Gloria goes to Los Angeles to try and learn what she can about Ennis. She stays in the same motel where he lived when he was there. She hopes to find some kind of a lead. She reads Planet of Wyh, his book, the one that won an award, while she is in L.A. The story is brought to life on the show through animation. It tells the story of a robot that outlived the people that created it, traveled across the universe until it was found by scientists. They download it's memories and then have it turn itself off.
Gloria's bag gets stolen when she first arrives in L. A. She goes to the police and winds up dealing with a police officer who is more interested in getting laid than helping her. She talks to her son and her deputy over the phone and finds out that the new chief is angry that she left without asking permission.
Gloria finds the woman from the photograph that Ennis had, Vivian Lord. She's a waitress now and she doesn't want to talk to Gloria about Ennis or Thaddeus Mobley as he was known then. Gloria goes to the writers Guild and finds a copy of a screenplay for Planet of Wyh that Thaddeus wrote. It leads her to Howard Zimmerman.
Zimmerman was a producer who used Thaddeus, as is revealed through flashbacks to 1975. Zimmerman ran a con with Vivian. They got just about everything that he had. They never produced anything. Thaddeus was too idealistic to see what they were up to until it was too late. He got some measure of revenge on Zimmerman.
Gloria visits Zimmerman but he doesn't tell her anything. He babbles on about science for a few minutes before asking her to leave. It is Vivian who finally levels with Gloria and tells her what happened, what they did to Thaddeus. Just before she leaves she sees the name Ennis Stussy stamped on the porcelain in the bathroom.
Gloria finds out, when she gers back to Eden Valley, that they have a lead on the guy who killed Ennis. The only problem is that he's dead.
Thoughts
Vivian Lord is played by Francesca Eastwood in the flashbacks and by Frances Fisher in 2010. Francesca is Clint Eastwood's daughter and Fisher is her mother. Howard Zimmerman of 1975 is played by Fred Melamed, who was part of the supporting cast of Casual, and by Roger V. Burton in 2010, who passed in 2018 at the age of 90.
Ray Wise makes a couple appearances playing the part of a man whom Gloria meets on the flight to Los Angeles. She runs into him again later in the episode by accident, or does she? Could he be working for the a Midwest mob organization? It could explain his comment about flying a lot and how they happened to be in the same place at the same time twice. Hmmm...
There are only two scenes that take place in Minnesota. The Stussy brothers, Sy, Nikki, and Varga do not appear in this episode.
I found this to be a welcome change of pace. I expect that it will be back to business as usual after this episode but it was still nice to see them get away from the usual. I think they did similar things in the first couple seasons but not necessarily at the same point in the season. I was very pleased with this episode and think the show has yet to do anything to really displease me this season.
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