Midway through this episode is an exceptionally gratuitous sex scene that predictably exceeds the gratuitous nudity scene from the first episode. Both scenes focus on female nudity and the female's chest especially. Season One is a continuous showcase for women's chests - even when clothed they are generally displayed pretty openly or else, when a character's costume is changed, the lack is addressed via another character (often a throw-away woman, but more on that later). It's the oldest selling tactic in the book; predictable and tiresome.
Woman-on-Woman, Part Two: In this episode, the brothel madam aggressively advances on a female visitor who apparently enjoys it but timidly declines. This is an 'apology' for the incapacitated female host being creeped on by a woman in episode one. Insultingly, it's also offered up as an exciting sexual power-play between females to please some viewers with a bit of raciness. The fact that the recipient enjoys it but is also able to decline, combined with the host having been programmed to be aggressive, are together supposed to justify the matter via a combination of contrived voluntariness and mitigating circumstance.
The prostitutes' dirty-talk becomes rampant in in this episode, verbalizing graphic sexual scenarios via the mouths of the women themselves. In scenes to come, this kind of clichéd talk is tinged with a presumption of intelligence on the part of the brothel madam - a new deceit meant to justify something that's deleterious to women's dignity by giving the character the superficial appearance of cleverness; insult and compliment combined. Sure, it's vulgar and crass and it's meant to draw the mind to meaningless sexual scenarios that are beside the point and don't really further the plot at all, but just look how 'clever' the brothel madam appears to be while she's making these totally useless statements. We all know what she does for a living already - it's obvious. Having the character egotistically using up time describing these scenarios with tedious jaded indifference is basically dull and only serves to please a sex-obsessed segment of the audience now accustomed to gratification. Her 'cleverness' is calculated to offer the viewer a way to evade indignity (if they are the viewer who cares to), giving the appearance of elevating vulgarity by association with pretentious little meaningless witticisms. So, maybe for some it can just be more about the character's so-called intelligence. It's been set up this way in the hopes that everyone will just accept these scenarios one way or another, regardless of their sensibilities, because the authors reckon it's all needed for the show's bottom line, especially in these first episodes. A further 'apology' is presented when the brothel madam has flashbacks of a former identity in which she is a wholesome mother trying to protect herself and her child, first from Native American warriors who try to scalp her, then from the man in black as well. Like all 'apologies' here, this alternate identity setup with the child is sure to be troubled, and I suspect there will be even more problems than those that arise from the demeaning and worn-out stereotypical Madonna/Prostitute dichotomy the authors have arranged for this character.
"You know why this beats the real world... the real world's just chaos..." When the man in black guns down a man's wife in front of their child, all of the devices of a big climactic buildup are present: his threatening soliloquy, an expression of concern and fear from the barman, tense and building music; but the outcome is predictable from the get-go and the murder of the sensuously open-chested, frightened and crying woman is a tiresome conceit, as is the fact that her child responds unfeelingly. The fact that the child has no emotional response, but instead offers a clue to 'the maze' is a double-conceit; an attempt to demonstrate a significant purpose in the violent act (information obtained) and, ironically, an attempt to also nullify the significance of the act immediately after it's been committed - we're not supposed to care as much now because the child is apparently unaffected (compounded by the fact that the husband/father is also fairly unaffected). The man in black looks more and more like some pathetic old degenerate loser stupidly wandering around this dry place like an obtuse fool with no worthwhile purpose, being a monotonous jerk and muttering quasi-nihilistic lines that go as far nowhere as he does. Speaking of going nowhere, 'the maze' is an especially simple circular diagram that could be mastered quickly by a child and is played like the cheap mystery-building device it is. It essentially goes nowhere in the vast empty park, and it goes nowhere in the vast empty plot. The clue from the child is actually a triple-conceit.
