'Perpetual Grace, LTD' episode 'When Doves Cry' is all about love and the unusual ways in which people gain affection
'Perpetual Grace, LTD' episode 6 began just as it usually does - with something that we did not expect and partly didn't see coming. The episode titled 'When Doves Cry' in its entirety was all about Byron (Ben Kingsley) and Lillian Brown's (Jacki Weaver) love interspersed with other characters' love lives that the two characters had either influenced in the past or are influencing in the present. The instance of Byron advising Hector (Luis Guzmán) about how he is selfish and doesn't understand love comes about in an unusual way. It all begins with Byron reading Hector's manuscript for his detective novel that he has been at for a while now. In between correcting grammatical errors made by Hector and pointing out obvious mistakes that would have you burst out laughing, there is a moment where Byron understands how unhappy this man is in his marriage.
While he does blackmail Hector into showing the way to where his wife is being held, he advises Hector about how it's stupid to get confused between love and lust and he does it in a manner that we have come to associate with Byron - in rhymes. In the meanwhile, Lillian, who is now buried alive with a bamboo stick that was meant to help her breathe relives her love story.
Once upon a time, an orphan met another one and the two realized that they both manipulated men or women to be with them by telling them about how they grew up to be an orphan. We also learn how Lillian and Byron's story is quite similar to that of doves who mate for life. Even as she faces death, because by now the bamboo stick has been eaten by animals grazing nearby, she recalls how it had been with Byron.
In the time between Hector realizing that his mark of the spot - bamboo stick - has disappeared and Lillian is found, we see the extent that both Byron and Hector would go to, to make sure that a dove which has lost its mate doesn't die. The dove continues its cry for its dead mate because of which Byron cannot hear Lillian, but instead of just killing the bird, both Hector and Byron set out to chop the tree to let the bird fly away. It is the absurdity of it all which has kept me hooked on to the show all the while because characters in this world do not respond to things the way you would expect them to. Their thoughts, how their fear influences them, or how their insecurities do is something that is very personal to them and it is refreshing to see this portrayed deftly by the actors without making their characters seem too outwardly.
Something that I personally find fascinating about 'Perpetual Grace, LTD' is its unusual narration of layered characters. Their colorful lives are depicted with a mix of morbid reality and bizarre circumstances. Like the one that Texas sheriff Wesley Walker (Terry O'Quinn) finds himself in when he drives all the way to Mexico-US border to realize that the man who was captured in the previous episode was not the Paul Allen Brown (Damon Herriman) that he had met (who is in reality James acting as), but someone else. Then we have the real Paul Allen and James (Jimmi Simpson) bonding over how smart the latter was to pull a fast one over the sheriff.
Now that Byron and Lillian have made escaped from the clutches of Hector, we will have to wait and see how they save themselves from the local mob who is on their trail after Byron killed the Boss Lady's son. Will they manage to take that ride to the other side of the border? We will have to wait and see next Sunday when episode 7 is expected to air.
