Hugh Laurie's "Chance" is a multitude of creative characteristics. He continues to evolve as he steels himself in his underground world. Meanwhile, he continues his practice. That cop, however, has got him involved with the sociopathic millionaire and he is proving to be even more dangerous than originally thought. It turns out that group therapy is feeding this monster. It's a real tangle of horrors predicated on the worst sides of human nature. We also have a subplot that involves the daughter.
3 Reviews
"What Do You See?" (SPOILERS)
hilaryjrp17 November 2017
Warning: Spoilers
This is the single-best hour of television I have seen in easily five years. The overriding theme can be summed up by questions, not statements. "What do you see?" Chance asks a patient at one point about illustrations that diagnose psychopathology. The plot deals with invasions of privacy of increasing magnitude and severity, in one case ending in death. And nearly none of the characters whose privacy is being invaded sees that that's happening.
The editing in this episode is masterful and has to be, because (as with the following episode) a lot of action takes place in silence and...privacy. The characters who invade the sanctity of others scrupulously maintain boundaries for themselves. Impossible to say whose creative decision it has been this season to superimpose dialogue on scenes where the characters are silent; it might be a way for the writers to address the audience. It's overused.
The best scenes don't rely on non-linear speech. Winter's "Rorschach" test scene with Chance is brilliant. The illustrations Chance shows Winter, disturbing pictures of lonely people, contribute to an unexpected and evil development. Chance is unquestionably responsible for the fatality at the conclusion--simply because he kick-started Winter by attacking him in Episode 1.
"I get consent," he tells Winter about psychiatric techniques. "Do you, though?" Winter replies, in one of his few sincerely sympathetic scenes this season. He asks if consent is truly given when a patient doesn't know what the psychiatrist wants to elicit from him, what kinds of revelation or self-exposure the psychiatrist is after. Winter then checks himself out of the hospital where Chance's midnight beat-down landed him.
A compelling subplot involves Chance's teenage daughter. Her privacy is invaded in emotionally ugly ways neither she, her parents, nor the audience are aware of until the end (and some viewers might not realize what's happening until the third episode). The story arc this invasion of the vulnerable teenager sets in motion serves to illustrate how dangerous and arrogant Chance and D not only can be, but in fact are. The problem is that Chance and D have been railroaded into their most risky stunts by Kevin Hynes, the Internal Affairs officer from last season.
Hynes is one of the high points of this season. His privacy is invaded very early in the episode when D, furious at how the guy has blackmailed Chance into doing his bidding about Ryan Winter (blackmailed him with material from Season 1), breaks into Hynes' apartment to find out more about him--although he'd prefer to "stab him in the eye." As with Chance and D, Hynes also is convinced that the only way to achieve justice and relief for suffering patients and loved ones is to become a modern-day Robin Hood. Hynes' closeted homosexuality provides the background for another magnificent scene, in a seedy bar where D chooses to send Carl Allen, and Carl Allen...invades Hynes' privacy by pretending to befriend him, in order to worm information out of him about him. Hynes isn't finished being worked over yet, though: Chance manages to grab at his integrity and his job. He's the kind of guy who doesn't have to be asked, though, "What do you see?" He's as paranoid as Chance and sees too much of everything.
Not a word, not a millisecond of film, is wasted in this brilliantly written episode. It deserves every kind of accolade television series can get. The acting is second-to-none.
The editing in this episode is masterful and has to be, because (as with the following episode) a lot of action takes place in silence and...privacy. The characters who invade the sanctity of others scrupulously maintain boundaries for themselves. Impossible to say whose creative decision it has been this season to superimpose dialogue on scenes where the characters are silent; it might be a way for the writers to address the audience. It's overused.
The best scenes don't rely on non-linear speech. Winter's "Rorschach" test scene with Chance is brilliant. The illustrations Chance shows Winter, disturbing pictures of lonely people, contribute to an unexpected and evil development. Chance is unquestionably responsible for the fatality at the conclusion--simply because he kick-started Winter by attacking him in Episode 1.
"I get consent," he tells Winter about psychiatric techniques. "Do you, though?" Winter replies, in one of his few sincerely sympathetic scenes this season. He asks if consent is truly given when a patient doesn't know what the psychiatrist wants to elicit from him, what kinds of revelation or self-exposure the psychiatrist is after. Winter then checks himself out of the hospital where Chance's midnight beat-down landed him.
A compelling subplot involves Chance's teenage daughter. Her privacy is invaded in emotionally ugly ways neither she, her parents, nor the audience are aware of until the end (and some viewers might not realize what's happening until the third episode). The story arc this invasion of the vulnerable teenager sets in motion serves to illustrate how dangerous and arrogant Chance and D not only can be, but in fact are. The problem is that Chance and D have been railroaded into their most risky stunts by Kevin Hynes, the Internal Affairs officer from last season.
Hynes is one of the high points of this season. His privacy is invaded very early in the episode when D, furious at how the guy has blackmailed Chance into doing his bidding about Ryan Winter (blackmailed him with material from Season 1), breaks into Hynes' apartment to find out more about him--although he'd prefer to "stab him in the eye." As with Chance and D, Hynes also is convinced that the only way to achieve justice and relief for suffering patients and loved ones is to become a modern-day Robin Hood. Hynes' closeted homosexuality provides the background for another magnificent scene, in a seedy bar where D chooses to send Carl Allen, and Carl Allen...invades Hynes' privacy by pretending to befriend him, in order to worm information out of him about him. Hynes isn't finished being worked over yet, though: Chance manages to grab at his integrity and his job. He's the kind of guy who doesn't have to be asked, though, "What do you see?" He's as paranoid as Chance and sees too much of everything.
Not a word, not a millisecond of film, is wasted in this brilliantly written episode. It deserves every kind of accolade television series can get. The acting is second-to-none.
Episode 202
bobcobb3014 November 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Not as strong as the season premiere, but another good episode of one of TV's most underrated shows right now. They continue to get darker and darker and have set the stage which should be a fun remaining 8 episodes. I wish we got a bit more of the violence that we had in episode one though.
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