Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Shes Isabelle Adjani in 1981sPossession, contorting and flinging groceries into a glorious mess that feels like divine ritual.
The madwoman is an archetype that crosses time and national origins, conventions of class and flavors of womanhood.
The madwoman is revelatory and reflective, untamed and yearning, and Dre is, too.
But she is something else that madwomen have rarely been in cinema or the American imagination: Black.
Fishback, meanwhile, never condescends or looks down upon Dre.
What should a Black madwoman reveal?
How should she speak to the intersecting concerns of race and mental illness, femininity and power?
Pickens realizes that Black madness and the mad Black are radically disruptive.
Or at leastcanbe,shouldbe.
The presence of Blackness isnt inherently revolutionary though.
She immediately fumbles into a refrigerator, heaving to the point of hyperventilating.
With her hand she spoons pie into her mouth, bits of food tumbling from her lips.
Dre doesnt just eat, she gorges.Two episodes later, shes still voracious.
She devours them, her eyes never leaving NiJah.
Intimacy becomes a spectacle.
As Dre mines the murky depths of this memory, she remembers it wasnt milk at all but blood.
Whose did she spill?
Were introduced to the maternally warm but cunning Major Det.
Oh, I see.
You want me to tell you her sob story.
That she was touched or something?
That she saw her mother murdered and from then on a screw was loose?
The only reason you want Andreas sob story is so it’s possible for you to absolve yourselves.
You need there to be a reason that shes messed up.
Dre is living in Atlanta.
Rashida accepts the offer and a flirtation sparks.
Fishbacks downcast eyes communicate a friction; shes never been in a family that genuinely cares for her.
The softness of her features adds a wonderful contradiction to the sharpness and harshness of everything else.
Soon after, Dre decides to spend beaucoup bucks on NiJah tickets to surprise Rashida for her birthday.
Rashida doesnt hold back in her response, Are you dumb?
Lets make this clear, I dont like NiJah and you know that … Youre a selfish asshole.
Our lead snaps, and for a moment, the snap is fascinating.
Her madness marks a loss of self and identity, a total disconnection from her present circumstances.
Hands around Rashidas throat, Dre straddles her on the couch and strangles with fierce conviction.
Dres murders up until this point have all been blunt force trauma or a bullet to the head.
In this scene, theres an unspoken intimacy.
Dre cant look at Rashida as she kills her.
Her gaze drifts closer to the cameras eyeline, tears stream down her face.
I wanted to share NiJah with you because I love you, Dre softly whispers.
Pure delusional fantasy takes over: Dre goes to the concert desperate to find tickets.
(Wouldnt she have a digital copy?)
Dre kills a scalper in his car for a ticket.
Swarmnever fully connects the dots between Dres sexuality and the forces that put her in NiJahs thrall.
Shes a question mark, not an answer.
Security captures her before she can even touch her queen: hey, NiJah.
Let her go, NiJah responds.
When NiJah steps into the light, Marissas face has been sloppily superimposed.
Dre holds NiJah tight as they walk to the car afterward.
Dre is lost in her delusion, with no recourse.
Resting her head upon Marissa-as-NiJahs bosom, Dre welcomes a happy ending that will in fact never come.
It isnt that I want to witness Dre facing carceral repercussions.
It isnt that I want to see the reality that Dre has broken from.
Dre is consumed by her very unruliness, unable to escape or reckon with the strictures on her life.
Shes not a disruption of the status quo but its reaffirmation.
