Flashbacks
Episode 5 of Pieces of Her begins with Andy waking up in Queller’s place. In the morning she meets Jasper who talks about Laura. She was apparently something of a perfectionist, and also pretty private too. Now, Paula was actually part of this Amy of the Changing World, and an acolyte of Nick Harp. Andrew met Nick at Stanford and they had plans to change the world. At least until Andrew was killed anyway. Andy is encouraged to stick around, where she watches more footage of the Queller conference involving Martin, courtesy of some home videos she finds. Within this footage, the Professor brandished a gun, killed Martin and then shot herself in the head. Martin was a pretty overbearing father too, keeping tabs on Laura’s mistakes while playing the piano. He also shows disdain over both his kids, although the shadow of Andrew’s death hangs heavy over them all. Laura (Jane) is instantly drawn to Nick through all of this, who claims they’ve both been “raised by wolves.” Jane has an extraordinary gift for music, typified by more old tapes she finds at Queller’s of her mother’s piano playing. When Laura rings Andy’s phone, she realizes her daughter is with Queller and her heart immediately sinks. At the same time, Michael learns that Andy and Laura are out of the witness protection program. Just before he fills out his statements, he has a change of heart. He takes the suitcase, deletes his online forms and leaves. As it turns out, Gordon was the one who phoned the US Marshall and had them tail Andy, worried about her well-being. Laura asks him for a favour, which includes drawing up a will in her original name, given Laura is just her alias. Her real name is Jane and after leaving a file confirming everything for him, Laura exits the bar. After looking through the tapes, Andy phones Michael and asks for help. They agree to meet on Pier 28, where they agree to liaise and exchange details about Nick Harp. And in a move that absolutely no one is going to be surprised about, Jasper happens to be lying. He feigns ignorance, claiming that he doesn’t know Nick, despite him and Jane being an item for a while. Not only that though, Nick actually recruited Laura to be part of his Army of the Changing World. Jasper has been keeping tabs on Andy since she arrived too, listening in to her conversations and working out what she’s hiding. Andy grabs her gear and skips out, hurrying to the Pier to meet Michael. The security guards watch her go but decide to let her, given they know where she’s heading. At the pier, Andy admits she thinks Nick is actually her father. No only that, Michael believes that Jasper is responsible for sending the men that were after her. However, a runner passes as they’re talking and bumps into Michael. It seems like she injected him with something, as he passes out on the floor. Just before he loses consciousness, he tells Andy to go.
The Episode Review
Pieces of Her slams on the brakes as the episode is absolutely drowning in flashbacks. The problem with this approach comes from the pacing. After a pretty brisk few episodes to start things off, and a contrived episode 4, this chapter takes a real step back, shedding more light on the past but doing so with little mystery left. It seems like Laura (Jane) was recruited by the Army of the Changing World. She couldn’t follow through with their ideology and as such, they’re after her now. At least, that’s what it seems like. But did we really need so many scenes to show Nick and Jane close in the past? The whole episode just feels so overbearingly long because of this and I can’t help but feel tighter editing would have really helped this one. For now, Pieces of Her bows out with a glimmer of hope for the future but this thriller is starting to feel overlong – and that’s never a good thing.
