Created by Jenny Lumet & Alex Kurtzman
Starring Rebecca Breeds, Michael Cudlitz
Thursdays at 10PM on CBS

by Emily Maesar, Staff Writer

Following the death of their murder suspect, Wellig, in the last episode, an investigation is opened up on Clarice’s team, specifically Agent Krendler. They’re all confined to desk duty until it can be determined if any of them played a substantial part in a suspect dying in custody. 

The episode is a slow burn that leads into some action at the end, which I think is all handled extremely well. The pacing works, the payoffs make sense, and even when the team manages to sneak away from desk duty to do some (probably very illegal) searching around for more clues in the conspiracy, it’s all deeply engaging without being overly complicated.

There are three stories running through the episode. First is, of course, a continuation of the conspiracy. Pretty self explanatory, plot-wise, without a lot of big developments, if we’re being honest. Second, is the investigation into the VICAP team by Anthony Herman. Herman came up with Krendler and takes a very different approach to how…malleable to the FBI standards can be, if you get the desired result. Herman is very clearly a company man, and Krendler believes in the law, but thinks there are other ways to get there. 

It’s clear that Krendler’s relationship to Herman is a dark and broken mirror to what might become of Clarice's relationship with Ardelia. Same-same, but different. Both because of how the women view FBI’s functionality compared to the men’s, but also because they’re friends. Like… actually friends.

Which leads me to the third, and biggest, thing this episode is about: race. Clarice's friendship with Ardelia does not change the fact that, because she’s a white woman, she gets offers and chances that Ardelia simply does not. This episode is the beginning of Clarice coming face-to-face with that, instead of just having Ardelia suffer in silence in Cold Cases.

In an Entertainment Weekly interview, before the show started, series creators Alex Kurtzman and Jenny Lumet talked about the themes they wanted to cover in Clarice. And race was one of the big ones. Lumet talked about how Demme’s original film played with the ideas of male and female gaze, but “baked into our scripts is the white gaze that Ardelia has to function under and navigate.”

Dealing with race wasn’t of particular interest in the novel, or the film, but I think it makes perfect sense to use the runway of a show to tackle the nuance it needs–especially when you have people of color in the cast and on the creative team to make the conversations less centered on the white experience. I think it’s part of the brilliance of making Ardelia Mapp an even bigger character, and making sure the VICAP team isn’t all white people. Plus, Devyn A. Tyler is absolutely stunning as Ardelia. I already loved her character for the small moments that exist in the original two versions of the story, but in Clarice she’s allowed the room to flourish. Not every moment actually needs to be about the title character, after all. 

Also, I want to make a quick note (that I’ll probably be making for the rest of my life) that Rebecca Breeds does a truly amazing job at making Clarice feel human. It’s little things, like tucking her hair behind her ear as she catches up to Ardelia in the hallway that really make Clarice feel like such a well rounded character in the world of the show. It’s something present in the novel and the film, but that can be made even more apparent during hours we’re spending with Breeds embodying this character.