In 1964, a young girl plays on the steps outside her home. Harper (Jamie Bell) walks over and asks if he can sit down because his knee locks up after it rains. The little girl says it hasn’t been raining. He learns about the Ferris wheel and tight rope she created. As for the bumblebee she has under a bowl, she claims it is a lion. The ringmaster didn’t teach her how to tame him though. Harper puts his ear to the bowl before saying he wants out. He releases the bumblebee but snatches it with his hand. While holding the bee between his fingers, he says we find its shine at first and take it away. Harper pulls out the bee’s wings and drops them to the ground. He pulls out a filly from his pocket while admitting it doesn’t draw a crowd. It is easy to break though.

He asks whether she can hold onto it until he comes back, but the little girl doesn’t want it. Harper says she’ll take it because she always does. He begins walking away as the little girl picks up the filly and goes inside. After the intro, Kirby (Elisabeth Moss) seems to be writing down stuff about her surroundings including her cat named Grendel. She hides the notebook under her mattress before joining her mom who is busy packing stuff for her move to Florida. Kirby gives her money so she can buy cat food if she goes out. Kirby goes to work at the Chicago Sun-Times. Lakshmi Awad (Sadieh Rifai) stops her to see if she got the city records she asked her to pull. When Lakshmi asks about the 10th and 16th districting maps, Kirby says they need to come from Sulzer Public at the top of next week.

She recommends resubmitting the request since her last day is Friday. Lakshmi says she is sorry they’re losing her before asking if she can transfer the pickup to someone else. Kirby leaves a bit later. Meanwhile, Dan Velazquez (Wagner Moura) walks through a flooded street. While walking through a tunnel, he is stopped and told he can’t be down here. He is told they’re just trying to patch a way through the sewer lines. Dan finds it odd that they’re not wearing hard hats though. He says the pipe is clear for the first time in 50 years and suspects they’ve found something in there, but Samuels won’t tell him. Dan overhears the workers telling one another to be careful with her leg. As Kirby returns to her desk, she finds someone else sitting there.

She notices that her mug has turned into a Chicago Bulls mug. Jack tells her that the computer has always been his and she is over there. Kirby goes to her desk and looks at her belongings. Moments later, she is told that some guy named Shawn Lynsky called for her like five times. Dan talks to Abby (Erika Alexander) about switching cases since Ben and Lakshmi have the flood covered and don’t need him. She reminds him that they agreed he’d come back for some small pieces. Once he meets his deadlines, they’ll go from there. Dan is accused of running hot with Detective Samuels (Brian Boland) from the 26th. When he says he doesn’t know who that is, he is told it is a reliable police source.  Abby asks about the tunnels off LaSalle since it is his beat. Dan comes clean by saying the city workers found a body in a pipe off LaSalle.

He reveals that young woman’s name is Julia Madrigal and she went missing two years ago. Bertie (Alex Goodrich) offers to help, but Dan believes he can handle it himself. Abby says they like Bertie at the 26th although Dan thinks people like him. Dan is told to build back some goodwill and run with it. Kirby tells Detective Shawn Lynsky (Kevin Gudahl) how she came up with the name Kirby Mazrachi. He believes it is important to regain a sense of control. A new name and new look are good steps towards that. When Kirby says he can’t call her at work, Shawn explains that her mother wouldn’t pick up his calls. Once she sits down, Shawn says they found a woman named Julia Madrigal and there were similarities between Kirby’s assault and Julia’s murder.

They have a suspect and they want Kirby to pick him out of a lineup. Kirby doesn’t think she can pick him out so she asks for his name. Shawn won’t tell her. Instead, he urges her to really look at the pictures. Kirby says she can’t pick him out because she doesn’t know what he looks like. She can only remember his voice when he called her a wh@re. When she returns home, she hears her mother talking to someone while showing them the property. Once Kirby falls asleep, she has a dream that Harper is bashing down the wood on an abandoned home. She hears bashing outside her door until the door opens and a dog enters. Kirby finds the name Grendel on the dog’s collar.

She changes her notebook to say Grendel is her dog instead of her cat. When Jinny (Phillipa Soo) arrives at work, she learns that Theo has been looking for her. He said Granger won’t be free for her run-through until tomorrow. Jin says that is fine since there is still time before learning the kids were already sent down because they were getting antsy. She finds Theo (Patrick Rooney) teaching the class. Jin interrupts to tell the kids they can go upstairs to play with their telescopes. Once they leave, Theo says they’re not going to see anything with the rain. Jin says let them mess around anyway since they might get into it. She asks whether he was able to calibrate Ogden for the live feed because she can’t have any lag during her live talk. They see a bumblebee without wings on the desk as Theo says the Ancient Egyptians claimed they carry messages from the heavens.

