But at bottom, unless you’re a person who just gets reflexively jazzed the moment men with Noo Yawk accents start talking about loyalty or beautiful people with long hair and grey cloaks take off their hoods and reveal pointy ears, this has nothing to offer. It’s cute, it’s funny, it’s kinda cool sometimes, but why would the key phase of the Mantleray process involve such obvious pop-culture archetypes? There’s one wonderful throwaway bit — heat waves emanate from Olivia, which she explains to Owen by saying her permanently hyperthermic skin maintains a constant temperature of 106 degrees — that points to the creepy fun that can be had with dream logic, but it’s over in an instant. When you’ve got the chance to do anything, anything, why do the same thing you’ve seen before?
I reviewed episode seven of Maniac, aka the one where the epic-fantasy and gangster-movie fantasies start, for Decider. When you’re supposed to be digging deeper into your main characters’ minds than ever before, why would you use massive and obvious pop-culture staples to do it?
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