Episode 4
Jay follows William and finds him going into Anna’s apartment as episode 4 of Obsession begins. He calls Ingrid and Jay is heartbroken, shaking with resentment and fear of what he is about to see. Anna is tried up with a blindfold and William starts caressing her body before they start having passionate sex. Jay breaks through the door and catches them in the act. He is so incredulous that he falls to his death from the railing.
William sits next to his lifeless body, naked, and sobs inconsolably holding him. Anna walks by past them without even looking back.
The police and ambulance arrive at the scene. Ingrid is shattered to pieces. She cannot believe Jay is gone and keeps banging her head into the cabinet. Even worse, they’ve also found out about Anna and William’s affair. Ingrid and William talk alone, where she tells him Jay called her right before he expected to see his own father and fiancee have sex.
Ingrid blames William squarely for all that has happened to their family. Before going to bed, she says William should have killed himself when he realized “he had lost himself to her (Anna).” Edward tells William that Jay tried to emulate him all his life. “But his greatest quality was not being anything like you.”
Does Anna show up at the funeral? What happens to William?
The stage is set for the funeral. Elizabeth shows up but tellingly, Anna does not. She apologizes to William and mentions Aston, who also wanted to kill himself. William resists the label that “Jay wanted to kill himself,” while Elizabeth says Anna always runs away after she has created a mess. Ingrid asks William for a divorce, saying he has become completely irrelevant to her.
William is being eaten up from the inside as Anna is not responding to texts or calls. He storms into Peggy’s workplace to ask about Anna. She points him toward her location, but Anna has decided to go to work already. Elizabeth indicates that boys have previously fallen for her “intensely”, including Aston. Anna is shocked Elizabeth knew about it, and that is why she resents Anna a little. She blames her for not accepting Aston’s love and Anna leaves the house angrily.
Anna has gone off to a resort, presumably going on the honeymoon that has already been booked in. A man admires her from the distance and she notices. Anna comes back to introduce herself and gives him the keys to her room. His name is David, and his wife, Lynnette, walks up to him. Anna comes clean about what happened to her to the couple in an attempt to really put things into perspective. Anna is only coming to the realization of what her actions led to, so she goes off to a club and flirts with a man. He takes her to a private place and tries to force himself on her but she backs away.
When Anna comes back, she finds William waiting for her on the rooftop. He takes care of her and they have breakfast the next morning. William laments how he let uncertainty into his thought process when he met Anna and destroyed his life. The impasse right now is that Anna feels they should own up to their mistakes, while William feels they should continue. Anna is shocked by William’s reaction and asks him to stay away from her, wishing vehemently that they never met.
How does Obsession end?
In the final showdown, Anna comes back to Peggy’s apartment and calls William. She kneels on the ground and waits for him, but when he comes in, he sees a realtor. Anna had actually called Peggy and asked her for help. The scene with William comes later; after Anna has left.
Anna writes a letter to William, saying whatever happens to her, she always survives. She also says William will survive this too and that he will always have her, endlessly.
As the episode closes out, Anna is finally taking therapy for her issues. But will she get over them?
The Episode Review
“It couldn’t have been all for nothing” really shows how taken William was by the idea of Anna. He had utterly surrendered himself to her lust, and this kind of attraction is rare to find in real life or ‘reel life’. But this was the foundation of Obsession that the makers tried to nourish and nurture. With such a subject matter, it is easy to go wrong, and it is difficult for viewers to like and accept it for what it really is.
One cannot take away too many positives from Obsession. The short series ends with no redemption or salvation, and there is no coming back from the events that transpired in the story. You can’t really blame the characters either. Charlie Murphy was extraordinary as Anna, she looked the part but also reached out for emotional sincerity in the artist within.
Indira Verma really brought her A-game to the final episode. When she had the chance, Verma took it with both hands and showed us what we missed seeing in the rest of the series. Episode 4 is the best of the lot and ironically, has the least amount of sex. It does not change how one feels about Obsession, although gives a relatively likeable exit from the show.
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Episode Rating
(3)
Sorry…I was intrigued by the series. It was erotic, sensual, taboo, and edgy throughout episodes 1-3. The first 10 min of episode 4 was worth the wait. Who would have thunk it. I must admit I would have liked for there to have been redemption in Annaś life. She had some serious, major fucked-up-ness going on. You could never quite figure her out – did she want love, real love? did she only feel loved by men who lusted for her? was she a victim or the victimizer (is that a word?). Her mother said she had a way of making a mess of things, and walking away. Some of the most attractive women are the ones who are the most screwed up. Men become enthralled with their looks – but not the person as a whole. Thatś sad. Thereś no substance in that. Sex is great, but a relationship of faithfulness, respect and love is more fulfilling. Why not have them both? But all moralizing aside – I wanted more of a sense of coming full circle, an ephipany, a lesson learned in both characters, but unfortunately, and most of the time, thatś not the way it goes. At the end, Anna is seeking help from a psychologist (she needs a psychiatrist), but itś from a MAN. For rehabilition, she needs to be far away from a human being with a penis! She´s a seductress – thatś the only language she knows. She may not mean it, but it turns out that way. In all I liked it. How could not the first episode just pull you right in?
The film Damage was enough for that narrative. We did not need a series to drag us again through the pain that the son and his mother suffered. I was secretly hoping that the series would not end with the son’s fall….the series has done nothing for us
There are some things that should be left well enough alone. The original Damage was perfection both in telling the story and the acting by Jeremy Irons and Juliette Binoche. The ending scenes of Jeremy Irons living a life of minimalism and regret looking at a photograph of himself, his son and Anna is heart wrenching. There is also a voiceover on what happens to Anna.
One of my favourite films Damage, has resurfaced as Obsession, a cheap retelling of the story.