Where to start with this one?
It's one of those "people are evil under the surface" etc. Type of stories. And honestly, I never like them, cause their basic premise is always flawed and based on flimsy evidence at best.
However, with these people, I can sort of believe. EVERYONE is a total, utterly irredeemable person, except for one mother and her daughter.
The plot is a killer and kidnapper (because that's what he is, despite saying he never touched them, just like the dude in Saw) kidnaps three girls and tells them only two will make it out alive - implying that they have to kill one of their number to survive.
The girls IMMEDIATELY turn on each other, clawing at each other's throats like scrabbling crabs in a bucket, when literally all they had to do was sit on the floor and tell the guy to screw himself. Don't play his game. And if you turn on your friends at the drop of a hat, then you aren't friends.
Having had personal experience of terrible situations, including war, I find it hard to believe that it would be this easy to turn people on each other. Usually, people pull together when things get bad, but I guess this episode is some sort of commentary on suburban America, which I've only experienced through TV, so might be wrong when it comes to this specific subset of people.
Then again, everyone we see in this town is a total waste of cartilage. The cops are typically useless, going so far as to belittle the one mother doing anything about it because she's on meds for depression - even though this woman raised the girl by herself, and did the best job out of all of them because her child is the only one you can root for.
The parents all turn on each other at the drop of a hat, with barely any manipulation needed from our unsub.
No one is really worth saving. Especially, the one girl who just doesn't stop whinging and playing right into the killer's hands, and basically decides to kill her friend IMMEDIATELY. She went from 0 to 100 in a second flat, deciding who to kill cause her friend has a cough. I mean... come on.
Maybe if things had happened gradually, with the girls experiencing more manipulation and torture, and the unsub had done more to manipulate the parents, it would have been more believable. As it is, things happen way too fast and stretch credulity to breaking point. It doesn't help that the actresses playing the girls are having trouble getting into their roles, either.
But hey ho. People seem to enjoy this one, so perhaps having a little less faith in humanity helps for this one. And maybe it helps to be American and have personal experience of this kind of environment.
It's one of those "people are evil under the surface" etc. Type of stories. And honestly, I never like them, cause their basic premise is always flawed and based on flimsy evidence at best.
However, with these people, I can sort of believe. EVERYONE is a total, utterly irredeemable person, except for one mother and her daughter.
The plot is a killer and kidnapper (because that's what he is, despite saying he never touched them, just like the dude in Saw) kidnaps three girls and tells them only two will make it out alive - implying that they have to kill one of their number to survive.
The girls IMMEDIATELY turn on each other, clawing at each other's throats like scrabbling crabs in a bucket, when literally all they had to do was sit on the floor and tell the guy to screw himself. Don't play his game. And if you turn on your friends at the drop of a hat, then you aren't friends.
Having had personal experience of terrible situations, including war, I find it hard to believe that it would be this easy to turn people on each other. Usually, people pull together when things get bad, but I guess this episode is some sort of commentary on suburban America, which I've only experienced through TV, so might be wrong when it comes to this specific subset of people.
Then again, everyone we see in this town is a total waste of cartilage. The cops are typically useless, going so far as to belittle the one mother doing anything about it because she's on meds for depression - even though this woman raised the girl by herself, and did the best job out of all of them because her child is the only one you can root for.
The parents all turn on each other at the drop of a hat, with barely any manipulation needed from our unsub.
No one is really worth saving. Especially, the one girl who just doesn't stop whinging and playing right into the killer's hands, and basically decides to kill her friend IMMEDIATELY. She went from 0 to 100 in a second flat, deciding who to kill cause her friend has a cough. I mean... come on.
Maybe if things had happened gradually, with the girls experiencing more manipulation and torture, and the unsub had done more to manipulate the parents, it would have been more believable. As it is, things happen way too fast and stretch credulity to breaking point. It doesn't help that the actresses playing the girls are having trouble getting into their roles, either.
But hey ho. People seem to enjoy this one, so perhaps having a little less faith in humanity helps for this one. And maybe it helps to be American and have personal experience of this kind of environment.