"A lie of this magnitude - pretending someone who is very much alive is actually dead - is like a flame; you have to nurse it so that it stays alive. But Laura, used to getting away with murder, just neglected Daniel's imaginary corpse after conjuring it. Her biggest oversight was not to have imagined that Cherry - the threat to her family life in the first place, a person capable of throwing an innocent cat out the window - could, and would, out-psycho her."
"She is incapable of stating God's honest truth, which is that she is batshit crazy. When Daniel finds out that she told Cherry he was dead and buried, he stops picking up any of her calls. She's able to keep Howard in the dark for a bit, but when both of them speak to her again, they want to know why. She can't say."
"Poor Harriet, a gallery assistant who has been harassed since the pilot, gets the brunt of Laura's frustration. When Laura comes by the gallery the day after Daniel and Cherry reunite, she reprimands Harriet for telling Howard that she hadn't been to work since Daniel's accident; then she chews her out for not telling her that Jamal, the artist she is showing next, came by the gallery the day before. Harriet tries to defend herself."
Laura invents Daniel's death and then neglects to maintain the deception, underestimating Cherry's vindictive capacity. Her inability to admit her mental instability prevents any honest explanation when Daniel and Howard demand answers, worsening marital strain especially after Laura spends a night with Lilith. Cherry's vengeance and Laura's rash behavior culminate in misdirected rage toward Harriet, a gallery assistant who becomes a scapegoat for missed communications. Laura confronts and fires Harriet for perceived failures tied to work and Daniel's absence, despite Harriet's defenses about calendar entries and unavailable phone lines. The compounded consequences escalate Laura's personal and relational collapse.
Read at Vulture
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