We’ve got the best episode of this series so far last week. Here are the screencaps and my review of the episode (after the More tag):

Television  >  (2019) Dirty John  >  Episode 3 Screencaps

If you’ve read my previous review, you’ll remember, that I’ve asked: What’s going to happen for 6 more episodes? Well, here’s the answer, we’ll see John’s past.

This episode was a very good jumping back and forth in time. In the past, we see the story of Tonia, John’s ex-wife; the way they got to know each other, the things she had to deal with, and a previous face of the man in the title. It’s like that John and the one we know in the present are two totally different people… It looks like he adapted the whole „doctor” persona by Tonia’s side, but the whole Iraq-thing is new. In his previous life, he was aiming for drugs, now, in the present, he is going for the money… The coolest part of the past-act is the wedding video. Feels very authentic, has lots of much needed male characters, and until they’ve showed Eric Bana’s face, I thought „these must be actual footage from the real John’s life”. Another thing I like here is that Tonia has a real reason to stay by the title character’s side: They have two kids.

(A little intermezzo: I’ve talked with one of my best friends about this series, I’ve told her how Debra had 4 husbands and how rich she is. My friend said the money probably didn’t came from only the interior decoration, but from the exes…)

In the present time, Debra goes to an attorney with photos she has taken of John’s private letters and papers. She still wants to believe those are not really his sins written down there, but the attorney reinforces her worst fears, along with the warning that he is a tough guy to deal with through the means of law. When Debra met with this lawyer the first time, that scene really showed again, that she basically has no free will, she just swims with the tides, because she doesn’t protest, when the attorney takes all the photos.

Then comes the most important part by our standards, when Veronice confronts her mom about the secret wedding. In this scene, either there was too much makeup applied to Juno’s face or the lighting was bad, but she looked orange… Then, the next scene of hers was at the detective, there she looked way older than she actually is. After the law is not really helpful, Veronica invites Debra to the detective’s office, there the private eye tells her what do to and how to get away from John. Then, the attorney said something about a medical procedure of some kind, and I didn’t understood what was going on. Debra went to the hospital, they did something there and then Veronica picked her up. I think this was for some kind of identification or…?

Meanwhile she acts like nothing happened, but then the cash she kept at home – that has been transferred to a bank safe, because John said so – has disappeared. Her husband seems to be a bit indifferent towards her, he probably feels something. Then John collapses, and has great pain in the stomach, he needs to be hospitalized, and then comes one of the best scenes so far, where Connie Britton and Eric Bana both perform incredibly without words. That moment, when Debra says, she leaves John there and goes to the chapel to pray. Just look at their eyes, their faces! It’s obvious that John knows his plans have failed, and the woman will break free from his influence. That was a kind of acting you don’t see often nowadays. The last sequence with that song was very good too, a well orchestrated, climatic ending without words. (Many such scenes have been in ‘Vinyl’, Juno’s previous series, by the way.)

All and all, the past and future acts going side by side was really exciting, everyone gave their best performances, and the total abscense of Terra also raised the quality. This was the best episode so far – but I still don’t know why should I care for Debra…

[Here and here are little extra pieces of information for the fashion enthusiasts about Veronica’s clothes.]