I'm not sure whether Anya Taylor-Joy, as promised, did make this a little better or not for me.
She definitely gave a better performance than her child counterpart, but for one thing, she is not 15, much less 13, which her adopted parents apparently think she is, and for another, I can't tell why she's so awkward. Some of it might well be a kind of "screw the standards for women at the time" thing, in which case fine, but that doesn't explain why she peeped on that couple making out, or is really rude and talked over the grandmasters' chess match, so is she supposed to be autistic or something? I don't know, but it was something that bugged me quite a bit.
It might not have done if I cared about her more, because I still don't find myself being very interested in this story, but I'll call this episode a little better because at least in this one I was fairly entertained by the chess tournament at the end. Even if they did do that bloody stupid thing with the chessboard hallucination on the ceiling again.
I also couldn't help thinking that the mother's dialogue was distractingly dumb at times, the directing was worse than in the last episode, and so ultimately, I can't say that this was all that much better than the first episode. The story is still unbearably predictable and dull, although I will admit I really liked how subtly it implied that the dad was abusive.
Aside from that though...I'm still waiting to see what everyone sees in this show. Onto Episode 3 I guess...
She definitely gave a better performance than her child counterpart, but for one thing, she is not 15, much less 13, which her adopted parents apparently think she is, and for another, I can't tell why she's so awkward. Some of it might well be a kind of "screw the standards for women at the time" thing, in which case fine, but that doesn't explain why she peeped on that couple making out, or is really rude and talked over the grandmasters' chess match, so is she supposed to be autistic or something? I don't know, but it was something that bugged me quite a bit.
It might not have done if I cared about her more, because I still don't find myself being very interested in this story, but I'll call this episode a little better because at least in this one I was fairly entertained by the chess tournament at the end. Even if they did do that bloody stupid thing with the chessboard hallucination on the ceiling again.
I also couldn't help thinking that the mother's dialogue was distractingly dumb at times, the directing was worse than in the last episode, and so ultimately, I can't say that this was all that much better than the first episode. The story is still unbearably predictable and dull, although I will admit I really liked how subtly it implied that the dad was abusive.
Aside from that though...I'm still waiting to see what everyone sees in this show. Onto Episode 3 I guess...