Dark Flower
After 2 sleepy episodes, I Am The Night awakens from its slumber with an episode that finally charges this mini-series into gear. With more urgency to the plot and a driven focus on characterisation, I Am The Night feels like the same series depicted in the trailers rather than the subdued, methodically paced show we’ve been given. It’s not perfect, and it still has its fair share of problems, but this is a much improved episode over what we’ve seen so far. The episode begins where we left off last week. Jay is arrested by a group of LA cops who are none too happy with him sniffing around the Hodel property. After narrowly missing a painful date with a pencil, Jay is warned away from the case and threatened with severe consequences. Only, this has an adverse effect on him, convincing Jay that more lies behind this story than he may have suspected. Still reeling from his PTSD, he visits his boss and pleads with him to allow more time to revisit the Tamar case and investigate Hodel further. As someone falls off a chair nearby, Jay mistakes this for an explosion and scurries under the table for cover. After the place bursts into laughter, Jay snaps and punches the overweight man before being thrown out the club, leaving Jay alone and without any backup. We catch up with Fauna between Jay’s narrative, still reeling from Mrs Hodel’s words last week. After a particularly unpleasant call from Nero she travels back to the Hodel place to investigate what’s going on. Unbeknownst to her, the shady man from the bus last week has been tailing her and what transpires is a tense game of cat and mouse as Fauna tries to get away in the mansion. One thing leads to another and it’s at this point where Fauna eventually bumps into Jay. After a few sketchy introductions, Fauna joins Jay for a slice of pie and a cagey conversation about her mother before she gets the drop on him, leaving Jay high and dry. We leave the episode with our ruined reporter contemplating his next move while pondering over some graphic photographs. Fauna on the other hand, continues to flit around, trying to work out her origin and where she’s come from. I mentioned it earlier but this increased emphasis on pace and urgency this week is finally giving this mini series some much needed life. It’s been worth persevering with up until this point and hopefully going forward this can continue. While the real tale has been glossed over somewhat in favour of a more fantastical depiction, there’s just about enough here to make for an entertaining watch nonetheless. If you’ve stuck with this one this far, you’re more than likely going to see it out and hopefully our perseverance will be rewarded with a suitably epic conclusion.
