Hand To Mouth – As the third episode of Black Bird begins, Jimmy Keene (Taron Egerton) sits in the prison cafeteria and watches Larry Hall (Paul Walter Hauser) from a distance. When he sits down with Dr. Aaron Zicherman (Christopher Duncan), they begin talking about Jimmy’s first week at the prison which he calls disorienting. He confesses he is having nothing but second thoughts. Aaron tells him that Larry’s place is in here and never back out there. Jimmy has been placed in Larry’s unit directly across from his cell and everyone in the unit is medicated. Aaron wants to prescribe him an antidepressant to avoid arousing suspicion. Jim is warned not to visit Aaron much because that could make people suspicious too. He is told most prisons become predictable with time because they have a rhythm. As for Springfield, its only rhythm is unpredictability.
It will wear on him and impact his peace of mind. Jimmy asks if that is what happened to the prisoner in his cell before him since there is a bloodstain on the floor. Aaron reveals the inmate was a self-harmer. Before the conversation ends, Jimmy asks how to get in touch with him if things go south since the guards don’t like demands. Aaron gives him his home phone number 612-5711 because it should be enough to convince any guard to contact him. While waiting for his pills, Jimmy runs into Larry and asks how he is doing. Larry won’t respond to his though. Brian Miller (Greg Kinnear) catches up with Lauren McCauley (Sepideh Moafi) to learn more about Jimmy Keene and that operation. She says Larry would’ve detected an undercover agent and Jimmy should’ve known the risk of prison when he was dealing drugs.
She wants to go through all calls from the Hall house for a decade before running all unsolved murders from nearby states against Larry’s days off from his janitorial job. She wants to check missing persons cases against Civil War and Revolutionary War reenactments. Although they’ve done it before, they’re going to do it again. Brian looked at the Reitler file last night and learns that Marion PD drove Larry out to the country to look for the body the day before he was transported to Illinois. Despite Marion complaining about Larry wasting their time, he did it to them again since they didn’t find anything. Brian argues that Larry wasn’t the same guy when he drove him to Illinois. Larry just sang his butt off and never said another word about the killing. During lunch, Jimmy overhears Larry talking to someone about their mother changing the oil. The other inmate gets up and leaves as Larry goes on about the gas corroding the tank.
Jimmy tells him that the guy seemed pretty upset before introducing himself. Once again, Larry doesn’t respond to him. Later, Jimmy gets a visit from Big Jim (Ray Liotta) who isn’t in bed because he wants to keep his mind active. Big Jim says he showed the fellas here his badge and they let him in even though it wasn’t visiting day. He believes they’ll look out for him since cops are a brotherhood. Jimmy tells him that he wasn’t supposed to have a family, but he just outed him as a cop’s kid. Big Jim apologizes and admits he forgot because the parts of his mind aren’t connecting. He believes all he ever does is screw Jimmy up. Jimmy confesses that this is scary like his father said. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to pull off what they want since he gets scared. He thinks that he has to do better because he is Big Jim’s son. When he was little, he’d always tell himself that he’d be that guy.
Big Jim is going to rent a motel so he can stay around. Jimmy reminds his dad to respect regular visiting hours before the meeting ends. He asks the guard to keep this quiet and he seems okay with that. The guard tells him that an old timer named Vincent ‘The Chin’ Gigante has been asking about him. CO Carter tells him to introduce himself to Vincent and drop his name because he is one of the best guys to know in here. His dad did the job and told him that it was hard time because people were giving each other a hard time. They agree it doesn’t have to be like that. On March 27, 1993, 16-year-old Rayna Rison disappeared after leaving her job at the vet in La Porte, Indiana.
Brian says it was three days before Tricia was killed in Marion. Rison’s body was pulled out of a pond two months later and the cause of death was strangulation. The police focused on Rayna’s former brother-in-law, but the DA dropped all charges for lack of evidence. They targeted the brother-in-law because he had been convicted of molesting her when she was 12. A bottle of Rayna’s birth control pills was found in Larry’s van. Lauren thinks they meant case instead of a bottle. Larry was pulled over in his dirty van when the pills were discovered. They also found a hunting knife, ski mask, gloves, coils of rope, and a missing persons poster for Tricia Reitler. The evidence ended up nowhere because Hall was cited for a misdemeanor and released. He confesses that afternoon when they kept him on a 12-hour hold and kicked him loose after calling him a serial confessor.
