The Sinner episode 6 review: Cora makes her descent
Unfortunately as the case was ongoing, those close to Cora were seeing their own lives crumbling. Mason found himself questioned, there still wasn’t any reason as to why Cora stabbed Frankie, and Ambrose found his personal life in an even greater state of disarray. He couldn’t get anything together or get the life back that he wanted. There is also another problem here, and it was related to his personal connection to the case. He was too close to it now, and nobody wanted him working on it. He felt so strongly that bringing Cora back to the Beverwyck Country Club (the site of all of the mysterious rituals and terrible things) would be enough to bring out her memories.
Luckily, Ambrose was able to get Cora out on the road and over to the club, hoping that this would be the beacon for her moments of clarity. Unfortunately, what he learned was that this provided nothing of the sort. It turned out that Cora didn’t remember the place at all and it triggered almost no memories.
So where do things go from here? Well, the funny thing here is that just when it seemed that all hope was lost, Cora was able to find a clue elsewhere. It just took going to a second building and seeing the stairwell that she did remember so vividly. There were connections to the country club, but not in the way Ambrose thought.
The flashbacks this week
Cora is still doing what she can to visit her sister Phoebe, but you can see some of the key differences that are there between where she is now and who she was earlier this season. She’s telling her only a part of the story, while living a life of adventure of her own. The speech that J.D. gave her was awful, given that he told her that her sister was a “vampire” — the longer he was with her, the more terrible things would be.
Effectively, we learned that he was the one to pull Cora from that life and her sick sister. He initiated the journey to the tavern so many years back that kick started her missing time. Cora did eventually return home after this, and while there her sister wanted to get a better sense of what she was experiencing. The sexual acts that followed were probably one of the most unnerving scenes that we’ve seen on the show, but it was also one that was purposeful and demonstrated in part to reveal why events unfolded the way that they did. Phoebe had an unhealthy attachment, one that stemmed from being too sick to experience anything from anyone else. She couldn’t survive thinking Cora was gone.
At some point after this was when Cora did make that clean break, and we wonder how much of this was a factor in it?
Our overall take on The Sinner episode 6
This episode was powerful, challenging, and certainly disturbing at times. It moved slowly, and while it didn’t tie much up on Mason or what’s down in the basement, it really didn’t have to. This episode brought you the perfect foundation to everything that will be coming up next. Grade: A-.
What lies ahead on The Sinner episode 7?
It’s the penultimate episode of the limited series! If you head over to the link here, you can get a few more details from CarterMatt about what’s coming up in this episode. (Photo: USA.)