Sharp Objects: The HBO Series
I found it easy to relate to Camille in Sharp Objects even though one of the only things we share is our hair texture and sometimes color. Beyond that we have vastly different home lives, careers and coping mechanisms. One of the things I like about the series is the fragmented memory flashbacks. When overused they can seem chaotic, lazy and jilting but fit right in for this story. Everyone in Wind Gap is living in the past surrounding themselves with relics and withstanding any agents of change. With the past suffocating her along with the humidity, Camille is adrift often taken in by the strong pull of memories flowing underneath the surface. This is where her sister died. This is where sinister things happened.
I haven't read Sharp Objects but the new cover with the show runners in front of a Southern Gothic floral green wallpaper as the backdrop replacing the minimal black and white might be the only time a TV series cover has improved the cover art design. I like to sleuth and play along with the story and had several theories circulating in my mind. Several times it was brought up by various characters it couldn't possibly be a woman so of course I assumed it was. Or at least part of the team if there was more than one perpetrator.
As we moved into the season finale it seems without a doubt, to Camille, her mother is the one behind it, hiding behind her gentility and charm. This accusation didn't ring true to me even though we know she is capable of monstrous things. Spoiler alert one of many: Adora has Munchhausen by proxy syndrome and basically killed her daughter, Marian, because of it. In a scene still replaying in my mind we see a flashback of Adora cuddling baby Amma while teen Camille lurks on the stairs. After a brief moment of mother daughter affection Adora leans down towards her face and bites her. Amma screams and Adora coos, “God has blessed me with another sick child.” I can't remember seeing something so terrifying when I least expected it.
The parallels between Marian and Amma run deep. Even though they are opposites in how they act, the latter always being better than the former, they both suffer under the benevolent wrath of Adora. Amma thinks she is basically an adult and can outsmart anyone is still unable to escape from her mother's vigilant watch. She tries to act like how Marian has been mythologized by her mother but the act is hard to keep up daily. She enjoys partying because her mother likes to take care of her afterward; Adora purposely staying oblivious to how it happened. "You can never be as perfect as a dead girl." she laments.
If you haven't watched the finale yet I will be spoiling it below. The only motivation I could think of was “saving” these girls from the world, themselves, etc and I was ready for the twisted logic speech of someone who has mapped out all the reasons for their motivation and reasoning that is supposed to convince us what they did was right and just.
Don't tell mama.
Innocuous words usually but given the context they take on a new twisted meaning as the typical victim narrative is flipped on its head. Amma was the killer. I suspected as much because of a clue on someone elses Instagram, I know, about an article referencing children behaving badly. I watched Amma intensely looking for subtle signs of her hidden malice and discontent following the breadcrumbs. The discontent is pretty surface level and typical of any teen. Life is boring in a small town when you don't care about stability. One line which reaffirmed my theory was her saying to Camille, “I sometimes get out of control around my friends.”
She isn't afraid of staying out after curfew because there is no threat for her. The lingering idea of a male boogeyman on the loose terrifies everyone else in the town. All the little snide remarks and actions point towards her eventual reveal. Sneaking around the pig farm where John's bike was planted and an employee alleges to have seen him was witnessed by Camille, not that she understood what she was seeing at the time. If you were only casually watching the show all these little hints could have easily flown under the radar. Most of them could be chalked up as teenage boredom and acting out.
The biggest mystery I couldn't crack was why the teeth? It seems like such a sinister and creepy thing to do requiring a steady hand and concentrated brute force as we witness our intrepid big city cop trying to pry out a few from a pigs head in his motel sink. My question was answered with the tiny dollhouse hiding in plain sight. The coveted ivory floors in her mothers room are being replicated with her victims teeth.
Before the big reveal at the end I was a bit disappointed when the story fell into the typical denouement of a happy ending where Amma and Camille are survivors helping each other thrive and build a new life together outside of Wind Gap. I didn't believe Camille could turn her life around that easily just for her stepsister but kids make people do crazy things. Camille is her surrogate mother and Amma is her surrogate sister who will get to grow up. Camille thinks she is saving Amma but got conned into being her accomplice. As her faux mother she is trying to bring normalcy back to her life even though Amma has filled her obsessive need for a mother figure without seeming outwardly clingy.
Camille tells her editor Amma can't fall asleep most nights without her and assumes this means her trauma is still fresh. This reads as possessive just like the night they stumble home together after a party and Amma forces her way into Camille's room or risks waking up the whole house. She's been manipulating Camille since the first moment they met. Don't tell mama is what she says every time Camille sees her doing something bad. Could she even tell Adora the truth if she wanted to? Would Adora even believe her? I believe Adora likes to stay blissfully ignorant to the things she doesn't want to see that pollute her vision of an ideal world.
The moment of reveal is perfect with genuine shock on Camille's face with the raucous yet soothing sounds of Led Zeppelin proclaiming to need your love while sweet faced Amma does the unthinkable. Jealousy and rage exist within all of us but harnessing and using them as you see fit is another story. Most of us aren't this maladjusted. Is this brutal sensibility genetic or also fostered by the insular small town they have grown up in? Camille takes her pain and anger out on herself, focusing inward, while Adora and Amma take it out on others while keeping up that cool, calm veneer that is still a Southern lady staple. Trauma reverberates through the generations of this family and no one gets out unscathed.
I might read the book to see if the ending is the same. What would really be interesting is what will Camille do next with this knowledge? Will she do the morally and legally right thing even though it would free her mother and confine her new sister? Or would she try to live with the moral ambiguity and convince herself these killings were somehow justified or that Amma didn't know what she was doing? Who would she be able to forgive and free? Who deserves to be forgiven and freed? I wish there was a Sharp Objects sequel exploring these questions but like Big Little Lies, another book adaptation which was a huge success for HBO, there might be a follow up even without a book. Here's hoping.
