TV Recap: "Nine Perfect Strangers" - Season 2, Episode 4 "The Major Lift"
Recap:
Tina (King Princess) wanders out on stage, and while the setting is eerie and creepy, she sees Wolfie (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) and asks her what she is playing. Tina is directed towards a piano. Sitting down she starts to play a beautiful duet with Wolfie but starts to panic and the piano starts to attack her, biting off her hands. Tina awakens from her nightmare to Wolfie.
Wolfie asks if she wants to talk about her nightmare, Tina doesn’t. Tina hears a piano in the distance, and leaves the room, questioning why a concert band is unloading their instruments. (I get it, there was something terrible that happened in Tina’s life, but the way she is acting reminds me of the person on Maury who came to fight their fear of mustard. It’s getting ridiculous.) Martin (Lucas Englander) waves to the two from below with a hearty good morning.
David (Mark Strong) is admiring the paintings in the hallway as Masha (Nicole Kidman) observes from her CCTV. (I wonder if David is the father of Masha’s daughter.) When the two meet in the hallway, they are both incisive with their remarks, and David reveals to Masha that he knows Helena (Lena Olin) is broke. Masha tries to deflect David’s probing questions, when the billionaire reveals he thinks this whole arrangement was a set up. He asks if they brought him there for his money.
Back in the lab, Martin is surprised by Masha, and they discuss the previous day. Martin feels like she set him up for failure, and when he asks about her device, Masha walks away.
Tina watches as the concert band sets up in the hotel, and she is reminded of her younger years getting ready for a concert when she meets Wolfie. At breakfast, Wolfie describes the difficulty her and Tina are having to Brian and Agnes (Murray Bartlett, Dolly de Leon).Wolfie does not get what she wants as Brian and Agnes tell her that Wolfie was in the wrong.
David enters the room, and the rest of the group is surprised to meet the mysterious billionaire guest. David meets Brian and the former tv host, introduces Wolfie in a playful and insulting way as well as Agnes. David states that he and Agnes have met before at her field hospital in Kosovo in 1998, but the former nun does not remember. David departs to join Peter (Henry Golding).
Brian tells Wolfie and Agnes that it was David’s network that started broadcasting the tape of his blowup on the set of his show. David has sat down for breakfast with Peter and Imogen (Annie Murphy) and starts to get to know his son’s new girlfriend. Imogen and David discuss what she has studied in school.
Victoria and Matteo (Christine Baranski and Aras Aydin) join the group, and David is introduced by Peter. Victoria and Imogen trade barbs, while Peter deftly changes the topic of conversation. He tries to compliment his father on raising him, and Imogen tires of her mother and leaves.
Helena finds Masha obsessing over her conversation with David. They talk about how they spent years trying to eradicate the shadow that David Sharpe had over Masha’s life. Masha tells her friend that David is here for a reckoning for his past.
Outside, Imogen tells Peter that Victoria makes her feel upset. She can’t quite figure it out, but her mother makes her feel like she is twelve again. Peter tactfully tells Imogen that if she wanted to spend more time with her mom during their stay and less time with him, he would understand. Delicately, he tells her that he doesn’t want to be a distraction for the real reason why they are there at the retreat. (This is the kindest breakup ever seen.) Imogen does not take it well. Now she wonders where she will sleep tonight.
Wolfie wanders to the woods, thinking about the past, and wondering what she and Tina will do in the future. Brian and Agnes spend time outside, and the former nun, asks the former tv host if he sees the clouds drawing pictures in the sky. Asked if she thinks she is making progress, Agnes says that yesterday she was in prison and she is not today, so that is a win. Before leaving, Agnes tells him that she believes in him. Alone, Brian’s doubts creep in, and his puppet Jessie Bear starts telling him that perhaps he is hopeless. (Nothing worse than being mocked by a puppet.)
In the ballroom, Peter and David talk about the effect of the drugs. Imogen is asked by Victoria to sit next to her, but she declines and finds a place next to Agnes. (Everyone is tripping out on drugs, but the best reaction goes to Dolly de Leon, and how she interacts with Annie Murphy.)
