The Alienist Review: Ascension (Season 1 Episode 6)
On The Alienist Season 1 Episode 6, “Ascension,” the team conducts a sting operation to catch the murderer before he can strike again.
“Ascension” is a fantastic episode and arguably the first that shows the excellence that The Alienist is truly capable of. The episode is so simple in its conceit that it could be easy to overlook how wonderfully well-paced it is, especially in contrast to the previous episodes that have so often felt rather scattered on a plot level.
The Alienist knows the type of episode that it wants this to be: one revolving mostly around an undercover caper and it executes that with a remarkably delicate touch.
‘Prestige’ shows like this too often believe that they have to go large, encompassing a wide variety of lofty plot beats into itself, but “Ascension” takes an entirely different task. It fully understands that the scenes revolving the brothel are the most interesting aspects of the episode.
At the same time, it knows when to break away from those scenes to give us sequences of characters talking just enough to break the acts up, but also realizes exactly when to go back to the stakeout bits.
What truly makes this episode work, however, is the character that we’ve perhaps spent the least amount of time with: Stevie (Matt Lintz), who is forced, by sheer necessity, to pose as one of the child prostitutes and try to lure out the murderer in question.
Despite not understanding him as well as some of the other characters, we’re always with him in his terror, bewilderment, and apprehension as he goes through this not just once, but twice.
It’s a terrific performance that allows Lintz to work with a wider range than most of the rest of the cast gets to, going from petrified to affected high-pitch voice that, more than anything, he seems like he’s having a lot of fun with, which is more than can be said for everyone else on this show.
A fascinating thing that this episode does is the way that it completely subverts your expectation of who the murderer is versus who the show has led you to believe it is.
We assumed for all this time that Willem Van Bergen was the perpetrator. We assumed there was a particular narrative on privilege happening, but it turns out it was never what we thought.
It turns out that it was always going for something else entirely; that the powerful will close ranks in whatever way they deem fit to avoid ruining one of their own, regardless of whether they did it or not.
Kudos to The Alienist on such an ingenious twist.
“Ascension” marks the first episode that it truly feels like The Alienist knows what it’s doing on a structural and narrative level and hopefully this will continue through the rest of the season.
What did you think of this episode of The Alienist? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
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The Alienist airs Mondays at 9/8c on TNT.
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Drew Koenig
Drew has an ongoing, borderline unhealthy obsession with pop culture, but with television in particular. When he's not aggressively trying to get out of a perpetual state of catching up, he can be found passionately defending the ending of Lost. More of his online work can be found at The Lost Cause and he also co-hosts The Lost Cause Pod.