“They’re not our dogs anymore.”

Kevin Garvey, like many other people coping with the Sudden Departure and its implications, just wants some semblance of normalcy. He’d like to be a good cop and a good father, but how do you do that when you’re faced with your own slipping sanity, your idea of what you believe to be right coming into conflict with how everything seems to be? What happens when something as seemingly insignificant as a bagel is indicative of your mental state and ability to function, is magnified just like every little thing in a world that’s experienced a loss small on paper, but huge in reality?

“Penguin One, Us Zero” is a look at a desperate man’s psyche, from the dreams Garvey experiences at the beginning of the episode to his time in therapy to the truck of the Mystery Man in his driveway to the Mystery Man himself showing up at Garvey’s front door. Jill acknowledges the guy, so for now, we’re assuming he’s real, but it’s one more sign for our main character of the fact that he might be losing his mind. If the dogs symbolize society and its collective degeneration into its most rudimentary instincts, then the Mystery Man’s ubiquitous nature and dog-shooting offer represent Garvey’s mental struggle between 1) simply letting go like his wife has, and 2) taking it upon himself to eliminate the bad eggs in the bunch.

Going off that point, we see throughout this episode that he’s made it his mission to talk to people who’ve followed his wife’s path, hoping to bring them back from the “dark (or white) side”; we see it in his conversation with Meg, someone who’s being asked to “surrender” aspects of her past life in order to move onto the next stage in her Guilty Remnant initiation. The final scene of the episode, in which she chops and chops and chops at the tree (man, these GR folk really have it out for trees, don’t they? Wasting paper, and now this), is reminiscent of the pilot’s closing shot; two moments of conceived catharsis, of aggression, of nearly succumbing to the allure of letting go. The penguin wins out.

Let’s go back to Garvey, though, who’s most certainly the focus of this episode. The cute blow-up penguin in the therapist’s office is mentioned as having to do with aggression, and that’s telling because aggression–or anger, or just pure emotion in general–will oftentimes win out over what we perceive ourselves to be or what we should be. Take Meg’s ex-fiancé, for example, or, whaddya know, Kevin Garvey. You can see the frustration building up inside as the episode progresses, and that’s only exacerbated by the disappearance of the bagels; when he finally finds them, it’s a triumphant and necessary moment for him because it’s something to hold onto, but it’s also sad because it’s an aspect of what little he has left. When he visits his father, it’s a moment that serves to shade in even more of the uncertainty already permeating the environment.

Will Garvey be able to craft his own identity, or will the circumstances do it for him? What will Tom do as he gets pulled closer and closer to Wayne? Will Meg give into what the Guilty Remnant stands for? These questions still stand, but these characters know that as the days drag on, it becomes increasingly difficult to fathom a life as they knew it. The 2% has consumed their lives.

GRADE: B

OTHER THOUGHTS:

-Just text, Guilty Remnant.

-I kind of wished the bagel mystery would be a recurring segment.

-Jill and Aimee follow Nora Durst, who’s a very interesting presence. Her poking and prodding about the Pattersons’ son brings the government into this, and we’re left wondering whether this is some sick, twisted way to glean information or whether this says more about Nora Durst than it does the government. Does she find some peace in seeing others experience pain? We do know, however, that she has a gun, so dun dun dun…

-The opening credits are alright. HBO rarely has one that’s anything less than good (I’m looking at you, Boardwalk Empire), and while I don’t think this one lives up to the network’s other opening credits, it’s still nicely enough put together.

-This is an episode that’s more straightforward in its storytelling, and as a result, it’s significantly less intriguing for me than the pilot was. I just don’t feel the atmosphere as much here, and it remains to be seen whether Perotta and Lindelof can smooth over the cracks that are starting to form.

-So, mystery girl Christine. I’m not really excited to see how this storyline involving Wayne and Tom plays out, even if I might be a bit intrigued by Wayne. If you want a nuanced portrayal of religion, check out Rectify. If you want cliches, watch here. Of course, these are entirely different shows that portray entirely different situations, so I might just be nitpicking here.

-Hey, a The Wire reference!

-No promises on when exactly the remaining reviews will go up (especially given the difficulty of writing about the show), but they’ll be out by Monday afternoon at the latest. That all depends on whether the pilot of The Strain brings me in for the long haul and whether I want to watch Masters of Sex the night of. Ugh….stupid TV scheduling.

Photo credit: HBO, The Leftovers