She gets rid of it. Dan meets with Detective Samuels. He admits he always calls the ME or Iris (Hannah Dworkin) first. When Dan asks who the suspect is, the detective tells him Pawel Banik (Marcin Marszalek). The victim was a social worker and Pawel was one of her cases. They had him in two years ago when Julia went missing and managed to get a confession from him. Dan asks what type of social work Julia did. He is told that she mostly handled 10-96s or mental patients. The suspect did not have a lawyer present at the time. Dan asks whether he railroaded a mentally ill man while violating his Miranda rights. Now, he wants him to say he murdered someone. Samuels says his wife used to read Dan on Sundays but thought he retired.

Samuels looked him up and found a Class a possession arrested. Dan admits he plead out for treatment. He refuses to sell a case that they couldn’t make two years ago. Samuels explains he was there when the guy was brought in and nobody took a phonebook to him. Instead, they just didn’t have a body at the time. He says the McDonald’s on Clinton is close enough so he can buy him a burger next time. Marcus (Chris Chalk) finds Kirby listening to music while looking at an old newspaper article. He asks her if she can file these for Lakshmi’s flood piece. She tells him that she really liked his outtakes from city hall and layout should’ve moved them up. He thanks her although he was only messing around. Marcus takes a few pictures of her so he can finish the roll.

He says there is a good one of her in there. Once he leaves, she is asked if she is pulling the clips for Dan because he is waiting on them. Dan says he didn’t put in a request though. She claims she pulled them for Bertie instead. Dan says it is a puerile move to poach a story running on the same press. He should know better. Kirby says nothing. Jin-Sook goes for a smoke and checks out the telescopes when the door slams behind her. She realizes that she can’t get back in until someone opens the door. Jin finds an umbrella that someone left behind so she uses it to stay dry. Back at work, Kirby manages to steal Dan’s notebook. She learns about the murder that likely occurred somewhere besides the tunnel under city hall. As she flips through the notebook, she learns more about the wounds on the victim’s abdomen.

She finds Pawel’s name and address. Later that night, she goes to Pawel’s house and claims she is with the Sun-Times. The woman who answers the door complains that they see her people all day and can’t make more tea. Kirby is forced to come inside to see Pawel. Before approaching Pawel, she pulls out a knife just in case she needs to protect herself. Once she approaches Pawel, he tells her that she likes the fuzzy sound on the television. He insists he didn’t hurt Julia. Kirby asks why he is talking like that as Pawel says he only knew Julia for five months and didn’t hurt her.

The baby begins crying. As Kirby leaves, she runs into Dan outside. They go to a restaurant as Dan tries to find out what happened in that house. Kirby says nothing since he was just putting his kid to bed. He wonders why she went there since he talked to Bertie who said she wasn’t helping him with a story. She reminds him that she never said that. Dan says this isn’t the way to get on a desk. Kirby says she is going to Orlando to live with a cousin with a couch. After he returns with their food, Kirby insists she wasn’t trying to steal his story. As he tries to find out what is going on, Kirby says she thought she knew Pawel. Dan asks how she would know him. Kirby says the detective on her case called her in before stopping to say it doesn’t matter.

She admits he called her in because he thought it was the same guy. Dan learns that someone tried to do to her what happened to Julia six years ago. She goes on to say she looked at his notes and found that she was cut up like Julia. Once she heard Pawel’s voice, she knew it wasn’t him. He asks what she would’ve done if it was. Theo tells Jin that her graphics will be done soon. He offers to get some lunch with her, but she already has some. He offers to swing by security to let them know about the roof door. She tells him not to worry about it since she should’ve had her keys. Jin goes to the planetarium where she watches a video with a group of people.

Once everyone leaves, Harper sits down behind her and says that was just beautiful. He hasn’t seen anything that good in a long time. She agrees since she tries to catch it at least once a week. Harper suggests they’ve left some things out though. He claims the stars that you do see are all dead. Those that are shining are exploding in on themselves. Jin says that is only true for the most distant stars. The ones in our galaxy live on long past us. Harper laughs before saying that isn’t how he heard it. Jin recommends checking out the lunar display that they just started running at three o’clock. She is surprised when he called her Jinny. Harper asks whether she still doesn’t recognize him. When she says she doesn’t know him, Harper says not today.

