
Dead Sea Squirrels
Some 2,000-year-old squirrels offer some great lessons about both the Bible and life in this clever new Minno series.
If you receive a phone call in the middle of the night, it’s probably not good news. Usually, it means that there’s a natural disaster or that someone has been arrested or even killed.
In Det. Lois Tryon’s case, it’s almost always the latter.
Hand it over to the feds, Sgt. Cranburn told Lois when she arrived at the Burnside residence. We don’t need this case.
If that wasn’t clue enough, the cop vomiting in the bushes outside the family’s home sure was. What Lois was about to witness wasn’t going to be pretty.
But nothing could have prepared her for such grotesquerie.
The Burnsides, it turns out, have been massacred. The mother and two older children had died of heart failure: They’d literally been scared to death. Considering how the father and infant had died, it’s no wonder. Suffice it to say that FX’s Grotesquerie is aptly named. And viewers are spared no details.
Unfortunately, the Burnsides are not this series’ only victims. The serial killer (whom Lois is hunting, we soon learn) likes to pose his victims in the manner of famous religious paintings, including da Vinci’s The Last Supper, which he sets in a church. It prompts Lois to team up with Sister Megan Duval, a nun who reports on murder for a small Catholic periodical.
Sister Megan says that her writing has brought people back to the Catholic Church, often people seeking answers about the evil in our world. But that is perhaps the only positive element of this otherwise gratuitously grotesque story.
Each mass murder—and keep in mind that The Last Supper depicts 13 people—is gruesome. Elsewhere, a priest masturbates (just offscreen, but it’s clear what’s happening) before whipping himself ritualistically with a cat o’ nine tails. Language is harsh and frequent. (Sister Megan is quick to point out that she wasn’t always a nun and still swears on occasion.)
And man, the problems just go on. Lois discovered her husband was having an affair—which he shamefully tries to blame on Lois—and wished him dead just before he fell into a coma. The nurse caring for him takes advantage of him and guilt trips Lois for not being more attentive to her dying husband.
Meanwhile, Lois’ relationship with her daughter, Merritt, is strained because she thinks Merritt eats too much and Merritt thinks Lois drinks too much. And Merritt isn’t wrong, either: Lois pretty much lives in an inebriated state, even when she’s working.
There’s not really much else left to say. So potential viewers, you’ve been warned.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at [email protected], or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
After discovering that a horrific multiple homicide has links to the Catholic Church, Det. Lois Tryon teams up with a reporter nun who specializes in true-crime stories to find the killer.
We see the bodies and blood of the entire Burnside family scattered throughout their home. The mother and two older children were tied to chairs with wires that cut into their wrists and ankles. The father was beheaded and chopped into pieces before being shoved down the throats of his wife and children (it’s unclear if this occurred while they were still alive). This is all we see onscreen, but Lois describes the murders in even more detail to Sister Megan. She never says it out loud, but context clues tell audiences that the Burnsides’ infant child was boiled alive. We hear the mother screaming, begging for the killer to stop. And we learn she and her two older children died of heart failure because of what they witnessed.
Another murder scene shows three men cut in half, pinned to a wall, their guts spilling out. However, there’s virtually no blood since the killer drained their bodies before posing them.
A man sneaks around Lois’ house in the dark. She chases him outside and fires her gun but misses him. And there’s a strong suggestion that he is the serial killer.
Lois nearly runs over an unhoused man standing in the middle of the street. The man threatens to kill her, but she doesn’t take him seriously since it seems he has a mental illness. Others swarm her vehicle, but Lois blares her police siren to get them to back off.
A nurse inappropriately expresses her attraction to Lois’ comatose husband. She says each hospital room has cameras watching patients ever since an orderly impregnated a “ripe young woman.”
A few female characters wear tops that show cleavage and midriffs. We see people in swimsuits on a television.
Lois’ husband is in a coma. The nurse caring for him tries to emotionally manipulate Lois for not being more attentive to him as he dies. Lois has nightmares of him dying in a fire. It’s clear she still cares for him but has complicated feelings. And she snuggles next to him in one scene.
Lois is a highly functioning alcoholic. Everyone seems to know she has a drinking problem (her colleagues ignore Lois when she takes a swig from her flask on the job), but only her daughter has the courage to call her out. Lois also smokes quite frequently.
We hear that three men were supposed to be arrested for drug activity. They were targeted by the killer instead and appear to have been intoxicated when they were attacked.
A cop vomits into bushes after witnessing the Burnside scene. We hear a couple arguing fiercely. Lois worries that her daughter, Merritt, eats too much, commenting on the young woman’s desire to be a reality star on a show about overweight people.
Sister Megan says the religious newspaper she writes for is “progressive” with a strong focus on knowledge and social justice. She admits that she wants to report on the Burnside murders because the shock value will drive more people to their paper (and potentially to a relationship with God). She describes the Burnside murders as a sort of war crime—something that happens where there is no more hope or order. And she believes modern America has reached this point.
When asked if she believes in God or Christ, Lois says no. But she says she does believe in prayer. Sister Megan says she believes in God and Christ “half the time, which is better than never.” There’s a reference to Romans 6. Sister Megan reads another passage from the Bible. She and Lois learn the killer is using sulfur dioxide or “brimstone” as his calling card, and they worry he may be a “religious psychopath.”
The f-word is used about a dozen times, including once by Sister Megan, prompting Lois to call her “The Swearing Nun.” We also hear several uses of the s-word, “a–,” “d–n” and “h—.” God’s name is misused multiple times, often paired with “d–n.” And Christ’s name is abused twice.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
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