Summary
Rain Dogs remains funny and bleak in just about equal measure as Costello’s aspirations are used to manipulate and exploit her.
This recap of Rain Dogs Season 1 Episode 2, “Scenes from a Crucifixion”, contains spoilers.
As a writer, let me tell you that being a writer is often terrible. It’s a thankless profession, it plays havoc with your lower back, and you’re cursed to despise every word you’ve ever written the second it’s published. I don’t know what kind of writer Costello wants to be in Rain Dogs – one who reports the truth subjectively using fictional devices, apparently – but the above seems like it would be the least of her problems anyway.
Rain Dogs Season 1 Episode 2 Recap
Does Costello’s article get published?
At least Costello and Iris aren’t homeless. But their potential future doesn’t exactly look bright. Costello’s literary dreams feel increasingly unlikely at this point, especially by the end of “Scenes from a Crucifixion”, in which her aspirations are used to manipulate and ridicule her. Though at least she gets a little date out of the whole affair.
To be fair to Costello, Sophie Fenster, a journalist from the London Informer, offered a good sales pitch. She’d read some of Costello’s previous articles and offered to pay her to pen one about the peep show where she works; a crackhead pulling himself around the room in the next-door window kind of emphasizes why she’d be eager to find her big break and get out of there. Of course, it’s a ruse. Sophie writes the article in her own words and makes it a dowdy interview with a proud sex worker who isn’t afraid to use her body to pay the bills.
Luckily, Selby buys all the copies of the paper, and the two of them sit there lamenting their lives before eventually dousing the rags in alcohol and setting them alight. Costello remains sober, perhaps against her better judgment.
Why was Selby in prison?
Speaking of Selby, he spends most of the episode playing Mahjong with Iris in what is quite clearly an illegal gambling den, but we get snippets of his fatherly relationship to the kid; he’s lying to her about where has been, he buys her and Costello Chinese food for dinner, and he throws out Gloria and her new fella, Paul, so they don’t distract Costello from writing. Of course, he doesn’t exactly take his probation-mandated violent offenders support group seriously, but you can’t have everything, can you?
While we still don’t know exactly what Selby did to wind up a guest of His Majesty’s Government, we can deduce so far that a) he was defending Costello and b) whatever he did was violent. We’ve already seen him rough someone up in Episode 1, so this tracks.
How does Gloria meet Paul?
Paul, by the way, meets Gloria at her work, which is a family-owned funeral home where she tidies up corpses for the benefit of their loved ones. A conversation with her dad, though, implies that she isn’t always as responsible with her duties as she ought to be, and that trend continues when Paul enters to grieve his father and ends up with Gloria sitting in his lap. It’s not exactly the kind of romantic meet-cute you’d tell the grandkids about.
At the end of “Scenes from a Crucifixion”, Costello is fired from the peep show, but outside, Richard, the photographer from the London Informer, burns a copy of the latest issue in solidarity with her and asks her out for a coffee. Why not, at this point?
You can stream Rain Dogs Season 1 Episode 2, “Scenes from a Crucifixion” exclusively on HBO and HBO Max.
Additional reading:
- Rain Dogs Season 1 Episode 3 Recap
- Where was the TV show Rain Dogs filmed?
