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'The Rook' season 1 episode 3 review: Myfanwy is getting closer to the truth but not close enough

It is getting increasingly difficult to trust that Linda only has the best interest of Myfanwy at heart.

Starz show ‘The Rook’ has intrigued us right from the opening scene and with each passing episode, we feel like we are on a carrot and stick chase giving us the illusion of getting closer to the truth. The same goes for Myfanwy (Emma Greenwell), who as of episode 3 is getting closer to finding out who she is and her past.

A word that reverberates in Chapter 3 is “Glengrove” and it holds the key to answering a lot more questions, starting with who within Checquy can Myfanwy truly trust? As far as we know, Linda Farrier (Joely Richardson) has hidden away quite a number of secrets, and despite her “motherly” instincts towards Myfanwy, she has some ulterior motives to keeping her around at all times and keeping tabs on her whereabouts.

That one particularly chilling yet nonchalant conversation between her and Home Secretary Jennifer Birch (Gina McKee), wherein it is very evident that she knows a lot more about Myfanwy that she is letting on. However, it is a very unlike source that leads our protagonist to the answers she is looking for in episode- a captured vulture.

He, in fact, serves multiple purposes in the story. Not only does his intention to anger Myfanway give away some important secrets about her past, but the Checquy’s treatment of the vulture - having no qualms about torturing him, and doctoring his words to use him as a scapegoat – gives us a better idea about what their allegiances are.

That being said, the vultures were hunting Myfanwy and the Gestalt Rooks risked their lives to save her. Like most others on the show, from Linda to Olivia Munn’s Monica, we see that Myfanwy too has no qualms about using people. We see that she is using the Gestalts’ affection for her advantage. To be fair to her, though, she doesn’t know who she can trust.

This episode we get a clearer picture of how the Gestalts function as four bodies (Ronan Raftery, Catherine Steadman, and Jon Fletcher as a pair of twins) and one mind – and yes, it is creepy. They wake up together, eat together, get dressed together, sleep together, and so on, without speaking a word to each other or exchanging a nod.

And, as fascinating as it was in the beginning, you cannot help but cringe at the same exact way in which every one of them stroke Myfanwy’s hoodie affectionately as they walk past the coat hanger – or how everyone else felt aftereffects of the kiss that she shared with Eliza (Steadman).

Episode 3 follows through with the pace of storytelling that episode 2 set up, and does a great job of keeping us intrigued without revealing too much. We are still unsure as to what Myfanwy’s past was like and if she is someone we can empathize with after we learn of things she has done. Most importantly, we are quite excited to see what a relationship between a woman and four people who share the same mind, look like.

This was possibly the best episode of the series so far and has laid the ground for what seems to be a tense episode 4, which is set to air on Sunday, July 21.