The Girl From Plainville Review: Blank Spaces (Season 1 Episode 8)
The Girl From Plainville Season 1 Episode 8, “Blank Spaces,” concludes Michelle Carter’s (Elle Fanning) story — at least the parts that relate to Conrad “Coco” Roy III (Colton Ryan).
As a miniseries, the show has many strong elements. This includes the acting, makeup, and some of the storytelling choices. However, its flaws get stronger as the series continues.
It is difficult to review The Girl From Plainville because you have to decide whether to focus on it exclusively as a television show or to judge it as something based on real events.
The easiest way to talk about this series is to judge it strictly as a miniseries or limited series. Unfortunately, “Blank Spaces” fails to live up to its potential with that criteria.
It needs to pack a punch but delivers a soft slap.
“Blank Spaces” offers a rushed look at Coco’s final day. These structural and writing choices take away from the emotional impact of loss and his decision. It also focuses more on Michelle’s involvement in it than Coco’s emotional turmoil at the moment.
This decision to make Michelle the focus makes sense because it’s the end of her trial, and they have to reach a verdict. Still, Michelle’s verdict should not be as important as the conversation about mental health in The Girl From Plainville.
I believe that this show wants to start a dialogue about mental health, especially in relation to teens.
An episode solely about Coco’s final day could have been an excellent way to showcase the emotional weight of his decision. However, I understand that route may have been too dark for many viewers.
A strength of the few minutes viewers get of Coco’s last moments is that it is just an ordinary day when his death occurs. This displays how something major doesn’t have to happen for someone who is depressed to make a devastating decision. Depression doesn’t need a monumental event to take a life.
The mundanity of the day also helps make the case that the incident may not have happened without Michelle’s pushing for it.
The Girl From Plainville makes a very interesting choice on this episode by departing into Michelle’s fantasy world again. This time, she dreams of a world where she graduates from college in California and Coco lives.
These scenes highlight that Michelle is still running from the truth. She blames Coco instead of accepting her part in his decision. These scenes end with Michelle having a breakdown.
You can’t be sure if this break is from the guilt of her actions or the pain of knowing that she is going to prison for them. Most likely, it is a mixture of both.
In her fantasy scenes, Fanning once again gives a lot of layers to Michelle. We see so many character-defining elements in these scenes. She wants to seem sophisticated; her desire for friends, the need to escape, and her inability to accept reality are just some of the things Fanning displays here.
This final episode ends in more of a whimper than an explosion.
We don’t get grand speeches. We don’t learn more about Michelle’s life after her prison release or the Roy family’s current life. Instead, it’s a quiet end as Michelle begins her prison sentence.
“Blank Spaces” leaves the canvas free for viewers to draw their conclusions on Michelle and The Girl From Plainville. In some ways, that is a great decision, but this finale could have made a bolder statement.
—
What did you think of The Girl From Plainville‘s final episode? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Critic Rating:
User Rating:
All episodes of The Girl From Plainville are now available to stream on Hulu.
Follow us on Twitter and on 
Instagram!
Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!
Jerrica Tisdale
Jerrica Tisdale is your favorite neighborhood pop culture junkie. She will annoy you with random TV and film facts, while complaining about whatever is the hottest new book. She has been a TV fan all her life but writing about it for over a decade. You may find her work all over the internet especially reality TV rants. She is a senior writer at Tell-Tale TV.
2 comments
I don’t think it was shown as Michelle ”blaming” Conrad, it was more like her trying to explain it to herself…
Good point, but to me , it felt like blaming him was her way of coping with her actions. She didn’t truly believe what she was saying was right but it helped her temporarily until she broke and couldn’t deny what she did.
Comments are closed.