Sharp Objects HBO

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I disliked the series. Didn't like the way it was shot, too dark, sound too muddled, quick flashes of things that were important but even paused couldn't be made out. The flashbacks were difficult to follow since it was hard to tell what younger characters were the current characters, also most of them were not needed. The mother, Adora, should have only been about 50 years-old, the actress looked mid-60's or older. Amma also seemed too old to be a 13-year old.

I do think the sheriff & his friends raped Adora as a teen (the football team ritual) and could be Camille's father. Adora doesn't strike me as the type to be involved in a sexual affair relationship, she is too prim & proper for that. Adora may not have seen the rape for what it was, more of a town tradition like the confederate flags & Calhoun day, so maintained a "friendship" with the sheriff which allowed her to manipulate her.

I knew by the second episode I was going to be annoyed by the ending and was. The series should have left out some of the plot lines (often done when books are made into movies) to flesh out the parts that really did matter. Didn't read the book, but probably would like it better since I didn't mind most of the story.

The sheriff was one of the rapists?? Was that alluded to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think Adora knew it was Amma.

I agree - I don't think so either. Adora was so completely self-absorbed that she wouldn't have picked up on what was going on with Amma. In the one scene where Adora threatens to take away Amma's dollhouse (and stop making her grilled cheese, etc.), she starts to take the top off the dollhouse, as if to dismantle it. Amma immediately promises to comply and get back in bed, in order to distract Adora from the dollhouse. She doesn't want her to discover the room with teeth in the floor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I disliked the series. Didn't like the way it was shot, too dark, sound too muddled, quick flashes of things that were important but even paused couldn't be made out. The flashbacks were difficult to follow since it was hard to tell what younger characters were the current characters, also most of them were not needed. The mother, Adora, should have only been about 50 years-old, the actress looked mid-60's or older. Amma also seemed too old to be a 13-year old.

I do think the sheriff & his friends raped Adora as a teen (the football team ritual) and could be Camille's father. Adora doesn't strike me as the type to be involved in a sexual affair relationship, she is too prim & proper for that. Adora may not have seen the rape for what it was, more of a town tradition like the confederate flags & Calhoun day, so maintained a "friendship" with the sheriff which allowed her to manipulate her.

I knew by the second episode I was going to be annoyed by the ending and was. The series should have left out some of the plot lines (often done when books are made into movies) to flesh out the parts that really did matter. Didn't read the book, but probably would like it better since I didn't mind most of the story.

The sheriff was one of the rapists?? Was that alluded to?

No. I think that was a theory PP was floating. Personally, I don't think Adora was raped by football players, as Camille was. I think Adora and the sheriff were once involved, maybe when they were younger, but due to class issues, she never married him. I really want to know who Camille's father was. They never even alluded to who he might be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think Adora knew it was Amma.

I agree - I don't think so either. Adora was so completely self-absorbed that she wouldn't have picked up on what was going on with Amma. In the one scene where Adora threatens to take away Amma's dollhouse (and stop making her grilled cheese, etc.), she starts to take the top off the dollhouse, as if to dismantle it. Amma immediately promises to comply and get back in bed, in order to distract Adora from the dollhouse. She doesn't want her to discover the room with teeth in the floor.

I think Amma absolutely knew the importantance of the doll house which is why she threatened to take it away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think Adora knew it was Amma.

I agree - I don't think so either. Adora was so completely self-absorbed that she wouldn't have picked up on what was going on with Amma. In the one scene where Adora threatens to take away Amma's dollhouse (and stop making her grilled cheese, etc.), she starts to take the top off the dollhouse, as if to dismantle it. Amma immediately promises to comply and get back in bed, in order to distract Adora from the dollhouse. She doesn't want her to discover the room with teeth in the floor.

I also agree she didn't know. There were many things she didn't know about Amma. In threatening to take away the dollhouse, I think she was doing what a lot of mean, crazy people do, which is keep threatening (no grilled cheese, clean your own room, no nice clothes) until they hit on something important enough to the person to get them to submit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If everything were spelled out in glowing detail the series would be twice as long.

I’m ok with some ambiguity about details such as when and how they got the coveralls, etc. It’s easy to come up with plausible answers, so why do they all need to be provided?

I agree. The whole thing had a very dreamlike quality. I can put together the details in my head - or not. I hate shows that treat the viewer like we're so dumb, it has to all be spelled out for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think Adora knew it was Amma.

I agree - I don't think so either. Adora was so completely self-absorbed that she wouldn't have picked up on what was going on with Amma. In the one scene where Adora threatens to take away Amma's dollhouse (and stop making her grilled cheese, etc.), she starts to take the top off the dollhouse, as if to dismantle it. Amma immediately promises to comply and get back in bed, in order to distract Adora from the dollhouse. She doesn't want her to discover the room with teeth in the floor.

I also agree she didn't know. There were many things she didn't know about Amma. In threatening to take away the dollhouse, I think she was doing what a lot of mean, crazy people do, which is keep threatening (no grilled cheese, clean your own room, no nice clothes) until they hit on something important enough to the person to get them to submit.

+1
Yep. Adora was after complete submission from Amma. Amma, in her own way, loved the smothering attention given to her by Adora. It was a symbiotic relationship. When it looked like Amma wasn't going to comply and take her "medicine," all Adora had to do was gently threaten not to "take care" of her anymore. When Amma saw Adora start to dismantle the dollhouse, ostensibly to remove it from Amma's room, that was all it took for Amma to hightail it back to bed. She didn't want Adora to look too closely at the dollhouse.

