Throughout the episode Alex gets closer to Darius and his family which causes more tension within the group.  Nico returns home to find the Staff of One and is confronted by her parents.  Meanwhile, members of the Pride devise ways to rid themselves of Jonah.

Early in the episode the group discuss their next moves, but they grow increasingly angry with each other.  When Alex reveals that he has to go to work, the group is surprised since this is the first they were hearing of it.  For someone as smart as Alex, he should know they would be upset that he’s keeping secrets.  And a lot of the tension between the group in the episode seemed unnecessary contrived to create tension.

For example, Gert doesn’t really have a reason to be angry with Chase.  He’s tried to be helpful and understanding of her needs and wants.  Her attitude could be explained by not being able to take the medicine she mentioned earlier.  But that isn’t a very compelling reason for characters to be angry with each other.  Luckily that animosity doesn’t last that long and they make up by the end of the episode.

Meanwhile, the Pride seems to be just as fractured as their kids.  Geoffrey and Catherine devise a way to get the kids to reveal themselves by framing someone else for Crystal’s murder.  But they don’t confer with anyone else in the Pride which is sure to cause issues going forward.  Janet, Chase’s mother, also seems to be taking matters into her own hands when she starts looking into a book called The Abstract.

A big part of this episode was Alex’s developing relationship with Darius’ sister-in-law Livvie.  Alex shows up uninvited to the house and it’s clear that the reason is so he can talk to her.  She seems equally interested in him and the two of them grow very close in a short amount of time.

While we’ll have to wait and see how their relationship develops in the coming episodes, things do seem to be moving very fast.  Last season it was implied (during the flashback with Nico’s sister Amy) that Alex has had a crush on Nico for several years.  It’s possible that he’s only gravitating toward Livvie because he’s feeling hurt.  However, if that’s not the case, it does feel like he got over those feeling extraordinarily fast.

However, the sequence where Nico confronts her parents was very well done.  Her father Robert seems like a good guy who genuinely loves her and is saddened by how ruthless his wife Tina has become.  He could definitely become a potential ally sine Nico is just as disillusioned with her mother as Robert.  During their confrontation she even says, “This is why Amy’s Dead, the monster you are now!”  This definitely seems to get through to Tina because she gives up the staff.

But before they part, Tina give Nico an ultimatum: stay and talk things out or ruin their mother/daughter relationship forever.  Nico feels like that ship has already sailed so she departs with the Staff of One.  Robert then remarks that the staff has some sort of corrupting influence which caused Tina to go off the rails.  It’ll be interesting to see if this has an effect on Nico going forward.

In fact, it’s possible the Staff of One is already having an effect on her because of the way she snapped at Karolina.  She had no real reason to be mad at Karolina for trying to save Molly (which she acknowledges by the end of the episode).  So perhaps the power of the staff is already corrupting her somewhat.

VERDICT

3 bicycles out of 5.  

This episode wasn’t quite as strong as the first one.  Some of the group dynamics didn’t seem genuine and a lot of the tension felt very contrived.  However there were some good scenes, particularly the confrontation between Nico and her mother and everything going on with the Pride.

ONE-SHOTS

  • The CGI for Karolina definitely seems to be improved since last season.  You can see her features much clearer when she glows and it no longer looks like a painted on effect.  It’s certainly not on par with what we’ve come to expect in the films, but for a Hulu show it’s not bad.
  • Why was Gangnam Style playing on the radio?
  • Alex may be a nerd, but he really needs to brush up on his Elder Scrolls lore.  You steal one of the scrolls as part of the Thieves Guild quest in Oblivion, not Skyrim.