Mikes Film Talk

Episode 3 of Stitchers, titled Connections shows the series is picking up and starting to hit all the marks. The story is moving into areas of interwoven paths and, as the title implies, connections between the players. We have already seen how Camille was a hidden part of Kirsten’s life and by the show’s end there a lot more connections in the team.

The opening teaser, has Kirsten and Cameron being robbed at gun point in an indoor carousel, or merry-go-round, and she is questioning the robber. Immediately after the opening credits, we see Kirsten moving all of Ed’s things into the house she shares with Camille. After her roommates initial excitement about an older “high-end” turntable, Kirsten finds a picture of her mother with the recently deceased Ed and one half of the image ripped off. She is curious about who has been removed from the photograph and the word “Remember” printed across the back of the image.

Kirsten takes the torn picture to Maggie and asks about it. “You’re going through Ed’s things,” Maggie says. “They’re my things now,” Kirsten replies and during the short conversation the two women have, it is clear that the boss lady knows quite a lot about her new stitcher’s life. By the end of their talk, it is also fairly obvious that Maggie will not be revealing anything until she is either ready or forced to.

Camille, Linus, Cameron and Kirsten have a moment in the break room where the guys offer to help the two women hook up the “old stereo.” There is an apparent connection between Linus and Camille. This week’s “stitch” is murdered newlywed Lily Ross, the latest victim from a “rash” of tourist murders in the city. Kirsten makes the stitch and develops an immediate connection with Lily’s new husband, and primary suspect, Scot.

Cameron warns Kirsten that the connection she has made is not real but a residual one from the emotions of Lily. He worries that she will not be able to differentiate between her target’s feelings and her own which are, of course, practically nonexistent due to her condition.

The rest of the show is all about connections. Camille and Linus spectacularly connect, aided by connecting the old stereo. Another two connections are revealed, Maggie’s apparent personal connector with both Kirsten’s mother and Ed and Cameron’s continuing connection with Marta, the first stitcher.

This is, so far, the best written episode of the series. There is the continued reference to classic English television; “Thunderbirds are go,” Cameron says as the latest stitch starts. It is hard to not fall in love with a show that is not afraid to quote both Gerry Anderson and Tennyson in the same segment.

The theme of connections runs throughout the entire episode with there being yet another one between the hotel concierge, a limo driver and a robber who are part of the current murder case being investigated by Kirsten and crew. At the end of the episode, Ed reads, via a cassette tape from Kirsten’s childhood, about Sleeping Beauty and as the story reaches the poison spindle, Marta’s eyes open.

Yet one more connection…

Stitchers will obviously reveal all in time. Before then, the show continues to deliver in terms of humor and mysterious events and connections that all need solving, as well as pop culture references in the world of geekdom. Thunderbirds, Tennyson and an interaction between Kirsten and the broken-hearted widower that was tear inducing and touching all “connected” to make this the best episode yet.