1. Sultry and indifference
The story of the second episode begins with the funeral of the deceased girl Natalie. At the funeral, the dark clothes and the solemn atmosphere that people pretend to be are especially vulnerable. One of the traditions of the southern town of Fengkou, funerals are not for mourning the dead, but for gossip.
Unlike Jackie, who is loud and gossipy, Adora's indifference is much more secretive. In addition to her empathic and vulnerable words, she often exudes an indescribable ease and satisfaction. This contradictory performance makes Adora seem very hypocritical and playful. Everyone gradually realized that she had a cold soul in her heart.
While the eldest daughter Camille is distraught, Adora brutally rejects her and unleashes a strong sense of blame and anger.
At the town party that followed, men and women chatted in circles, drinking, enjoying food, and casually talking about what they saw as suspicious behavior, the older brother of the deceased. Where no one cares about the truth and the pain of the victim's family, people in Fengkou Town tacitly allow the status quo to deteriorate. Only Camille, who had left home earlier, seemed to sense the suffocating unease.
The story of Southern Gothic relies on a sense of indifference, a complicity and compromise with harsh realities, as events collapse, replaced by despair. The collective deception and camouflage brought discomfort, and it enveloped Fengkou Town. Just as salt was sprinkled on an already cracked glacier, Natalie's death only accelerated the erosion of the town.
2. Pierce these discomforts
The history of slavery, the Civil War, and decaying plantations, the South was deeply affected by these corrupt histories. Atrocity haunts everyone like a nightmare, dragging people into madness.
Detectives suspect that the flowers in front of Ann's grave were left by the murderer out of guilt, but the barber says people here call it "friendly" or superstitious hope that bad luck will keep him away. The stones by the creek where Ann was killed were all carried away by the residents and crushed to ward off evil. However, those that are attempted to be destroyed cannot be removed. Under the theme of Southern Gothic, sins cannot be washed away, buried and unearthed again and again.
Both spiders and knives pierce the body, and these sharp objects also have a role in making people feel present in trauma. The deeper the discomfort is buried, the sharper the thing that pierces it. The unexpected death of her sister, the long-term suppression of her mother, the trauma of her youth that has not been fully revealed, and the dark atmosphere of the town are all deep in Camille's memory. Faced with these real traumas and discomforts, she spontaneously inserted needles into her own body.
Gloom, violence and death also pierce everyone's worldview in Fengkou Town...
3. What are we expecting?
The behavior of the characters in this episode seems to make us more certain that, apart from Camille and the detective, other town residents, whether it is the sheriff or Adora and others, are not very concerned about finding out the real culprit of the murder. So what exactly is The Sharpshooter trying to tell? It's not a detective crime story. Watching it is more like uncovering a crumbling town, spooky families, constant flashbacks and direct confrontation with those ugly and dirty pasts.
In this episode, we see girls who are expected to repress their true emotions and bear their scars with equanimity and grace. But despite the town's attempts at whitewashing the peace, it can't stop girls like Camille and Natalie from walking into the woods, the "dirt" on them clearly visible.
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