Dumb Money: Smart movie

Dumb Money (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for drug use, vulgar sexual references and relentless profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.29.23

I haven’t had this much fun with economics and Wall Street misbehavior since The Big Short, which this film resembles on several levels: mostly because both fact-based sagas concern Wall Street corporate heads with more money than humanity, who don’t give a damn how their actions affect “reg’lar folks” like me and thee.

 

When Keith (Paul Dano) worries that his precarious investment choices might obliterate
their hard-earned savings, his wife Caroline (Shailene Woodley) — trusting him
implicitly — insists that he should go for it.

And while director Craig Gillespie’s rollicking ensemble piece isn’t quite as sheer-genius captivating as its 2015 companion-in-outrage, it takes an equally audacious swipe at the dark side of capitalism.

More crucially, this is a David vs. Goliath story where the little guys actually come out on top. To a degree. (Some of them.)

 

The villains here are the hedge-fund bastards notorious for swooping in to buy an ailing company — or franchise — for the express purpose of gutting its remaining assets and then departing, leaving bankruptcy and thousands of lost jobs and pensions. They’re also infamous for “shorting” a company’s stock: a skeevy purchasing maneuver that bets said company will do worse in the future than it’s doing currently.

 

(I can think of no better reason to revive public stockades.)

 

Gillespie’s film is adapted from Ben Mezrich’s best-selling The Antisocial Network, his thoroughly researched account of the now-infamous GameStop stock debacle. The sharp, sassy script is by Lauren Schuker Blum and Rebecca Angelo, both former financial reporters for the Wall Street Journal.

 

(Mezrich has a flair for this sort of ripped-from-financial-headlines material; his previous books include Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions, which hit movie screens as 2008’s 21; and The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal, which became 2010’s The Social Network. His next book, due in November, is Breaking Twitter: Elon Musk and the Most Controversial Corporate Takeover in History. Can’t wait.)

 

The GameStop chronicle — yes, the mall-based retail stores that sold new and used computer games and equipment — represented one of life’s occasionally wild perfect storms. It likely never would have happened without the convergence of Covid lockdowns, savvy social media users, and a still-festering, street-level desire to somehow get back at those responsible for the 2008 financial meltdown.

 

The unlikely underdog is geeky, mild-mannered Keith Gill — marvelously played, with aw-shucks sincerity, by Paul Dano — an amateur stock analyst and dedicated social media user introduced here in January 2021, as he posts details of his investment activities from the basement of his home in Brockton, Mass. The basement may be a humble setting, but his multiple cameras, computers and screens produce impressively professional visuals.

 

Keith’s YouTube and Twitter handle: Roaring Kitty. (His Reddit username, DFV, is abbreviated from a nom-de-Internetthat cannot be printed in a family-friendly blog.)

The Creator: Half-baked

The Creator (2023) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for profanity, bloody images and relentless action violence

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

The more I think about this film, the more my opinion dwindles.

 

Its vision cannot be faulted. This is a stunning depiction of future Earth every bit as jaw-dropping as was — for its time — the 2019 Los Angeles envisioned by 1982’s Blade Runner. The work by production designer James Clyne and visual effects supervisors Julian Levi and Jay Cooper is wholly immersive; this feels like an authentic — and credible — glimpse of technology and cityscapes, further into our 21st century.

 

The more time Joshua (John David Washington) spends with the simulant he has
christened Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles), the less he's able to view her as
anything but a human child ... her unusual abilities notwithstanding.

The performances are equally fine, with persuasive work coming from stars John David Washington, Allison Janney, Ken Watanabe, Gemma Chan and — in a highly unusual role — young Madeleine Yuna Voyles.

No, the problem lies entirely with sluggish pacing and the clumsy storyline by director Gareth Edwards and co-scripter Chris Weitz. It simply doesn’t gel. Following a fascinating prologue and solid first act, continuity cracks become increasingly obvious, along with progressively unbelievable behavior and emotional responses by key characters.

 

The colossal environmental devastation and cold-blooded loss of human life — on a massive scale — also is quite unpalatable. 

 

Finally, the physical punishment and hair’s-breadth escapes endured by our sorta-kinda-hero become ludicrous. This isn’t a superhero movie, and he’s a plain-vanilla human being.

