Dispatches From Elsewhere Review: Lee (Season 1 Episode 8)
Dispatches From Elsewhere Season 1 Episode 8, “Lee,” provides the long-awaited answer to the show’s most foundational question: who created the game, and why?
We learn that Lee, the architect, conceived the project as a kind of living memorial for Clara; a means to continue her mission of spreading beauty, joy, and wonder. But it’s also an act of atonement for the role Lee believes she played in Clara’s death.
Her level of investment in the game is both touching and painful to watch, and the rest of the episode resonates on that same emotional frequency. It’s grief-stricken, cathartic, and deeply tender.
The biggest event of the episode is Simone and Peter’s first date, which ends poorly despite their best efforts.
Sometimes two people just don’t fit together, no matter how badly they want the relationship to work.
Their final argument is painful but extremely well written; even though they exchange some harsh words, both of their perspectives are understandable and valid.
The most striking point is that Peter clearly hasn’t given any thought to how Simone’s experiences as a trans woman affect her, in relation to other people and to the world around her. Peter doesn’t notice the disapproving glances she has to deal with on a daily basis — how those stares, and the danger they convey, impact Simone’s ability to trust other people.
On the one hand, Peter’s ignorance comes from a place of innocence. He doesn’t notice these things because he can’t conceive of anyone treating Simone with cruelty.
But his lack of awareness also suggest that he can’t provide the kind of emotional support Simone needs from a partner.
In my review of Dispatches From Elsewhere Season 1 Episode 2, “Simone,” I wrote that I was impressed with the show’s handling of Simone’s transness, and the same thoughtful writing is on display here. The way Simone talks about her identity helps deepen and complicate her character, rather than reduce or pigeonhole her.
Simone’s confidence in her identity also highlights, by contrast, how little Peter understands about himself. He knows he cares for Simone, and that being around her makes him happy — but he doesn’t know what kind of music he likes, what his favorite movie is, or even whether he prefers pie or cake.
In other words, he has no sense of identity. He’s still trying to shake off the numbness and indifference he has used for years as an emotional defense mechanism. That process will be long and difficult, but will hopefully help Peter find happiness.
In a separate series of scenes between Fredwynn and Janice, the emotional progress they’ve made is far more apparent.
Janice, who fears that losing Lev will leave her bereft of a sense of purpose, has finally made peace with the idea of discovering who she’ll become when she’s no longer defined as a wife or a mother.
And Fredwynn, who is typically the least emotionally attuned member of the group, shows up at the hospital because he senses that Janice is troubled. For a man who seemed incapable of providing emotional support, the way he comforts and grieves with her is so moving.
Peter describes the end of the game as “beauty withdrawal,” an experience that’s deeply relatable.
It’s the letdown you feel when coming home from vacation or travel and returning to the doldrums of everyday living. It’s the mourning period after you finish a book or a TV series that you wish you could go on living inside of, because it has affected you so deeply.
When those experiences are over, you’re left to wonder if you’ll ever feel that same kind of fullness again; whether you’ll be able to translate the beauty you discovered into the rest of your life somehow, or if it will simply fade away and become lost to you.
That’s where the episode leaves these characters: in the elegiac, grief-stricken, afterword of a beautiful story, with the hope that they’ll continue to draw inspiration from their connection with one another.
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 Mondays 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.