Dispatches From Elsewhere Review: Clara (Season 1 Episode 5)
Dispatches from Elsewhere Season 1 Episode 5, “Clara,” finally introduces the elusive founder of the Elsewhere Society.
Clara’s backstory forms its own compelling, self-contained narrative. It’s the story of a girl determined to channel her depression into creativity, and who uses street art to transform her neighborhood and inspire the imagination of its residents.
It’s a lovely ode to the distinctive street art of Philadelphia, where the show is filmed.
It’s also a kind of commentary on Dispatches from Elsewhere‘s storytelling ethos, which is all about learning to find beauty in unexpected places and situations.
Dispatches from Elsewhere wants us to deepen our appreciation for familiar places by imagining the stories behind them.
A street is not just a street, but a pathway between past and present. There is history in that concrete; there is the story of every person who walked it before you, who saw what you saw and yet had their own unique perception of it.
Clara’s neighbors look at their walls and see brick and mortar, gates and barriers. Clara looks at those same expanses and sees waterfalls, seascapes, and worlds yet to be discovered. Through her art, she teaches people to share her vision — to see not just beauty, but also possibility.
Clara: I had painted myself some hope, and I could feel it fading away. Think, Clara. Your story is your own. Try something. Make something.
The episode also traces the way Clara’s story encourages Peter and Simone to imagine new possibilities for themselves — but it could be argued that they’re just as inspired by each other’s example as they are by Clara’s.
When Peter overrides users’ playlists and spreads The Beach Boy’s “Good Vibrations” across the city, he’s embracing the kind of spontaneous energy that Simone always exudes around him. He quits his job without a plan, and the one thing he’s certain of is that Simone will be proud of him for taking a risk and stepping into the unknown.
Meanwhile, Simone is following Peter’s example in learning to talk more openly about her feelings even when she feels embarrassed by them.
The conversation with her professor is the first time she shares her insecurities with someone other than Peter. In earlier episodes we watched her confide in gallery portraits, which is to say that she only trusted listeners who couldn’t reply with their own judgments.
Now she’s opening up to people who challenge her to look more kindly upon herself, and to believe in her own potential.
Simone: I feel like if I don’t take a second to step back and re-evaluate what it is that I want, I’m going to wake up one day and I’ll be sixty years old, looking in a mirror, totally unsure of where I am.
Professor: We make a decision, and then if we need to we make another one. You’ve made a really, really big and important one. The other decisions don’t need to feel so big. Find something that makes you feel good, try it out. You’re allowed to be wrong.
Over and over, whether through Clara’s story or their interactions with each other in the present, the characters are reminded that it’s okay to be wrong — to try, fail, and start over with a new idea.
They all fear making a fool of themselves because they see the world differently than other people, and because they can’t make their vision understood the way Clara could through her art.
But for each of them this experience of searching for Clara and her Elsewhere Society is a kind of equalizer, a lens that the four of them can pass around to share their unique vision with one another.
“Clara” epitomizes everything that’s special about Dispatches From Elsewhere.
It’s a show that expresses a deep understanding of what it is to feel adrift and unsure of your choices; to fantasize about having someone take you by the hand and teach you how to live.
But it also wants us to believe that we can do that for ourselves, too — that we can learn to find beauty and purpose in parts of our lives where we previously thought none existed.
What did you think of this episode of Dispatches From Elsewhere? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Dispatches From Elsewhere airs Monday at 10/9c on AMC.
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Ariel Udel
Ariel fell in love with storytelling on the night Flight 815 crashed on a mysterious island, and has been blogging about television ever since. She has an affinity for messy female anti-heroes and an enduring love of Battlestar Galactica, Xena: Warrior Princess, Lost, and Halt and Catch Fire.
2 comments
I haven’t seen mention anywhere about the deliberate placement of the book in the Simone / professor scene pictured in your article. The book is the turquoise colored one lying flat on the desk behind Simone. For mostly all of the shots the book is titled “Giotto” that fits in nicely with the other art books behind her. But for one shot the title is changed to “Lost Continent” with the same colour and publisher logo at the top of the spine. With no author name attached, I have a feeling that the deliberate placement (it is under one other book) in one shot is a reference to “Lost Continent” by Bill Bryson who went in search of a mythical town called Amalgam. It could also reference the Edgar Rice Burroughs book. Talk about a clue. If you can, please go back and check this scene for yourself.
Nice catch! Reminds me of the days when literary titles would feature prominently in episodes of Lost. I love that this show has a similar level of detail… you can spend hours going down the rabbit hole looking for clues frame-by-frame, or you can take the story at face value — and either way, it’s an enjoyable experience.
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