The Alienist: Angel Of Darkness serves a one-two punch finale of death and satisfaction
TV Reviews Recap
“Libby Hatch sells more papers than the war.”
“Last Exit To Brooklyn”
Last week’s double episode digest ended with Libby on a rooftop in Brooklyn overlooking the bridge, with her new prize, the Vanderbilt baby, in her arms. But she won’t be safe there for long, as the episode also ended with Sarah realizing, as a Brooklyn native, that would be where the former Elsbeth Hunter would run.
While the baby’s whereabouts stay unknown, Sarah takes Moore with her to visit Sgt. Kelly, head of Brooklyn arm of the NYPD. He’s been with the department long enough to remember the Hunter suicide incident, but he’s hesitant to believe Libby is the same person as the Hunter daughter her remembers from the case. The family was wealthy, living just off Prospect Park, and Elsbeth was a dutiful, charming child.
But digging through the files turns up things changed after her father’s death, and not just because the Hunters had to move out of their parkside mansion. Elsebeth Hunter was confined to an asylum for two years for the attempted murder of her mother.
While Sarah and Moore are on the Brooklyn track, Kreizler has asked Karen to help him understand why Libby would be obsessed with babies. Libby made memory boxes for each of the victims, but one is older than the others, which Kreizler believes is the actual daughter, mourned as if it were dead. Their date takes them to a brothel, erhm, an “alternative club.” Alice, the owner, is non-binary, and her girlfriend is similarly obsessed with breast milk, having been pulled from her family unit at a young age. We don’t learn much here we didn’t already know, other than non-binary people don’t like being called “disordered” in the 1800s either. (Karen’s covering for Kreizler’s faux pas in this department is a familiar situation.) Karen tells Laszlo she’s been offered a position at the Institute of Psychology in Vienna, and she’ll be leaving in two weeks if he doesn’t decide to step forward in this current dalliance of theirs.
Sarah, Kreizler, and Moore head back to Brooklyn to interview Libby’s mother, Mallory. Being the honest sort, she invites Byrnes along on their trip because it’s the right thing to do. Mallory isn’t surprised to see them, having seen Libby’s photo in the papers, but insists she hasn’t seen her daughter for years and only has a single box of the girl’s things from her childhood. It was an idyllic childhood, too, according to Mallory, including a year in Paris to study ballet. Kreizler recognizes Mallory is, much like Libby, telling a fantasy version of their former life, but it’s Sarah who asks the right question about Libby’s child born out of wedlock.
It was a girl, and Mallory insists she was given away to a high-end children’s home to be placed elsewhere, as Libby was deemed “unfit” for motherhood, and in response to having the baby taken away, the girl came at her with a knife. But Kreizler knows the home Mallory mentions, the Children’s Aid Society. They don’t just take unwanted rich people’s children. He correctly guesses Mallory was enraged at the idea of another child, when she hadn’t wanted to raise Libby in the first place, having had a child because it was what society told her to do. With the husband dead, all Mallory wanted was to be free, not saddled with a child who had a child, so she made up the attack to have the girl locked up, and gave the baby away. Confronted with the truth of her behavior, Mallory cracks but insists that she doesn’t know where the girl is.
Sarah should not have brought along Byrnes, who is still working to undermine her investigation and “win” this battle to look good in front of Vanderbilt. He’s already attempted to come at the problem by bribing FatJack to get GooGoo to turn the baby over for cash. (GooGoo nearly did too, but arrived late, and discovered Byrnes men beating FatJack within an inch of his life, so he retreated.) Since that failed, Byrnes is now looking to have Hearst back him on a different plan: Use what he learned from Sarah’s investigation. He wants to go behind her back with it, and see if he can draw Libby and the baby out. Hearst agrees to pay for it.
With Hearst’s money, he goes to Mallory and says Vanderbilt will pay her to bring Libby’s real daughter forward in an interview to run in the Journal. Mallory falls for it hook, line, and sinker, revealing she’s known where her granddaughter, Clara, has been this whole time. When Bitsy brings Sarah the paper the next morning, she is livid, returning to Mallory’s home, where she reveals to Mallory Byrnes lied about Vanderbilt’s involvement. But it’s worked, as GooGoo brings Libby the paper with Clara’s image in it.
Byrnes’ gambit draws out Libby and GooGoo. He seems to have won this round until the door opens, and it’s not Libby, but a decoy redhead with a message that she’ll kill them all for this. But Libby is watching from nearby, and one of Doyle’s men spots her as they hustle Clara and Mallory off to safety. Doyle tracks her down but makes the fatal mistake of turning his back on her for a second, and then he’s dead. Sorry, Doyle. We’ll lay your death at Byrnes’ feet too.
