The investigation begins! While the first two episodes of Full Circle introduced us to the large ensemble and walked us through the central event of the show — a botched kidnapping — “Jared’s Body†gets to work dealing with the aftermath. That means spending a lot more time with Melody Harmony, the insufferable but keenly perceptive detective who serves as an audience surrogate of sorts. It’s through her that we begin to uncover the specifics of this vast web of secrets.
Okay, she’s technically just a postal inspector, an unusual choice in Ed Solomon’s script that may not really pay off in any meaningful way or serve any particular satirical purpose. As mentioned at the end of “Charger,†the USPIS is partnering up with the NYPD and the FBI as part of an interagency task force to look into the shooting in the park. There’s reason to believe the kidnapping could be connected to the Guyanese crime operation in Richmond Hill, and Mel’s cooperator, Xavier (for whom Manny takes partial credit), will be crucial in uncovering those ties.
This is the first episode to really dig into the backstories of Sam and Derek Browne, and it turns out both are hiding huge secrets that help explain some of the context. Derek is particularly obvious about it; when Mel visits their apartment with her FBI and NYPD partners, she immediately sees through his obfuscating, noting his extreme distress about the possibility of Nicky’s death. But Sam’s reaction to the mention of a Guyanese accent sets off alarm bells too. The lady doth protest too much, Mel thinks.
Let’s begin with the revelations about Derek. As many viewers suspected, Nicky is actually his son; Charisse Henrickson had him 16 years ago, and they worked out a paternity agreement that required her silence. Just a couple of months ago, Nicky ran away from home, and Charisse agreed to let him live on his own to avoid the foster-care system. But because of the kidnapping, her latest wire transfer to her son didn’t reach its destination — and between Nicky’s dissociative disorder and his obsession with a father he never met, she has ample reason to go to the authorities for help.
Charisse describes herself as lacking the parental gene, but it’s clear that at the very least she deeply cares about her son. Derek does, too, though he worries that his own failure to save Nicky came from some subconscious desire to let him die; after all, Nicky’s continued presence is a threat to the delicate balance of the life that Derek has built with Sam. When he vents about this to the family lawyer who arranged the settlement years ago, he can only reply, “It’s a question more for a psychologist than an attorney.â€
Even Sam is beginning to suspect the truth, as evidenced by her snooping on Derek’s phone. But she also has her own issues to worry about. Twenty years back, she and Manny (who was on the force at the time) were somehow involved in an investigation into Jeff and Uncle Gene’s shady real-estate dealings in Guyana, particularly a property called the Colony at Essequibo. Based on what we hear during Sam’s pizza lunch with Manny in this episode — and her subsequent visit to Gene’s house — she was the one who informed on Gene, and she did it to protect her dad. While Jeff became a star, benefiting from whatever money they made in Guyana, Gene was forced to retire. To this day, he thinks his brother was responsible.
It’s nice to get some answers before we hit the halfway point in this miniseries, though I couldn’t help feeling like some of the reveals were tossed off too casually and matter-of-factly to land with any oomph. (Maybe it’s my fault for not immediately putting two and two together with the flashback at the end of the last episode.) Still, it’s exciting that we can already glimpse the outline of the complete picture at this point, even if we’re surely in for more twists and turns in the episodes to come.
“Jared’s Body†does lack a bit of the electric feeling of the first two episodes, delaying some of the big confrontations to come. By the end of the episode, Aked still doesn’t know where his ex-fiancée is, and it isn’t until the closing moments that he realizes Jared must not be dead. But part of that is structural; after two episodes where it felt like everyone was part of the same story, this episode separates the cast into an American half and a Guyanese half, with almost no overlap between the two.
That’s not to say that the Guyanese half is boring at all, though. Louis and Natalia are easily the two most sympathetic characters in the show, and it’s exciting to see them work through what they’re going to do next. While Louis is busy burying Keesen and the dummy, Natalia is holed up at a motel with the real Nicky (who they think is Jared), urging him to call his parents.
Part of what’s fun about watching Full Circle is following the shifting layers of deceit among people who are ostensibly aligned. Just like Sam and Derek keep things from each other, Louis and Xavier both clock each other’s nervous fidgeting without knowing the truth: Louis and Nat are working together to protect “Jared,†while Xavier is the (mostly unhelpful) informant. Similarly, Garmen can tell that Louis is probably up to something with his sister, but he incorrectly assumes that makes them the informants, not Xavier. Still, he’s perceptive enough to know that Xavier’s loyalty is still up for grabs; he rewards him with a wad of cash and a potential visa extension, though they share a common desire to return to Guyana once it’s possible.
Going home is also top of mind for Louis and Nat, the latter of whom has the idea to get help from a friend who works for Edward Chung. Just like his rival Mrs. Mahabir, Chung frequently arranges travel for young immigrant employees, so it stands to reason that he could help them get back in exchange for valuable information. That’s where we leave things at the end of the episode: with the promise of more action next time.
But I don’t just watch Full Circle for the action; I watch it for the trust issues, which add an element of tension to simple dialogue-driven scenes. Even when it’s easy to predict the larger twists in this show, it’s hard to ever know exactly where the story is going. Every character is a wild card.
Elliptical Thoughts
• Soderbergh’s shaky-cam style mostly really works for me, but there are times when it feels mildly distracting and even a little shoddy, especially during that very crooked exchange between Garmen and Xavier.
• Good for Carol on changing the locks and refusing to repeat the breakup/make-up cycle with Mel! Mel’s behavior in that scene is ridiculous, starting with her automatic assumption that Carol will take her back and ending with her immature “Well, for the record, I broke up with you first.†Kind of funny, though.
• Our main time with Jeff in this episode is watching Sam in publicist mode, answering his questions for him during a press event. But I’m intrigued by his visit to Clarence in the hospital, which suggests that he does really care about the man (though it’s unclear how real the friendship is on Clarence’s end, based on his role in the kidnapping plot).
• I have to quibble with Derek saying pi is “the circumference of a circle,†when it’s obviously the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. But I suppose that’s not very snappy.
• We also meet Ron, the dopey casino employee who passed along Jeff’s credit limit to Garmen. The scene reveals that Garmen had his own stake in the success of the kidnapping: He’s $88,000 in debt.