Something is missing on a slightly confusing Nocturne

As Nocturne moves closer to its midpoint, I remain vaguely entertained and mostly interested in the outcome of its central story—but it’s also becoming clear that something is missing. Much of that comes down to the characterization: That first pair of episodes did most of the heavy lifting in laying out who these people are and what drives them, but it wasn’t quite enough. As a result, they’re starting to feel like chess pieces, slowly shuffling around the board without making any truly surprising moves.

Take Alexandra Quinn, one of the most human-feeling characters on the show thanks to Poorna Jagannathan’s performance. Hearing Quinn discuss her custody battle with Chief Ellison this week should allow both characters to come a little bit more alive—there’s many cop-to-cop interactions like this in Task, to name another show that keeps coming to mind. We do learn a few basic details in this dialogue, like that Quinn’s demanding job allowed her ex-husband to argue for full custody and that Ellison quit drinking after Jurek Walter got caught three years ago, but it doesn’t significantly deepen our understanding of them.

The same goes for the flashback that kicks off “The Courier.” It’s all exposition that was already made clear from early in the show: Rebecca disappeared; Sam shot and killed himself; Saga buried her feelings in work and became increasingly hardened, set on taking down the man who destroyed her family. Again, there are a couple new details, like the fact that Sam had been an inconsistent-at-best presence in his daughter’s life for decades before his *******. But there’s nothing that helps build an actual emotional connection to Saga—who, need I remind you, is one of the co-protagonists of the show.

What interiority does exist for Saga comes out through her present-day actions at Riverside, particularly the lengths she goes to eventually land herself in the RHU next to Jurek, a man who has haunted her for three years. There’s a refreshing lack of sentimentality here, especially when it comes to Jonah’s complicity in this increasingly dangerous mission—he’s no longer making any effort to abort, and he knows Saga wouldn’t let that happen anyway. (His “tick-tock” message to her is especially blunt.) At this point, it’s like they’ve both silently agreed to do what must be done, a stark change from the intense mutual protectiveness they showed in the first two episodes. I’m still not sure I really understand this quasi-father-daughter relationship on the whole, but there’s something interesting there, in theory.

Still, there’s something a little tedious about watching Saga repeatedly provoke other patients and nurses until she can get where she always wanted to end up (and where we assumed she’d end up since she first went undercover). I appreciate that the show doesn’t spell this out explicitly, occasionally letting the audience wonder how much Saga is organically reacting to her frightening surroundings. But it’s mostly obvious what she’s doing, especially when she provokes patient Wanda into a fight and later shoots up the creepy nurse Lloyd with Thorazine, the infraction that finally gets her sent to max-security. Even if Nathan doesn’t pick up her “sunshine” signal, it should be clear to him (and certainly to Jonah) that she wanted this.

Last week, Jonah spent his half of the story investigating Sally Gifford. That continues here, to an extent: He’s back at her house, and this time he finds a journal where she wrote about her intimate bond with Jurek. He even finds a note Jurek wanted her to pass along to his “lawyer”/accomplice, with a coded message in Cyrillic saying to “release Michael”! This is a pretty big break in the case, but why couldn’t it have happened last week? Why are both the Fairhaven police force and the FBI incapable of conducting a successful sweep of this property? Apparently, Jonah is the only remotely competent detective in Pennsylvania, and he’s not even a detective anymore.

The next steps in the investigation are obvious: manipulate Jurek into sending another message to his nonexistent lawyer, then stake out the address where that accomplice presumably operates. Jonah seemingly accomplishes the former by getting the Riverside director to agree to a transfer order for Jurek; as expected, Jurek pushes Karl into doing his bidding again, even after Karl initially refuses. But the team botches this opportunity with their noisy drone, and Jonah’s chase only ends with the runaway accomplice knocking him out and fleeing.

Of course, it eventually becomes apparent (if it wasn’t already) that Jurek planned everything this way, which… tracks, I guess? I’m not sure. It makes sense that he wants to throw Jonah under the bus with this “Jonah planted my DNA” letter, revealing the dark secret hinted at in his initial trade idea, but why risk so much to do it in this way? Isn’t he putting his accomplice’s life and/or freedom in danger by passing along this message, knowing the FBI is likely lying in wait? The Sandman gets away easily, a frustrating but inevitable development, and it seems to throw Jurek’s master gameplan into question.

“The Courier” ends in an odd place, without a sense of what Jonah’s exposure (if indeed the allegations are true) could actually mean for the investigation. It seems likely, though, that it won’t make a huge difference—that he and Nathan and Quinn will continue the search for Felicia and the investigation into the Sandman, whether together or separately. At this point, the real center of the story is the RHU, where Saga will presumably ingratiate herself with Jurek to get some information out of him. With the series’ mixed success in terms of character complexity, it’s too early now to say whether that new dynamic will bring something valuable to the show. But at least it sounds exciting.

Stray observations

• The show has already established that Karl’s favorite song is “Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons, but does that mean it’s the only song he ever listens to?
• What’s the deal with Lloyd, and will he remain in the story now that Saga is in the RHU? I didn’t much enjoy the multiple scenes of him relishing his position of power over her, even if she got to stab him a little eventually.
• Jonah probably flew too close to the sun during his meeting with Jurek by offering to stop the transfer in exchange for Felicia’s location, which was never going to happen. Is that the moment when Jurek realizes it’s all bullshit? Jonah probably shouldn’t have been the one to deliver him the news anyway.
• What exactly was the point of the anonymous call from last episode?