Irma Vep Season 1 Episode 6 Review: The Thunder Master
If you find yourself confused in the aftermath of Irma Vep Season 1 Episode 6, “The Thunder Master,” you’re not alone.
Okay, so mostly we understand what’s going on right now, right? Rene quit the show because he can’t deal with the actors, Gottfried almost died by accidental strangulation, and Mira is driving herself crazy with the thought of her ex coming back to town.
But there’s so much else going on, and it’s getting kind of hard to keep up.
The moments shared between Rene and Mira have become some of the best scenes in the show. But underneath all of those (usually) touching scenes, there’s something slightly disturbing lurking.
In the case of “The Thunder Master,” Rene asks Mira if she believes in “the invisible.” And that becomes the question that follows everyone throughout the episode.
Whether it’s Rene dealing with invisible illness, Gottfried dealing with invisible hunger, Regina dealing with invisible goals, or Mira dealing with invisible feelings, everyone is dealing with their own invisible monster. Everyone is, as Rene says, haunted.
We’ve come to the point in this series where we’re starting to see the wrapping of everyone’s stories. While some characters have been mostly gone these past few episodes (where’d you go, Zoe?), the more central figures are finally coming into their own.
Rene is as sympathetic as always, but with “The Thunder Master,” we really see the truly vulnerable side of him: the side that believes he’s lived his whole life a failure.
Mira is stuck obsessing over Laurie, who has, by all appearances, moved on. But Mira becomes Irma Vep, or Irma Vep becomes her, all iterations of Irma, and she refuses to let go of her past.
And by becoming Irma, Mira is able to spy on Laurie and steal a valuable necklace, just for fun, apparently.
Mira’s behavior is becoming more erratic. She started out just trying in earnest do branch out and do something new and interesting for her career. But now she’s letting her obsessions consume her, and she is no longer the woman who came to Paris to shoot this miniseries all those weeks ago.
It’s still not completely clear where this series is headed. It has at times been a comedy, a drama, a romance, a thriller, and now even a little bit of a horror.
We love a genre-bending series, but if this doesn’t go just right, it’s just going to confuse us all the way up to the end.
I’ve mentioned this before, but we’ve been given an awful lot of Chekhov’s guns throughout this series. New characters are introduced and then never seen again, new plotlines are started without clear direction for the future, and Mira continues to contradict herself.
I have to wonder if this is a flaw with the writing, or whether there’s going to be some big, unpredictable conclusion coming up. There are an awful lot of stories out there waiting to be polished. I remain optimistic, but cautiously so.
But let’s all be proud of Rene going to therapy, right? Is it possible that the guy who’s arguably the most messed up out of everyone in the production is also the one trying hardest to care for his own mental health?
And good for Regina, while we’re at it. She’s stepping up to give ideas on directing, using her own knowledge as someone who endured film school only to become an assistant. Her obsession with Mira might be waning, but that’s yet another factor that was dangled in front of us before we never addressed it again.
We’re sure to see more confusion before we get full clarity. That’s pretty much a given at this point. But let’s just hope that when the clarity does come, it’s acceptable, believable, and enough to make the confusion worth it.
Honestly, let’s just hope we get clarity at all.
What did you think of this episode of Irma Vep? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Critic Rating:
User Rating:
Irma Vep airs Mondays at 9PM EST on HBO and is streaming on HBO Max.
Follow us on Twitter and on 
Instagram!
Want more from Tell-Tale TV? Subscribe to our newsletter here!
