"What you said last night was cruel... Helly was never cruel."

My mind is fucking blown. This is an actual masterclass of a bottle episode. It's a bottle episode if the characters are all bottled into a location, but it's a great one when the pressure in the bottle is rising. 

The episode is so cathartic because of how strongly all of the threads lead to the climax, but it's done in such a genius way. For the whole episode (and the few before this) Helena has been acting off and Irving has been out of it, and that tension has been increasing subtly. Irving here might be the first time I've liked the "everyone not believing someone because they think they're jealous" trope because it felt really developed and nuanced. 

But beyond all of that deception and silent distrust, there's a hand guiding the entire episode. Despite the utter shock of the Helena reveal (despite the fact I knew it by now), the real climax is Milchick firing Irving. Everything the characters are given in this episode: the ORTBO, food, fire, beds, the story, it's all given to them just as a way of owning them. 

Waking up in the middle of a forest with no recollection of getting there is basically a threat, for one. It's also their first time seeing fire or sleeping, and the food and all the other luxuries are only there to be taken away when they step out of line. They're told that the waterfall is the highest in the world and that they're on the sacred land of a story they're lucky to be hearing because their faith in Kier must be reinstilled. 

Irving being fired is the natural conclusion to all of it. Everything that these workers are given by Lumon can be taken away by Lumon, and because their innie is practically a separate self, that includes their life. That moment when that fear of Milchick sets deep into you as you watch this is fucking palpable.


Somehow, outside of this already being an incredibly well written episode, it continues to excel in every other way. The cinematography and the editing both feel so lonely, they're really slow and they're simple without even being thrilling enough to be minimalistic. It's just desolate and it works in perfect tandem with the sense of unknown in the episode. 

Despite that, it never gets dull for a minute. Even if that aspect of it were a complaint and not a compliment, the lighting and set design breathe so much life into the visuals. I'm mainly referencing Irving's dream sequence when I talk about set design, as that was stunning, but the lighting by the fire and in the tents, and in the forest and by sunrise is all so gorgeous. 

Finalising the atmosphere of the winter forest - the part of this series I will rave about in every review - the soundtrack. It's so beautiful, getting a nearly happy feel while never quite reaching it and instead settling at somber, but it's also bone-chilling here and there. Whatever mood it is, it communicated the feeling in the silence left when there isn't dialogue, and its method of not committing too strictly the mood of a piece makes it so that everything feels just short of something, creating a sense of something missing that you can't place.

Also, the performances are immaculate. I'm mainly talking about Tramell Tillman as he's one of the best actors I've ever seen, and in every single scene he holds so much presense. But, everybody here plays into the overall dynamic so well and tie together the bottle episode feel.

"May Kier's light follow you into the eternal dark."

9/10

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