The Woman Who Found Bite Marks On Her Skin
Episode 4 of Roar starts with Ambia about to give birth. She claims there are too many white people in the room, and chalks this up to the reason why the baby doesn’t want to come out.
Anyway, something is wrong with Ambia as she starts hemorrhaging. It looks bad but we soon fast forward in time to find Ambia preparing to head back to work. Her partner, Greg, is left to look after Zoe (their eldest daughter) and Harvey (their newborn son.) Ambia is quite the highflier at work and happens to be one of the partners working at a private equity firm called Layman Capital Group. However, faint whiffs of sexism seem to be in the air among the men.
Ambia notices a bite mark above her breast while she’s pumping milk in private, and in fact she stays late at the office and misses her promised bedtime story with Zoe.
Zoe isn’t happy with her mum showing up late, and even tells her that she should be “making things better, not worse” when Ambia tries to explain herself. Ambia eventually lies with her daughter in bed, pointing out that not all women are the same and she works hard to make sure they have a good living.
Zoe is distracted at work though, partly thanks to random bite marks she keeps finding; one on her thigh and the other on her breast. Ambia is on the cusp of leaving the family again, heading off for a business lunch. She avoids calls from Greg, and even admits later on with her colleague Rodney that she’s having a good time. Eventually he encourages her to turn her phone off. She’s also peer pressured into drinking.
It turns out Greg’s calls are in relation to Harvey, who happens to have a fever of over 104. He’s obviously not happy when Ambia returns his call early in the morning, intoxicated, pointing out she shouldn’t have ignored him all day.
When Ambia eventually heads home, she sports nasty bite marks all over her cheek and neck. Zoe screams when she sees her mother, while Greg encourages Ambia to go to the doctor and get them checked out. Ambia refuses, using her marriage therapist as an example of why these sort of things don’t work. Instead, she presses on with work.
Things take an awful turn though when Ambia belittles the other workers in the office. She suddenly pauses, as a strange bulge on her hand paves way for a tooth to sprout. It’s a horrific scene and one that eventually sees her pass out.
Ambia awakens in the hospital to find herself still covered in bite marks but with some slick visual effects paving way for her heading down to a therapy group in the hospital after-hours. It’s very clearly a dream sequence but it’s really nicely put together.
Numerous other women are there too, also sporting bites of their own. Ambia talks about how the bites started when she was at work. She believes Greg is resenting her while Zoe clings to every piece of skin while she’s there. Meanwhile, she’s unable to confront her feelings regarding Harvey’s birth, given it was a bloodbath and she feels guilty that she can’t fully enjoy her son’s birth. It sounds like she has post-natal depression.
At the same time, it’s a physical manifestation of her letting work “eat her alive.” When Ambia awakens, Greg rushes into the hospital, apologizing. The bites are getting better now while Ambia seems a little calmer after talking about her issues.
The Episode Review
This chapter showcases Ambia’s plight, although by the end one could argue that she’s been suffering from post-natal depression, which is why she’s decided not to be with her family so much.
Ambia is putting all of her energy into going to work, despite being offered to stay at home longer. She’s paranoid over Rodney taking her job (despite making it clear he doesn’t want it, although it’s not clear if he actually does or not) and she’s succumbing to peer pressure with her colleagues.
It was tough to watch Ambia swayed into drinking alcohol and ignoring her family. Although the therapy session did help somewhat toward the end, it’s still a little disappointing that we didn’t get to see more of Ambia’s depression or sensitive side to level out her persona. This would have done wonders to really help take us on a journey with this character.
Either way, this is likely to be a polarizing episode; let’s hope the later chapters can knock it out the bag.
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Episode Rating
(2.5)
I dunno….just tell me where the bites came from..and that TOOTH! I supposed all of these stories are directed through analogies and while things like “bite marks” as shown in ep 4 are implied as the core of the plot, they are merely metaphors ie: “the bites are her feelings of guilt and shame”. I will give this “Roar” thing 2 or 3 more episodes since the vapid “use your imaginations…we ran out of ideas” endings are getting old.
Wow. Look at you, concerned reader, calling out someone who is neither black nor a mother for having the gall to offer his review of a complex episode. Like he cannot have an opinion on anything regarding race or feminism; How woke of you! How about he has the same right to post his views as you do for saying he can’t post his views. I think he made some valid points.
This episode is not about postpartum depression. The bite marks are a physical manifestation of the guilt and pain of trying to carry motherhood, marriage, and career at the same time. Through the process of pregnancy and giving birth, of course we gain the most precious thing, which is having a family, but we are set back years in our careers and relationships. It is incredibly difficult, particularly in those early years.
As a white man, I totally get where you’re coming from. Black lives aren’t special, they are just as important as white lives. I think that the point of this episode is that if women want to work, they need to take care of their family life first. Anyway love your reviews, it’s nice to hear someone that isn’t swayed by all this PC bullshit.
Wow… you could not have possibly understood the nuances of this episode less. You should maybe watch it again. It is deeply profound, and meant to give people (maybe like you) who don’t know anything about the mountains of shame that come with being a mother, insight into this experience.
Dude. This review missed the point of the story completely. Opinions like those expressed here are a big part of why women suffer so severely, especially in their postpartum period. Just another man being “disappointed” in a mother’s performance. This episode would not have been so relatable if I hadn’t lived something like this myself. Next time I hope that as a man you watch something like this and pass on reviewing it so that someone in the target audience can share their thoughts on it.
Hahahah! This summary was definitely written by a man. You missed the mark, Greg. Big time! The societal expectations placing unrealistic expectations on mothers creating feelings of anger, guilt, and shame manifest the bite marks. These emotions are unfortunately very common and are not the same as postnatal depression, Greg. Also agree with the above comments on systemic racism and sexism in medicine.
Hey thanks for commenting, it’s a fair point to be honest and perhaps it was a bit harsh to judge the show from this statement early on. Perhaps it’s a knock-on effect of watching ‘This Is Going To Hurt’ earlier this year, the BBC drama, which had a very similar scene but with the roles reversed. Within that, a pregnant woman about to give birth bemoans having “someone like her” (referencing a black female doctor) in the room. I do appreciate that my comments may have been misconstrued and interpreted in a different way.
I did like the therapy session at the end, I thought that was a nice touch, although it would have been nice to see a bit more. As I’ve said in previous shows and episodes, shows tackling racism and sexism are incredibly important and even in this anthology, there are other episodes that do handle that better. The Returned Husband episode, for example, is a really solid chapter that explores this writing really cleverly.
Thanks for taking the time to comment though, I appreciate the heads up and have reworded parts of this review as a result.
Many thanks!
-Greg W
I don’t usually leave comments…but, Greg, as a white man do you really not see the irony in what you call “racism” repeatedly? You’ve never given birth, nor have you ever been black, nor have you ever been a woman at work. Your call outs of Ambia and the show seem to point to areas that as a critic of art, you have some growth and reflection to do. If you’re going to reflectively watch and review art that deals with these the complexities of systemic racism and sexism, maybe being critical of your own inherent bias (which by definition, every human being has) would not only better your commentaries, but the world of viewership at large. The whole point is that there are underlying pressures that Ambia is dealing with at work that contribute to her avoidance of her family. Your criticism shows that you’re missing the subtleties the intended viewership (non-white, non-men) are surely not missing. I truly believe you want to do better, so please do.