Outside, Jimmy talks to Vincent about being Italian and playing boccie with his Irish grandfather when he was a kid. Vincent tells him not to get fresh with him because guys would run over their dog to play boccie with him. None of those guys know he has bursitis in his shoulder, but Jimmy does now. If anyone says bursitis around him, he’ll know that Jimmy opened his mouth. Once Jimmy says he understands, he is told he is going to play with Vincent and make all the long throws. He likes Jimmy because he has manners. He tells him not to screw up so he can do pleasant time. As they play, they talk about the fact that Jimmy doesn’t know Italy because he grew up in Wisconsin. Later, Jimmy follows Larry to ask him if he doesn’t like him or something. Larry questions if that is what he was going to ask him. Jimmy says he was going to ask what he does for fun around here.
Jimmy follows them to the television and learns they’re watching their own, America’s Most Wanted. Another inmate bursts in and turns the channel. Larry tells him they were watching that only to be told they’re not now. Jimmy changes the channel back before Falco tells him he’ll want to change it back. Jimmy ends up beating him up until the guards pull him off. Jimmy is placed in isolation for a while before being released. As he returns to his cell, Larry asks him about being let out. Then, he wonders why he stuck up for them although Jimmy says he wasn’t. They formally introduce themselves and shake hands. Jimmy asks him why the other guy got so upset the other day. Larry explains that Percy (Joey Bicicchi) is excitable. Percy got upset because he doesn’t think he’ll ever see his car again. Once Larry asks what he drives on the outside, Jimmy says a ’67 Camaro SS.
Larry likes vans. He thinks it is unhealthy to think like Percy since there is always hope. Carter (Joe Williamson) asks Jimmy for a second. Carter says he heard the Chin took a shining to him and those guys can make your time go easy if you’re one of them. He wants to know if Jimmy is someone The Chin can put his trust in. Carter believes Jimmy is a snitch because he came into the prison under an assumed identity. Jimmy is warned that it could be bad if it gets out that he isn’t who he says he is. Carter wants to make sure people continue thinking he is Jimmy the gunrunner, but he is going to need something in exchange. Carter gets rough with him before asking for a small loan since he knows he was a big player in Chicago and can afford it. He wants $10,000 even if Jimmy has to talk to his daddy. Carter already reached out to his father to make sure he’ll be tomorrow.
When Carter leaves, Jimmy tries to pretend that everything is okay. He invites himself into Larry’s cell and begins talking to him about the reenactment photos on his wall. Larry tells him about the Burnsides as well as his brother Gary. He goes on to talk about his brother taking all of his nutrients and growing strong although Jimmy says he looks fine to him. Larry asks why he is being nice to him. Jimmy says he doesn’t know how anyone does time in a place like this without having a friend to talk to. When Big Jim comes, he tells his son that the bag of money he gave him is already gone. As for the drugs, he gave them to Danny to say before he claimed he got jacked up by some Nicaraguans or Ecuadorians.
Jimmy warns him that he is dead if he doesn’t come up with 10 grand. He tells her about a speaker in the Kankakee house that should have about a kilo. If Big Jim can get the drugs to him, Jimmy will find a way to move it in here. Big Jim promises not to let him down. Lauren and Brian talk to a cop in La Porte, Indiana about the murder of Rayna Rison. He tells them that they had to let the prime suspect go because they didn’t have much on him, but most people thought he did it. He thought the same although he thinks it was a boy she was seeing a few years back now. Even though Hall confessed to the murder, he ruled him out. He admits to finding a bottle of birth control pills in Larry’s van. It was a bottle with a dubious label on it. He checked every pharmacy within 75 miles and couldn’t find a prescription for birth control in Rison’s name.
When they checked the victim’s blood, they found trace amounts of Accutane, acetaminophen, and some THC. She had no progestin or anything used in birth control medication. As for Larry, he told a good story. He was worried what would happen if Larry told the same story to a gullible reporter or cop. He says Hall was at a Civil War reenactment in Ohio a few hundred miles away when she was killed. He found witnesses and pictures of Hall with the witnesses. The cop eventually had to explain why he wasted so much money proving Hall’s innocent. He believes Larry Hall planted fake evidence on himself for a crime that no one was looking at him for. Larry talks to Jimmy about the arrowheads all over the woods behind his parents’ house. He founds arrowheads, coins, and a base of a lamp that had to be about 100 years old. He talks about the open lands and how those fields have things under them.
They talk about missing things outside before Jimmy says football was the only lie he ever loved. When Larry questions why it was a lie, Jimmy says it was a lie that life would always be that good. He thought he’d get the girl and they’d go off to live a happy life together. After Jimmy suggests he peaked in high school, Larry thinks he peaked in the womb. They begin laughing before Carter walks in with a bandage on his face and claims hockey got intense last night. Once they’re alone, Carter says they cracked his cheekbone so he could still work and he wants his money. Jimmy tells him it’ll be product and he’ll need to move it. He will try to sell the whole thing to the Latin Kings or Black Guerrilla gangs. Meanwhile, Larry talks to a counselor about Jimmy. He says Jimmy is easy to talk to because he looks at him instead of looking through him.
