‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’: Episode Seven Soft Reboots The Drama
Joe Lipsett
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Each week Joe Lipsett deep dives in a spoiler-filled review of the latest episode of Amazon’s I Know What You Did Last Summer. This week: episode 7, “If Only Dogs Could Talk”
Plot Synopsis Of This Week’s I Know What You Did Last Summer
The town races to find the killer before another victim is claimed. Calm seems to be restored as the killing stops.
A Honey of a Reveal
Last week’s episode ended on a cliffhanger as Dylan (Ezekiel Goodman) saw Clara (Brooke Bloom) carry Riley (Ashley Moore)’s body into the cave. Rather than reveal what happens next, episode seven opens with a beautiful montage as Clara preps Lennon (Madison Iseman)’s body one year earlier, coating her in honey to preserve the corpse. While the shots of Clara stroking Lennon’s scarred upper thigh are uncomfortably sexual, this whole sequence is bizarre and highly memorable.
Those sentiments are compounded when Sheriff Lyla (Fiona Rene) searches the cave and discovers Riley’s body. She’s posed upright like a glistening amber statue, covered head to foot in golden sweetness. It’s reminiscent of the murder tableaus from Hannibal and it’s – in a word – gorgeous.
Soft Reboot
Aside from this opening sequence, the daring formalist narrative techniques from last week don’t really carry over. Thankfully I Know What You Did Last Summer is still full of surprises.
Some make a lot of sense, given that this is the penultimate episode. Dylan had to find out that Allison was lying about her identity at some point. So it makes sense that it comes out here.
Then there are the less expected developments, like how “If Only Dogs Could Talk” softly reboots the whole show after Clara and Riley’s bodies are discovered. It’s a surprising choice to jump ahead three weeks. It’s not enough time for anything substantial to have changed. It also skates over most of the aftermath of the murders.
Narratively it’s not a huge deal, but it’s an odd creative choice.
The Calm Before The Storm
The other effect of the three-week time jump is a cooling-off period around the island. This means that the vigilante mob that forms early in the episode calms down as life around the island returns to normal. Besides our central trio, we also learn that Bruce (Bill Heck) has proposed to Lyla (presumably between bouts of public sex).
There’s something enjoyable watching the beleaguered citizens take in a mundane carnival, even as director Logan Kibens and editors Christopher M. Meagher and Ray Daniels edit innocuous events such as throwing darts, wielding fake chainsaws and throwing at mannequin wigs into a montage of threatening activities. Also: kudos to writer Chaconne Martin-Berkowicz on the brief homage to the Shivers store in the 1997 film. It’s referenced when Sheriff Lyla picks up the dismembered arm of a plastic-clad mannequin as the fair closes.
And Then There Were Three…
The OG crew is down to three members. This makes for an awkward romantic triangle as Margot (Brianne Tju) becomes more possessive of Allison’s time, even as the twin grows physically closer to Dylan.
The result is barbed jealousy from the Instagram star. She does calm down after a three-week stint at rehab. While Margot is still far too invested in Allison (as well as her cute new dog Cheeto), ironically, her distrust of Dylan is spot-on. After all, Clara’s honey-asphyxiated corpse and Dylan’s traumatized response all but confirm that he killed the former cult member in that cave.
Deadly Dylan
Arguably the scene of the episode is when Allison comes clean to Dylan about her true identity. Naturally, she waits to do this until after they have sex, which is never a wise move. (Sidebar: we get both a butt shot of Ezekiel, and a realistic “pause to grab a condom” moment!)
The verbal battle that ensues is pretty brutal. Dylan accuses Allison of “letting Lennon bleed out” (cruel) and demanding to know if “it turned you on to fuck me while you pretended to be somebody else” (kinda apt, if we’re being honest). She, in turn, apologizes sarcastically for not living up to his “sad pixie dream girl” fantasy, which I looooved. He then storms off to turn himself in at the police station. Folks, I don’t know if these lovesick kids are gonna make it!
Future Focus
So here we are: headed into the season (series?) finale with only a few suspects left. The killer is definitely still at large because someone throws Margot through her glass balcony doors. I wanna call that a Scream 2 homage, but it’s probably a reach. And Dylan is definitely acting irrationally.
But then there’s the surprise reveal involving Allison’s mom. Not only is she 100% back in the picture, but Bruce, despite saying she wasn’t dead last week, looks very surprised when she turns up alive this week. I honestly have no clue where I Know What You Did Last Summer will go in its final hour. But all signs point to some significant family drama.
Is Bruce’s odd behavior enough to suggest that he is the series’ Big Bad? Or could it be Mommie Dearest? (That would be disappointing considering the character has only been around for the last few episodes). Despite all of this new evidence, my money is still on Dylan. After all, we know he’s killed at least one person!
I Know What You Did Last Summer streams Fridays on Amazon.
Categorized:Reviews Television
