Tag: KaDee Strickland

Shut Eye: Wheel of Fortune – Clearing Out the Dunoi (Review)

KaDee Strickland, Jeffrey Donovan in Hulu's Shut Eye

The death of Gina, and her subsequent burial in the Haverford’s back garden, starts things off in this episode of Shut Eye. “Wheel of Fortune” brings Nadine back into the mix, briefly, and for a short while Nick is the prime suspect in Emma’s death.

Charlie calls Eduardo to help depose of Gina’s body but he learns that his former friend and patron is now annoyed at the psychic. Eduard finds out that despite the spot on analysis of his son’s ear problem, Charlie is a fraud and it has cost him a fortune.

Eduardo demands that Haverford get him his money back. He also tells Charlie that the body is his problem.

While Charlie cleans and re-dresses Gina’s body, we learn that there is more to Fonzo than his homicidal tendencies.  The former boss of Charlie and Linda loves his daughters and the marriage of Drina and Little Tony is driving him to distraction.

He later tells his 14 year-old daughter that the marriage could well be short lived if While Tony were to suggest she do something disgusting. For the first time in ages Drina smiles.

Nadine discovers that Gina stole her money, with her help, when she goes back to the bank to move the $1.7 from her safety deposit box to an account. She goes to the police who are already interested in Nick because of Emma.

They all pay Charlie and Linda a visit but Nadine leaves frustrated as the couple never took any money from their mark.

Gina’s body is moved and discovered by a woman walking her dog and Linda goes down to identify the body. The police make the scopolamine connection between the dead medium and Emma.

Charlie has another vision, in it Dr. White has a baby. She is overjoyed and brings him a lot of research. The case studies she drops off at his house lost her the professor-ship and all deal with psychic’s.

Linda reacts angrily once again to the news that her husband is having visions.  He decides that they need to “take care” of their mounted numbers of adversaries. White Tony, Fonso and Rita are all putting pressure on them.

Charlie convinces the father of the groom to allow him to perform a magic trick at the reception. He then invites Eduardo to the reception implying that he will be getting his money back.

The trick that Charlie is selling will make the new couple disappear in front of the guests.

With a body count that is pretty impressive for such as short series, it looks like Charlie may be moving toward adding to the list. While it is not clear just what will happen to Little Tony and Drina, it is clear that he plans to turn the guests against one another.

Fonso is already on edge and it will not take too much to push him into another homicidal act. In this episode alone he seemed to come dangerously close to killing his mother.

The last episode, “Ace of Swords” may prove to be a bloodbath. The series is airing on Hulu and all the episodes can be viewed now.

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Shut Eye: Five of Cups – Killing Gina (Review)

KaDee Strickland, Jeffrey Donovan in Hulu's Shut Eye

Shut Eye “Five of Cups” continues to accumulate bodies and this premonition heavy drama keeps Charlie on his toes as he tries to figure out who will die next.  Initially, after the bleeding roses vision and his being buried alive in his car, Charlie sees Nick and believes his son will die.

This episode picks up after last week’s show revealed that Fonzo was to give up his daughter to White Tony; by marrying his son, two of his parlors and Charlie. It also follows Gina and Linda’s fleecing of Nadine using the scopolamine that killed Emma.

The freelance con artist uses the drug on Charlie’s failed mark and she takes the $1.7 million out of her safe deposit box and gives it to Gina, aka Laurie her new assistant.  After a moment or two, Nadine comes floating out of the bank, sans Laurie.

Linda asks about her lover and is told that Gina’s message to her was “no hard feelings.” Charlie’s wife then rushes to the apartment where Gina has already been met by Fonzo. He takes the money and Gina; both are missing  by the time Linda arrives.

Charlie goes to Dr. White again. This time not to stop the visions but to enhance them. He wants more control over what he is seeing.

In the meantime Nick goes to the memorial service at school after seeing Rita about talking to his dead friend. She learns of Nadine from Charlie’s grief stricken son and obviously passes the information on to Fonzo.

