Blue Beard the Blasphemous

"I'm the realest guy in that whole school" Silly, whimsical little guy I love him.

I like that Matt isn't tanned and shredded like everyone else we see. Obviously Owen Painter is a gorgeous guy, but in a way that makes him genuinely nice to look at, rather than in an MCU kind of way.

The way the breakup was shot was fantastic, both of their facial expressions - ugh.

The missing fish scene was really good, I'd always thought it would take one hell of an actor to laugh and get high while talking about something that obviously terrifies him and Owen Painter nailed it.

Mourning the lack of green swim shorts, I won't lie.

The fight was good, but it should have been Matt's big moment and I feel like they put the focus on Bret a little too much. We could have got the same exposition/vibe even if Matt had more lines. But Bret being really persistent in going in for the kiss was gross in a good way.

Sad they didn't spring for Ghost Town, and that they made Matt explicitly a reggae fan as opposed to blues/jazz/ska more generally.

Ryan being concerned about Matt? The guy he wouldn't even give the time of day on account of him being Jewish?

Not to sound like I don't love to see my SON, but we didn't need a montage of Matt's daily routine, especially not from Susan's POV. The whole point was that his parents didn't know what he did, and when Bret thought about it neither did he.

The pins on Matt's backpack and his name tag, ooooooh, he was just a little boy.

No Matt potentially going to visit Robert plotline, since his dad was going to get the car serviced, not had got it serviced already.

The tape already? No "Brett"? While I would have loved to have seen more backstory I think the pacing up until this point was fairly accurate but now it seems like they're rushing to get through the Matt plotline so they can get to whatever the hell it is Ryan Murphy clearly actually wanted to do with the show. Bret finding out from Matt's father that he was murdered is such a huge deal in the book, the turning point of the entire novel. And now that scene categorically can't happen.

MY SON MY BABY MY SPECIAL BOY the beach scene is hard to watch and spectacularly acted.

However, they don't necessarily make it clear this is what Bret's imagining, since the whole thing no longer really takes place in his memory/from his POV. And Matt was canonically, explicitly not killed by The Trawler. Sooo??

Really, really mourning the loss of the prologue/epilogue scenes after this. I can't believe they crammed all of Matt's plotline into two episodes and he doesn't even get to come back as a ghost in the epilogue!!!

Overall: Owen Painter is great and they wasted him. Thank you.