Sharp Objects Recap: Vanish

Limited Series / Episode: 1, Vanish / HBO Sharp Objects is the latest screen adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s work (after Girl Gone and Dark Places). This time around we follow Camille Preaker, journalist and all around floundering human being, played by Amy Adams as she returns to her hometown of Wind Gap, Missouri to cover the recent murder and the even more recent disappearance of two local girls.

Ready? Let’s get into episode one. The Past We start squarely in the land of overcrisp filter flashback. Cue two girls, one in knee socks and one in pigtails, skating down the road. They exchange a half-worried/half-flippant exchange about Mama and sneaking out. Next thing we know, they’re sneaking into a house. Their house? But then, the light changes and we got the iconic Obama poster on a desk, what in the time slip is gong on? Or when? The girls sneak into a bedroom where a woman is sleeping and wake her up. And disappear. And the music changes. So… It seems like Preaker-of-knee-socks-past was just a dream of current life-obviously-spiraling-out-of-control Preaker who wakes up looking like microwaved death to a call. She hauls ass to her job to talk to her boss and Editor, Frank Curry, about Wind Gap, Preaker’s hometown. It’s this connection that prompts Curry to insist that Preaker take her ass back home to investigate a possible serial killer. A little girl disappeared and was found strangled last August and currently a little girl is missing. Her boss, who may be captain of …