Back to Life Review: Season 1 Episodes 5 & 6
Despite the unaffecting dramatic crescendo in its closing chapters, Back to Life Season 1 Episodes 5 & 6 find their footing just long enough to stick the landing.
When Back to Life is at its best, it is a meandering character study side-eyeing existentialist ideas; at its worst, it is an undercooked comedy of ironies.
Episodes 5 & 6 encapsulate these strengths and weaknesses, amplifying their effect (or lack thereof) as it careens towards its (mostly) underwhelming conclusion.
Every moment Back to Life leans on narrative, it feels flimsy; the attempted arson, the death of Billy’s wife – and most importantly, the reveal of Mandy’s role in defining Miri’s life. All of these elements feel like unnecessary dramatic place markers; while they certainly provide some dramatic propulsion, they pale in comparison to the more moving bits of Back to Life‘s climactic chapters.
Strip out characters like Dom and Tina from Back to Life, and suddenly there’s more room for the show’s contemplative sensibilities to shine. “Episode 6” is particularly rich in this creative dissonance: every rapturous wide shot capturing Hythe’s majestic topography feels in conflict with the melodramatic, half-baked small town dramas at the heart of its story.
Those stories just aren’t satisfying; often, they feel like they’re just getting in the way of Back to Life‘s more potent, moving elements.
Back to Life becomes more exceptional the quieter it gets: be it, Caroline, uncomfortably shopping for Viagra, Miri constantly observing the people around her, or Oscar’s silent resilience to resuscitate his marriage, the less Back to Life packs into every scene, the better it is for it.
Unfortunately, much of “Episode 5” and “Episode 6” is consumed by its plot, uncovering a mystery not worth solving: what really happened that fateful night – and even stranger, why it happened.
Back to Life seems to think providing answers matters: but even as just a device to push Miri forward emotionally, none of the plot development stuffed into these two episodes is satisfying.
Much of it just feels underdeveloped and incidental: Nathan’s casual arson, Dom’s casual misogyny, and the (also casual) reveal of Lara’s dad as a statutory rapist are all wildly unsatisfying moments. The more external Back to Life gets, the overextended and ineffective it feels: Mandy and Dom’s characters are perfect examples, ciphers of nothingness molded to fit whatever superfluous narrative purpose of each episode.
It’s telling how little they matter to the real emotional arcs of the season; the moment Miri and Billy sit down on the beach to share a snack, so much of Back to Life‘s unsatisfying narrative and one-note characters wash away, leaving a much leaner, emotionally potent series for its audience to chew on.
The final two minutes of the season almost make up for everything that comes before it: it’s pure raw potential, in the form of Daisy Haggard’s jaw-dropping performance and some enticingly nonchalant positivity.
It’s a lot of words to say the more Back to Life embraces its rejection of convention, the more successful and engaging a series it is going to be.
That’s not to say it needs to follow the Rectify blueprint to a T in its (already announced) second season: its lighthearted sense of humor and lead performance are essential to the show’s success, but there’s a bit of re-calibration that could pay huge dividends in its sophomore season.
Despite the general disappointment surrounding the events of these final two episodes, “Episode 5” and “Episode 6” open a number of enticing doors for the series; I only hope they decide to pick one or two of them and excise the rest: if anything, a more focused, direct version of Back to Life may help elevate some of its more weightless qualities.
At least it will head into its second season on a strong foundation: the true inspiration of Back to Life is found in Daisy Haggard’s performance as Miri, a wonderfully realized portrait of a woman in arrested development trying to kick start her stalled-out life.
The subtleties in her portrayal of Miri is stunning, grounding the character in a way the rest of the series struggles to mimic It is the great mystery to unlocking Back to Life‘s potential – if Miri’s emotional resilience can be tethered to the journeys of the other characters in more meaningful (and quieter) ways, it’s not hard to imagine Back to Life as one of television’s most emotionally potent series.
“Episode 5” and “Episode 6” briefly find this creative clarity, but never consistently enough, a rather fitting reflection of Back to Life‘s first season as a whole.
But to paraphrase Billy’s final line of the season, there’s still plenty to look forward to – if Back to Life can commit to exploring its deeper ideas about identity, forgiveness, and mortality in its second season, it could quickly become of the best shows on television.
What did you think of this episode of Back to Life? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Back to Life is available to stream] on Showtime.
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Randy Dankievitch
Randy Dankievitch is a TV critic living in Portland, Maine, whose obsession with pop culture began as a child, watching reruns of The Muensters while listening to Paul's Boutique on repeat. A writer since 2011, Randy is currently the writer of TV Never Sleeps, TV Editor at Goomba Stomp, and a columnist for Up Portland, with previous bylines at Sound on Sight, Processed Media, TV Overmind, and many others.