‘Sharp Objects’ Episode 1 Recap: Southern Harm

For at least a year, series creator Marti Noxon has been calling Sharp Objects — adapted from the 2006 novel by Gillian Flynn — the third title in her “self-harm trilogy,” along with her feature film To The Bone (about anorexia) and AMC’s current series Dietland (about an overweight woman who’s tried to change her body in unsafe ways). And though the title of Sharp Objects gives rather a broad hint as to one kind of harm its protagonist, Camille Preaker, inflicts upon herself, the series premiere takes us through a variety of others first.

It begins when Camille (Amy Adams), a reporter at the St. Louis Chronicle, accepts her editor’s assignment to return to her small hometown of Wind Gap, in southern Missouri. A girl named Natalie Keene is missing, just months after the murder of another, Ann Nash. Frank (Miguel Sandoval) thinks that if Camille can personalize the story, it could be a Pulitzer contender. Camille must have reasons for having stayed away from Wind Gap for years, even though her family still lives there, but she goes.

Camille takes a brief break from packing, in her indifferently decorated apartment, to drink vodka out of a miniature bottle, and later lines up several more along the edge of the tub in her Wind Gap motel room. She recalls a run-in, during her tween years, with some aggressive boys in the woods, which is where I must pause to praise the brilliant casting of It‘s Sophia Lillis as the young Camille.

Tell me those aren’t the same eyes. Anyway, after the boys leave, she finds their cabin, decorated with images from violent pornography — the memory of which, evidently, is still effective masturbatory material for Camille as an adult.

The next day, Camille goes to work: she gets the local chief of police, Vickery (Matt Craven), to tell her about Ann Nash’s murder: she was found strangled with a clothesline, her teeth extracted. She meets Richard (Chris Messina, reuniting with Adams after playing her husband in 2009’s Julie & Julia), the detective called in from Kansas City to help. Then she fortifies herself with vodka, lipstick, and Altoids (in that order) before approaching a stunning Victorian and startling her mother.

Missouri is the Midwest, but Adora (Patricia Clarkson) is pure Southern Gothic, getting drunk at 8 PM in a diaphanous pink peignoir and claiming, while standing in front of an enormous floral arrangement, “The house is not up to par for visitors, I’m afraid.”

Adora had no idea Camille was coming, and is disgusted that she intends to tell the world that “Wind Gap murders its children”; to cope, she forbids Camille from telling her anything about her reporting and declares her intention to pretend Camille is on summer break. (We also meet Camille’s stepfather, Henry Czerny’s Alan — her half-sister Amma, under town curfew, is already asleep — but the only one who hugs Camille is Emily Yancy’s Gayla…the uniformed housekeeper.) Camille is oppressed by memories of another girl who lived there — apparently her younger sister, and apparently dead…

…but maybe not gone. Camille flees to a bar, where she runs into Richard again, as he stops her from trying to interview Natalie’s drunk, underage brother John (Taylor John Smith). Camille and Richard banter, but she lets him know she’s not interested in chatting unless he wants to talk about the case…and then falls asleep in her car, requiring a jump; Adora takes a break from compulsively pulling out her eyelashes to reproach Camille for embarrassing her in public.

Camille then buys an actual fifth of vodka (at, the clerk discreetly notes, around 9:20 AM) and heads to the Nash house. Ann’s father Bob (Will Chase) is cagey about where his wife is, though it’s clear only one half of the bed in the master has been slept on, but says she hasn’t been the same since she let Ann ride her bike to a friend’s house, only for her to be abducted and murdered on the way. He’s defensive about Camille’s questions — he knows people think he did it — but he has an alternate theory of the crime: “Faggot did it, because he didn’t rape her. The cops say that’s unusual; I say it’s the only blessing we got. I’d rather he killed her than rape her.”

Camille then tries to stop some sassy tweens from messing with the items left in a town square memorial for Natalie, which is how she ends up nearby when Natalie’s corpse is found in an alley.

Shaken, Camille returns to more reprisal from Adora, who’s received a call from Bob Nash about Camille’s interview; Adora had said she knew the girls, and it seems as though it’s actually true and not just an attempt at borrowed sympathy. That’s when Amma (Eliza Scanlen) comes down in a dress so demure that, if not for a quick flash, we might not recognize her as one of the tribute-disturbers.

Camille’s been away so long that Amma took a while to ID her; Camille couldn’t because Adora stopped sending Christmas photos. In private, their talk turns to their departed sister — Marian (Lulu Wilson), who died before Amma was born, and whose room Adora’s kept untouched as a shrine. From Adora’s stories, Amma thinks Marian was “perfect” (“She was close,” Camille allows), but knows Camille was incorrigible: “I’m incorrigible too, only she doesn’t know it.” It’s how she knows Camille won’t narc on her to Adora about the more abbreviated “civvies” she wears outside the house. Camille seems barely to register Amma as the sight of Marian’s room sends her into memories of the funeral, where the sight of lipstick on Marian’s body sent Camille into violent hysterics. Keeping that literal door literally closed might not be sufficient self-care.

…Though, as is clear by episode’s close, self-care is not among Camille’s priorities.

Writer, editor, and snack enthusiast Tara Ariano is the co-founder of TelevisionWithoutPity.comand Fametracker.com (R.I.P.), as well as Previously.tv. She co-hosts the podcasts Extra Hot Great and Again With This (a compulsively detailed episode-by-episode breakdown of Beverly Hills, 90210), and has contributed to New York, the New York Times magazine, Vulture, The Awl, and Slate, among many others. She lives in Austin.

Watch Sharp Objects on HBO Go