Later, Nick is arrested at the impromptu grave site of Emma and wedding negotiations take place at White Tony’s home.  When Charlie believes that Fonzo has Nick, he and Linda barge in and he actually strikes Fonzo who, somewhat unsurprisingly, acts like a douche when asked about the boy.

It may well be this action that prompts Fonzo to kill Gina and bury her under roses in the Haverford’s back garden. As Charlie and Linda talk, after they collect Nick from jail, Charlie finds a handwritten note from their neighbor Gary.

It leads Charlie to the freshly dug plot of roses and he finds Gina’s body as a horrified Linda looks on. This was the what the vision was all about, Gina was apparently buried alive under those roses. The glimpse of Nick was the connection; Charlie’s act of hitting Fonzo caused Gina’s demise.

The body count has been quite high in this Hulu drama about fake psychic and the Roma population that control them. (Also known as Bujo and Gadje – Bujo being the “real deal” and Gadje the non Roma participants.)

So far in this show, one of Eduardo’s men was killed in a vat of boiling donut oil, another was shot by Charlie’s deadly friend and Fonzo’s cousin was burned to death by Eduardo as well. Emma dies after snorting the drug  Gina gave Linda and Nadine comes within a whisker of killing herself.

This episode manages to go a bit darker. “Five of Cups” also shows that Charlie is still having problems deciphering his visions.  Linda is shown to be something of a doubting Thomas regarding her husband’s new “skill” and Nick seems to be all caught up in the psychic chicanery of offer from the Roma clan.

Shut Eye gives us a cast of characters who are flawed, devious and crooked as hell.  Sylvia steals from her own brother, Linda has affairs that Charlie condones and it is only after the “near-death” of Nadine that he  backs off from the big con.

Gina cheerfully steals the $1.7 million from her lover and the only really “honest” character is the gullible Nick who believes the Roma con. The boy has gone to Fonzo for a love potion and to Rita so he can talk to Emma.

It is Charlie’s dilemma that makes him a sympathetic character. His interaction with Dr. White, who really comes across as a mystic believer, makes him more human and someone we can identify with.

There are two episodes left in the first season of Shut Eye. Head on over and check out this dark drama if you have not already.

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Shut Eye: Two of Swords – Marime (Review)

KaDee Strickland, Jeffrey Donovan in Hulu's Shut Eye

The Path “Two of Swords” brings things to a head (no pun intended) when Charlie’s ability to see the immediate future results in the Nadine scam being uncovered. Although this does not happen until the whole Fonzo/White Tony feud ends with the police searching the leader’s residence.

Since the cops are not “Roma” everything they touch becomes contaminated, aka Marime. Fonzo is furious and takes Tony to a tribunal with the elders. Tony asks for four of Fonzo’s parlors and gets two. Fonzo asks for revenge and ends up losing his eldest daughter.

The girl will be forced to marry White Tony’s son. This move is to  bring the two houses closer together. Fonzo is distraught and his daughter is furious with him and the Roma customs. Later, the unhappy father lays down next to his younger daughter, who is sleeping in a tent in the back garden.

She reaches out to her father and touches his shoulder, Fonzo reacts and places his hand over hers. It is a poignant moment that reveals the saccharine inner-core of a violent and unlikeable character.  It also makes the man more human and we can feel his pain.

Emma’s body is found and Nick believes that Nadine may have been able to help find who killed her.  The cops know that the girl overdosed on the South American drug that Gina left with Linda. Charlie explains that the unhappy client knows nothing.

Charlie finalizes the scam on Nadine, burning the fake money and putting the $1.7 million in a trash bag.  As he continues the con, he has a very real vision of the woman killing herself.

He sees Nadine come out of the house with a weight and jumprope. She steps off the pool’s diving board and sinks to the bottom of the pool. In real life, Charlie leaps in and finds Nadine dead, floating lifeless as he watches.

The next thing he sees in Nadine coming out of the house and yelling at him as he floats in the water. Charlie then sees that the weight and the rope have been tied to him.

