Crazy

Pretender Episode Review

In which the Centre is hell. With nicer furniture.

What Happened

Just about everyone who was in SL-27 when it went boom has survived, though not all in one piece. Miss Parker is annoyed when her father tells her that the Triumvirate are calling for "a change in strategy." This means that Mr. Lyle has been assigned to help her find Jarod. She decides to figure out whether Lyle or Angelo is her presumed-dead twin brother.

Sydney was blinded in the explosion and has been dumped in the "renewal wing," where he is supposed to be re-educated because of his part in the bombing. Lyle blames the very-dead Gar for the bombing, releasing Sydney, though Miss Parker accuses him of selling his soul for freedom.

Jarod, meanwhile, has decided that the way to deal with recent events is to get himself committed to a mental asylum. He tells Dr. Goetz, his bewildered shrink, a wild story about "the Centre" and the people who are chasing him. Left alone in his cell, however, Jarod pulls a Houdini and crawls through the ducts to visit a fellow patient.

Jarod tells Mary to stop taking her medication so that she can remember what happened to her friend, the vanished Erica. Mary tells Jarod that Erica was pregnant and that her doctor was the father, who had taken advantage of her during their sessions. Dr. Blythe killed Erica, then drove her body into a nearby lake. Only the arrival of an orderly kept him from killing Mary as well.

Jarod has Dr. Blythe committed in another hospital, just before Miss Parker arrives at Pleasant Woods to collect him. He does leave behind drawings of Miss Parker and Mr. Lyle for Dr. Goetz to marvel at. After Blythe is arrested for Erica's murder, Dr. Goetz arranges for Mary's release.

Back at the Centre, Broots shows Miss Parker the results of a DNA test: Mr. Lyle is her brother.

What We Learned

• Raines is both head-case and invalid.
• The Centre. Think hell. With nicer furniture.
• Jarod has been a shrink before; it's really very over-rated.
• Jarod should listen to his doctors.
• It's all perspective. Some see a missing thumb. Others, four perfectly good fingers.
• Broots isn't very good with blood.
• Kleptomania is a hard habit to break.
• Fingers aren't.
• Stress, left unchecked, creates madness.
• Then Hitler should have taken up yoga.
• Jarod causes madness.
• The Parker family picnic will never be the same.

What Did I Think?

Having Jarod "recap" what was going on in a sprawling confession to his shrink was a riot.