When Lauren and Brian go out for a drink, they try to figure out what type of person would plant fake evidence against themselves for a crime no one is even looking at them for. Brian suggests it would be a supremely screwed-up human being. He still believes Larry is a killer even though his brother calls him a serial confessor. Lauren confesses they’ve gone through all these cases and haven’t found anything that pins them on Hall. Brian says Larry doesn’t leave any trace behind and he buries the bodies in places where nobody ever goes. Brian argues he is really good at this, but Lauren says he may just like telling stories. Larry takes Jimmy down to the boiler and says he’ll be fine since he is with him. Jimmy says he is there for selling guns without a license and displaying antisocial tendencies. Larry tells him that he cleans up spills and fixes things in jails.
Jimmy asks about the worse mess he ever had to deal with. Larry tells him about the factory floor where something died and the rats got to it. Some idiot decided to mop over it before giving up. He had to use the big guns such as the industrial floor strippers and tried to work some grit into it. Urine is the secret ingredient so he always urinated in the bucket. He begins talking about all the bodily fluids and how they have their own purposes. Then, he reveals that Gary sometimes says they’re wet. When Jimmy asks what is wet, Larry puts his hands over his privates.
Jimmy says vagina before Larry admits he thinks they’re making it up because he never had a wet one before. The women he has been with are as dry as pine bark so it is all scratchy. Once Jimmy asks how he penetrates, Larry says he just kind of jams it in and he doesn’t care what the girl thinks. As for Jimmy, he only cared once when the girl didn’t like the way things were going down. Jimmy explains they were younger at her parent’s house. She was going to scream so he covered her mouth real hard and finished. Then, he had to tell her to never say anything or else. Larry asks what he means by or else, but Jimmy says he doesn’t know. Larry does. The guard comes to tell them it is time to shower. When Big Jim visits again, he tells his son that he didn’t find anything. He admits Danny stayed there the one weekend Jimmy said he could although Jimmy never told him he could stay there.
Jimmy begins worrying that he is going to die in here. He gets up and asks one of the guards, Holt (Trazi Lashawn), about Carter who had an emergency. Brian remembers Larry telling him that he likes Mopar parts. Lauren goes to the prison to get an update from Jimmy who says they aren’t at the stage of talking about the murders yet. She asks if he thinks Larry might just be a sick a-hole who likes taking credit for things he didn’t do, but Jimmy doesn’t. He tells her about the ten grand only for Lauren to say she can’t get him ten grand because the bureau would never approve it. Instead, she offers to get him out of the prison. He’d go back to Milan to do his time. As for Larry, he might get out if the judge decides that the confession was coerced. Jimmy says he is staying in despite the risks. Lauren tells him that Hall confessed to a crime they know he didn’t do.
She worries that he might not be their guy after all, but Jimmy says he can’t think like that. Lauren urges him to accelerate his timetable, get Hall to say where the bodies are buried, and they’ll get him out. Jimmy tells her to keep her cell phone on before leaving.
Black Bird Review
Black Bird is an interesting, unique true crime drama that has been decently acted through three episodes. The series is fascinating enough that I am eager to research Larry Hall’s case a lot more than I already have, but I’ll wait to avoid spoiling anything. The show really shines when Jimmy and Larry are together and we’re getting closer to a possible confession.
Lauren and Brian’s investigation isn’t as exciting although it provides tidbits of information about the evidence against Larry from time to time. The series is probably one of the most enjoyable shows on right now, but some small things are concerning. I worry that six episodes might be too long because the cat and mouse game can only continue for so long before it gets repetitive.
The series won’t be as exciting if it focuses too much on things outside the prison. As for the prison itself, it really doesn’t feel like a violent, frightening place. It could be the budget or the glowing portrayal of Jimmy, but the prison just seems small and not terrifying at the moment. Finally, there are aspects that are just difficult to believe, especially the whole thing with the guard extorting Jimmy and trying to smuggle drugs into the prison.
Whether these things were in the book or not, it still feels like reality is being bent to deliver a good tale. Truthfully, I am okay with these issues and will happily overlook them as long as things don’t get too outlandish. Every episode has been enjoyable even if it is only loosely based on reality and it could easily get better.
The episode scores a 7.5 out of 10. Recaps of Black Bird can be found on Reel Mockery here. Find out how to support our work at this link.
