I am only 4 eps in right now, but I am wondering about Grace and her quilt making, spinning a yarn, telling a story, what is told and what is withheld. Every time I watch Grace put that needle through the cloth especially with all the emphasison what women wear and what that has to say about class and position--well, I gasp. Margaret Atwood is the consummate storyteller herself, passing that skill to Grace. More to come when I finish the series.

I finished watching Alias Grace just a few minutes ago and am left reeling by its power. This series is the perfect post-Weinstein production, with its emphasis on the power of men over women. Whether she is telling Dr. Jordan the truth or the truth as he wants to hear it is never resolved--and that's what is so good about this series. Grace is a powerless woman who is nevertheless in control of the story. The last frame of ep 6 made me applaud.

I used to teach lots of stories about storytelling women--Isabel Allende and Leslie Marmon Silko come to mind as masters of this genre. If I were not retired, the Atwood novel would be on my next syllabus and watching the series would be required. It's that good.

I watched it all the way thru. But, I was multi-tasking and will watch it again at least two times.

I'm so wow'd by the lead actress. This was a monologue in many ways and she carried the story from start to finish. Her very subtle change while being hypnotized and I'm not at all clear about whether she actually way - was magic. it was a very self contained performance which is what I much prefer to see.

I really don't know what I think is true. Maybe I'll figure it out when I watch again.

I loved the quilt motif.

pure, you may never decide if she spole truth or not, or even what "truth" is in this amazing series. In the scene where the doctor gives her an apple and asks her what it is and she talks about apple pie and all that--and then the interior comment where she notes that he expected her to talk about the Garden of Eden and good vs. evil, and she notes that of course she knew that--"any child would know that". She is essentially powerless but she won't fall into his simplistic trap. And all the while that quilt is being stitched up as she puts her story into a Tree of Paradise pattern that thus disrupts the pattern.

I like how Dr.Jordan starts out all buttoned up in his coat and then, as the interviews proceed, gradually sheds the coat, then rolls up his sleeves, fantasizes about her sexually. Is she trying to seduce him? Or is the director showing how men in power look at women?

I htink you're right to see this series more than once and I will, too. I watched The Night Manager (Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie, Olivia Coleman, John Le Carre novel) three or four times and it gets better every time as it offers up more detail.

I wondered at the ending and was surprised she had spent most of her life in prison. She's exceptionally strong to have come out and was able to have a real life with her admirer turned traitor turned husband.

And the poor doctor, the intense experience with her caused him to break?

I like the concrete so much that I often prefer documentaries. But this is so well done, and I want to untangle the personalities. Was the hypnotized woman a split personality?

Must watch again.

"able to have a real life with her admirer turned traitor turned husband."

Pure, I don't see her ever having a real life. The final scene, where Jamie is sitting on the bed asking Grace to tell him stories about the most awful periods of her life is so darn creepy I could cry. It's as if he's just making her relive the horror over and over and over -- like Dr. Jordan does -- and it's all associated with their intimate life. He gets off on her misery.

As for the doctor, all those sexual fantasies about Grace and that ugly scene where he has sex with/rapes his landlady and then tells her he wanted to do that with another woman --Grace, of course --and not the poor landlady.. He took his desire tfor Grace out on a woman who would have given anything to be loved or at least respected by him. Grace really got to him and unsettled his certianties about women. But he really could not handle all of that.

You are right that Grace is exceptionally strong. That quilt at the end, with her and Mary's and Nancy's stories all embedded in the quilt --briliant. Atwood is so good as limning women's lives and the ways in which they deal with the patriarchy. I think -- though I have not read all Atwood's novels -- that she is endlessly subversive. Everyone around her thinks Grace is settled and oh so lucky. Grace knows the reality.

Small details: Grace licking the thread and threading the needle; Grace running the needle through a piece of cloth to signal that storytelling is finished for the day; the irony of a Tree of Paradise quilt that is embedded with the stories of Mary, Nancy, and Grace's imprisonment. Some Garden of Eden.

I don't know about the split personality theory but it certainly could be. For one thing, how could Jeremiah transform from peddlar to world-reknowned hypnotist. What a shape-shifer. Grace clearly saw Mary with her liveliness, surety, sense of rebellion as what she would liked to have been. And then look what happens to Mary. Grace speaks in Mary's voice in that awesome hypnotism scene but she threw so many curves in that scene that everything became unsettled.

I am obsessed with this series! I hope you keep posting about what you see in the series, pure. We can be our own mini-book club.

First, what do you mean by violence? Shoot-em-up? Gun fights? Smashing of heads and all that? No. But there is violence that is exclusively against women--a slap here, a kick there, tying up in an asylum, but what's new about that? Lynn, I strongly recommend this show. I'm sorry if I've provided too many spoilers. I was a teacher and love analyzing literature, sometimes can't stop my own mouth.

So .... I paid attention this time to the first episode. My big impression: she looks just like a cat! She tilts her head to the side and her eyes have that mesmerizing and mysterious gaze. Could it be I think so because I'm searching for a kitty for myself?

She was abused by her father that led her to almost killing him. She was alone in the care of her dying mother and when her mother's body was tipped into the ocean - the quick cutaway showed her as isolated and looking into the water.

She goes into service - I noted the downcast eyes when a 'superior' passed by - and she gets a real friend, Mary. When they're lying in bed at night, her hand touches Mary's hair and what I see is a cat's paw (not literally, I'm just so taken with her appearance).

I do love the writing and especially this actor's very self contained performance. That's why her tilt of the head is important and what she's doing with her fingers. The visual where beautiful quilts are opened on a bed and many female hands are smoothing the quilts. I so enjoyed each quilt and the women's hands caressing yet efficient.

More later .....

There are a few minutes of graphic violence - I held my hand up to block viewing it. It's a movie about the mind. The tricky part is figuring out from the first person narration what is authentic and what actually did happen.

I'm still trying to understand.

Well, there's a couple of murders.

Pure, you are so right about what is real in this series. That's always an issue with first-person-narrators. They speak from their own individual perspective and others might see things differently than they do. But they also mesmerize us--we WANT to believe them. In the end, just who is Grace Marks?