Little Birds season 1, episode 4 recap – nothing was the same

This recap of Little Birds season 1, episode 4 contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.

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Now that the truth of Hugo’s situation is out in the open, Little Birds episode 4 can’t help but feel different. Both Lucy and Cherifa are on the run, in a sense, the former arriving at the Contessa’s mansion while the latter finds herself something of an outcast, roaming, walking – perhaps, as some nebulous advice holds, she should walk closer to her troubles.

Now, naturally, Hugo’s feeling a bit daft, but his options are limited. He tries to offer Lucy freedom, but how can a man so heavily indebted to someone else really provide that? Her version of freedom is probably different from his anyway; she sees defiance against authority as freedom. Authority is having enough problems at this point. With Frederic dead and rebellion brewing, Vaney needs a suspect to pin his supposed murder on, and it ends up being Leo.

But things are still going terribly for Hugo, getting shaken down for dough here and asked for items he doesn’t have there. Adham is faring slightly better, but he, after a life of thoughtless materialism, doesn’t feel as though he fits in or belongs anywhere; both men are, in a way, equally lost, though for different reasons.

Lucy, on the contrary, believes she has found herself, loving life in the Contessa’s place, reveling with the other girls and ingesting God-know-what, even more spaced-out and saucer-eyed that usual. But you know how it is – lose yourself too much and you end up finding yourself. The climax of this episode, as Cherifa arrives and informs the Contessa that she needs help exonerating Leo since he didn’t kill Frederic, erupts into a jumble of wrestling and gunshots. Cherifa eventually leaves with the gun.

This dramatic ending is perhaps too little too late in a slow-paced episode that feels to be looking inwards at itself more than looking forward to the finish line.

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