At the beginning of the 4th episode, Brett (Lincoln Vickery) researches the Silk 41 brothel. He finds a picture of Cinnamon. Then, Pyke (Ewen Leslie) reminds Mary (Alice Englert) and Michaela (Liv Hewson) about the upcoming dance. Julia (Nicole Kidman) wants to take a picture of Mary in her dress, but Mary refuses. On the way to the school dance, Mary gets out of the car, so she can visit Puss. Mary finds Puss (David Dencik) distraught. She encourages him to get up and eat. This continues on forever, until Puss encourages Mary to become a prostitute, so she can support her sisters. Robin Griffin (Elisabeth Moss) gets a tattoo. Then, she returns to work and immediately gets into a spat with Miranda (Gwendoline Christie).

Adrian (Clayton Jacobson) tries to encourage the women to settle their differences. Mary takes Puss to the school dance. Pyke isn’t happy to see him arrive. Pyke scoops up his daughter and they dance together. Moments later, Puss interrupts and destroys everything. He turns Mary into a laughing stock and is forced to leave by security. Mary chases him outside. The following day, Miranda and Robin visit Brett. He tells them how he knew about China Girl and he also tells them how her knew her. Brett tells them all about Puss. Then, the girls go for lunch. They discuss whether or not Brett is believable. They also discover that a surrogate could get paid a good amount of money in Australia.

Meanwhile, Mary tries to convince the girls to let her sleep with the clients. She is told that it wouldn’t be a good idea. She also learns about the experiences of the other girls. Pyke arrives at Robin’s house. It seems the couple has plans to meet with Mary at the beach. They arrive and wait awhile, but Mary never shows. Then, she arrives with Puss and the prostitutes moments later. Eventually, Puss speaks with Robin in private. He flirts with her, before trying to bite her nose off. Puss is run off, while Robin is escorted to the hospital. Everything is fine. During the hospital visit, Robin tells Pyke about her suspicions that Puss could be involved with the murder of Cinnamon.

Back at home, the others try to convince Puss to stop Mary from prostituting herself. They also chat about the suitcase and Cinnamon. Then, Pyke gives Mary a birthday breakfast in bed. She tells her dad that she will not be returning home that night. At the station, Robin gets the DNA results, which confirm that the baby wasn’t Mike and Felicity’s. They visit Felicity (Helen Thomson) and Mike (Julian Garner) seconds later. They learn that the couple has worked with several different surrogates. Meanwhile, Mary tells Puss that Dang (Ling Cooper Tang) will not let her in the waiting room. She insists she is ready to sleep with a client. Puss takes her into town and slaps her across the face. He puts her on the street and tells her to work the corner.

Meanwhile, Julia and Pyke watch home videos of Robin. Robin gets a call from Mary, so she picks her up from the street corner. Mary finds a picture of Cinnamon. Robin tells her about the woman’s potential fate. She also makes it clear that Mary needs to separate herself from Puss. Once they arrive at Robin’s place, Mary breaks down and insists she wants to leave Puss, but is afraid to do so. Pyke arrives as the episode comes to an end.

 

Top of the Lake Review

Welp, Top of the Lake sure hasn’t improved a bit. At least In the Dark had a good episode. The dialogue this episode was abysmal. The word baby had to be in there a good 200 or 300 times. Now, 4 episodes have ended and Top of the Lake has done very little to identify the victim or arrest a suspect. It is too busy with nonsense. Plus, I am sick of the writers trying to turn Elisabeth Moss into a sex icon.

The episodes feel disconnected from one another. This episode said very little about Robin’s near death experience and nothing about Al. Instead, it felt like another terrible episode in and of itself. The fight between Robin and Al was simply too dramatic to brush aside, but the writers did it anyway. Instead, we got Pyke being a pushover. Why doesn’t someone just put Puss in his place? That could’ve been done in the first episode and we could’ve saved ourselves the trouble of watching this drivel.

Sadly, Top of the Lake is going nowhere. This episode was horrendous in every way. A 3 out of 10 is deserved. Catch up with previous recaps of Top of the Lake now.