But Libby’s not done. Unaware Clara’s gone to the Kreizler Institute and put under Karen’s care, she makes her way to Sarah’s offices. Sarah’s currently on the phone with Moore, where he’s trying to convince her to tell him to throw over Violet and marry her instead. Believing Moore has gone to Violet, Sarah decides to bargain with Libby since no help will come. But just as Libby aims to shoot Sarah, Moore rushes in. In the scuffle, Sarah gets the gun, but Libby gets a knife to Moore’s throat.
“Better Angels”
The final episode picks right back up on the cliffhanger from season 7’s penultimate finale. With Sarah begging for Moore’s life, Libby realizes she’s probably in love with Moore. (Listen, everyone else assumes, why shouldn’t she?) As the knife begins to sink into Moore’s neck, Sarah breaks and admits Clara’s with Kreizler. Libby thoughtlessly relaxes her grip, and Moore flips her down, to tie her up and arrest her.
Byrnes is surprisingly bitter over Doyle’s death, blaming working for the “rich greenbacks” instead of his stupid gamble. But with Libby now in jail, it seems she will be the one he takes it out on. He’s got a torture method calls “The Byrnes Degree,” of which the first degree is waterboarding. But it doesn’t break her. She attacks one of her water borders and bites off his ear.
Sarah comes in protesting this torture method, only to have Byrnes tell her to stuff it. Blessedly, Kreizler recognizes Byrnes’ emotional driver is his guilt about Doyle’s death. Byrnes tries to tell him to stuff it with that crap too, but, recognizing Kreizler knows what he’s talking about, suggests turning “that claptrap” on Libby. Kreizler sends Sarah in, because that’s someone Libby trusts.
Breaking her with kindness works better. Both were raised by mothers who had children out of duty, and fathers who left them by suicide, so they have a bond. Libby wistfully talks of her love of dance. She also reveals she loved Clara from the first moment, and her mother’s rage was from not understanding that. Sarah promises to bring Clara in exchange for where the baby is. Poor Libby believes her and reveals where GooGoo has left the Vanderbilt baby. But Sarah’s lying, which Libby realizes a moment too late. It’s a betrayal beyond anything Byrnes could have done.
When Moore and Byrnes arrive at the address Libby gave, GooGoo’s gang is nowhere to be found, but the baby is safe and sound, GooGoo’s mutt proudly guarding it. But the lack of anyone to fight them should have raised alarms because they’re aiming for the station where Libby is locked up. It’s a slaughter; only Kreizler and Sarah survive by hiding in a darkened cell. Libby at first wants to hunt down Sarah, but then realizes she doesn’t need them. She knows where Clara is.
GooGoo shoots their way into Kreizler’s Institute, where the Isaacsons are standing guard. Lucius hesitates to shoot and gets knocked out, as Marcus takes a bullet to the chest before GooGoo and Libby flee with Clara in tow by the hair. Kreizler deduces Libby will retreat further into her lost childhood life, and Sarah realizes she’s taken Clara to her childhood home, the one they lost when the father committed suicide.
Byrnes is rounded up, and Kelly gives them the address of the old Hunter mansion. Byrnes assumes (correctly for once) if they go in guns blazing, Clara will die. So it’s up to Sarah, Moore, and Kreizler to sneak in and take Libby down themselves. But their presence does not go unnoticed. GooGoo rounds on the group with a gun, and this time Lucius doesn’t hesitate to take his brother’s murderer out.
Poor Clara tries to run for it, alerting the group to where she is. Sarah and Kreizler talk the weeping Libby down, convincing her if she loves Clara, she’ll let the kid go. Clara has a chance at a happy life, and if Libby lets her go, this can end the cycle. Libby weeps that all she wanted was a baby to take the pain of her loss away, and how it only ever worked for a little while. It works, and in return, Sarah prevents Byrnes’ men from shooting Libby when they burst in.
With a job well done, Vanderbilt is singing the praises of Sarah Howard. The Times is chuffed at breaking the story, leading to Moore getting promoted, which means any offer Hearst has at the Journal for him is out the window. Moore offers Joanna a position, but she’s going to work for the more progressive Weeksville paper in Brooklyn.
