WhatsHerName – The fourth episode of Black Bird begins in Wabash, Indiana in 1973 as a body is prepared for the upcoming funeral. Robert Hall (Charles Green) drinks and watches the funeral from a distance. Once the funeral ends, Robert buries the coffin. Larry Hall (Paul Walter Hauser) is shown in his prison cell. In the past, Robert tells a young Larry (Cade Tropeano) to get up and out of bed. Young Gary wants to go, but Robert won’t let him. In Kankakee, Indiana in 1974, Big Jim returns home to see his son Jimmy. They go outside and play football together even though Big Jim just got off work. They talk about life once Jimmy reaches the NFL. At the prison, Jimmy (Taron Egerton) steps out of his cell, goes into Larry’s, and looks at the pictures on the wall. While Larry is away, Jimmy scours through his books, bed, and other belongings. When he flips through a dirty magazine, he finds some morbid drawings.

Once he puts everything back, Jimmy returns to his cell where CO Carter (Joe Williamson) is waiting for him. Jimmy confirms his dad wasn’t able to get any product before he is asked to step into his cell. CO Carter learns that Jimmy’s dad spent the money. He says the guys on the outside want the money so he asks Jimmy what he is going to do about that. Jimmy claims he did everything he could. Carter suggests he’ll just have to believe him before leaving. Larry tells Jimmy they call it “riot quiet” when it is quiet like this. Then, he asks Jimmy if he saw someone in his cell. Jimmy asks if something is missing. Larry asks why anything would be missing. Jimmy explains he would be worried about it if he thought someone was in his spot. Larry wasn’t worried about that although he doesn’t say anything else. In the past, Robert takes Larry to the cemetery where he makes him start digging.

Larry asks Jimmy why he is looking at him like he knows him. He also mentions that Jimmy asks a lot of questions. Jimmy tells him he is going to leave him to whatever this is before he steps outside. Larry follows him and says when there is doubt there is no doubt. Gary heard that from a friend who liberated Kuwait. If you think you could be in danger, you are in danger. Larry is convinced something bad is going to happen. He apologizes for earlier because he gets paranoid. Jimmy claims he isn’t upset although he doesn’t know him from one minute to the next. As Jimmy walks away, a riot begins in the cafeteria. The chaos spreads throughout the prison. Once the guards enact a lockdown, Jimmy and Larry manage to make it back to their cells. Later, Jimmy is awoken when he hears Larry calling his name from his cell. He wants to know if Jimmy is still mad at him, but Jimmy insists he was never mad.

When Larry asks if they’re friends again, Jimmy says yeah. Larry begins laughing and says he takes care of his friends. The inmates are taken to the cafeteria to clean up. They’re not allowed to have hoses because someone could use them to strangle someone else. Hall tells everyone to stack the large debris. When they find cooking oil, they should place Comet on it and leave it. Donny (Jeff Robins) is put in charge of sweeping up the glass. As they clean, Larry tells Jimmy that he got into cleaning in high school when he got a job at a feedstore in town. He moved to a place that specialized in medical supplies. Once Jimmy says he sold weed, Larry doesn’t think they had weed in his high school since Wabash is so innocent. They didn’t have any crime and it was like they were stuck in a time warp.

Larry goes on about main street and its candy shops as well as the nice people sweeping the streets. Their high school had the greenest lawns and the prettiest cheerleaders the world has ever seen. Once Larry mentions that he grew up in a cemetery, he says you’ll be surprised by how much fun you can have at a place like that. He calls it a pretty nice way to grow up. In the past, his father forces him to dig up the grave. Larry cries and digs while his father sleeps nearby. He tells Jimmy that happiness is a choice because he doesn’t think his parents were happy and they let that grind them down. While Jimmy never had a best friend, he had a great dad. He calls himself lucky for that. A young Jimmy watches his father leave for work before waiting for him to come home.

Then, he remembers his father fighting with his mother because he works all the time and is never home. As Big Jim storms out of the house, he ignores his sons and gets into his vehicle. Larry asks if all that time his old man spent with him helped and if he was a good football player. Once Jimmy tells him he was good, Larry says he sometimes reminds him so much of Gary that his gums ache. They talk so big. Jimmy claims he lied because he was second string and rode the bench. Larry tells him it was an accomplishment to make the team. Jimmy admits guys tell stories to try to convince other guys they’re bigger than they are. Larry asks if he could eat a pet chicken if he had one. He would and he’d eat it since it is just meat. Larry would even eat his pet dog.

After Jimmy asks if he has eaten his pet dog, Larry says they weren’t allowed to have pets when they were growing up. Jimmy gets Larry laughing until the guard tells them to get back to work. Larry reveals his dad wouldn’t let them have pets because they’d get in the way of real work. In the past, we see that Larry’s dad made him steal stuff from the corpses. His father gives him a pair of snips when he can’t get a ring from the man’s finger. Back at the prison, Larry says he was 14 when he officially started digging graves, but he had dug many before that. He explains that he dug up graves because people bury the dead with all sorts of things they can’t use. Larry remembers one lady that was buried with a solid gold Siamese cat. He complains about people hoarding stuff six feet under the ground where it won’t do any good for anyone.