 

A newsreel-style prologue provides background on how rudimentary, first-gen robots — akin to what we have today — evolve, during subsequent decades, to become life-size AI “servants” capable of independent thought and action. 

 

Everybody throughout the world embraces this technological revolution … until AI triggers a nuclear explosion that destroys Los Angeles. In the wake of this catastrophe, the U.S. government ban all AI, and embark on a campaign of mass destruction throughout the world.

 

This puts the United States at odds with Eastern nations, which continue to develop the technology to the point where these simulants become human-like, and are embraced as equals. Some AIs continue to look like machines; others have bodies and faces, the latter only the front half of a “head” backed by an intricate cylindrical power and intelligence gizmo.

 

The result: all-out war between the United States and Asia.

 

(The film’s press notes make a point of involving “Western nations” in the AI purge, but only the United States is on display here: no indication of Europe, Canada or Australia, not to mention Eastern Europe and Russia. That feels sloppy.)

 

Flora and Son: Makes beautiful music

Flora and Son (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for sexual candor, brief drug use and relentless profanity

Available via: Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang

Like writer/director/musician John Carney, I firmly believe that everybody possesses an artistic bliss which, if discovered and properly nurtured, could dramatically improve one’s life.

 

To her surprise, Flora (Eve Hewson) soon anticipates her online guitar lessons with
genuine pleasure, because of the bond she establishes with her tutor.

Carney clearly values the transformative power of music, which became abundantly clear with 2007’s Once, the captivating breakout hit that made his rep and gave us an Academy Award-winning song: “Falling Slowly.” He followed that with the equally beguiling Begin Again (2013) and Sing Street (2016), both of which enhanced their character-driven pleasures with charming song scores.

Carney’s newest, however, is apt to be a tougher sell: in part because its roster of original tunes lacks a memorable ear-worm, but mostly because — as introduced — this story’s protagonist is thoroughly unlikable (unless one admires relentless, profanity-laced tirades that would make a dock worker blush).

 

That said, one can’t help admiring the unapologetic ferocity with which Eve Hewson plays 31-year-old Flora, a Dublin-based single mother still selfishly trying to make up for the long-ago lost adolescence resulting from the arrival of her now-14-year-old son, Max (Orén Kinlan).

 

Flora is selfish, spiteful, impatient and intolerant, with a an entitlement chip the size of Inishmore on her shoulder. She “works” rather disinterestedly as a daycare nanny, then devotes her evenings to bars, discos and getting laid. As a result, Max has become a surly, rebellious, free-range teenager — who could blame him? — and petty thief who is up to his last chance with the local Gardai (policeman).

 

Flora can’t even be bothered to remember or acknowledge Max’s birthday. When the realization dawns, she fishes a broken guitar from a refuse bin, pays to have it quickly refurbished, and presents it to Max. But it’s a day-late-dollar-short gesture that the boy understandably dismisses with a sniff.

 

At this point, the subtlety of Hewson’s performance begins to shine. (About time, we think gratefully.) When Max is out of range, Flora displays genuine shame and regret; we realize that part of her anger is directed inward, over her inability to be a better mother. She’s dismayed because she never had the chance to learn how.

 

Against all odds, she becomes sympathetic. She also takes a metaphorical breath and slows down.

A Million Miles Away: Earthbound

A Million Miles Away (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG, for no particular reason

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.22.23

José Hernández’s remarkably impressive life and career definitely warrant a suitably exhilarating film.

 

Sadly, this one isn’t it.

 

José Hernández (Michael Peña, center), newly hired as an electrical and computer
engineer at California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, finds that his input
is neither requested nor appreciated by his white colleagues. During meetings, he often
doesn't even get a seat at the table.

The script — by Bettina Gilois, Hernán Jiménez and director Alejandra Márquez Abella, based on Hernández’s 2012 autobiography — jarringly skips massive chunks of his early years, and is quite sloppy with respect to the passage of time. It’s also frequently hard to determine what year it is, and when various things take place.

Die-hard NASA fans will be able to fill in the gaps, but casual viewers will wonder if key scenes wound up on the cutting-room floor.

