TV Recap: "Nine Perfect Strangers" - Season 2, Episode 6 "The Other Side"

Recap:

Masha (Nicole Kidman) is talking to Helena (Lena Olin), and she states the obvious. Helena thinks that David (Mark Strong) is playing her and won’t really help. Masha thinks that David had something to do with her daughter’s death, but when she is with him, something just feels right. Helena tells her friend that her daughter Tatiana’s death was an accident. It was cruel and random, not an orchestrated plan. Sometimes things are meaningless and not intentional.

Matteo (Aras Aydin) is sleeping outside and has visions of warplanes bombing the countryside. Inside the parlor, Imogen (Annie Murphy) and Tina (King Princess) wake up from their slumber party. Tina tells Imogen that it was nice talking to her, but they are interrupted by Matteo, who wants to know why Imogen is sleeping on the floor, and where is her mother Victoria (Christine Baranski).

Back in the room, Matteo finds Victoria bedridden and unable to get up. She tells her boyfriend that she is unable to move her legs. Wanting to call the doctor, Victoria tells him no, so he props her up in bed with a pillow. Matteo is encouraged to go off by himself, she just needs another hour, and perhaps a nice glass of wine. Matteo wants to know when Victoria will tell Imogen about her prognosis, and the mother is content to let her keep thinking all the nasty things about her that she wants.

Agnes (Dolly De Leon) is awoken by Brian (Murray Bartlett) using a marionette that startles her. He bought a doll for Agnes as well. In the lab, Masha tells Martin (Lucas Englander) about her success with David. When Martin asks if David wants to invest, she lies and says she didn’t ask him.

On a walk in the woods, David tells his son Peter (Henry Golding) about his past relationship with Masha, and how she got pregnant with their daughter. Peter questions the validity of her story and believes his dad is being taken advantage of. David wonders how his son sees him and assures him that Masha has not asked for any money. Peter leaves to have a one on one with Masha.

Back in time, Peter is playing his Super NES, as his dad and mom explain to him that they are going to separate. The young boy wants to know what happened and if their divorce is his fault. Peter of the present awakes from his drug fueled time travel to the past, and wonders where his dad is. Peter is confused and upset and storms out of the room demanding that Masha not follow him.

At lunch, Tina and Wolfie (Maisie Richardson-Sellers) talk, and Wolfie wants to know where Tina slept the previous night. Brian interrupts the group with his devil marionette and gives the group a jump scare. Agnes joins him, and they make a spectacle with their puppetry.

When Imogen joins the group, her mother asks if she slept well. Then Peter storms in ranting about how Masha has kidnapped his father, and they all need to leave, but is quickly distracted by Brian and Agnes’ marionettes (genuinely hilarious work by Henry Golding.) Martin tries to get control of Peter, but he is angry, and states that he didn’t sign up for this. Martin reminds him he did.

Martin tells Peter that he’s fine, and that is when Masha enters the room. She tells them that this is the next step of the treatment, a breakthrough of being able to burn away old memories, and create a new response, with closure to an old memory. When Masha asks who wants to go next. Imogen raises her hand with enthusiasm. Masha chooses Matteo, and that angers Imogen. Victoria asks Masha to be a prompt for Imogen, but she does not want to take any of the medication.

When Peter asks where his dad is, Masha tells him he is on the other side, and then Martin tells him, David is on the other side of the hotel.  Tina, Wolfie, Brian, and Agnes wonder what they should do next, and while they debate what Masha told them about exploring, Wolfie tells them there is another side to the building, so they should go and find it.

Martin begins the drug process with Imogen and Victoria, and quickly Imogen reverts to childhood memories. Victoria offers to be injected with the medication because she doesn’t want her daughter to go back to childhood memories alone.

Brian, Agnes, Wolfie, and Tina explore the complex when they see Peter running around with a map of the grounds in search of his dad to save him. Peter encourages them to follow him.

Together Victoria and Imogen go back to moving into a new house many years ago. Matteo is remembering life as a child in a refuge hospital, and there to greet him is Agnes. It would appear she was a nurse in refuge hospital when he was a child. Victoria and Imogen are happy in their new home. We learn that Imogen’s dad built a satellite that could find anything in the world.

Peter finds the other side of the complex and locates his dad in a mud bath. David is safe and content and greets his son with joy. Peter is overjoyed to find his dad alive and well.

Imogen remembers back observing her dad staring at the tv as he watches news reports of a satellite that was used in a campaign of bombings. While this is happening, we learn that Matteo and his family are the victims of this bombing that used the satellite that Imogen’s dad created.

Brian reflects on how he is learning from his memories and feels fine about how things happened. Sitting in the wine bath with Tina, Wolfie, and Agnes, the four of them realize that a part of themselves have woken up to be the people they want to be. Brian says that this is the first time in a long time that he has had friends.

David and Peter talk, and the father tells his son that Masha has something that could change the world. David talks about Masha’s debt and how her technology can open up a revolution in life. He even mentions to his son that everything they could gain from Masha’s product could be theirs.

While Masha tries to work with Matteo, he resists delving deep into his memories. He tells the guru that he doesn’t want to share, because this is his pain, he needs it, and it belongs to no one else. (I love Matteo. This is very Jim Kirk of you from Star Trek V.) He misses his family, but knows that he was loved, and has nothing to fear unlike everyone else at Zauberwald. Masha removes the device, because Matteo is the most normal person in all the show.

As a child Imogen discovered her father’s body and awakens to Victoria going into a seizure. Martin talks to Masha and learns that Victoria was not supposed to take the medication, it wasn’t measured out for her.

Brian and friends return to find a helicopter and doctors arriving to treat Victoria. We learn that Victoria is in the late stages of ALS. Matteo apologizes to Imogen about learning of her mother’s condition this way.

Helena is angry at Masha, she states that she should have known better than to put Masha in control. She continues with a litany of criticisms with Masha screaming for her to stop, when we finally learn, Helena isn’t there. (Holy cow this was not expected. I am genuinely stunned to learn this. Helena isn’t real because she died in 2022. These are powerful drugs they are dealing with.)

Review:

This was supposed to be the episode where we delve into the story of Imogen and Victoria, and the audience barely scratched the surface of their backstory. I can’t get over how Murphy and Baranski have been sidelined for much of this show.

On the other hand, we got great character development from Aras Aydin’s Matteo. I love his response to Masha and the fact that he doesn’t want to fix ‘his pain’ because that is what makes him who he is. Powerful, important, rational. This is something that no one else seems to understand about their past traumas and how they make the person that they are.

The fact that Lena Olin’a Helena is dead is shocking. I was not expecting it, and when the reveal is shown, I was in awe. I am annoyed about some plot lines, but this was masterfully executed.

Line of the Night Award:

This comes from Murray Bartlett’s Brian as he plays with his marionette.

“There is no privacy in the depths of hell."