[Anonymous]

I wonder what happened in the end with Jackie. We see her heading into the prison to visit Adora - and she's looking all cleaned up. Camille and Amma snarkily comment to themselves that now Jackie can be the queen bee of the town.

I understand that Camille was furious at Jackie for not doing more to intervene when she was a girl, but didn't Jackie do quite a lot by requesting Marian's medical files, etc.? She obviously suspected foul play. I wonder why Jackie didn't take it further and involve the authorities?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder what happened in the end with Jackie. We see her heading into the prison to visit Adora - and she's looking all cleaned up. Camille and Amma snarkily comment to themselves that now Jackie can be the queen bee of the town.

I understand that Camille was furious at Jackie for not doing more to intervene when she was a girl, but didn't Jackie do quite a lot by requesting Marian's medical files, etc.? She obviously suspected foul play. I wonder why Jackie didn't take it further and involve the authorities?

Would that be the sheriff? If she knew about Adora's relationship with the sheriff and that he could even be Camille's dad as speculated above, maybe she was hesitant? Like she knew he would never pursue anything having to do with Adora, just like he ignored a lot with the murder case. She obviously could have gone higher, but maybe that's small town life? You don't really think to go much outside your town/box? Just spitballing...so many unanswered questions about this show!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder what happened in the end with Jackie. We see her heading into the prison to visit Adora - and she's looking all cleaned up. Camille and Amma snarkily comment to themselves that now Jackie can be the queen bee of the town.

I understand that Camille was furious at Jackie for not doing more to intervene when she was a girl, but didn't Jackie do quite a lot by requesting Marian's medical files, etc.? She obviously suspected foul play. I wonder why Jackie didn't take it further and involve the authorities?

I think that from Camille’s perspective Jackie was willing to take the steps to satisfy her curiosity, because she was as nosy as anyone else in the town, but she was a coward when it came to crossing Adora, much like Amma and her friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder what happened in the end with Jackie. We see her heading into the prison to visit Adora - and she's looking all cleaned up. Camille and Amma snarkily comment to themselves that now Jackie can be the queen bee of the town.

I understand that Camille was furious at Jackie for not doing more to intervene when she was a girl, but didn't Jackie do quite a lot by requesting Marian's medical files, etc.? She obviously suspected foul play. I wonder why Jackie didn't take it further and involve the authorities?

I think that from Camille’s perspective Jackie was willing to take the steps to satisfy her curiosity, because she was as nosy as anyone else in the town, but she was a coward when it came to crossing Adora, much like Amma and her friends.

I should clarify that I mean much like Amma’s friends were not willing to cross Amma.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder what happened in the end with Jackie. We see her heading into the prison to visit Adora - and she's looking all cleaned up. Camille and Amma snarkily comment to themselves that now Jackie can be the queen bee of the town.

I understand that Camille was furious at Jackie for not doing more to intervene when she was a girl, but didn't Jackie do quite a lot by requesting Marian's medical files, etc.? She obviously suspected foul play. I wonder why Jackie didn't take it further and involve the authorities?

I think that from Camille’s perspective Jackie was willing to take the steps to satisfy her curiosity, because she was as nosy as anyone else in the town, but she was a coward when it came to crossing Adora, much like Amma and her friends.

PP here - thanks, that's a great explanation. Side note, I *loved* Elizabeth Perkins in the role of Jackie. They cast this whole show so well!!

[Anonymous]

Addressing the speculation that the sheriff was Amma's father, I don't think he was. At one point, Adora tells Camille that she (Camille) is so much like her father - cold and distant. But clearly, in Adora's interactions with the sheriff, he is not cold or distant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If everything were spelled out in glowing detail the series would be twice as long.

I’m ok with some ambiguity about details such as when and how they got the coveralls, etc. It’s easy to come up with plausible answers, so why do they all need to be provided?

I agree. The whole thing had a very dreamlike quality. I can put together the details in my head - or not. I hate shows that treat the viewer like we're so dumb, it has to all be spelled out for us.

The writers were obviously on as many drugs as the teens in the book/series. Not spelled out crystal clear, but when websites crop up to make guesses at many, many plot holes then, yes that’s weak storytelling.

A band of teenaged serial killers and not one tiny bit of DNA evidence implicating any of them? The author should have picked a pre dna testing era if she was going to gloss over so plot points that just didn’t make any sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If everything were spelled out in glowing detail the series would be twice as long.

I’m ok with some ambiguity about details such as when and how they got the coveralls, etc. It’s easy to come up with plausible answers, so why do they all need to be provided?

I agree. The whole thing had a very dreamlike quality. I can put together the details in my head - or not. I hate shows that treat the viewer like we're so dumb, it has to all be spelled out for us.

The writers were obviously on as many drugs as the teens in the book/series. Not spelled out crystal clear, but when websites crop up to make guesses at many, many plot holes then, yes that’s weak storytelling.

A band of teenaged serial killers and not one tiny bit of DNA evidence implicating any of them? The author should have picked a pre dna testing era if she was going to gloss over so plot points that just didn’t make any sense.

Perhaps the writers are smart enough to realize that the fictional shows like CSI, etc, that have convinced people that there is always reliable DNA evidence at a crime scene are the shows that make no sense.