 

That’s a shame, because all the performances are strong and heartfelt, particularly Michael Peña’s starring role as Hernández. The film also excels at its depiction of family dynamics, and the strong ties binding him with his parents, his cousin Beto (Bobby Soto), and (eventually) his wife Adela (Rosa Salazar) and her family.

 

That said, it could be argued that Abella spends too much time on these relationships, at the expense of a more thorough depiction of how José gets from A to B, and then to C and D.

 

The story begins in the late 1960s, as the families of 7-year-old José (endearingly played in these early scenes by Juan Pablo Monterrubio) and Beto (Leonardo Granados) divide their lives between home in La Piedad, Michoacán, Mexico, and work each year as farmworkers, moving from one California town to another. Education is scattered and inconsistent, as the boys shuttle from one school to the next.

 

On top of which, they’re often both exhausted, sometimes — in a poignant scene — falling asleep on their school desks.

 

Even so, young José has a thirst for learning, and receives encouragement from a teacher (Michelle Krusiec) who sees a spark in his eager gaze. “You’re a force of nature,” she tells him. “Nothing will stop you.”

 

José’s father Salvador (Julio César Cedillo) also has a telling encounter with a guidance counselor. “A tree doesn’t like to be uprooted and planted somewhere else every few months,” she points out. “It will grow, but it won’t thrive.”

Sitting in Bars with Cake: Scrumptious!

Sitting in Bars with Cake (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for profanity, drug use and sexual candor

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang 

You wouldn’t know it from the title, or the needlessly chaotic initial 10-15 minutes, but once director Trish Sie’s modest little film settles down, it becomes one of the warmest, most touching odes to friendship I’ve seen in years.

 

Jane (Yara Shahidi, center) and her posse — from left, Alex (Charlie Morgan Patton),
Nora (Simone Recasner), Corinne (Odessa A'zion) and Liz (Maia Mitchell) — discover
that "cakebarring" is a great way to attract guys. (Note the cake at table center.)

Credit scripter Audrey Shulman, who clearly wrote from the heart; credit also the persuasively authentic performances by stars Yara Shahidi and Odessa A’zion.

This film’s back-story is equally enchanting. Shulman, a Nashville transplant who wound up in Los Angeles as a twentysomething, was celebrating best friend Chrissy Osmulski’s birthday in a bar in the summer of 2012. Shulman, an avid baker, brought along a cherry cake to share with Chrissy and several other friends; the tasty dessert drew the attention of other patrons, and Shulman suddenly realized that this could be a great way to meet guys.

 

Hence the beginning of what she dubbed “cakebarring.” Starting the following January, she vowed to bake a different cake each week, bringing it and her friends to a different venue each week, with the ultimate goal of 50 cakes by the end of the year. She recorded this tasty campaign in what became a popular blog — complete with recipes — which in turn led to an equally well received 2015 book.

 

Now, working alongside Sie, Shulman has adapted her adventures into a charming film. Shahidi’s Jane is Shulman’s alter ego, while A’zion’s Corinne stands in for Chrissy. They’re best friends totally into each other’s groove, despite being polar opposites. 

 

The bookish Jane, whip-smart but introverted, pursues law school studies apparently dictated by her imperious parents; baking becomes a respite during study breaks. By day, she works as an obsessively organized mailroom clerk in an office run by the somewhat grandmotherly Benita (Bette Midler, in a fleeting part that should have been expanded).

 

The wildly extroverted Corinne, in contrast, is a force of nature: an irrepressible free spirit who embraces any occasion at 15 on a 10-point scale, while bouncing from one joyous experience to the next. (“A human sparkler, a flash of color and light,” as Shulman described Chrissy.)

 

We can’t imagine Corinne keeping a job for more than two weeks. She likely regards sleep as a waste of time, and bemoans the fact that her shy roomie doesn’t work harder at “putting herself out there,” particularly when it comes to what she wears.

 

“If it works for Mr. Rogers,” Jane says defensively, at one point, “it works for me.”

 

Corinne groans … and A’zion is just as marvelous at exasperation, as every other emotion.

 

Let it also be said that costume designer Ciara Whaley obviously had a great time with Corinne’s wild outfits.

