This episode of ‘Stitchers’ was well crafted and put together brilliantly. ‘The Guest’ had much going for it, the flashback reveals of the latest’current stitch, Liam contacting Kirsten and Ivy Brown turning up. The only real complaint about the episode, and this could be a personal viewpoint not shared by anyone else, was the casting of Ivy.
In so many ways the actress was perfectly cast. Sarah Davenport (Ivy) could be Emma Ishta’s sister in real life. Obviously well applied makeup enhanced Sarah’s appearance and it made for a believable “sister act” in this episode. The only real problem was the “age gap” or lack thereof.
Brown looks either the same age or perhaps even younger than Kirsten. Ivy was from Daniel Stinger’s first marriage so one would expect this half sister to be roughly eight to 10 years older. This was not evident in either looks or even attitude. A bit puzzling.
While we are talking about Stinger and his multiple marriages…How odd is it that the man married twice, had two daughters and then both his wives die. Is there a pattern here? Is Ivy “Kirsten 1.0?” She is clearly as intelligent as her “older” sister (Although perhaps not quite on the same level of “Beautiful mind” scary smart as Kirsten.) and she does keep prompting “big” sis about the technology. Hmmm.
The stitch this week is referred to as the ZipCouch murders, an online application for cheap B&B (A clear nod and wink to AirBnB.). As the episode progresses, Kirsten reveals more and more about the case while dodging the issue of technology and the methods the NSA used to solve it.
At the office, the team are told to keep the ZipCouch investigation quiet and Kirsten is ordered by Blair (John Billingsley) to stop her unauthorized search for Stinger. Blair informs the angry young woman that he will be looking for Daniel. Mitchell also tells Kirsten that her efforts are distracting “at best.”
Ivy and Kirsten swap “secrets” and the running mantra seems to be a combination of “Stinger will approach when Kirsten is ready for the truth” and (irrespective of what Cameron quotes at the episode’s open) all roads do lead to Stinger.
Away from sister bonding time, Cameron finally sorts the Nina situation and Linus’ Baba goes into surgery.
Sidenote: This episode was funny and yet still managed to make this viewer cry twice. Kudos to Ritesh Rajan, Allison Scagliotti and the writers, you lot made me grab for tissues whilst eyes leaked and a lump stayed in my throat for ages. “You’ve never been more of a man than you are right now.” [Sob.]
(In case you are interested the other tear-induing moment was Nina’s confrontation with Cameron, her face…)
Regardless of the (personal) problems of Ivy’s age, the two sisters clearly are from the same bolt of cloth and the two reluctantly bond while discussing the case and evading the real questions of technology and where Stinger is.
It is obvious now that the lad in Kirsten’s stitches is indeed Stinger and it is equally clear that someone is determined that Clarke never meet her father. (Blair?) Liam, who has been watching Kirsten the entire time she met with her half-sister, calls his former “almost fiancee” promising answers to all her questions about Stinger. He is shot.
Is there a connection between Mary Poppins man and Ivy? The timing seems to suggest it may well be worth considering. Liam discovers and photographs the Stinger wall, Ivy makes contact to say she will meet with Kirsten and Granger (Jack Turner) watches their meeting. Later, after they jointly solve the ZipCouch case, Liam is still hovering about and calls Kirsten to offer answers.
On the up side, if Liam is dead he can be stitched unless he was shot in the head which would point pretty clearly to someone who is “on the inside” of the Stitchers program or someone who knows the technology…While clearly not much help to Granger, a stitch would allow Kirsten to learn something about Stinger and help her find out who does not want him found.
Outstanding Funny Moments:
Fisher’s plausible deniability was brilliant.
“Sound check.”
Kirsten’s heavily censured version of events when she reveals her feelings about finding Stinger. “Because I love him…”
Linus’ reaction to Camille’s “You know what you need right now?”
Camille’s reaction to Linus’ reaction…
Fisher again (to the murderer) “I hear the sharing economy is booming in prison.”
Final Thoughts:
The series is now rapidly approaching the time where Mike’s Film Talk got to visit the set and interview the cast members. As promised by all; this has been a darker, and more impressive looking (in terms of film quality) season and it has been tightly written. (And on a personal note, it is all quite exciting to see how that little bit I witnessed vicariously while on the set has played out through the entire second season. Well done guys and dolls.)
Transitioning from Temporal Dysplasia Kirsten to the current version was a tough task to pull off and they did a brilliant job. (Although admittedly it took some time to adjust to as a viewer.) This season has allowed many things to come together as Kirsten continues her search for Stinger.
Well written and well acted this episode was another example of why this show is a favorite. Sadly the one jarring thing about the entire segment was that casting issue with Davenport who was, in my opinion, years too young to be an “older” half sister.
Despite this setback, this was another cracking episode. The series airs Tuesdays on Freeform. Do not miss it.
I actually stopped the episode to find out if the girls are sisters in reality because they look so much alike, I’ve liked the show on Facebook so I can be ready for the next episodes. The tangled web has yet to reveal the “truth” .
Bringing tot he show that kirsten father had another daughter and tha the was married before was very stupid like story of kirsten father dr stinger isn’t already complicated and very mysterious without any sense as we don’t know anything about kirsten father but nobody wanted that he had another daughter if this is true and if Ivy is even his daughter and if Ivy even know dr stinger what if she works for someone else who knows what is really happening here what if therre is some war happening for stitching technology and once kirsten dad created technology what if everyone wante d his knowledge and this is why he left kirsten or there also could be that ivy is dr stinger daughter but he left her and ivy found out about kirsten who hate kirsten because he left her for jacqueline and kirsten. If we get season 3 we will really need 15-20 episodes now for them to explain us alot about kirsten father and mother and much more about her dad as we don’t know anything about him we only saw him properly in season 1 played by c.thomas and that was when kirsten was young we need to know is her dad dr stinger really bad or no and what is really happening under stitching program that her dad knows about it and doesn’t want his daughter to find out which is probably the reason his avator locked her in kirsten memory with her mother and also another think is that avator her father or acting as her father or is it someone else what if blair is also keeping her father somwhere as well, to this is all very strange about her dad why he never come back to see his daughter kirsten never even made any contact with her it must be something very big happening which involves his wife and what is blair and that corrupted agency doing to his wife and what are they using her for and did ed betryed her father by giving his wife dead body to blair or what??
I wouldn’t be in shoes of writers and producers to explain all this about kirsten father and mother and blair and his corrupted agency who destroyed kirsten family and to me it looks like kirsten is working for her family enemies who stole technology form he parents. I also wouldn’t be suprised if Ivy is killing all this people .. So many answer we need now please for season 3…
Obviously someone is a neat-nik or Ivy has a circle obsession?
When Kirsten circles the formula then the camera leaves and comes back to a much cleaner circle.
Okay, got it! That was doing my nut. The young lady playing Ivy was brilliant but the age thing had me flummoxed. My brain did not go that direction but it makes perfect sense when explained that way! Cheers! And as usual thanks for stopping by to comment!
Hey Mike! As always, thanks for the fine review. Regarding the casting, we decided that there was a version of the Stinger story where he was married to Elizabeth Brown when he met Jacqueline Stinger, had an affair with Jacqueline, and both Ivy and Kirsten were then born within a year of each other. Stinger led this double life for a while before deciding to leave Elizabeth for Jacqueline when both girls were very young. Ivy knew about her dad’s other life, but Kirsten was kept in the dark. Or, if she did know, that memory vanished after she was stitched into her mother in the attempt to save her.
So while having a much older Ivy would have been cleaner, there is a satisfying story that does explain their proximity in age!