• Home
  • Movies
  • Music
  • TV
  • Video Games
  • Wrestling
  • Topics
  • Latest Comments on Cult of Whatever
Search
Cult of Whatever logo
  • Movies
    Featured
    • The Living Daylights: Timothy Dalton as James Bond

      The Living Daylights is still awesome, thirty-five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 28, 2022
      Movie Blogs
    Recent
    • Lethal Weapon: Danny Glover and Mel Gibson as Roger Murtaugh and Martin Riggs

      Lethal Weapon is still awesome thirty-five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | August 9, 2022
    • Nope: Keke Palmer and Daniel Kaluuya

      REVIEW: “NOPE” wants to be more than it is, which is just good enough

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 22, 2022
    • Brave: Kelly Macdonald voices Princess Merida

      Ten years later, BRAVE remains Pixar’s most underrated film

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 21, 2022
    • A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Heather Langenkamp as Nancy

      A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 is still awesome, thirty-five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 20, 2022
    • Where The Crawdads Sing: Daisy Edgar Jones and David Strathairn

      REVIEW: Where the Crawdads Sing deftly blends genres to good effect

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 19, 2022
    • Thor Love and Thunder: Natalie Portman and Chris Hemsworth as The Mighty Thor and Thor

      REVIEW: THOR – LOVE AND THUNDER is an adventure of mirth and sadness alike

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 9, 2022
  • Music
    Random
    • Bg Elvis Guitar

      Elvis's 40 Year Reign (1968)

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 29, 2017
      Music Blogs
    Recent
    • The Beatles: Get Back

      What GET BACK reveals about the Beatles

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 15, 2021
    • Simon And Garfunkel at Feyenoord Stadium in Rotterdam1982

      The Boxer is a song about being conned

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 4, 2021
    • Lady Gaga: Chromatica Album Cover

      Lady Gaga’s discography is totally out of order

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 3, 2021
    • Michael Jackson Thriller Album Cover

      Thirty years ago music fans said “Nevermind” to Michael Jackson

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 21, 2021
    • Queen II Album Cover

      On Queen’s The Miracle, and the importance of track ordering

      By Matthew Martin
      | February 16, 2021
    • Linda Paul Mccartney 1976

      50 years ago, McCartney dropped “Lennon” and went solo…

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 5, 2020
  • TV
    Featured
    • Nancy Drew S03e01: Kennedy McMann as Nancy

      Nancy Drew S03E01 Review: The Warning of the Frozen Heart - Uh-oh!

      By Salome G
      | October 10, 2021
      TV Blogs
    Recent
    • American Horror Stories S02e04 Cody Fern and Seth Gabel as Thomas and Walter

      American Horror Stories S02E04 Review: Milkmaids – Very ambitious

      By Salome G
      | August 14, 2022
    • Roswell New Mexico S04e09: Allie Myers and Jeanine Mason as Shiri Appleby and Liz Ortecho

      Roswell, New Mexico S04E09 Review: Wild Wild West- Okay…

      By Salome G
      | August 11, 2022
    • Evil S03e09: Party Time

      Evil S03E09 Review: The Demon of Money – Dark moments…

      By Salome G
      | August 8, 2022
    • American Horror Stories S02e03: Bella Thorne as Marci

      American Horror Stories S02E03 Review: Drive – Unsettling experiences

      By Salome G
      | August 8, 2022
    • The Orville S03: Penny Johnson Jerald and Mark Jackson as Dr. Claire Finn and Isaac

      The Orville season three finale review: Don’t say goodbye

      By Matthew Martin
      | August 8, 2022
    • Roswell New Mexico S04e08: Michael Vlamis as Michael Guerin

      Roswell, New Mexico S04E08 Review: Missing My Baby – The truth hurts

      By Salome G
      | August 3, 2022
  • Video Games
    Featured
    • Arkham Knight

      Batman: Arkham Knight - A fitting end to a trilogy

      By Tom Farr
      | July 18, 2015
      Video Game Reviews
    Recent
    • Legend Of Zelda

      Can a Legend of Zelda movie work?

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 6, 2022
    • Super Mario 64

      Which system had the better launch: A battle of four Nintendo consoles

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 1, 2021
    • Luigi's Mansion

      Happy twentieth to Nintendo’s underrated gem, the Gamecube

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 18, 2021
    • Metroid Dread

      Metroid Dread – Post Game analysis and sequel needs

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 29, 2021
    • Mario Headphones

      The SNES Turns 30: A look at some of the system’s best soundtracks

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 22, 2021
    • Metroid Dread Poster

      REVIEW: Metroid Dread reawakens the old gamer in me

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 11, 2021
  • Wrestling
    Featured
    • Wwe Payback 2017 Poster 2

      Your SO OF COURSE preview of WWE Payback 2017

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 30, 2017
      WWE Blogs
    Recent
    • AEW Dark: Ricky Starks (22/09/20)

      The future of the AEW World Championship

      By Matthew Martin
      | August 14, 2022
    • AEW Forbidden Door 2022: Claudio Castagnoli

      ROH Death Before Dishonor 2022 kickstarted a new era with a bang

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 25, 2022
    • Vince Mcmahon Stone Cold Podcast

