The Gloaming Review: Black Winged Angels (Season 1 Episode 4)

The horror and the terror ramp up to new heights on The Gloaming Season 1 Episode 4, “Black Winged Angels.”

This level of fright and unease is difficult to maintain episode after episode, but The Gloaming manages, hitting the halfway mark of the first season with edge-of-your-seat mystery and mayhem.

It starts out with full, white-knuckle intensity and doesn’t let up. From the harrowing stand-off at the dam to a terrifying car chase, the action drives the intriguing story. More questions are raised and new connections are made.

There’s a lot happening on The Gloaming yet nothing overwhelms the plot—it flows and it frightens in true ghost-storytelling fashion.

Dam Freddie

The scene atop the dam is a real nail-biter.

The threat of Freddie (Matt Testro) pitching Lily (Josephine Blazier) over the top is enough to make the scene intense. Playing Lily’s video at this point and Molly (Emma Booth) hearing about it for the first time adds a whole other layer of tension. 

Throughout this unpredictable impasse, cutaways to Grace (Rena Owen) with a voodoo doll increase the viewer’s anxiousness even further. Who is she setting out to harm (or help) and for what purpose? Grace continues to be a puzzling figure in this story. 

The grandeur of this dam location is used effectively, breathtaking in both its beauty and its danger. One really feels Molly’s desperation through the long, wide shots that create the visual distance between Molly and Lily as well as highlights their emotional distance.

In the aftermath, there is relief, but not for long. 

Molly and Lily talk about the video and Molly can’t hide the disappointment in her face. However, she wants to turn their relationship around so she promises Lily that she’ll take time off after Lily goes to counseling. 

This relief is short lived—Molly’s ex starts the process of getting sole custody of their daughter.

When Freddie falls from the top of the dam, it’s sure to be to his death and one can’t help but think that might be a good thing. Freddie is clearly troubled and mixed up with these gloamers who have some sort of power over him.

But, amazingly, he lives. He’s in a coma and Grace creepily checks in on him at the hospital.

The Odd Couple

There’s a very quick moment showing Molly and Alex (Ewen Leslie) at their desks. He is neat and organized; she is messy and all over the place. Little glimpses of them like this in relation to each other makes their relationship that much more complex.

The height of action takes place with the situation at the dam and later with the car chase, but the height of emotion is a well-acted scene between Molly and Alex.

This angst-filled convo in Alex’s car is teeming with tension. For the most part, the two can’t even look at each other. They are both barely holding it together but are trying to appear strong enough to the other. 

They are dancing around revealing deeper feelings but not totally—more like slow-dancing around them. Their expressions are composed yet grief-stricken. Booth and Leslie make some really nuanced choices here that elevate the scene and overall mood between them.

Alex seems exhausted from reliving his childhood trauma in the form of investigating this brutal murder. Molly looks as if her own emotional dam is about to break—her fear of an uncontrollable release of feelings and truths is eddying just under the surface.

Cut to the Chase

So Gareth (Martin Henderson) turns out to have a violent side. His attack on Jacinta (Nicole Chamoun) is at once shocking and unsurprising. The suddenness and brutality come as a surprise but not the fact that he is capable of this type of violence.

This action is shot well, really making the viewer feel anxious and scared for Jacinta even though we’ve kind of been set up to not sympathize with her because of her shady dealings with Gareth.

His behavior is chilling to witness culminating in the horrific end of the chase with Jacinta bloody and pleading to him for help which he heinously ignores, letting her die in the street.

The question is: how does Gareth’s villainy fit in to this ghost story?

Both Jacinta and Gareth see the apparition of a little girl on the road. Who is she and why is there a portrait of her on Grace’s wall?

Evidently, it’s not just gloamers that are haunting Hobart.

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

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The Gloaming airs Sundays at 9/8c on Starz.

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