Sharp Objects Review: Fix (Season 1 Episode 3)

On Sharp Objects Season 1 Episode 3, “Fix,” Amma’s increasing presence in her sister’s life causes Camille to relive a devastating incident from her past.

Amma’s obsession with Camille grows, manifesting itself as a mix of misguided admiration, affection, and jealousy. Amma senses they share a connection — fueled by Adora’s dysfunctional parenting. But Amma also views Camille as an adversary; someone who takes the attention away from herself.

There’s an eerie precociousness about Amma when she speaks. Behind her moments of childlike behavior, there’s a sense of irony.

To Camille, Amma’s presence can be an unwelcome intrusion, but Camille is a compulsive woman. Whether it’s drinking, or cutting, or her need to protect people as damaged as herself.

When Amma tells Camille “You hate this place like me … but you love dead girls,” the comment adeptly sums up that Sharp Objects is about pain, and how all of the central characters seek it out and inflict it on themselves and others.

Camille and Alice (Sydney Sweeney) are drawn to each other for obvious reasons, and there’s an intimacy to their friendship that’s both genuine and unsettling. They fill the voids left in each other by disapproving mothers and a dead sister.

Alice’s death, and Camille’s subsequent instinct to gash open her own wrists is, at that moment, more terrifying than whatever malevolent forces are at work in Wind Gap.

“Fix” doesn’t move the storyline of Ann’s and Natalie’s murders forward in any significant way. It does give viewers insight into Camille’s reluctance to invest emotionally in Amma, and Camille’s inability to stop herself from reliving and recreating the past. Every time she gets close to someone, it ends badly.

Sharp Objects Season 1 Episode 3 also delves more deeply into Camille’s cutting, but it falls short of examining her fascination with certain words, and why she chooses to engrave them permanently on her body.

Amma, Camille, and Alice are all damaged, but there’s an insidiousness surrounding Amma. Alice inadvertently sets Camille back on the path to self-destruction, but Amma is intentionally coaxing her half-sister into darkness.

“Fix” does an effective job of widening the chasm between Adora and her daughters. Her warnings to steer clear of Camille go unheeded by Amma. Camille accepts her role as Amma’s confidante.

Amma either trusts Camille enough to know she can be candid without repercussions, or she’s being intentionally provocative. Is Amma an unexpected antagonist or a victim herself?

There are a few problems plaguing Sharp Objects. Camille’s self-imposed solitude and her detachment from the people and events going on around her are just part of the story.

The town, its inhabitants, the murders, the victims, and the suspects are becoming peripheral to Camille’s mental state.

It’s difficult to extricate Camille’s issues from the rest of the story because they’re so closely interwoven, and the series fails to juggle the multiple plotlines as effectively as the novel.

What did you think of this episode of Sharp Objects? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Sharp Objects airs Sundays at 9/8c on HBO.

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