      Vince McMahon is out as WWE chief. First reactions here…

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 22, 2022
    • AEW Double or Nothing 2022: CM Punk vs Adam Page

      REVIEW: AEW Double or Nothing 2022 delivered an up-and-down show

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 30, 2022
    • MJF on AEW Dynamite 17th November 2021

      Getting AEW to the next level…

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 29, 2022
    • Raw 210501: Triple H and Stephanie McMahon

      May 21, 2001 – A (forgotten) date that will live in WWE infamy

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 20, 2022
  • Topics
    • site logo
    Latest
    • American Horror Stories S02E04 Review: Milkmaids - Very ambitious
    • The future of the AEW World Championship
    • Roswell, New Mexico S04E09 Review: Wild Wild West- Okay...
    • Lethal Weapon is still awesome thirty-five years later
    • Evil S03E09 Review: The Demon of Money - Dark moments...
    • American Horror Stories S02E03 Review: Drive - Unsettling experiences

    The Alienist S01E07 Review: Many Sainted Men – John and Laszlo get all up in their feelings

    By Salome G
    | March 6, 2018
    TV Blogs

    You could be forgiven for thinking that this week’s episode of The Alienist was a rerun. So much of what we see, after all, has already been done. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before–John, our resident damsel in distress, gets drugged. Also, powerful men try to convince the super team to give up their investigation. The alienist alienates people.

    It’s not that the episode is bad, necessarily; it’s that it’s such a letdown after the momentum of last week. And at the start of this week’s episode, it seems as if the momentum will continue, that the game is afoot. John is trying to draw the man Stevie saw and it’s not going well, judging by the pile of discarded drawings all over the floor.

    Alienist S1e7 Daniel Bruhl Dakota Fanning Luke Evans Laszlo Kreizler Sara Howard John Moore

    But why would it? The truth is, they should be shaken by what happened the night before. It’s only human. But so is the killer, which means he’s fallible, too.

    As they examine the body of Ernst Lohman, the child we knew as Rosie, Lucius points out that there are some differences in the mutilation this time. For one thing, only one eye was removed. In addition, the heart was also removed this time and the boy was partially scalped. This reminds Roosevelt of Indian wars out west, which gives them a new avenue to investigate. Then Kreizler asks to be alone with the body. I have no idea what they think is happening, but what actually happens is that after a moment of tenderness, where he strokes the boy’s face, he stabs him with a scalpel. Yikes. I wish they’d left in a scene where he explains the sudden new injury to the Isaacsons.

    Outside, there’s a near-riot going on, courtesy of Paul Kelly, who’s furious that his child brothels are still closed. He rescues John and Kreizler, even giving them a ride to the Museum of Natural History, but there is clear menace in what he tells them. (“You are fighting a monster, one that reaches from Millionaire’s Mile all the way down to Mulberry Street. And if you’re not careful, it will devour you long before you find your child killer.”)

    Alienist S1e7 Daniel Bruhl Luke Evans Laszlo Kreizler John Moore

    At the Museum, we all learn a non-native’s version of Plains spirituality. To wit, the “Sioux” [Lakota? Santee? Yankton? Oh, just Sioux? Oh, okay.] believe that changing a body, like through mutilation, alters the spirit’s experience in the next world. So if you remove a body’s eyes, the spirit will wander blindly. However, the docent makes very clear that no native would do this to a child. LET THEM KNOW. Ahem, I mean, to mutilate a child in that fashion would imply that you saw the child as a threat that must be vanquished. So if the killer may be aping behavior he saw out west, but he has no context for what he saw. He’s appropriating a culture to which he does not belong.

    This is interesting stuff, but it doesn’t really shed light on the killer’s identity. It is valuable to Kreizler, though, who basically cares about who the killer is insofar as he can crack why the killer is. But judging by his interactions with others this week, he’s not the best at reading people. In fact, he gets read by Cyrus’s niece, Joanna (Brittany Marie Batchelder), when he visits Cyrus in the hospital. She wants to know when he’s going to let Cyrus go, which surprises Kreizler, because he thinks he and Cyrus are friends. Joanna points out that Cyrus sleeps in the stable, which is not exactly a ringing endorsement for their friendship. Yeah, but have you seen how he treats his other friends?

    So he goes home and tells Mary that she’s an independent woman and why, she could leave right now if she wanted! Mary, who’s clearly in love with him, leaves the room in a huff.

    Meanwhile, Sara and the Isaacsons are actually getting work done on the case. Reading through the letters they’ve received from sanitariums in response to their inquiries, Sara finds a man (Rudolph Bunzl) who had been a patient out west but was then transferred to a hospital right there in New York, before being sent to another place. Her research leads her to finding out that the most recent hospital where he’d been committed is actually a government facility meant to house military men who were unfit for service.

    Alienist S1e7 1

    John is getting chloroformed in the ice cream parlor while she’s putting this together, by the way. He and Kreizler are taken to JP Morgan’s house, where the many sainted men of the episode title–Morgan, Byrnes, and Bishop Potter–confront them about their investigation. They’re still worried about it coming back to the Van Bergens. Once they reassure Morgan–the real power in the room–that they’ve already dismissed Willem as their suspect, he leaves them alone to do their work. But quickly, he emphasizes, because these ghastly deeds are making the city’s working class less “compliant.” Over in London, Karl Marx does a full rotation in his grave.

