Somewhere through the evolution of television, the idea that any antihero had to have a tragic past became the norm. If our main character had a bad streak, surely there was an explanation for it that would make him or her’s actions understandable and make the character even more sympathetic. Don Draper has his troubled childhood growing up in a brothel, Dexter Morgan’s first memory was murder and being covered in blood, Walter White had a friendship that went south that ended up changing his life, etc. At this point, TV has been filled with antiheroes to a point that its basically cliché. As we learn more about the pasts of the cast of The Red Road,, it is interesting to learn about what makes these characters tick, yet like almost everything in The Red Road, it just sort of feels like we’ve seen this all before.
Harold Jensen is slowly growing more character as he continues to be in over his head. His wife is now in a mental hospital and only getting worse; his daughter won’t quit running off with her no-good boyfriend; and he’s being pushed by Phillip Kopus to help him out, which is detrimental to his job. Having left his kids at his parent’s house, Rachel discovers more about her father. First, Rachel may have been a twin, and second, her father used to record weird cassettes of himself talking about how much he loves dead bees and how great it must be to be a ghost. The first fact will surely only cause more distrust between Rachel and her family, but the second, I mean, what’s the point? That her father used to be sort of a weirdo? Alright.
This matter-of-fact weird knowledge dropping always seems out of place in “The Woman Who Fell From the Sky.” While bargaining for a gun with his father, Phillip is told bluntly that his mother wanted to have him aborted. Thanks dad, can I have the gun now? It doesn’t really serve any purpose in the scene rather than show just how crappy Phillip’s life growing up was, which we already have seen. Phillip’s mother, Marie, even drops some awkward knowledge on Junior. When he won’t tell her why he’s been beaten up, she just lets loose the bombshell that she has cancer. It’s out of nowhere once again, like it would make more sense in The Room.