As for the relationship with Sarah, that’s just got pushed off the table. Violet’s seduction of Moore at their engagement party has worked its magic, and she is, as they say, “in a delicate condition.” Honestly, I’m not the only one who says thank heavens for that. Sarah may be heartbroken, but the relief she feels is palatable. She does not want to be anyone’s little wife or produce a family, which Moore does very much want. And she’s right, the things he loves about her are the things he’d grow to resent long term. Good job, Violet.
As for Vienna, Karen’s invite is from Freud himself, which means there’s nothing Kreizler can say to make her stay. His only choice is to go with her, which he does. He’ll be gone for two years, by which time it should be time for TNT to bring us The Alienist season three, no?
Stray observations
- Unlike Roosevelt and Byrnes, Kelly does not seem to be based on a real person, though the Irish last name does reference the massive influx of Irish immigrants into the Brooklyn corner of the NYPD during this era.
- Byrnes on horseback and the wagon of police is an impressive sight.
- Marcus’ death scene was stunning. If we don’t get a spinoff Bitsy & Lucius Show, I riot.
- On that note, a proper home shiva is the best place for a romantic scene. Convince me otherwise.
- I love Cyrus giving Kreizler Frederick Douglass’ book to take with him on the trip to Vienna.
- Joanna says the paper in Brooklyn she is going to work for is more “progressive.” It’s not clear which she means, but The Progressive American was one of many African American alt-weeklies that existed up North in those post Civil War years.
- Thomas Byrnes had five daughters, and though the show does not make it clear, Kitty is almost certainly supposed to be one of them.
- If there’s a The Alienist Season 3, set in 1899, as soon as Kreizler returns, I will need Violet to have a wardrobe to match.
- Any season three for this series won’t be based directly on a Caleb Carr novel. The “third” in his New York trilogy, Surrender New York, is a present-day set mystery, and it’s already under contract to be adapted over at Fox.
19 Comments
I was hoping for an Isaacson spinoff with Bitsy but, man, Lucius’s death hit me really, really hard. Their relationship was the most stable this season. As for “Surrender, New York”, it hasn’t gotten great reviews so it’s better off at Fox and it continues Carr’s obsession with bad things happening to children. Defintely getting exhausted of that trope and time to add some variety. I also feel bad for John. When did he have time to knock up Violet? Oh, yeah: the night of the party and that was totally a honeytrap as she obvioulsy assaulted John to keep him as they had little to no chemistry at that point. I have a feeling Howard and Kreizler will reunite to get into John’s head as he starts drinking again after sending Violet to Marcow’s Living-In hospital. Also not sure about Lazlo after giving up Delmonico’s for absinthe bars and an admitted sex freak who looks like she can play for Siouxsie and the Banshees. Dakota Fanning and the actress playing Libby had better get Emmy nominations. They were fab.
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Not sure if this show or the reviews are going anywhere after this season, but please drop the “this happens, then this happens, then this happens” format. We all watched it or we wouldn’t be here. Descriptive recaps with zero analysis, context, or criticism are basically worthless.
Thank you! I thought it was just me, but I came here for reflections, insight and critique, but it’s just a summary, and a poorly written on at that.
Of course, writers on the staff at AV Club can defend themselves from attacks like this, making what I am about to say superfluous. To be fair, we must acknowledge that it is not just the AV Club that charges its writers with recapping each episode of a popular television series: That is a standard throughout the entertainment industry. As recaps go, Ani Bundel’s are more than satisfactory: accurate and well written without snarky comments, IMO. Most people hired to write recaps like these would prefer to write legitimate criticism (which is what you want), not just the equivalent of book reports with sassy comments. It’s TV networks and producers, which advertise in entertainment journals, that insist on recaps with no intellectual teeth in them, because reviews with criticism don’t serve the same PR purpose as recaps.
“Sarah may be heartbroken, but the relief she feels is palatable.” Er, the relief she feels is not edible, but palpable: easily felt, unmistakable.
