When I take the injuries to be indicative of Gabrielle as a cutter, I see her using the items in the sewing room to which she has been consigned: the two parallel cuts from scissors, the burns from an iron. There is some concern we might have about whether she is right- or left-handed, I suppose. If Claire or…

While I cannot offer unalloyed support for your POV, I can say this: Few members of the audience for AC know about conditions in Haiti. If we did, we might put Gabrielle's action in the same category of desperation as that of Syrian refugees crossing the Mediterranean and washing up on the sands of the Greek island…

What if Nicky is the one hurting Gabrielle? That would explain a lot. Remember the first contretemps between Gabrielle and Claire is over Gabrielle giving Nicky a talking to and a good shake because he hit her.

Let's say Nick Sr. is physically or sexually abusing Gabrielle. If Claire tries to intervene, she could end up in Jeanette's situation (destitute) with a child on her hands (from her point of view). If Nick Sr. is abusing Gabrielle, this storyline features torture of an indentured servant by the boss firsthand,…

Thanks for this.

Neither of these is a John Ridley product, but I wonder if you would say the same about Mr. Robot or Westworld? The first I found hard to watch. I resented being teased to follow a plotline only to have the rug pulled out from under it, without any decent explanation. I felt played upon when I had been invited to…

I've been in camp Ridley all the way. I think your comparison to Ridley's style and Short Cuts is illuminating. In that feature film, too, there is a body in the water. In Short Cuts, the question is, when will the guys who discover it finally come clean (come clean in many ways)? In Season 3 of AC, the question…

Different reviewers this season than last, but same reviewer all this season. Look at the opening of this recap, in which the reviewer thinks the degree of "sadness" she feels about Shae's death is, somehow, a critical measure, worthy of an entire paragraph. This is terrible writing. I'm not sorry for people who…

Compare the writing in AV Club reviews of Westworld to the writing in these reviews of American Crime. My impression is that AV Club preselects which shows will be treated like works of art worthy of substantive criticism and which shows will be handled by people who cannot evaluate and cannot write. For example, the…

You flatter our Faux News friends by suggesting they are middle aged. Also, it's hard to drum up sympathy for younger women who put themselves in harm's way, dressing and behaving like bimbos, knowing full well what is going on. It would just be more television programming targeting the male demographic.

You complain of "the relationship stuff" that did not make it into this series. I wonder if I'm representative of a phenomenon among American Crime fans: I don't know how many of us there are or if we make up a large enough number to merit renewing the series. What I do know is that Ridley, in his sparse plotting…

All compliments are welcome indeed. I like to think you'll be following along this Sunday. We see a new episode at 9:00 p.m. in our time zone. Excellent programming like this deserves as many appreciative viewers as possible.

One of the risks Ridley takes as the creator of the series is that he does not give us many of what they used to call, in TV parlance, "sympathetic characters," meaning characters in a show with whom the television audience is supposed to identify (as opposed to the other possible grammatical meaning, characters who…

I get your point and Studio Todd's about seeing the whole face of the drowning victim in the coroner's photo (I did not). What no one will tell me is if Ridley has shown us the whole face of Teo in the photo Luis keeps showing everyone as he searches for his son. I wonder whether Ridley does or does not allow the…

GW, here is what I don't understand: I cannot remember having a long enough take on the picture Luis carries of his son to remember what the son actually looks like. I'm not sure we have that image in the bank of "things about Teo the writer/director wants us to remember." I certainly did not see the full photograph…

Thanks for offering to post a screenshot. Really. You made such a good attempt at bridging the gap between our points of view. The world would be a better place with more people like you. In defense of seeking an answer, as I have, television programming would be better over all if there were better criticism of it.

Well, your eyes won't work just fine if you refuse to open them! Shall I take this refusal to be specific as a NO: You were unable to compare Luis's picture of Teo with the photograph taken by the coroner.

I have to ask your indulgence again, since we get HD on an older TV (so photo might have been cut off) and On Demand does not have this episode up yet in our location. Are YOU sure it is Teo, from comparing Luis's photo to the coroner's photo, or just taking Luis's word for it?

You've been generous with your time and serious comments. Forgive me if the following seems a little OCD. I saw only the left shoulder, left side of neck, and perhaps a red cut on the left jaw of the corpse in the photo Luis identifies as his son, at least in the version of this episode I saw on ABC in U.S. at 9:00…

We'll never agree about whether you and Shay are correct about her "admirer" meaning her harm. It's easier for me to explain my position by looking at the other scene in question, Luis's visit to the coroner's office.