He climbs out of the pool and Nadine wraps a towel around him. She sees the real money, it has fallen out of the trash bag,  and asks Charlie about it. She learns about the scam and he explains that he is not her friend and that she should stay away from people like him.

Charlie finishes by telling the unhappy woman to seek out a therapist. He then returns home. Linda, who is sipping  a glass of pre-celebratory champagne, reacts badly to the news that her husband blew the con.

This was a touching episode. Even the despicable Fonzo manages to come across as a sympathetic character. His pain, at losing his daughter, is real and practically tear inducing.

Haverford’s very real distress, and anxiety, at being forced to be the good guy is also touching. He rages at Dr. White for her “saints and sinners” theory and then, like Judas, denies his fate.

Linda, once again, proves to be the Haverford with ice-water in her veins. She does not care that the con would have killed Nadine.  Meeting with Gina, Linda declares that she can still get the money. It appears that she has now chosen her “bit on the side” over Charlie.

Kudos to Angus Sampson who actually became a character who could be empathized with mainly due to the storyline and his subtle acting. Mad props also got to Donovan.

As his character starts to break apart, all tears and massive amounts of guilt, it was “lump in the throat time.” Show creator Leslie Bohem and  episode scribe (Tom Pabst) knocked this one right out of the park.

Shut Eye is streaming on Hulu and all 10 episode are available to watch at once.

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Shut Eye: Judgement – Funeral (Review)

KaDee Strickland, Jeffrey Donovan in Hulu's Shut Eye

Shut Eye “Judgement” sees Fabiana somehow surviving her fiery end, but not for long.  As the family engulf the hospital where Fonzo’s cousin is interred, Linda hovers worriedly around the burned woman. Charlie arrives and Fabiana recovers somewhat. He turns what she says into news about her cat and Fabiana dies.

Next up is the funeral and the wake afterward.  Meanwhile Charlie works on the long game he has planned for Nadine Davies. Nick is questioned by the police about Emma, he sent her a text and as such is the last person to have seen and communicated with her.

Charlie and Linda come home to find the police talking to their son and he orders them out of his house. The cop investigating Charlie and the psychic community warns him that the city is cracking down on the scammers.

Later, at Fabiana’s funeral, Charlie tells Linda to warn Rita that a guest is wearing a wire. Roger Nash is there to get evidence that Fonzo’s mother charged him for her services. Rita is not overly impressed that Linda warned her.

Fonzo still believes that “White Tony” burned his cousin. Rita tasks Charlie with making sure that Fonzo behaves. She is already angry with her son for killing White Tony’s cousin Lou. Tony eats the last of the shrimp, at the wake, and Fonzo, after being warned that police are outside, attacks White Tony.

Gina takes advantage of a potential threesome to steal a huge diamond ring. She then sells it to buy an apartment for Linda. Charlie’s wife turns up and after telling Gina how much she hates her, gets into a sexy clinch with her “bit on the side.”

Nick is still confused and concerned about Emma and why she left. He asks her “cool” friends if they know and after initially making fun of Nick then admit that are concerned as well. Someone, it seems, is watching Nick and it could well be the police.

Dr. White has halfway convinced herself that “scumbag” Charlie is a saint experiencing real visions. He emphatically does not want the visions at all. Charlie tells White that he wants real medicine to take the things away.

Fabiana’s fiery death after his visions of burning have disturbed him. This, coupled with his latest premonition, of drowning, has left him desperate to get rid of his newest “power.” Dr. White seems to be the wrong person to help him however.

It does seem that Shut Eye may be heading for an ending that will end in tears for all the main players. With the police cracking down on the psychic community and the death of Emma, Linda’s hooking back up with Gina could be the worst possible decision on her part.

The same can be said for Charlie’s long game plans. Despite his drowning vision and the warning from the detective (Sonja Sohn) Charlie is powering ahead with his million dollar scam.

Maybe Charlie can pull it off in time and Linda’s move to reunite with Gina could be her chance to pin Emma’s death on the medium from Vegas.  Of course the biggest issue, apart from everything else, which includes Eduardo, is that vision of Charlie drowning.

