Review

The episode starts with Nora Montgomery confused and wanting to know where her baby is. Tate showing a surprising amount of epiphany offers to help her out, which isn't going to be so good for Patrick and Chad, or six months later for Vivien Harmon. Moria warns Tate that he needs to be less accepting of what the women in the house want, and I would add that goes double when Hayden is making demands.

Speaking of Hayden, she's also moved by Nora's pain, but more to irritation than anything else. Hayden hatches a plan to drive Vivien insane in an attempt to get the unborn babies for herself and Nora. The Rubber Man is enlisted, Vivien cracks up and mistakenly shots Ben, who is being his usual self of finding fault with everyone else as he continues impersonating an arsehole to perfection, and a whole new dimension of madness gets thrown into the mix. Finally an episode that moves things along without adding new complexity to the mix, the second third of the season ends on a high.

If anything Rubber Man sets out to underline some of the aspects of the season thus far and give the audience a chance to breath, rather than layering on a whole bunch more surprises, twists, and new players. Which isn't to say there are no surprises this episode, there certainly are some plot twists, which you may or may not have seen coming. But we can take a big breath, catch up with some of the underlying themes, and settle in for the final third of the season.

A well needed consolidation on where the season has got to thus far. The beat is being layed down for the final block of the season

We finally find out who the Rubber Man is, and why he killed Patrick and Chad before hitting the wild thing with Vivien. I'm thinking that won't come as too much of a surprise to most viewers, and I'm starting to wonder why exactly the Writers seem unable to hide their major twists successfully. The "plot turn" is perfectly well explained, and fits in with the overall plot arcs for the season, there's certainly a symmetry going down, which I found pretty satisfying as the end credits rolled.

Speaking of Vivien, the chick can't get a break lately, Rubber Man pretty much focuses on the character as things go from bad to worse. Not only is she pregnant with twins, but she is getting no support from her self centred daughter, and husband Ben is rapidly becoming my most loathed character on the show. I really hope at some stage Vivien follows through with her threat and bashes his face in the smug prat. After Moira warns Vivien the house is fill of tormented and angry spirits, Vivien does what very few white people do in a haunted house flick, she tries to get out of Dodge at warp factor nine. Of course that doesn't work out so well, home invasion freaks to the fore, and of course Ben doesn't believe her story. Naturally Violet, once again only thinking of herself, doesn't back up her Mom's story which leads to Ben making a decision to stay in the house in case Vivien, one would image, turns violent. If you want to sit back and take note there for a minute, Vivien is doing her best in a hysterical fashion but the support systems aren't there as both Ben and Violet have already succumbed to the house.

Worse follows for Vivien as Haden unleashes her drive Vivien insane plan, how exactly was that going to work again? - with some pretty dramatic results. I guess Vivien being dragged off for some evaluation being the chief development, once again due to Ben being his normal egotistical self and showing zero compassion to anyone. No wonder Violet has problems, Ben needs what Patrick got at the hands of the Rubber Man!

As ever the episode layers on some excellent insights and almost throw away glimpses into various characters' motivations. The parallels between Chad and Vivien are being somewhat belaboured, but are pretty striking, and must be driving the Fundos nutso with the clear comparison between marital problems between straight and gay couples. So full thumbs up there, anything that puts a bee in the bum of the Fundos is top notch entertainment in my book of counted sorrows. We get Hayden telling the simpering Nora that the house has the power to hold them on the mortal plain, but the power can be used for their own ends, if you want to go dark side of course. Loved the "dead as disco" comment by the way, Hayden's best line so far. And of course we get a flashback to events prior, though notably those events are now only six months ago, pointing out things are rushing to some sort of conclusion.

Overall the episode hits some pretty solid atmospherics, the interior of the house is freaky weird and used to solid effect as the various Harmons spin in their own orbits around the truth that is seeping up from the basement. Violet is self centred, and is totally unconcerned by anything that doesn't directly affect her in a meaningful fashion. If she isn't dead she might as well be, the character is hardly alive, even by teenage emo standards. Vivien is pregnant, and that's not the most sane condition to be in, no offense intended to any pregnant ladies who might be reading this, but hey all those hormones don't lead to totally rational thought processes. On a bright note Vivien can determine when things are about to hit the fan and is more than ready to get out of town. Decent horror character that affords instant audience approval, I was really backing Vivien's decisions. And finally we have Ben, someone so egotistical and self centred that he doesn't notice his daughter is projecting some pretty bizarre behaviour, and who shows zero compassion to his wife. Notably at the end of Rubber Man Ben quite happily leaves his traumatise teenage daughter apparently alone in the big scary house with quite possibly a team of home invaders back for a second round. No matter what defence you bring up for Ben, the guy is a complete twat, Hayden do your worse babe!

Rubber Man slide to 2.81 million viewers in North America, not a season high but a very solid result. FX have their audience, but also have a sizeable percentage of viewers who have other choices. Considering a second season was green lighted pretty quickly the network clearly decided they were on a winner overall and put their corporate wallet behind the franchise.

Okay so I had a good time with Rubber Man and am really jiving to the season right about now. With a third of the first season to go the Writers are clearly starting to tie off the loose ends and progress the plot to a season finale that will have us tune in for the second season. Word of warning for sometime viewers, you really need to have kept abreast of developments so far in the season, major plot arcs are brought into play, and I have to say about time the season started to build some focus and move into the end game position.

ScaryMinds Rates this episode as ...