Landscapers Review: Episode 4 (Season 1 Episode 4)
The truth will set you free — or land you in jail. The Edwards conclude their twisted tale on Landscapers Season 1 Episode 4.
The crosscutting between bleak black and white courtroom scenes with Susan’s fantasy of a full-scale Western highlight just how dissociated Susan becomes from reality. Even as she stands trial for murder, she drifts into her dream world.
The choice to make the forensic testimony of the courtroom, which describes decomposing bodies and ballistic technicalities, almost secondary subverts what we expect of true crime.
The gory details of the murders are there if you want them, but Landscapers forces you to focus on Susan and Chris. Their relationship is more central to the story than the crime.
There are moments you genuinely feel bad for Susan, like when the prosecution pushes her about why she hated her parents so much she would kill them. They’re just doing their job, but it’s hard to forget Susan was also a victim.
The entire season forces viewers to decide how much they’re willing to sympathize with a fictionalized version of a real murderer. The trial creates a opportunity for the show to pull back from that perspective and focus on the ugly truth, but it doesn’t.
Ultimately it feels wrong to even keep Landscapers in the true crime category when it seems so largely disinterested in the truth of the case. One can argue that’s the point.
Through its melodramatic choices, the show shines a light on the fact most true crime we consume has a least a little bit of fiction woven in. Landscapers is just the extremest of examples.
While someone like Susan would usually become the derided villain of the tale, instead she becomes an avatar for anyone who’s ever felt disenfranchised or like they didn’t belong.
Susan: You see, I never cared about being shut out from the real world…because I never felt like I was allowed to arrive here in the first place.
There is something genuinely heartwrenching about Susan admitting she’s so broken she doesn’t think anything could hurt her anymore. In a real courtroom that may seem like a lack of remorse, but on screen, it plays much more sincerely.
Even her lawyer claims to understand her, adding yet another piece to the story meant to make Susan seem relatable.
It wouldn’t be surprising if Colman ends up getting award nominations for the performance. For all her strangeness, Susan is the type of “damaged” female protagonist that prestige TV thrives on.
Colman’s sympathetic portrayal and the poetic dialogue Susan is given make it easier to overlook the fact she lied to her husband their entire marriage. We learn in addition to her secret spending that the letters from Gerard Depardieu were also forged (something every viewer probably saw coming).
Maybe Susan and Chris really do love each other, but their marriage is just another fantasy.
Like the premiere, the most grounded part of the episode comes from DC Lancing and DC Wilkie. When Lancing reveals she threatened to kill her father once for abusing her mom, the conversation quickly transitions to them joking as partners about something else.
As extraordinary as Susan and Chris’ case may seem, this scene is a good reminder that trauma exists for many people in different forms and manifests in different ways. It just doesn’t always actually lead to homicide.
In the final scene, Susan’s Western fantasy plays out its ending as she and Chris ride off on horses while in reality, she sits in a prison cell. It’s the happy ending she wanted most, so of course, it’s not real.
What did you think of this episode of Landscapers? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Landscapers airs Mondays at 9/8c on HBO.
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Breeze Riley
Breeze Riley is a pop culture enthusiast who decided to turn her love of watching too much TV into a hobby writing about it. Although she's a convention-going sci-fi and fantasy nerd, she's just as likely to be watching an off-beat comedy or period drama. She is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic.