The Cutprice Guignol

The devil is in the details. Or, at least, one of his many satanic servants is, right?

The residents of Hell Motel are still seeing out possibly the worst sleepover event since my tenth birthday party (and even then, there have been markedly less murders so far), as the group clashes over whether to stay or whether to go. After an encounter with one of the numerous Baphomets on the loose drives them to remain, the long, dark night of the soul continues to stretch out for the dwindling survivors.

This episode serves as the send-off for our resident artist, Kawayan (Emmanuel Kabongo), who we haven’t seen a whole lot of this season so far. And, while this is a decent close to his story, it’s one that feels more like connective tissue for other characters and storylines than a focused arc in its own right – and I’m not just referring to the connective tissue detached from the lining of his chest during the Hannibal-esque kill, though that’s certainly part of it. I like what Kabongo brings to this episode, especially in the scenes he shares with Shirley; I love a pretentious artiste character as much as the next gal, and his slightly-too-enthusiastic description of how he made that realistic-looking blood lacquer hits home to me as a person who’s had to do a whole lot of explaining for her artistic output, too.

But this episode is as much about Floyd (Gray Powell) and Shirley (Yanna McIntosh) as it is about the most recent victim of the Cold River killings, especially how they parallel Kawayan’s obsessive and almost prideful approach to murder. I truly am obsessed with how the show is using Floyd and Shirley thus far, from shoving the Baphomet mask back into the ceiling after an attack to Floyd’s borderline, and I’ll just say it, horny murder of the not-quite-dead-yet Crow early in the episode. They’re such a completely over-the-top addition to the show, but Powell and McIntosh play it just grounded enough to keep it from tipping over into pure cackling villain territory.

But perhaps more interesting are the parallels between Shirley and Adrianna (Genevieve DeGraves). Devil in the Details delves into the history that drew Shirley and Floyd together in the first place, thirty years before – a younger Shirley finds herself confronted by questions of faith and independence after a fire at a factory leaves her father dead, and seeks out the devilish Floyd to try and take the reins of her life once more. I’ve made no secret of how much I love Shirley’s character so far, and this episode only serves to deepen that; her all-consuming Christian faith being subverted into the same level of obsession aimed in the direction of Baphomet is a great detail for her character, and casts a little light (and shadow) on her dominant relationship with Floyd. He might have been the one with the leather jacket and the joint, but she’s the one with the faith and focus that has driven them the last thirty years.

To be quite honest, I would have been happy with Adriana doing nothing more than bursting into a room cleavage first to demand if anyone else has been murdered recently, but this episode takes a different approach – after catching a glimpse of Baphomet, she finds her mortality thrown into sharp relief and seeks out Blake (Atticus Mitchell, who remains probably my favourite of the ensemble so far – his moment of paranoid freak-out this episode is really strong, and lays good groundwork for the episode I assume we’ll get about his history at some point) for support. She shares a story from her own childhood, a fire that her neglectful father allowed her to start as a young child – the beginning of her once-unshakeable sense of reliance in herself, and her ability to pull herself out of any danger she finds herself in, presumably a factor in her pursuit of violent men. The overlap between fire, fatherhood, and self-reliance, expressed by seeking out men they perceive as dangerous, is a neat parallel to draw between the characters, casting new light on both of them in the process.

Devil in the Details is an episode more focused on laying the groundwork for future plot points rather than stacking them on top of each other in this outing specifically, but the breather gives us a chance to spend some time with the remaining characters and delve a little deeper into their motivations (positive or otherwise). Now that we’re halfway through the season, I would love to know where you stand on Hell Motel – let me know in the comments!

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(header image via Prime Video)