    That might be a problem, though, because John finds out about Kreizler slapping Sara. She doesn’t tell him explicitly, but she heavily implies it. Kreizler, who has no defense for it, does what he does best–projection. He mocks John for playing the white knight, especially for a woman who will never see him in *that* way. So after telling Kreizler he’s going to die old and alone, John leaves in a huff–Kreizler is getting good at making people do this–immediately falls off the wagon, and gets his block knocked off by Connor in an unrelated incident.

    Finally, after weeks of hinting, the subtext becomes text. Kreizler invites Mary to have dinner with him and then it ends in kissing and probably other stuff, I don’t know.

    7/10 – After seeming to realize the urgency–there is a killer out there who is eliminating children on a fairly regular schedule, maybe we should stop him–the show inexplicably slows down so John and Laszlo can get all up in their feelings. And speaking of inexplicable things, John cannot possibly be this dumb. He gets duped not once, but twice this episode. Thrice if you count how easily Laszlo pushes his buttons. After all he’s seen, like the scalped child that nearly opens this episode, I just can’t buy him as that naive. On the plus side, though, there are some lovely monologues courtesy of John Sayles.

    Since the subtext became text this week, there’s really no relationship gossip to talk about here. Instead, I’d like to make a recommendation. If you like true crime (and if you’re watching this show, I bet you do), you’ll probably like I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by the late, great Michelle McNamara. It’s both an account of the notorious Golden State Killer and her obsession with trying to catch him. For true crime fans, the case is irresistible. For one thing, there’s so much we know about the GSK that it seems unfathomable that he still hasn’t been caught. For another, he comes off more like a movie serial killer than the usual real life version. But that’s the thing–he is real. And nobody’s that good. He’s made a mistake somewhere and all it’ll take is one person to figure out where. See? Irresistible.

    Share this article:

    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit

    Tags

    The Alienist

    COMMENTS

    Please read our Commenting Policy before you join in with the discussion.

    Note: If you have email notifications enabled, please check your email spam folders to ensure emails are not missed.

    Subscribe
    Connect withD
    I allow to create an account
    When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
    DisagreeAgree
    Notify of
    guest
    Connect withD
    I allow to create an account
    When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
    DisagreeAgree
    guest
    0 Comments
    Inline Feedbacks
    View all comments

    You might also like

    • The Alienist S01E06 Review: Ascension – Packed with stunning visuals

      By Salome G
      | February 27, 2018
    • The Alienist S01E05 Review: Hildebrandt’s Starling – Time is running out!

      By Salome G
      | February 20, 2018
    • The Alienist S01E04 Review: These Bloody Thoughts – It feels like it’s all coalescing for the first time!

      By Salome G
      | February 13, 2018
    • The Alienist S01E03 Review: Silver Smile – If only the alienist would stop alienating people.

      By Salome G
      | February 6, 2018
    • The Alienist S01E02 Review: A Fruitful Partnership – We get some vital clues

      By Salome G
      | January 30, 2018
    • The Alienist S01E01 Review: The Boy on the Bridge – Room for another serial killer?

      By Salome G
      | January 23, 2018

    FIND THE TOPICS YOU WANT...

    TV Topics

    Recommended for you

    • American Horror Stories S02E04 Review: Milkmaids – Very ambitious

      By Salome G
      | August 14, 2022
    • Roswell, New Mexico S04E09 Review: Wild Wild West- Okay…

      By Salome G
      | August 11, 2022
    • Evil S03E09 Review: The Demon of Money – Dark moments…

      By Salome G
      | August 8, 2022
    • The Orville season three finale review: Don’t say goodbye

      By Matthew Martin
      | August 8, 2022
    • Riverdale S06E22 Review: Night of the Comet – Ambitious…

      By Salome G
      | August 2, 2022
    • Is Rick C-137 our original Rick from the Rick and Morty series, does it really even matter?

      By Jason Collins
      | July 26, 2022
    • Breaking down Time Lord biology one heart at a time

      By Jason Collins
      | July 24, 2022
    • Dark Winds S01E06 Review: HózhóoNaasháa – Satisfying

      By Salome G
      | July 21, 2022
    • Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Episode 10 review (season one ends with a whopper)

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 9, 2022
    • REVIEW: Obi-Wan Kenobi had a good season and little else

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 22, 2022
    • Stranger Things S04 Part 1 Review: Almost perfect!

      By Salome G
      | June 5, 2022
    • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Every episode ranked! (Part 5/5)

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 30, 2022
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Affiliate Disclosure
    • Cookie Policy and Settings
    • Terms of Use
    • Photo Credits
    • RSS
    All Cult of Whatever articles, logos, illustrations and graphics are copyright CultOfWhatever.com. All other trademarks, logos and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. © 2021 CultOfWhatever. All Rights Reserved.
    • facebook
    • twitter
    wpDiscuz