Saint X (Season 1), Episode 4 Recap & Ending Explained: The troubles of adapting an exciting piece of literature to the screen was visible in Hulu’s Saint X last week, which was mostly uninspiring despite having a rather interesting hook. In fact, that hook was the only thing that was working in its favor, as I mentioned. This week’s episode does seem like a tad bit of improvement overall. The writing is much better and compact, backed by impressive acting performances from lead stars Alycia Debnam-Carey and Josh Bonzie.
Saint X (Season 1), Episode 4 Recap
As the show keeps going back and forth in terms of the time period, I will try to do the recap as chronologically as possible, similar to last week.
How did Clive become a New York Cab driver?
This is a question that needed to be answered at some point, and now we have it. However, the way they filled in the blank is not particularly convincing and is most definitely the weakest part of the episode.
Here’s how it goes. Clive gets visited by his friend Berry, a character that was introduced last week but didn’t quite make an impact other than being a narrative tool by looking after Clive Junior for a bit. We find out that Clive is not on talking terms with Edwin, who keeps visiting the prison every now and then, only to be ignored by Clive. A few years later, Clive gets out and goes to see Sara and his son, who is now four years old. Sara is still understandably pissed at Clive for being pretty much an absent father. Now that he is not going to find any substantial job on the island, Clive decides to move to New York City and promises to provide for Sara and his son.
In New York, Clive starts driving a taxi and voluntarily opts for a life without any friends or fun as he has only one wish in life- providing for Sara and Clive Junior and hopefully getting back to them one day. Due to an Appendix burst, Clive goes through an unavoidable surgery that stops him from fending for Sara and his son for a while. When he informs that to Sara, he receives the saddest news of his life. Sara is now married, and they don’t need Clive anymore. A completely devastated Clive further isolates himself from everybody and continues to live a life of solitude. The once warm and friendly man completely goes away and makes way for the battered, hardened, lonely man who we see now.
The Past
We find a bit more about the time Thomas family was vacationing before it all went wrong for them. Alison and Olivia are pretty much best friends now, where the former shares the exciting development of her relationship with Edwin with the latter, who also seems really excited. Olivia does bring up the race question, not in the wrong way, though. But Alison quickly dismisses it, clearly stating that not only it doesn’t bother her at all, but Edwin being so different in every possible way is part of the charm itself.
While Alison continues to have her nice little impromptu romantic encounters here and there with Edwin, Bill suspects something is going on between them. Instead of confronting anyone about it, Bill tries to find out from Clive if Edwin is a good influence or not. Clive expectedly tells Bill not to worry as Edwin has a certain “in general” charm, which he applies to everyone. For now, Bill seems to be okay with that. Clive later tells Edwin about it and tries to convince him again regarding not having anything with Alison, as it would only lead to something terrible. But Edwin is obviously not going to stop, especially when it’s mutual and seems very much real to him as well.
Among the many flaws of Saint X, not properly establishing supporting characters is a big one. That is why a scene where Alison walks up to the pervert male half of the pregnant couple, calls him out, and asks him to back off doesn’t leave much impact other than giving us (maybe) a piece of important information. The next scene, where the man quickly retreats to his room, rushes to the bathroom, and does something with a female underwear with “Princeton” written on it, is even more important considering the context. Unless the guy has a deep-rooted humiliation kink which I am not ruling out, he does stand as a suspect.
Speaking of suspects, even though Olivia does tell her mother that Alison is the most genuine person that she has met on the vacation; I kind of smell jealousy the way she sees Alison’s life from the perspective of an outsider with a terribly sad life. I might be wrong here, and Olivia might be a genuinely good person, but you never know, right?
The Present
This is where Saint X hits the stride, especially in this episode. Alycia Debnam-Carey has this empty, melancholic pair of eyes that works very effectively when she is playing Emily, a woman whose entire life has been pretty much an after-effect of a tragedy that has scarred her forever.
As per her plan of befriending Clive, Emily keeps visiting the restaurant while Sunita keeps careful watch outside her car. It doesn’t appear to be an easy task for Emily as breaking Clive’s outside shell turns out to be quite a struggle. Only when she comes up with the story that she has recently moved and her boyfriend always works, so she is genuinely lonely and looking for a friend, Clive becomes compelled to show some empathy. Despite knowing the fact that it’s all a ruse to make Clive talk, Emily does not seem like someone who is only pretending. However, one night when Emily hops into Clive’s taxi, who offers to drop her home but then announces they’re taking a ride as he wants to show her something, she does hit the panic button inside, which escalates thousand times as Sunita fails to follow them.
Saint X (Season 1), Episode 4 Ending Explained
What does Clive show Emily?
Now I know as the audience that Clive wouldn’t harm Emily. We still don’t know what happened with Alison, but Clive doesn’t seem like a person who would do such a terrible thing. And Saint X is not trying to be a show which wants to blind your eyes with unimaginable twists.
This is further proved when we see Clive has taken Emily to a spot where they can see the Statue of Liberty, all glowing in the night, from the other side of a water body. It is the water that calms him down and helps him sleep, and he wants the same to happen to Emily. We don’t know what is going on inside Emily’s head, but maybe she is considering the fact that Clive is, in fact, not guilty of doing anything terrible to her sister.
After reaching a point where things might get out after all, Clive mentions Edwin without taking his name and how he doesn’t talk to him for over twenty years. When Emily asks the reason, Clive dodges the question as they need to get back because rain is coming. The concern is real, though, as rain does come, and Clive safely leaves Emily at her home and escorts her to the door with an umbrella. As this show likes to embrace all the familiar tropes instead of shying away from those, Josh sees Emily and Clive from a little distance. In an earlier scene, Josh secretly confides to Sunita about his concern for Emily, and the character hasn’t shown any jealous, annoying “I’m a nice guy but…” TV boyfriend sign yet.
What is the reason behind Clive not talking to his best friend for twenty years?
I have already said that the show has the habit of embracing all the familiar TV tropes, which is really disappointing, especially in a day and age where Television is breaking new ground with so much great content. But Clive using a punching bag to let all his frustration out is one thing that works, given what the man has gone through. Guess who Sara married? Yes, it was none other than Clive’s best friend Edwin. We now understand why Clive has completely removed Edwin from his life. The betrayal is too much to take for him, understandably.
It still doesn’t make Edwin the real culprit, though. Young Edwin might be a mischievous troublemaker, but I don’t think he is not a rapist-murderer. We haven’t seen older Edwin yet, and I understand the show is purposefully keeping that part away from us for a more interesting second half. I can’t say Saint X is a good show, but I also can’t deny that, at this point- I am genuinely looking forward to seeing another episode.
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