• If you ask me, the biggest sign that Ford is a fanboy is his comment that Manson’s music is “not bad.” I have never once been high enough to think that Charles Manson’s music is “not bad,” even in college.
  • When agents Ford and Tench drop by to visit Ed Kemper, he’s busy recording an audiobook. That’s a real detail, and you can listen to a night-mare inducing sample in our GJI about the subject.
  • You may recognize Damon Herriman, who plays Charles Manson in this episode, from playing the same part in Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood. Herriman’s impression is indeed quite uncanny, but he humbly insists in interviews that the reason he was cast in the role twice is simple: like Manson, he’s short.
  • The theory that his followers masterminded the murders has proponents besides Charles Manson. A book alleging as much, Hippie Cult Leader: The Last Words Of Charles Manson, was released just 10 days ago. A book alleging that the Manson Family was somehow tied up with CIA mind control experiments, Chaos: Charles Manson, The CIA, And The Secret History Of The Sixties, came out in June.
  • This is the second episode of the show to be directed by Andrew Dominik, best known for the movies The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford and Killing Them Softly. His style isn’t quite as distinctive as Fincher’s, but his camera movements have been downright graceful. I salute him.