Sea Change
As these episodes are released weekly on AppleTV, do be aware of spoilers within each recap! Episode 8 of Little Voice begins with Bess awakening to find Samuel lying next to her. Given what happened to her Dad, she heads out immediately to try and find him, now with a brand new notebook in hand. She blames herself for what happened, going on to question just why he’s going through this now after a decade of sobriety. Out the blue, Bess’ mother shows up at Louie’s after watching his vlog. It turns out she’s been following them all this time but Bess is less than enthused to see her again. Finding an excuse to leave, she heads to the nursing home with Louie where she starts singing Frank Sinatra for Sal. Surprisingly, Daisy starts to stir slightly upon hearing her voice. Meanwhile, Prisha takes a minute to sit with Sundeep alone. It turns out he’s in love with someone else and as she’s not Indian, he’s worried that his family won’t accept her. At the same time, Prisha admits to him that she’s gay and as she says the words, she feels a massive weight lifting off her shoulders. For the sake of their family, Prisha suggests they lie for the time being and pretend to be an item. Unfortunately Amaya is none too happy with this arrangement, realizing this means hiding her from the family. Meanwhile, Benny approaches Bess in the bar and encourages her to meet with another record producer, this one part of an indie label that’s perfect for her. Unfortunately Bess has had enough of this music malarkey and pushes him away, telling him to get his own life. When Benny leaves, Ethan turns up and admits he broke up with Laila for her. However, she’s not interested now and blames him for hurting her feelings, which is where the episode ends. More so than the other episodes in this season, episode 8 really highlights just how blindly everyone is following Bess with no comeuppance for her actions. The whole Ethan saga has felt like a bit of a waste of time, especially given the way she rejected him at the end. The way she’s treated Benny isn’t much better and overall it makes her character incredibly difficult to warm to. There’s a lot of individual moments that could be great here but unfortunately the series struggles to combine them together in a satisfying way. Hopefully the finale can pull out the stops and deliver a compelling ending because right now, it looks like Little Voice may end with a whimper rather than a roar.