 

A Haunting in Venice: Gothic nonsense

A Haunting in Venice (2023) • View trailer

2.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for strong violence and dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.15.23

Agatha Christie must be spinning in her grave.

 

I can’t fault Kenneth Branagh for wanting to play her famed Belgian detective again; it’s a great role, and Branagh fills Hercule Poirot’s patent leather shoes with a delightful blend of aristocratic condescension and shrewd, sharp-eyed deductive analysis. It’s always fun to watch Poirot’s narrow gaze scrutinize the comparative heights of his twin breakfast soft-boiled eggs.

 

Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) initially has no interest in the challenge offered by
longtime friend Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey). But his curiosity eventually is piqued, and
he agrees to tag along for what becomes a most unusual evening.

But must Branagh continue to work with scripter Michael Green?

Green’s repeated efforts to “improve upon” Christie’s meticulously crafted novels ran 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express off the rails, and his 2022 disembowelment of Death on the Nile went under not only for the third time, but also the fourth and fifth.

 

This time out, Green doesn’t even try to adapt Christie’s Hallowe’en Party. The only thing this film has in common with her 1969 novel is the presence of one character, and he treats her in a manner that will enrage the celebrated author’s fans.

 

Why adapt a famous author’s book, if you’re just going to ruin it?

 

Matters aren’t helped by the fact that Branagh — who also directs — and cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos allowed their Gothic sensibilities to run amuck. Branagh’s third Poirot outing is a classic example of style over substance: cockeyed camera angels, darkened hallways, smash-cut close-ups of worried expressions, Hildur Guönadóttir’s shrieking score, and the repeated squawking distraction of a cockatoo that swoops into numerous scenes for no good reason … all of which do nothing to conceal Green’s clumsy plot.

 

The setting is Venice in 1947, as Italy struggles to rebuild itself. Ten years have passed since the events in Death on the Nile, a decade has left Poirot disheartened by the fact that another generation found itself in a war even worse, in some respects, than the “Great War” he endured during his younger days. Poirot has retired and retreated behind the gates of a Venetian appartamento; he employs a bodyguard, Vitale (Riccardo Scamarcio), to dissuade anybody wishing to engage his detective services.

 

Even so, Poirot tolerates a visit from longtime associate Ariadne Oliver (Tina Fey), a mystery novelist who has based her series character on him. She offers a puzzle: a supposed medium, Joyce Reynolds (Michelle Yeoh), whose “performance” at a recent séance left her baffled. Ariadne, inclined to accept the notion of communication with the dead, believes that if Mrs. Reynolds can convince Poirot that she’s the “real deal,” then the result will be a certain best-seller about “the woman who stumped Hercule Poirot.”

 

(It must be mentioned that, in Christie’s canon, Ariadne is a friend who helps Poirot in seven novels, and would never, ever bait him so callously. But we move on…)

 

Clearly stung by the notion that he could be fooled by such an obvious charlatan, Poirot accepts the challenge. The setting for the next séance proves foreboding: the crumbling palazzo owned by retired opera singer Rowena Drake (Kelly Reilly). The place is believed haunted by the ghosts of young orphans who met a terrible fate therein, decades earlier.

 

Worse yet, it’s also where Rowena’s beloved daughter Alicia died one year ago, having apparently jumped from her upstairs bedroom window and drowned in the canal below.

 

It also happens to be Halloween. A particularly stormy and wind-swept Halloween. What could be better?

How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Explosively tense

How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity and drug use

Available via: Amazon Prime and other streaming services

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.8.23

I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more films like this one, during the next decade.

 

Director Goldhaber’s riveting ecological thriller unfolds with the intensity of a ticking time bomb … which, climate-wise, intentionally echoes the status of Earth these days.

 

Xochitl (Ariela Barer, far left) and four of her colleagues — from left, Alisha (Jayme
Lawson), Theo (Sasha Lane), Shawn (Marcus Scribner) and Dwayne (Jake Weary) —
wait, at a safe distance, for the next phase of their plan to be executed.

