After leaving her hometown years ago, Camille Preaker becomes a reporter in a famous newspaper. When a murder of two girls occur in her hometown, she is tasked to go their to cover it, the thing which may lead her to bad memories specially when she discovers that she knows the two girls.
"Ripe," may have seemed to be giving us very little by way of plot, it was actually imparting a parade float-load of information - just not in conventional ways.
Sophia Lillis is so extraordinary in this role, rarely speaking, just registering trauma and cruelty and self-refusal in those big, still eyes, offering a young mask of stubborn composure that mirrors the one Amy Adams wears as Camille in her 30s.
To typically outstanding effect, Ripe excels as more of Camille's memories bleed into the current, with a particular forest rummage providing some of the starkest, boldest, most visceral imagery to hit our screens.
With our sense of place established, episode four really needed to make some headway in the plot... and it eventually did just that... But the meandering build-up was both interesting and revealing.
Can we just talk about these people? These broken, damaged people? I'm pretty sure that they are all in a race to see who can be the worst.And if they aren't in the game itself, they're on the sidelines taking bets and talking shit.
I was thoroughly confused by that incredible last sequence, which seemed to play with time, place and intent, but I was happy to go along for the disturbing ride.
The choppy editing in the episode's final scene is a haunting approach to what could very well be a cheap cliffhanger. But if so, it's an admittedly effective one for this episode, even if it doesn't pay off next week.
"Ripe" provides a few key examples of passive aggressive sentiments elevated to high art, so below IndieWire has collected the best of the lot and broken down what makes them so effective.
