Shirley is similar in this way, though the two scenes of children telling ghost stories in the last two episodes tease out the difference between them. Shirley's response to the ghost story is to cover it up with something better, whereas Theo's response is to try to get at the nasty thing beneath.
7.5 / 10
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