Shut Eye continues to entertain. The characters are all interesting and Fonzo, who was initially quite disturbing, and a character that seemed to define despicable, is becoming funnier and more interesting.

The series is on Hulu and all 10 episodes can be watched via the streaming platform.

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Guest starring Tara Karsian as Fabiana and Evan Arnold as Roger Nash. 

Shut Eye: The Magician – Burned (Review)

KaDee Strickland, Jeffrey Donovan in Hulu's Shut Eye

In Shut Eye “The Magician” it is Eduardo who manages to make something disappear. In this case it is a relative of Fonzo’s; Fabiana.  This is after Linda and Gina make Emma’s body disappear, in an unmarked grave, in the woods.

In “The Tower” Nick’s high school friend snorts the scopolamine that Linda hid and overdoses. The girl dies on the kitchen floor foaming at the mouth.  Linda puts the body in the new car that Eduardo gives Charlie and she and Gina dispose of the girl’s body.

After the chore is done, Linda tells Gina to leave and drives off stranding her former lover in the middle of the forest. Linda tells Gina to call Lyft.

She gets home to find Charlie talking to Gina as he makes coffee. He convinces his wife that Nadine is ready for a seance.

Charlie and Fonzo help Fabiana, a medium who is also a relative of Fonzo’s, to get her parlor set up in Van Nuys. The woman is overweight, pushy and annoying. She keeps pushing Charlie to fix the place up and put in a cat door amongst other things.

After the Gina seance, Charlie tells his wife’s ex lover to leave and not come back. He knows that she and Linda had a fling and later he confronts his wife about it. He is still having the visions of fire and when Nadine is talking with Linda in the kitchen he sees the flames and hears screaming.

Fabiana catches sight of Nadine leaving Charlie’s place and threatens to tell Fonzo if she is not cut in on the deal. He decides to ask Eduardo to get rid of the woman.

At a party thrown by Eduardo, he gets the vision again, this time as he watches a pig that his benefactor is roasting. He sees the dead animal’s feet and ears twitch and throws a bowl of punch over the animal.

Eduardo knows that Charlie is having visions and he believes that he “is the man.” Charlie asks Eduardo to smooth things over with Fabiana and he agrees.

At the meeting between Eduardo and Fabiana he explains that she needs to leave Charlie alone. The medium reacts angrily and throws a lit candle at Eduardo. Her place catches on fire and she attacks Eduardo, he pushes her back and her trouser leg catches on fire.

Fabiana begins to scream as the fire spreads.

Later, Charlie is visited by Eduardo who brings the medium’s cat, he rescued the animal. He gives the cat to Charlie and tells him that she is in the burns unit at hospital.

Fonzo apparently knows about the accident but believes that someone else is responsible. Charlie speaks with the doctor again and tells her that he is still having the visions. She gives him an MRI scan and while he is in the machine, he has a vision of himself drowning in deep water.

Shut Eye continues to be evocative and damned interesting. It is ironic that a man who makes his living lying to “marks” now has the capacity to see the immediate future.  The visions shake him and he has no real idea how to translate what he sees.

It is a further irony that Eduardo, a gangster who want to go legit, actually  has a better idea than Charlie about how to use the visions.

Each of the characters in Shut Eye are multi-layered. Linda and Charlie have a complex marriage and Eduardo is much more than a cardboard cut-out villain.  These three characters are the deepest of the lot with Fonzo being more two dimensional overall.

The scam that is being played out with Nadine looks sure to end in tears instead of the new beginning that Charlie and Linda so desperately want. It also seems pretty clear that Emma may rise metaphorically from the grave to implicate either Nick or Linda.

Shut Eye is streaming on Hulu and all the episodes are available to watch now. Head on over and check this one out. Jeffrey Donovan is killing it as Charlie and KaDee Strickland is matching him scene for scene. David Zayas is spot on as the bad guy who want out of the business. This is excellent stuff and should not be missed.

Cast:

Guest starring Tara Karsian as Fabiana and Roan Curtis as Emma.

 

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