Okay, we can agree to disagree & split hairs over diction. Manson, by all accounts was charming; that's an intrinsic part of charisma, I'd argue. And the Sharon Tate massacre? I'd call that pretty freaking violent: he incited violence; he had people brutally murdered. But also, I digress, & I'd rather hash it out…

What? Charlie was so charismatic! Women flocked to him, loved him, killed for him and obvs, the violence of that man ran deep.

What magical realism does is locate the magical in the mundane, which this show does real well. The magical reveals whatever sort of oppression, repression, torture, war, etc the characters are living under. That is, the magical gives light to the hypocrises, absences, lacks-thereof in a character's world and so on.…

I completely agree. The series has always limned the divide between
dimensions, both with its refusal to explain (or explain away) the
reasons behind the departure and with its investigation & embracing
of the subconscious through some of the hyper-real symbols/storylines
(first season's dogs, time gaps, guilty…

It seems this episode is clearly all about dream logic: heavy symbols, blue-gray color palette, subconscious logic rather than linear logic, and the metaphorical death of Patti/resurrection of Kevin. I dug it and thought it was kind of goofy-funny, but also realistic, that Kevin, in his subconscious, is an assassin…

I mean in this episode & so much is unclear about what happened in people's past that okay, maybe that's a characterizing detail, but it's not a part of the episode or, I think, this season so focusing on sexual misconduct isn't the uh, thrust (sorry, couldn't help it!), of the entire arc.

While I don't think there's molestation, at all in any way, involved, what got me was the literal and metaphorical motif of keys: Patti blocking the (literal) key, Kevin on search for the (literal) key, both Laurie and Virgil offering metaphorical keys (read: keys of mental/emotional release). Whether Kevin is…