The Bridge is at its best when it’s embracing the unique world that’s been built up, the intriguing characters and the unsettling, strange mood hanging over every scene. When it descended into a fairly black-and-white revenge plot last season, much of the world-building was put on hold, but thankfully, “Sorrowsworn” is another step in the right direction.
For the first time this season, we see Charlotte, Linder, Ray, and Cesar again, people who, admittedly, got shafted last year by the David Tate storyline. Now, we’re taken back into their stories, and we see that their emotional states are very much in line with the themes prevalent in the first two episodes of season two. There’s a sense of uncertainty, of precariousness, of searching for answers in a world that throws drug cartels and law enforcement and dead bodies at them at every turn. Ray and Cesar, for example, are held up, placed into a life or death situation in which the only thing standing between them and their life flashing before their eyes is, well, a horse’s ass. Later, the two go their separate ways, and Ray rushes home to breathlessly inform Charlotte about the need to escape; here they are, caught in the middle of an ever escalating situation, and it’s only going to get worse from here on out.
As for Linder, his struggle is mainly emotion-based; here, there’s an interesting clash between the person he wants to be and the person who’ll do anything for Eva; the good, moral person and the the person who’ll murder every last guy who raped her. He’s certainly strange on the outside, but deep down, there’s a legitimate internal conflict playing out that places him on an emotional precipice: he’s certain he wants to be a good person and he’s certain he wants revenge, but here, two certainties make an uncertainty.
Now, we get to uncertainty manifested in a character. I’m talking, of course, about Eleanor Nacht, who’s becoming more and more unsettling as the season wears on; I don’t know about long term plans, but I hope and predict that this is just a prologue to the true meat of the storyline. The last thing we need, after all, is a one-dimensional antagonist stirring shit up; of course, as of right now, the unsettling aura perpetually around her is a good sign, an intriguing sign. Her character is inherently contradictory–Mennonite, drug cartel member–and she has an ability to manipulate and prey, but it also seems to be born from her own deep-seated insecurities. It remains to be seen exactly what her motivations are, but there’s no doubting that she’s left a hell of a mess behind. Who’ll clean it up?
GRADE: B+
OTHER THOUGHTS:
-*Most reviews will be around this length now, due to time issues and other obligations. I’ll try not to miss any weeks, though.
– “It wasn’t as good as last time.” Oh, Sonya.
-How dare you kill that horse, you heartless bastard?
-RIP, Raul Quintana. After the stabbing, we get another example of uncertainty: the hit man sees a reflection of the cross in Quintana’s blood, and he’s left scrambling and unsure about the very action he’s just taken.
-Kyle’s emotional state–and it all ends with him dead in a butterfly sanctuary–is representative of the mood the show oftentimes attempts to convey.
-Speaking of Kyle, the show pulls a Breaking Bad here! You know, because Walt loves butterflies and prances around with them all the time.
-I love the awkward silence and uncomfortable shuffling after the “women with tattoos are more sexually adventurous” line.
-Look at Linder up there, riding that bike like a boss.
– “I say we act like white people, disappear, and let our lawyer do the talking.”
-I hope Fausto Galvan, at some point in the season, jumps into his speedboat and takes it for a spin/high speed chase through the Gulf of Mexico.
Photo credit: FX, The Bridge
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Not to mention the return of “Miss Kitty!” She, Hank and Cooper are my favortite characters.