Three episodes in, Nocturne is starting to settle into a decent groove. Yes, there’s still plenty of setup going on—Saga still hasn’t made contact with Jurek Walter in the RHU yet—but the various investigations are chugging along nicely, and some intriguing material is developing around the margins.
Last week, I was so fixated on the characters and basic exposition that I somewhat neglected to mention some of the important elements that go into the series’ intense, oppressive atmosphere: solid direction by Tim Van Patten (and Allen Coulter this week) and particularly the eerie score by Toydrum. I wouldn’t say Nocturne feels much different from some of the other thriller series that came before it, but there is a tantalizingly unstable feeling that keeps everything watchable even when the characters themselves aren’t as layered as they could be.
“Eyes On The Inside” is particularly enlivened by a few really tense scenes, starting with that unsettling cold open. Right away, we get a glimpse of what happened to Sally Gifford and her family three weeks ago: Sally got spooked by something or someone in their front yard, so she and the family grabbed their things and bolted. Of course, the scene doesn’t last long enough to reveal what Sally saw or if anyone was harmed by that cut-to-black gunshot, but the refusal to show the actual threat dials up the horror of it all. Ditto the sight of a masked man traveling deeper and deeper into the tunnel where Felicia is kept in the closing moments.
Much of the episode follows Quinn and especially Jonah’s efforts to learn more about Sally and track down her family. The tree carvings at the Giffords’ house match those at Jurek’s other grave sites, but there are no human remains to be found here, only a family photo with Sally cut out. Jonah’s visits to Michael Frost and the RHU yield little outside from a new nickname for the unknown kidnapper—the Sandman—but I respect that answers don’t come easy on Nocturne; so far, the show’s investigative work is painstaking. That’s certainly true of the search for Sally’s van, which Jonah tackles on his own despite the FBI’s active APB. When he does eventually find it, the family is gone, and from there it’s just a matter of convincing Chief Ellison to let Jonah and Quinn hold a press conference asking for the public’s help.
As a protagonist, Jonah is still a bit too closed-off to really connect to yet, but he does play well off Quinn and Nathan as the loose cannon—the retired cop with no real impunity. Those dynamics allow a tiny bit of levity to trickle into the show and balance out some of the grimness, especially when Jonah pushes Nathan to risk his job by hacking into the Riverside Psychiatric Hospital server to get eyes on Saga.
Much more of the action takes place in the RHU this week, another reason for the uptick in quality. Stories about people going undercover in prison usually make for good fun, and that’s the case here, even though I’m not that strongly invested in Saga at this point. The micro-transmitter in her cross necklace is a real lifeline, and there are stakes in watching her craftily get it back—only to inevitably lose it again after an altercation with the patient who took it, severing her direct line of communication with the only people who know she’s there.
That altercation is tense, but I’m even fonder of the scene with Dr. Hauser, which is kind of excruciating: Saga actually manages to steal the naïve doc’s phone while distracting him with art talk, but can’t quite get her “sunshine” message back to Jonah while typing under the table. (She has to abandon the idea early to backspace the text and phone number.) Now, I’m not entirely sure why that coded message is quite so crucial to pass along. It’d be one thing if “sunshine” was meant as a cry for help, an emergency tapping-out signal that she desperately needed to convey to Jonah and Nathan and the FBI, but it’s really just an all-clear message. Jonah correctly assumes Saga would want to stay in the RHU even before he sees her sunshine painting.
Still, I’m quite enjoying the procedural elements of this show. Progress is always incremental and therefore feels more earned, between Jonah’s search for the van and Saga’s effort to establish a new line of communication while still getting her bearings in a scary new setting. Maybe Jonah’s way of delivering his coded message of reassurance to Saga during the press conference is a little cheesy, but it’s still cool to see him pull it off, and the same goes for Saga’s painting with the initials of the nurse and chaplain with unlisted access to Jurek in the RHU.
Jurek has his own slow, step-by-step plans in motion at all times, and this week that involves manipulating Karl into applying Vaseline to his cut, scraped-up back (the result of mistreatment from guards and medical, apparently) in order to collect and store it in his toilet hiding place. Again, for the time being it’s enjoyable to watch him at work, even if I’ll get impatient waiting for Saga to make contact much longer. Stephen Graham continues to play Jurek perfectly—there’s rarely rage in his eyes, only coldness, and his doughy-eyed pleas to Karl read as both calculated and strangely warm. Is there anything real there? And how does this all connect to the accomplice who’s continuing to work on the outside?
It’s important to have some real curiosity about the answers to these questions, and for now, they’re compelling enough mysteries to sustain the show. “Eyes On The Inside” dials down the character drama from last week, setting aside backstory and trauma-dumping for a moment and pushing forward with the story we’ve been promised. It’s a smart choice to quicken the pace a bit here, even if Nocturne remains fundamentally a slow-burn crime story rather than a consistently pulse-pounding thriller. This mode suits it better than sluggish grief drama, and the longer the show can hold off before reverting to that familiar vibe, the better.
Stray observations
- • I will say that the 48-minute runtime also definitely helps this one feel brisker than the previous two.
- • There’s something sketchy about how the RHU is run, but I do appreciate the clarification from the director that she had no real reason to suspect Sally’s absence had anything to do with the recent developments with the Frosts. Apparently she’s used to Sally disappearing for weeks at a time to enter experimental treatment programs for her husband with MS.
- • Jurek and Karl’s intimate bond is getting weirder and weirder. I’d still like to know more about where exactly Karl’s head is at, but we do get the detail that he’s helping take care of his younger brother (or is it his child)?
- • “Emotions are like the weather, but I’m the sky.” Is Saga drawing from her own experience with her mom in voicing this sentiment? She’s certainly doing a convincing job at getting into the role of Esther Dujardin.
- • The scene with Michael telling his mom he can see her clearly again (and then receiving applause as he gets released) might be a little cloying, but I still appreciated it.
- • Jonah insists that Quinn will call everything off if she finds out about Saga’s current situation, but it seems like she’s (extremely reluctantly) convinced by the end! I mean, she kind of has to be if this operation is going to go on longer than a few episodes.
Read the previous recap.
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