Review of 'Sharp Objects' 4

"You can't change history," Mr. Lacey tells Amma, as she tries her little best to seduce him—or begin to seduce him—in the fourth episode of Sharp Objects on HBO last night. If this were a time travel story, some character could set forth to prove Lacey wrong. Well, there is a kind of time travel in Sharp Objects, but it's the metaphysical or mental kind, not what we saw in the recently canceled Timeless series on NBC.

Not only that, Sharp Objects is one hell of a nasty show, with nasty characters saying nasty things in just about every other scene. Adora tells Camille she smells "ripe"—the given title of this episode—after Camille puts Richard's hand in her pants after he tries to kiss her in the woods. Nothing nasty about that -- it's all good -- but Adora's comment is nasty, and she's easily the nastiest character in this story.

She's hateful to Camille—still not clear why—and is no great shakes to her husband. She all but carries on with the sheriff right in front of her husband, and generally treats him like trash, including saying no to his meekly amorous requests. In the final scene, we see, among other things, that he might be getting more aggressive, and it will be instructive to see what comes of this.

In terms of the mystery of who is the killer, Adora would be a number-one suspect, given her sheer near insanity. But the physical strength of the killer ruled out a woman early in this story, so that obliges us to look elsewhere. I'm still thinking Adora's husband has a hidden violent streak, and he still looks like the best suspect to me—though, so far, no one has identified him as such.

Could a woman under some circumstances get the kind of strength necessary to pull out teeth? I don't know. But so far, figuring out who did this is like pulling teeth. (And now it gets so quiet in the room, you can hear a pin drop.)