‘Tell Me a Story’ Season 2 Episode 8: Jackson good guy among stalkers and killers, why does he suffer most?
Spoilers for ‘Tell Me a Story’ Season 2 Episode 8 ‘Sweet Dreams’
In the modern-day fairy-tale thriller ‘Tell Me a Story’, almost everyone seems to have a tragic tale going on for them. From Tucker to Maddie to Ashely Rose to Beau, everyone has darkness cast over their lives. And everyone struggles and suffers. But none more so than Jackson.
Played by Matt Lauria, Jackson Pruitt is the proverbial black sheep of the Pruitt family. He is a man who is torn between his demons and the desire to be a better man. But being a better man does not seem to be what is destined for him. And in all honesty, it is difficult to blame him.
Jackson is an alcoholic. His addiction puts him in trouble every so often. He is a brilliant and talented guitarist, just like his dead father. But his addiction (also seemingly a genetic gift) comes in the way of his success. And it is helped little by his mother (Carrie-Anne Moss), who seems to have given up on him in every possible way.
She kicks him out of a gig for his sister Ashley Rose because of his drinking. She constantly taunts him. And given that his two sisters are actually successful, she just sees him as a loser who never made anything of his life. She also probably sees way too much of his father in him, thus adding to the disdain.
But it is not Jackson’s alcoholism that makes up for the sum total of his demons. He suffers from a bleak sense of self thanks to a traumatic incident in his childhood. In fact, his alcoholism is a result of that. When he was 15, he and his father got into an accident where his father died. To this day, Jackson blames himself for letting the drunk man drive. To this day, he refuses to forgive himself. So, he numbs his pain with his addiction.
But his tragedy goes past that as well. Nothing good ever seems to happen to him. And when it does, it is almost immediately taken away from him. Take for example Simone (Ashley Madekwe), the woman he falls in love with.
It is true that Simone also probably has strong feelings for him. But she, in an effort to protect him from the giant mess that is her own life, pushes him away and pretends nothing between them was as serious as Jackson perceived them to be. Of course, Jackson doesn’t see the altruism of this move. He is only hurt and pushed into his downward spiral even further. Incidents like these keep happening to the man throughout.
In this episode, he finally has a cathartic moment. He and Maddie (Odette Annable) have a long talk. And after that, he sobers up and goes to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. But even that is shown in a sinister light, almost desperately hinting that things will not go well for him. In this one attempt to fix his life, the story will likely make Jackson fail. After all, he seems to be the unluckiest person there is in this tale.
New episodes of ‘Tell Me a Story’ Season 2 air every Tuesday at 9 pm ET, only on The CW.
