Trauma can freeze survivors in a prism of pain through which they forever view life, watching the world continue to do what they sometimes cannot -- change and move on.
"Shining Girls" from Apple TV+ is a supernatural crime-series based off a book The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes. Apple TV's series adaptation stars Elizabeth Moss (The West Wing, Mad Men, The One I Love, The Handmaid's Tale) as the lead, with Wagner Moura (Elysium, Narcos), Phillipa Soo (Tick Tick ... Boom, Hamilton), Chris Chalk (12 Years A Slave, Detroit, When They See Us), Amy Brenneman (Heat, Fear, Judging Amy, The Leftovers), and Jamie Bell (King Kong, Jumper, Snowpiercer, Fantastic Four) in major supporting roles.
SHINING GIRLS pilot episode is "Cutline," which opens with Jamie Bell's currently nameless character inappropriately loitering on the steps of a house to talk to and leave behind a toy horse for a young girl. Flash forward to the 90s and that same girl, a woman named Kirby (Elizabeth Moss), works the mailroom for the Chicago Sun-Times. She keeps a journal of daily details -- her and mother's apartment number, the name of her cat (Grendel)-- and has plans to move to Florida. She is a shifty-eyed, withdrawn woman potentially left so by a traumatic attack she luckily survived. Wagner Moura plays Velasquez, a once-popular journalist turned ex-addict trying to rebuild his career by writing puff pieces for the Sun-Times. He catches wind of a murder victim in the tunnels beneath the city but is instructed to write exactly as the police report it, with no extra angles or curiosities. Lights flutter and when archivist Kirby returns home for the night, her mother is less disheveled and her cat is now a dog. In the morning, her desk is now someone else's, but he claims it was always his. She steals Velasquez's notepad and assumes the details from the police point to the same man who attacked her -- due to identical cuts left on the body. She confronts the suspect, but learns the cop's person of interest is mentally unstable and may have been coerced into claiming responsibility for the tunnel girl's murder. Running into Velasquez, she agrees to see a coroner friend of his, a woman. He steps out of the room so the coroner can examine Kirby's abdominal scars but halfway-thru the lights shift and Velasquez's coroner friend is now a man, startling Kirby who gets upset. She yells at Velasquez, asking about the whereabouts of his female coroner but he doesn't understand. Upset, Kirby leaves and arrives home to find another man in her and her mother's apartment. She checks her ID and sees that her place is now a different unit upstairs. Opening the door, she finds her mother gone, her dog a cat again, and evidence that she is now in a live-in, long-term relationship with a co-worker she only met in passing the day before. In a related sub-plot, Jamie Bell's stranger stalks a planetarium worker and stabs her to death in the same manner as the tunnel girl and Kirby.
A Youtube ad online led me to a trailer for the show that peaked my interest in Apple TV Plus's SHINING GIRLS. It appears Elizabeth Moss's character is tracking down a time-traveling serial killer whose murderous pursuits place her in constantly changing timelines. Not exactly jaw-dropping but still intriguing.
As for episode one's CUTLINE, I found myself genuinely intrigued by the slow-burning set up. Chicago in the 90s is a nice retro background, with no digital Internet fluff. It feels gritty, and I wonder if the point of setting this murder-chase in a more dated timeline is to give the time-traveling killer more leeway in a less technological eras. Hopefully for him, he doesn't travel to the smart-phone infested 2020s because his mug's sure to end up on Twitter or TikTok thanks to the proliferation of Amazon's front-door Ring cams. My personal opinion of Elizabeth Moss is that she's never really likable but still a great personality actor -- meaning she plays herself in most work and that personality fits most of her material. The metaphor for trauma here being a constantly shifting world that leaves her character on edge is very poetic. I don't know much about Moura, other than his great performance as Pablo Escobar in Narcos so only time will tell if he will become a standout character. I saw the non-original cast version of Hamilton so I don't know much about Phillipa Soo, nor do I remember her character from Tik Tik ... Boom so I have little baseline to judge her acting. From what I remember of Jamie Bell in Jumper and Fantastic Four, he does a pretty good job at angsty roles, so hopefully he adds some nuanced to his character as a murderous time-hopper.
Hope you all enjoyed this summary and review!
See you next time for episode two!
(This tv episode review was NOT brought to you by Pepsi ... or any popcorn company lol)
