As we watched the sixth episode of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, with its slow narrative and a horrifying end, we couldn’t help but ask ourselves about the effectiveness of its emotional connection. It was unnecessary to take three episodes for Alice’s childhood and then move on to depict all of Dylan’s red flags in just two episodes. The linear narrative killed the gravitas that the story could have had, in addition to rendering it a bit simplistic. The pace of the series shifts between slow and very slow, and there is nothing to be done about it, so here is a recap of episode 6 of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart.
Spoiler Alert
Does Twig Find Alice?
Twig is looking for Alice in the town, and she has put up a few of her posters around so that people may contact her. But Alice saw her do that and made sure to take them down before anybody could see. Alice informs Twig through a voicemail that she will call her or somebody at Thornfield when she is ready, but she doesn’t want to talk to them now. While Twig understands Alice, she still tries to message her since there are critical facts that Alice needs to know. But Twig cannot stay in Agnes Bluff for long since she gets a call from Candy, telling her that June is dying. June did not want Twig to know about her condition because she wanted her to come back of her own accord and not out of any sympathy for her. But as her health deteriorated, there was no time for pride, and Candy made the call to Twig. Since this is the penultimate episode, we just hope that Alice is able to go back home with Twig, have that much-needed reunion with her grandmother, and get all things out in the open.
Back in Thornfield, June is being stubborn as usual, but she also has her happy moments. Telling the truth to Candy has brought them closer, and we finally see a side to their relationship that we hadn’t seen before. When June was adamant that she wouldn’t take the medication, Candy was by her side and convinced her to do so by showing her the effect her actions over the years have had through the letters of gratitude left behind by others.
While June is settling her affairs, she asks to send a letter to an old flame of hers, Roberta, after whose name she created the fictitious Robert Baron. Candy goes to deliver the letter but comes back with the heartbreaking news that Roberta passed away four years ago. June wanted to contact her so that she could set things right between them and answer a long-held question. Years ago, when the two of them had been spending some alone time, a few men had chanced upon them. Roberta had managed to escape, but June wasn’t so lucky. She cut contact with Roberta after that, not because she was angry but because she did not have it in her to narrate the truth of what had happened to her. That incident is why June kept saying that Clen had a darkness in him that he got from his father. Her doubts had been further strengthened because of what he had done to Candy, and this is why she kept him at arm’s length. But when he was still a child, it was Twig who came to Thornfield and brought some happiness and care into their lives, which was also the start of their relationship with each other.
We have often heard it said that the nature of abuse is cyclical. It encodes itself into the victim and is one of the reasons that people suffering often find themselves at the receiving end of it time and again, despite changing their entire lives. June Hart was able to protect herself by isolating herself from men, but she still managed to transfer the victimhood to another woman: Agnes, who in turn embedded a seed of it in her daughter, Alice Hart.
Does Alice Open The Door For Dylan?
The foundation for any kind of manipulation is emotion. And that is what Dylan uses to do what he does with Alice. As for her, we couldn’t believe that she did not spot right away what he was doing, despite having grown up around women who were victims of such behavior. But then, it is one thing to hear it from someone and completely another to experience the insidiousness of it all for oneself. When Dylan uses a rather derogatory word for Alice for dressing up in a nice dress, she is left confused about whether it might really be her fault. Maybe if Alice had had a bit more experience with men, she would have immediately spotted it as a red flag and something that she should oppose instead of accepting.
When Dylan gave her a necklace to make up for his awful behavior, she believed that everything was alright between them. But then again, he ended up giving her the cold shoulder when she wanted to hang out with her friends. He denied that it was intentional, but he did set the tone for what he wanted from Alice. It was all adding to Alice’s confusion as she felt that she was already in love with him. Yet, when the moment came that he hurt her because he suspected that she was meeting someone when she had just gone for a walk, Alice didn’t realize right away that a line had been crossed. Dylan hurt Alice but made it all about himself, his fear, and his insecurities, forcing Alice to promise to “be there for him”. He tapped into the age-old conditioning of women—their need to be the savior of a man beyond any help.
Dylan asked Alice to do him a favor and not “set him off”, making his abusive behavior her responsibility. Thankfully, the alarm bells had started ringing in Alice’s head, and when she was in the middle of a forest fire, her childhood memories ended up being triggered, and she connected the similarity between Dylan and her father. When she went to Dylan’s place, and he was physically abusive once again, she knew the signs she had missed and the situation she was in. Alice gathered her strength and hit Dylan with the table lamp before escaping from his house.
At the end of episode 6 of The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, as she locked herself in her house and Dylan kept demanding to be let in, we saw the most heartbreaking part of the story, which was Agnes’s vision telling Alice that she should let in Dylan and not anger him further. “Not angering him more” had been Agnes’ way of protecting herself from Clen, and despite the difference in circumstances, those were the words that kept ringing in Alice’s ears. As the screen closes, we only hope that she was able to drown out her mother’s voice. We also hope she finds it in herself to listen to Twig’s message telling her about the things she needs to know. She needs to leave Agnes Bluff with Twig to get away from Dylan and make sense of her situation and her life.
Final Thoughts
There is no better way to say this than that we like this episode but have grown to detest The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart. This entire topic needed a better exploration. There was absolutely no need for a suspenseful atmosphere when the horror of the topic was effective enough. While we haven’t read the book, we suppose it would be better with the plot than the series has been.
