When chasing time traveling killers it's probably a good idea to not publicly reveal your identity.
Info
"Shining Girls" from Apple TV+ is a supernatural crime-series based off a book The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes. Apple TV's series adaptation stars Elizabeth Moss (The West Wing, Mad Men, The One I Love, The Handmaid's Tale ) as the lead, with Wagner Moura (Elysium, Narcos ), Phillipa Soo (Tick Tick ... Boom, Hamilton ), Chris Chalk (12 Years A Slave, Detroit, When They See Us), Amy Brenneman (Heat, Fear, Judging Amy, The Leftovers ), and Jamie Bell (King Kong, Jumper, Snowpiercer, Fantastic Four ) in major supporting roles.
Summary
Opens with cut-open women’s bodies of Harper’s 1972, 1974, and 1984 victims—park, hospital, parking lot. Next crime scene has no body, just signs of a struggle on a beach and a long trail of blood. Kirby’s mom yells at the nurses and the doctors about seeing her daughter. This is the night Kirby survived. Harper shows up, talks to the mother, sneaks into Kirby’s room while she’s unconscious but a nurse stops when he approaches her bed. Dan questions people and cops who knew the seven victims. He recognizes an item left inside one of the victims and later shares the story with the rest of the Chicago Sun-Times staff. He pitches it without Kirby’s part in the story according to her wishes. Kirby’s husband Marcus and her go to pick up a copy of Julia’s voice machine records with Harper’s voice on it. It’s there they notice that Harper played a recording of Julia saying things before she even said it. Kirby and Dan connect the victims by creating a matching thread of items from one victim placed inside a different victim. She changes her mind and decides to have her account in the story, to tie it together with her survival. She visits the Adler Planetarium worker Jin-Soo again to ask her when she lost the keys that were found inside Harper’s 1972 victim. Jin-soo says the key must be a spare because she still has hers, which means Kirby is talking to her before Harper murders her. Kirby warns Jin-Soo to be careful. Jin-Soo tells her to double-check her trail of evidence, that sometimes reviewing things reveals something that wasn’t there before. Kirby goes to the laundromat from episode 1, the address of the bar the matchbox Harper left in her belongs to—she sees that it’s been sold and finds a pack of fresh new match boxes just like hers. Harper shows up and says she looks different and that he doesn’t like how she’s changed. He attacks her but Kirby fights back, stabbing him in the leg and slashing him across the bridge of his nose. Harper slams her against a wall and it changes, which surprises him. He asks her how she’s doing it, changing things, while she pulls down his collar to see a tattoo on his chest. He slams her into the wall again and again, each time it changes color and design before turning to glass, the two of them falling into a back room. Kirby flees from the laundromat-bar and turns around to see it full of customers and already open—her and Harper traveled to the future.
Review
The opener of episode four's Attribution is very chilling, showing some of Harper's previous victims. I was a little curious when it came to Kirbys crime scene to see all the blood and couldn't help but wonder how she could've survived such an awful attack ... but the universe is like that, there are sometimes outliers. And all it takes for an attacker to get caught, is for someone to escape them just once.
We learn in Attribution that Harper played his victim's future dialogue to them before they even said it, which was a great scene that took place in the presence of Kirby's husband Marcus. I wanted there to be more shock there, more curiosity but unfortunately his character's pretty stale and doesn't pick up on any strangeness other than Kirby's.
I made a mistake in previous reviews and thought that Harper had taken Jinny's key after murdering her but in truth he stole it from her and she ended up with a spare. This led to the strange second confrontation between Kirby and Jinny after she previously and frantically asked her, a woman she's never met before, why Jinny's planetarium key is at a crime scene two decades ago. Jinny was understandably weirded out and I think Kirby could've handled that better. Despite this, Jinny still allows Kirby into her home later and has a much more compassionate demeanor, telling her to double-check her evidence. This leads to Kirby and Harper's fight at the laundromat that's been sold to make way for the bar her matches belong to. I wanted there to be more conversation between him and Kirby but since they're alone he quickly attacks her out of anger for looking different and surviving. It was also odd how sure he seemed that he'd already killed her which made me wonder if this whole story has secretly been kicked off because another survivor helped Kirby survive. It's still very unclear how Harper's time-travel powers work and how they'r related to Kirby. The two of them are connected now but that still hasn't been explained, other than her being a survivor.
For a moment there, I almost accused the show of some genius after Kirby stabs Harper in the leg and slashes him across his face with a knife. I thought I remembered him limping and maybe possibly having a scar across his face but was disappointed to find no such scar and only a reference to a sore knee ... which could be related to the attack in the future but I think some a knife injury would've most likely left a scar.
So far the show's pretty well-done and while there's the occasional moment I yell at the screen, "what-are-you-doing?" the characters convincing enough. I like how subtle the supernatural aspects of the show are and how they act as a great metaphor for assault-related trauma. Unfortunately despite the great setting and dynamics up to this point, I wonder if the show can stick the landing when it comes to the final explanation for all this weirdness.
I think it's a good idea to start keeping track of time-shifts in episodes ... for Attribution there are 4 time-shifts or time jumps.
Hope you enjoyed this review!
See you next time after the next episode!