Despite sharing its title with Andreas Malm’s 2021 book, the two have nothing in common. Malm’s nonfiction work argues the futility of moral pacifism and expecting change from “the ruling class” — i.e., Big Oil — in favor of more aggressive climate activism in pursuit of environmental justice. (It’s not a “how to” guide akin to William Powell’s notorious 1971 classic, The Anarchist Cookbook.)

Goldhaber, along with co-scripters Ariela Barer and Jordan Sjol, instead have fashioned a non-linear nail-biter very much in the mold of Quentin Tarantino’s 1992 crime thriller, Reservoir Dogs. Both films feature eight primary characters; both intercut the suspensefully developing climax with flashbacks providing key details that explain what draws these folks together.

 

The film opens by following Xochitl (Ariela Barer) as she walks along a city street and, unseen, slashes the tires of a parked SUV; she then slides a one-page manifesto beneath the windshield wipers. She becomes the prime mover behind what takes place soon thereafter.

 

Xochitl grew up in Long Beach, Calif., surrounded by polluting refineries and chemical plants. She became radicalized following the recent death of her mother, during a heat wave likely exacerbated by insufficient air conditioning.

 

Xochitl later joins the others — Shawn (Marcus Scribner), Michael (Forrest Goodluck), Theo (Sasha Lane), Alisha (Jayme Lawson), Logan (Lukas Gage), Rowan (Kristine Froseth) and Dwayne (Jake Weary) — at a deserted cabin in West Texas. They’re prepared for a brief but intense stay, having brought food, supplies … and all the elements required to make two large cylindrical barrel bombs.

 

Their efforts reflect meticulous — and quite clever — planning, along with a rigorous attention to detail. During this initial phase, they work under the guidance of Michael, who lives on a North Dakota reservation. Infuriated by how a nearby refinery has imperiled his people’s land, he taught himself how to make increasingly sophisticated bombs and triggering devices.

 

We eventually learn that Xochitl and Theo grew up together. As children, they’d gaily play in the rain … and then suffer, hours later, from chemical burns on their exposed skin. Theo recently has been handed a death sentence of leukemia, which prompts a sense of can’t-lose fatalism; it also further fuels Xochitl’s wrath. Theo’s girlfriend Alisha, horrified by their behavior, tries to be the voice of reason … but ultimately succumbs to the developing plan.

 

Bank of Dave: A worthy investment

Bank of Dave (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for occasional profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime and other streaming services

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.1.23

This is quite the charmer.

 

Director Chris Foggin’s irresistible underdog dramedy is loosely based on the actual exploits of Dave Fishwick, a working-class Burnley bloke who parlayed a one-man car repair shop into what soon became the largest minibus supplier in Britain, making him a multi-millionaire.

 

No good deed goes unpunished: When Dave Fishwick (Rory Kinnear) remains
stubbornly undeterred by London banking officials who refuse to let him play in their
sandbox, he winds up in court for his impertinence.

But he was just getting started.

Enraged by the early 21st century financial scandals that tanked economies on both sides of the pond — Barclays over there, Lehman Brothers here, along with others elsewhere in the world — Fishwick realized that the established banking institution had completely lost sight of its twin missions: to help people and do no harm.

 

Particularly because the CEOs involved not only evaded jail time, but in most cases still pocketed obscenely high bonuses.

 

He therefore set up his own lending company to assist “regular folks” living in his Lancashire town. (His grateful “customers,” honest to the core, always paid him back.) Emboldened by this success, Fishwick embarked on a mission to become an actual bank: an audacious desire, because the London-based financial authorities hadn’t granted a new bank license in more than a century.

 

(Astonishing, but true: Metro Bank, founded in 2010 — while Fishwick was setting up his operation — became the first new bank to launch in the UK in more than 150 years.)

 

Trust Foggin — who delighted us with 2019’s Fisherman’s Friends, a different sort of fact-based underdog tale — to spin this unlikely saga into an equally enjoyable romp. (After all, who doesn’t hate upper-echelon bankers?)

 

Scripter Piers Ashworth has taken considerable liberty with actual events — an opening text block admits that this film is “based on a true(ish) story” — and pretty much everything aside from Fishwick and his innovative gamble is fabricated. But that doesn’t matter, when the result is this entertaining.