When Larry is asked if he was scared, he says the dead are pleasant since they don’t talk back. He believes the next world is going to be the good one when he looks into their faces. Larry says it doesn’t matter what a person was like in life because death evens it all out. He knows a girl named Debra Kyle and she was untouchable. They thought she was going to rule the world until she went to college and learned about roof jumping. She fell between two buildings breaking her neck in the process. Larry says she got a little more touchable after that. In a flashback, Larry cuts off the man’s finger to take his ring. During lunch, Larry asks Jimmy questions about his father and mother. Jimmy says his father was a fireman while his mother owned a bar and loved everything about it. It was a weird lifestyle and not what his father thought when he married an Italian girl from the neighborhood.

When Larry asks if she was sleeping with guys at the bar, Jimmy says maybe. He says she loved to flirt and his dad didn’t like her flirting. Larry asks how he felt about it. Jimmy would just say Lynne is a piece of work and leave it like that. Larry says his mother is fat before asking Jimmy to tell him something true. Jim says he has been telling him the truth all day. Jimmy says his parents broke up when he was a kid and his mother let him move in six months later. He admits that Glen was a real scumbag. They were together for about a year when he started hitting her and he hit Jimmy and his brother all the time. She would not leave him so Jimmy couldn’t figure it out. He eventually started believing she was waiting for him to get old enough and strong enough to start protecting her. He started taking Tae Kwon Do, karate, and jujitsu classes. He also changed his diet and could beat any of the kids.

He’d have to grow before he could take on Glen who was a big guy. By the time he was 14, he was ready. He went after Glen when he hit his mother only for Glen to paint the kitchen with him. He fractured his ribs and was sent to his room that way. Larry asks where she was. Jimmy says she was taking a show. Larry asks if she wanted to smell good when she was sleeping with him. Jimmy confirms that is what she did with him on the other side of the wall. As Jimmy complains about the physical pain, Larry gets loud while saying that isn’t what hurt. He believes what hurt was that she loved him so much more than she loved Jimmy.

In a flashback, a beaten Jimmy tells his mother he wanted to live with his dad. Today isn’t the day he can stand up to Glen. She reminds him that he put the quarter in the jukebox. Although he says he did it for her, she believes he did it for himself. When asked by Larry, Jimmy confesses that he wanted to hurt his mother and kill her sometimes. Once Larry asks if he thought about how, Jimmy says he’d chuck her down the stairs. Larry tells him that they tend to hang on a few minutes after neck breaks. While they wait on the line, Larry asks if he could do things to her then. Jimmy questions what type of things he is talking about. Larry says things to his mother or anyone. Jimmy says he doesn’t understand before Larry explains he soaks a rag in starter fluid and puts it in a Mason jar in his van. When you put it over a person’s face, they’ll go out in seconds.

He suspects it is more pleasant than being thrown down the stairs. Jimmy asks him what he does. Larry says it is to stop them from hitting him. He admits it is girls he meets. He asks Jimmy what he does with the girls he meets. Jimmy’s exploits with women are shown in a flashback. Later, Larry tells Jimmy that today was really fun. They tell each other good night. In the past, Larry’s father helps him bury the body. Larry asks about the birds. His father says they’re falcons and they watch over the dead. Larry jumps back into the hole and retrieves something from the dirt. He shows his dad the finger and says it is his now. Gary (Jake McLaughlin) visits his brother at the prison and learns about the riot. Larry mentions the possibility of getting out before asking for the name of the girl they picked up.

Larry thinks it was Lois or Louise, but Gary says no. Gary says they never knew her name. She was some chick they picked up and she headed out with a biker the next morning. Larry suggests her name was Wanda. Gary tells his brother about the Wabash police dropping by the house. They just talked around things although they wanted to make it clear that they hadn’t forgotten Larry. Gary says he embarrassed them so they’re not going to stop. Larry says her name was Sharon and Gary says okay. Larry says they’re making it seem like they’ll be all over him when he gets out. Gary says it means he’ll get out.

 

Black Bird Review

The fourth episode of Black Bird was easily the most insightful episode yet since we learned a great deal about Larry and Jimmy. I often have difficulty knowing whether to believe what Jimmy is telling Larry considering lying to him in those situations is probably wise. After all, it would make sense for Jimmy to lie to Larry to get what he wanted.

On the other hand, there are likely bits of the truth being added to the stories Jimmy has been telling. The riot scenes were a little over the top and we still haven’t seen Jimmy placed in any real danger. Depending on his actual time in prison, this may not be farfetched though. He may have been lucky enough to avoid any serious trouble.

Still, it would’ve been a good idea to add some sense of danger even though this hasn’t hurt the show too much. My only real complaint is the way the writers expect viewers to be so uninformed about the American justice system. I really wish they hadn’t tried to turn this into a race against the clock since it is so unrealistic. Regardless, every episode of Black Bird has been very good.

Despite a few small issues, Black Bird has been a thoroughly entertaining, excellently acted series through four episodes. The episode scores an 8 out of 10. Recaps of Black Bird are available on Reel Mockery here. Want to support our work? Learn how to do so here.