Shining Girls – Episode 2, Evergreen

Kirby Mazrachi, Elisabeth Moss (“The Invisible Man”, “The Square”), is still getting used to the idea that she is married to Marcus, Chris Chalk (“Perry Mason (TV)”, “Godzilla vs. Kong”), when a whole host of people begin arriving, it’s his birthday party.

Dan Velazquez, Wagner Moura (“Narcos (TV)”, “Sergio”), goes to see the mortician Howard, Marc Grapey (“Chicago Med (TV)”, “Friend Request”), to see if anything was left inside Julia Madrigal, Karen Rodriguez (“The Big Leap (TV)”, “Chicago Fire (TV)”), as something was left inside Kirby.

Howard says there wasn’t anything but amongst the possessions Dan finds an old tin box, though Howard points out that the company on the box has been out of business for 50-years and so has probably been in the sewer where they found her body for longer than she has.

Dan asks to see Julia’s body and notices something inside, something that shouldn’t be there.

We also see that Harper, Jamie Bell (“6 Days”, “Rocketman”), is suffering from the same, weird shifts that Kirby is suffering from, only, he seems to be able to take them in his stride, hardly noticing them.

When we shift to 1990 we can see that Julia is still alive and Harper is attempting to talk to her, again, treating her as if he knows he, but she doesn’t know him.

When Julia is home later, she hears a tapping at her window. She investigates but doesn’t see anything but begins finding polaroid’s of herself dotted around her new home, but these are of positions and stances she literally just pulled, like someone had already taken them…

Dan and Kirby go to see Julia’s father though despite Dan having called ahead the father doesn’t want to see him. There’s a bunch of reporters outside and he’s sick of them all. Whilst Dan stays outside, and bumps into Harper, Kirby goes round the back of the house and manages to get inside.

She goes upstairs and does some snooping, finding an answer machine cassette which she plays and recognises what she hears.

Shining Girls is certainly intriguing and head scratching, though the latter point is ebbing away as reveals come thick and fast which makes me think that there’s going to be more to what we are seeing…perhaps?

I can’t imagine what the book on which the series is based is like to read, I may have to seek it out to see how the subtleties of the shifts are told. Maybe it answers the questions around why, when things shift for Kirby, her friends and family, and job, still seem to remain the same?