Clocking in at just over half an hour, not counting the closing credits, this is a short, throat-clearing episode, a squall-before-the-storm. The details are, as always, impeccable: George’s casually sexist insistence that his prisoner Betty wear more pink; the masks on Marty’s shirt and the Iron Cross on the car he tries and fails to fix in his garage; the brooch on the doctor’s lapel that matches the one worn by Helen the real estate agent and, I think, the flowers plucked by Livia to put in that awful bloody pillowcase; the parallel fucking chicken dinners consumed by George and Betty on one hand and Marty and Earl on the other. And maybe it’s foolish to have hope when watching a show like this, but that excruciating basement scene did end with Ruby retrieving that axe from the corner of the basement. It’s going to get buried in someone before this all ends—if it ends for the Emorys at all.
I reviewed episode eight of Them for Decider. Please note that the running order of episodes eight and nine was switched by Amazon after screeners were sent out, so you may notice some weird artifacts of the previous running order.