“Palatable” – also meaning, “agreeable or acceptable to the mind” – kind of works, but I think that you’re right that AB meant “palpable.” It wasn’t either adjective to me, since I wanted/want John and Sara together. That final pissed me off.
haha good catch. I was confused too
Hmmmm, interesting. I hadn’t watched yet because I don’t have cable, so I was waiting until the whole thing was done so I could SmartCast it to my TV and binge as I wished.I had rewatched the first season in anticipation, and re-read the reviews here. So many people complained (including that reviewer) about the show sticking so faithfully to the book. Here is seems like the only thing they bothered to stick to in the book is the names. I’m pretty disappointed because I feel like Angel was the far better book and most of what I was super interested to see on screen doesn’t even happen here. Stevie isn’t even mentioned, although it is his story. I did wonder how they were going to deal with the aborigine from the Philippines. Obviously it would be incredibly problematic to have an aboriginal pygmy, with an afro in a tuxedo running around shooting people with poison arrows. I really wanted all the stuff in Saratoga Springs, and the Navy fight with the Dusters and the secret underground nursery. Clarence Darrow!!!! I get it, if you actually stuck to the book it would have to be about 26 episodes.I’ll still watch it, because I like the cast a lot and the costumes and set design are awesome. Plus that car!
I’m of the same mind loved the book. Was holding out for the Dusters vs Navy battle even though I knew it was coming until the bitter end.
That said it’s well worth a watch. I’d compare it to LA Confidential in that loses much of the book plot wise but manages to keep it’s spirit, themes and atmosphere intaked.
Enjoy I’m off to reread the book.
I like your spirit!!! I’m definitely going to watch it, and it should be impressive sicne I’ll have go to TNT website on my phone, put on DND and streamcast to my TV. It’s only a few eps it’ll be awesome!!!
I appreciate the general …Sara and John callouts in the review…I felt the show cut a lot of the brother’s scene’s this season but still the death managed to have impact… absolutely I would be there for a Lucius and Bitsy hour as long as we got to drop in on the Dr.s in Vienna for a minute or two. John’s finance managed to walk that line between being annoying, antagonistic (for the sake of plot) and her own person I came to like. The show is messy with so many characters that it never quite settled but the costumes were great and I liked the various partnerships–romantic and otherwise.
Thanks for the recap, when is the review coming out?
I’ve argued for marriage as an important theme
throughout the second season of The Alienist. This week’s episodes offer only more proof of
that. Seen through this lens, a subtle pro-choice
idea emerges forcefully, when Libby and Sara’s mothers prove to be women for
whom motherhood is unwelcome and unsatisfying. Though both wealthy and married, they nevertheless join the ranks of Dr.
Markoe’s unlucky impoverished patients who give birth at Lying-In Hospital,
women for whom motherhood is an unmitigated disaster. Libby, the unwanted daughter of one, goes on
to torment her own unwanted babies. The
other unwanted child, Sara, recognizes that she is missing the impulse that
would convince her to give up everything in order to coddle an infant. It is that recognition that results in her
refusal to accept Moore’s proposals.
Married
men, too, come down on one side or the other of fatherhood. Moore and his father-in-law Hearst, different
as they are, both yearn to nurture their own children. They are unlike the men whose girls and
children are disposed of at Lying-In Hospital. Plotwise, that must be the point
of Violet being illegitimate but cared for by Hearst anyway. Likewise, John’s doubts about Violet seem to
vanish once she can give him a child.
Which
brings us to the point about marriage being viewed traditionally as the
foundation of the family during this historical period. Both seasons of The Alienist reveal
the family as an institution under siege in turn-of-the-century New York. Prepubescent boys in dresses are put up for
sale in brothels specializing in a certain clientele. The series features examples demonstrating the
emergence of photography as an art, resulting in the prevalence of child pornography
during the same period, running alongside the Victorian Cult of the Child,
where worship of little boys and girls sometimes became indistinguishable from
paedophilia. The Kreizler Institute houses rich children whose families cannot
tolerate their disabilities. On the
other side of the tracks, parents too poor to support their children abandon
them to the streets, where they become vagrants and pickpockets—or worse. Babies
are having babies at Dr. Markoe’s Lying-In Hospital. What
emerges from these conditions is the conclusion that when women suffer, the
suffering of children inevitably follows, as night follows day.
The
concept of consent within loving relationships is desecrated when money rather
than preference rules, whether in brothels or in the “legitimate” marriage
market (where women choose which rich man to marry). Consent is the ultimate violation in the
up-and-coming criminal enterprise of kidnapping. Parents who think of their children as
priceless treasures are forced to treat them like merchandise in a world where
everything has a price.
