Juno only had 3 medium-length scenes in the last episode of ‘Dirty John’, and the screengrabber didn’t really grabbed the middle one, so we can only give you a handfull of caps from Episode 5 (review after the More tag!):

Television  >  (2019) Dirty John  >  Episode 5 Screencaps

The previous episode didn’t made much sense to me, but this one was way better. As it’s kinda customary now, one half of the story is set in the past, while the other is happening in the present.

The past is John’s again, this time we see how how he abused his sister’s good will and how his father influenced his life choices. I really liked this whole story about the title character’s origin, because I didn’t thought that the tale of the gangster father was real from Episode 3. They show us key moments from John’s life, as a kid, as a teen and as an adult. This explains how he got to know all the shortcuts in the jungle of laws, and where did he learnt to manipulate people, especially women. Maybe the creators meant this as the „2000’s cliché” of showing how the bad person became “evil”, because he had a bad childhood, instead of just accepting that he’s like that for no real reason.

The father is an intriguing figure, reminded me of a typical Joe Pesci-esque gangster in looks and manners, but he’s just a small-time conman. It would be nice to know, what happened to John’s mother, how did the father got custody of both kids, are they real siblings or just half-siblings, etc.; but in the meantime, we see that the son gets money and praise if he walks in his dad’s footsteps. As a kid, and even more as a teen, he still knows that what he’s doing is wrong; but as an adult, when he comes out of prison, he’s way past that point. I wonder if we ever get to know what happened in the years between the broken leg and the release from jail? That would explain a lot of things. The father’s fate is pretty obvious from the start though, but combined with the last scenes shown from the past, where he gives that important advice to John, it seems that what happens to him is revenge. Revenge against the title character’s sister, Denise…

There are three plotlines in the present, one for Debra and one for each of her daugthers. Veronica comes at the second half of the story, she only appears in 3 scenes, but Juno is great in all of them! We see the work she does (still doesn’t really explain where she got all the money for the luxury purses), and how John attacks her there indirectly; meanwhile the man’s presence in the distance turns her against Debra and kinda against Terra too.

Terra acts like a spoiled little kid, but then she has a very interesting change of heart towards John. This shows how women think with their hearts: She suddenly becomes lonely and that makes her more understandable towards Debra’s previous loneliness; plus she probably wants to believe that her mom does the right thing (and she has a little personal experience). All of these result in her being more open and acceptable towards John. They didn’t met in this episode, so I’m waiting to see what happens when they do meet.

The main line is, of course, again about Debra, and from her persepective, John seems to be the perfect man again, because of his imperfections and how he tries to overcome them. In short, the situation becomes exactly like how it was in Episode 2, even the ending is the same.

I’ve contacted an expert on treating drug addicts, and she confirmed that a therapy like the one we see is possible, although she herself never heared of this „cold turkey” method. The withdrawal sympthoms normally last 3 days, and this could have been 3 days, because the passing of time is not shown here with a 100% reliability. Eric Bana portrayed the sympthoms very well, that barfing was especially realistic and gruesome. Although real life dictates how the story continues, the twist at the end was something really unnecessary.

Debra continues to show how she doesn’t really have free will, unless she has to decide about leaving John, which she refuses. She lives in a house that someone else chose for her. She lets Terra come over and use her as a strange kind of substitute for love. John basically asks her to skip work for him. We don’t see if she actually does agree, but it looks like that. Terra asks the same thing, and it’s implied that Debra works from home that day, because of her. The wife probably pays for her husband’s hotel room and for the anti-drugs treatment as well. When the daugther questions the mother, the latter one is unable to lie, but not because she wants to be honest, just is so bad at it. The key moment of the whole plot is at Trey’s house (he’s Debra’s son), where both he and Veronica basically disowns her; while Terra just sits there with a hang-dog look. At that point, the „heroine” loses the thing she values most: her family, and it’s because of John. After this happens, the man in question says exactly that he’s responsible for all of this, and maybe they should break up. Of course, that’s not his real intention, and now Debra, from her own (not so) free will says, that she doesn’t want that to happen…

The funny thing here is the ending, because almost every episode has ended kinda this way so far. As the saying tells, fool me once… But this is the second time! Plus now Terra is the only one who’s somewhat standing on her mother’s side, all the others are against her now, not just against John.

According to imdb, there’s still 4 episodes left. I hope that they will show us the title character’s young adulthood and everything that led him to his current state.