 

Events begin when Dave (winningly played by Rory Kinnear) contacts a London legal firm to help him jump the hoops required to become a “real bank.” Senior partner Clarence (Angus Wright), somewhat amused by the barmy novelty of this request, dispatches young Hugh (Joel Fry).

 

One gets a sense that Hugh hasn’t ever left London’s metropolitan environment; his baffled expression, upon arriving in Burnley, is akin to that of a man suddenly confronted by an alien landscape. Fry’s stammering awkwardness is priceless.

 

Although he clearly has been sent to talk Dave out of this mad scheme, Hugh can’t help being captivated by his host’s earnestness and down-to-earth bonhomie. Besides which, there’s a certain logic to Dave’s pitch.

 

“Why do all banks have to be supermarkets?” he quite reasonably asks. “Why can’t some be corner shops?”

 

And, more to the point, “How can London decide if folks in Burnley are a good investment?”

 

(Pay attention to the way some of these folks say “London.” One suspects they’d be grateful for a spittoon.)

The Good Mother: Relentlessly bad

The Good Mother (2023) • View trailer

NO STARS. Rated R, for profanity, violence and drug content

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

I cannot imagine why someone of Hilary Swank’s stature signed on to something this dreadful.

 

This isn’t merely a bad film; it’s also badly made. Bizarre camera placement. (Who frames a two-shot so that half of one person is cut off?) Wildly inappropriate choices of music, at bewilderingly wrong moments. Frequent night-time and deserted building set-ups so poorly illuminated that it’s impossible to tell what’s happening.

 

After her son is killed in what appears to be a drug deal gone bad, Marissa (Hilary Swank,
right) reluctantly teams up with his pregnant girlfriend Paige (Olivia Cooke), in order
to figure out what actually went down.

That said, I wish cinematographer Charlotte Hornsby had just left the cap on her camera lens, and fully spared us 90 minutes of misery.

Somebody should rip up Miles Joris-Peyrafitte’s Directors Guild card; he shouldn’t be let near another film shoot. But his feeble efforts at helming this misfire pale when compared to the script he co-wrote with Madison Harrison: absolutely the most ridiculous, atrociously contrived bit of nonsense I’ve seen in years.

 

None of these characters feels genuine. Not even Swank can breathe life into her starring role. The so-called plot lurches forward only because every key character behaves like an imbecile at all times. 

 

The result is nothing but a string of “jump the shark” moments. On top of which, the plot’s supposed “surprise reveal” is blindingly obvious from the start.

 

Marissa (Swank) is a newspaper journalist in Albany, NY, whose career has stalled in the wake of her husband’s death a few years back. (One wonders why she continues to mourn, given that she later admits he was an abusive jerk: merely one of many details this misbegotten script can’t justify.) As the film begins, she’s shattered by the news that her estranged younger son — Michael (Harrison, in a fleeting acting cameo), a drug addict — has just been shot dead.

 

This comes as no real surprise to Marisa’s other son, Toby (Jack Reynor), a police officer who has been tracking the local distribution of fentanyl-laced heroin, and believes that Michael and longtime friend Ducky (Hopper Penn) were involved. When Michael’s seven-months-pregnant girlfriend Paige (Olivia Cooke) shows up at the funeral, Marissa loses control, believing her to be the “bad influence” in Michael’s life.

 

The two women subsequently reach an uneasy alliance — a moment that neither actress can sell — when Paige insists that Ducky couldn’t possibly have killed his best friend; it simply doesn’t make sense.

 

That evening, Paige goes through Michael’s things and finds a suitcase containing two large baggies of heroin. Just as she’s absorbing the implications, two men break into her apartment; she barely escapes with the suitcase. With nowhere else to go, Paige shows up at Marissa’s house, first hiding the suitcase in the front porch crawlspace; she removes oneof the bags (!) and hands it to Marissa and Toby.

 

To Toby’s obvious concern, the two women decide to play Nancy Drew, in order to a) find Ducky; b) determine if he did or didn’t kill Michael; c) find possible witnesses to the young man’s slaying; and d) figure out who broke into Paige’s place.

 

All while everybody mostly ignores the elephant in the room: Marissa’s return slide into alcoholism. (We cringe every time she gets behind the wheel of a car.)