Finally,
when the institution of marriage falters, intimacy takes a tremendous hit. Libby’s crime converts an intimate moment like
nursing an infant into a literally toxic relationship; she even distorts her
intimacy with Goo Goo Knox by poisoning her milk suppy. What
John and Sara have is intimacy. John and
Violet may not share the same kind of intimacy as John and Sara, but John
decides that what they do have is enough to meet the needs each expects their
marriage of convenience to fulfill. Mary
and Lazlo had an intimacy that defied the norms, because she had begun as his
ward. With Karen, Lazlo embarks on
another norm-defying relationship, without either of them actually intending to
turn professional consultation into something personal. Though both Marcus and Lucius have love
interests, their intimacy as twins holds each back a little. It is, in the end, their shared commitment to
forensic science that results in Marcus’s death in his brother’s arms. Wherever
intimacy is the final goal, the road to satisfaction is never easy.
I love the series and I hope there is a 3rd season. The cast has great chemistry and I can see why Moore loves Sarah, she is an awesome person and nice looking as well. We have been watching her since she was a child so that thought does give me the creeps though especially since Moore looks to be at least 20 years older than her. I only have 2 small gripes. The Police officer who turns his back on Libby (who obviously takes advantage of that) after being so careful to make her come out and get on her knees. He already knew she was a vicious killer, that to me was a bit poorly written. Surely there was a better way for her to escape, maybe help from someone else etc. And the lack of security at the place where Clara was staying, surely they knew Lucius and his brother would not be up to the task of dealing with GooGoo’s gang if they all chose to show up there. Otherwise great season. The actress who plays Libby knocked it out of the park. Beautiful red hair. And she was totally believable in that role. I hope to see a lot more of her.
I disagree entirely about John and Violet. I’m not sure that John/Sara was feasible in the long run, but assuming that women’s choices, even in the 1890s, are either-or, is not as feminist as the show apparently thinks it is. I’ve researched professional women in the Gilded Age (for my own purposes, of course!), and their lives were more varied than that. And do you honestly not think Violet’s children will be raised by the nanny, anyway? Mostly, I’d have been way happier about it if the engagement party sex hadn’t been such an obvious ploy on Violet’s part, if Violet had been remotely likable (she could have been perfectly fine, just not Sara — she wasn’t), and if Violet’s “godfather” wasn’t a controlling man who represents everything John deplores in his chosen profession and who refers to marriages as “transactional.” Honestly, John’ll be drinking again in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1. (Which, since he never gave it up in the books, okay.) Mostly, I see Violet driving a wedge between John and his friends. I’m assuming Laszlo will be back in a couple of years, with (hopefully!) or without Karen, and I would like to imagine more adventures, onscreen or not, for our Dysfunctional Gilded Age Mystery-Solving Trio.Marcus’ death was also pointless, as it had no real narrative purpose except to make John declare himself finally to Sara, only to have Violet’s news flip the script five minutes later. Marcus deserved much better.
This is the worst review I’ve read about any film or TV project. Even one’s I don’t agree with I was able to find new perspectives on a piece of art. When you just list story beats and what’s happening, you’re not reviewing, you’re ‘wikipedia listing.’
The final episode had an impressive body count!
I enjoyed this season, found it better than the first. I didn’t think I would after the first episode as I found infanticide to be a subject I’m not sure I could stomach watching for 8 hours but I’m glad I hung in there. The chemistry between the cast is just fabulous, the show is just eye candy and I really hope we get a third season.
Usually don’t comment too much on reviews (or I guess recaps in this case?), but this one is kind of littered with mistakes, which is a massive bummer. For instance:
– Mallory offered to show Sarah and co the adoption papers, she wasn’t hiding Clara’s location from them. Sarah and the others opted not to involve her but there wasn’t any tomfoolery from Mallory with it, other than later getting fleeced and manipulated by Byrne.- Goo Goo didn’t arrive late to the meeting. He was specifically watching from the shadows debating his decision and seeing what the cops would do. He likely figured he wouldn’t get any better treatment after handing over the kid when they immediately started beating on Fat Jack.
– Waterboarding was Byrne’s third degree, not his first. He literally went through a whole speil about what the first and second were (but still, fuck Byrnes) (although he did kinda come good by the end, so hurrah for growth there).
– Marcus got shot in the gut, not the chest. Still though, RIP to the best boy. That whole scene was devastating as hell.- “Sarah may be heartbroken, but the relief she feels is palatable” Yeaaaah, I didn’t get this reading at all myself. Sarah seemed like she was just trying to play it stoically and not make the situation more difficult for either of them to me (as if internally walling herself back up and defaulting back to her previous position to spare them both the pain of acknowleding how close they were to taking the next step). But hey! Each to their own reading.All in all, appreciate the review/recap but would’ve loved to see some more genuine critical analysis and deep diving. A show this rich just begs to be explored in proper detail.