He apologizes for making her nervous and claims he is just there to look at stars. Jin leaves. Next, Dan takes Kirby to see Iris who learns about her scars possibly matching Julia’s. Iris gives her candy and says she couldn’t get Dan past the door the first time he came here. He says she wasn’t handing out candy back then either. As they sit down, Iris begins asking Kirby about her assault and wound. He used a knife with a wooden handle although they never identified the weapon. Iris says the incisions on Julia were distinct and practiced. Iris wants to see her scar tissue, but Kirby isn’t eager to show her. Dan leaves as Iris tries to convince Kirby to lay on the table so she can inspect the wound.

Iris says he started on the anterior. Kirby explains that he came up behind her before he threw her down on her back. Iris finds a stutter so she believes the attacker was interrupted. Kirby confirms he was when someone walked past. Since there was some stuff in her mouth, she couldn’t call to them. She was walking her dog at the time and her attacker shoved something in her mouth. Iris asks whether anything was removed from her abdominal cavity. Kirby says some of her intestines were removed. She questions whether the attacker left something inside of her. She looks up and sees a man touching her causing her to freak out. Dan tells her that this is Howard (Marc Grapey) and he doesn’t know Iris. Kirby sees Howard’s picture on the wall as Dan reminds her that she said it was okay for him to examine her.

She asks Dan why the heck he brought her here before she leaves. When Kirby returns home, she tells her mom to keep it down because Janet will call on them again. Her mother shows her the only full set of dishes she could find. Rachel (Amy Brenneman) checks on her daughter. She reminds Kirby that she doesn’t have to move, but Kirby says she can’t stay here. Things aren’t how they should be after what he did to her. Although her mom thinks she is still working through it, Kirby suggests otherwise. They’ve talked about this. Everything is like always and then it isn’t. Kirby tells her that things change and aren’t how she left them. Nothing is where it should be so she doesn’t recognize it anymore.

It starts with little things before coming big things. They begin talking about Aunt Darlene’s first husband Jason who walked out on Darlene and their three boys. Her mom says they found him living in a commune in Oregon twelve years later. He went looking for peace and quiet but ended up with another five kids on a dirt farm. Her mother doesn’t think moving across the country is going to get her something different. If she wants to stop feeling this way, she better figure it out right here. The next day, Kirby approaches Dan at work as he types on his computer. She tells him he knows it isn’t Pawel, but he is late and it is all her has. She believes what happened to her is the same thing that happened to Julia. Kirby tells him to get Howard to find whatever the attacker left in Julia.

Dan doesn’t want to credit her for her impulse. Kirby argues that what happened to her is the only record that matters although Dan says it isn’t enough. She responds by saying it should be. During a group meeting, Dan is asked whether he is going to file on Julia Madrigal this morning. He says he is pursuing an alternate suspect who is a possible serial offender. Dan goes on to say it is coming from a source that he isn’t sure is credible yet. Harper follows Jinny and sees her hanging out with friends. Meets her near the telescope before jumping down and attacking her. When Kirby goes home, she finds that her key no longer works. Jinny is stabbed and left in a pool of blood.

Kirby bangs on the door until a man opens and she realizes that her mother doesn’t live there anymore. When she asks for Rachel, the man tells her that she has the wrong apartment. She checks her driver’s license and sees that the new apartment number is 3B instead of 2B. Her key words for the door to 3B and she hears music playing inside. She has a cat now. Marcus approaches her and asks if she is okay. She says she just came home.

 

Shining Girls Review

The first few minutes of the premiere episode of Shining Girls were brilliant television since Harper’s interaction with the young girl was genuinely tense and creepy. You could truly feel a sense of anxiety while waiting for Harper to do something to the girl even though he didn’t. As the episode progressed, it was never able to hit that peak again and somewhat lost its way.

At the very least, it gives me hope that Shining Girls will once again reach that level of exhilarating tenseness. I do worry that eight episodes are going to be four or five too many considering the first episode started dragging early on. While viewers can already see where this is headed, it’ll take more time to fully understand what is going on with Kirby and the things changing in her life.

The lead actors and actresses were spot-on while the minor performers seem out of place. The time period could be better established because this feels a bit too modern for the 1990s. The opening episode was decent although a bit uneventful and unexplained. It scores a 7 out of 10. Recaps of Shining Girls can be found on Reel Mockery here. Find out how to support our work at this link.