One of my favorite aspects of 11.22.63 is the idea of the past as a sentient being, and a protective, malevolent one at that. Someone or something that resents Jake’s intrusive presence, and fights back at him through whatever means it can find. It makes 11.22.63 wholly different from any other time travel narratives, where the protagonist is (usually) able to seamlessly blend in with the past. Sometimes it’s cockroaches swarming all over him; other times it’s higher-stakes, such as the entirety of last week’s “The Truth,” which arguably would have been avoided were it not for Jake’s involvement with Sadie.
That’s been one of my favorite aspects of the show, and also something that has been woefully underused. Until now. In “Happy Birthday, Lee Harvey Oswald,” the past might as well get its name in the credits, because it is everywhere, shitting all over Jake – and in doing so, it helps make this the best episode of 11.22.63 yet.
We’re now about five weeks away from Oswald’s attempt on JFK’s life, and the strain is starting to show. Bill is falling more and more in love with Marina, and demanding to know why Jake won’t just take out Oswald now, instead of waiting. Which is a fair point, and a question that has come up more than once, raised both by Bill and by viewers. Thankfully we get a perfect answer: “If I kill Lee, and George is involved, he’ll have time to recruit another assassin.” That makes total sense, so thanks for mollifying me, 11.22.63.
Unfortunately, it puts real tension on Jake and Bill’s relationship, which comes to a head at Oswald’s birthday party. A birthday party for Lee Harvey Oswald is one of 11.22.63‘s more surreal scenes, and the show commits to the weirdness by way of Daniel Webber’s off-putting performance as Oswald. He really taps into the man’s unsettling personality, and seeing him smile is equally as upsetting as seeing him brood or rage, which he does in “Happy Birthday,” after discovering a bug in his lamp, one of the show’s tensest moments so far. Yet there’s something not quite charming – I’ll say alluring – about him, and it’s the mysterious quality that has come to define Oswald. Since the real Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby just days after being arrested, we know precious little about the man, and what we do know is probably half true at best. Oswald remains a cipher, even fifty years later, and that might be what makes him such an interesting villain, or patsy, or both.
Which is why it’s definitely not a good sign when Jake finds out that Bill and Marina are having an affair, and also that Bill and Oswald get together to “talk books.” Bill’s reversal might seem too sudden to some, but it works for a few reasons. One of those is George MacKay’s desperate, stubborn portrayal of Bill, and another is the resistance that Jake faces from the past. When Bill yells “Fuck you, fuck your mission, and fuck JFK,” Jake knows he’s in trouble; when he sees Bill and Oswald passing a gun back and forth, Jake knows Kennedy is in trouble, as the show introduces the very real possibility that Bill is the second gunman on the grassy knoll.
That would all be bad enough, but “Happy Birthday” unfolds with the logic of a nightmare. When Sadie goes in for plastic surgery, Jake sees the man from Maine, the one with the yellow card in his hat, stroll calmly into the hospital. He looks so very out of place, and yet no one seems to notice. The fire alarm doesn’t work. The window is damn near shatterproof. So much could go wrong – and indeed, if Jake didn’t intervene Sadie would have died – that it comes as little surprise when Jake gets beat up (yet again) by bookmakers at the end of the episode.
“Happy Birthday, Lee Harvey Oswald” was 11.22.63 – and Stephen King – at its best. We lost none of the tenderness or warmth (I might have choked up a bit when Jake told Sadie “In the future we’re married”), and it added several doses of surrealism and outright horror. As we get closer and closer to the titular date, the show’s pace takes on the sick sense of inevitability that we heard in the doctor’s near-fatal countdown.
A Few Thoughts
- Jake’s interrogation of George de Mohrenschildt was one of the best scenes this show has ever done. It’s such a ballsy move to throw a wrench into the narrative with only two episodes left
- “Where’s the women having babies area?” If this is the last we see of George MacKay, that’d be a shame, but we’ll always have lines like that
- “You know what Deke calls you? ‘A new kind of woman.'”
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