Martin gets everyone’s attention, and while he is speaking, Masha interrupts and takes over. (The reaction by Martin is priceless, he is like a parent responding to the childish actions of a toddler.) She tells everyone that musicians and artists came to this ballroom to make music. There will be no judging only playing. Tina objects, but Masha says that she must, and that Martin will supervise. (Martin’s spoken grimace is hilarious.)
Wolfie encourages Tina to play, while Masha watches from the catwalks. Peter explains to his dad that Tina was a child prodigy and that’s why it is so important to see her play, David states the obvious, isn’t Tina a bit old to be a child prodigy. (Hilarious. Well done Mark Strong.) Wolfie starts to play the violin, but Tina cannot play and leaves. Trying to chase Tina, Wolfie listens to Martin as he tells her that this is not just about Tina. To break the unease, Martin starts a free dance that might go down in streaming history as one of the most hilarious, odd collection of people tripping out on drugs. (The joy that radiates from Strong, Golding, and Bartlett during this scene makes this season worth watching.)
Masha exits to find Tina outside. She tells the guru that she has been to everyone to see why she can’t play anymore, and she doesn’t care anymore. Tina takes out her anger on Wolfie and tells Masha that Wolfie is like her mom.
Imogen sits down next to her mom and asks why she never wants to spend time with her. Every time it looks like they are going to be alone, Victoria always seems to find someone to be a shield between her and Imogen. Victoria promises her daughter to get rid of Matteo for the night and they will have a mother daughter slumber party, but Imogen walks away.
Agnes tells Wolfie to tell Tina how she feels. While Wolfie states that she does that already, the former nun responds with the statement that Wolfie sees Tina as an idea and not a person. To her, Wolfie spends all her time doing the opposite of telling her girlfriend how she feels. It dawns on Wolfie, with all the time and energy she spends on Tina, she never devotes any focus to herself.
Outside, Wolfie finds Masha and Tina, and the two speak honestly to each other. Tina tells Wolfie that she never wanted to play the piano. Tina doubts whether anyone will love her for the way she is and not the way she was. Wolfie doesn’t like the girl who sits around, she loved the musician that Tina was.
Matteo meets Imogen outside and he encourages her to go and be with her mother. In the suite, Imogen finds Victoria asleep and can’t wake her up. In the ballroom, Tina walks in alone and sits at the piano. Imogen joins her and the two plan for a sleep over in the ballroom. They talk and Tina asks why Imogen hates her mom. Imogen says that she adores her mom, but that Victoria never liked her.
David tells his son that he has some work to do, and he will see him in the morning. Peter is disappointed because he expected his dad would be more involved, but David promises to see his son later when he will have more time. (Something tells me Peter has heard that line a lot throughout his childhood.)
Masha speaks to her dead daughter Tatianna. While the child thinks that Masha doesn’t want to see her anymore, Masha responds that tonight is a very special night, because tonight she will meet her father, the approaching David Sharpe. (I called it!)
Review:
Another interesting episode. We get a reveal about Masha and David. We also get a little more depth to Peter, who originally seems like a pushover. Also, we get a chance to see some development in Victoria. Christine Baranski has been sidelined in the show so far, and it’s obvious we are going to see an entire episode devoted to the past of Victoria and Imogen.
The revelation that David is the father of Masha’s daughter is not a shock.
I do like where we see Agnes and Brian’s character being taken into the story. Murray Bartlett and Dolly de Leon are the best parts of the show so far. Their characters have depth, humor, and feel like the most real, and less cartoony.
Each episode, I am going to highlight the best line of the episode that I think is the best. This week’s award goes to Dolly de Leon as Agnes, as she is enjoying the effects of the drugs she is taking, she encounters Imogen, rubs up against her arm and delivers this banger of spoken word poetry that compares Imogen’s arm.
“It’s like the hide of a polar bear."