DANGEROUS METHODS: DTMWaGL #47

I sold out and took screenshots for this one

Hello friends! As you know, there are many Lifetime movies about things that are DEADLY or DANGEROUS, and the list is growing every day. Spas, isolation, medicine, affairs, cheerleaders, the mile high club. Today we add something new to the list: method acting, you know, the thing where Daniel Day-Lewis made the crew of My Left Foot spoon-feed him because he had to remain in character for the whole shoot, and where Austin Butler had to go to the hospital with the worst case of “forgot his real identity after playing Elvis for so long” that medical science has ever seen. Sure! Why not! Haven’t done this one before exactly, let’s see how it goes. (Content warnings for animal death, murder, and dissociation.)

We meet our method actor, Desmond Gage, as he walks into a man’s prison cell and smothers him with a pillow. But he was just acting! But the guy he smothered really seems pretty convinced that he was about to die. Maybe he’s a method actor too! Maybe we’re all method actors in this play called Life. Desmond needs an assistant, and a young woman named Alicia is sent out to a teeny little cabin in the middle of nowhere to fill the position. On-screen text informs us that it is MONDAY as Alicia arrives to this adorable cabin where there is no cell service, and her boss Sharon shows her around. There’s Desmond, just standing stock still on the deck, here’s a rotary phone for use in emergencies, but you have to hide it from Desmond and if he hears it he’ll “go ballistic,” yada yada you’ve all been through orientation at a new job. Sharon tells Alicia to give Desmond this stomach medicine every day, and advises her to keep him company and not let his cat starve, anyway byeeeeee.

Alicia looks around and greets the cat, tipping a comically tiny jug of cat food (like one of those plastic tubs of rice) into a comically large bowl. The cat is named Sylvester and he is a handsome and perfect boy, but remember the content warnings. Desmond comes inside and introduces himself, and Alicia forgets her own name for a moment, starstruck by the captivating Desmond Gage, before blurting out that her friends call her Lacy, and we’re all friends here! Desmond, a good host, wants to make her something to eat but what he does instead is cram a bunch of farmer’s market vegetables into a blender willy-nilly and insist that it’s good. This is how men make smoothies, and Lacy can’t even pretend that she thinks it’s good. Desmond asks Lacy about herself, and she says that she grew up on a farm in Arizona (??????? I guess they grow cotton and lettuce there) and needed a change, so she came to California. And here she is, the assistant to movie star Desmond Gage as he immerses himself in the role of a lifetime: a guy named Leonard. The dream!

Lacy gets ready for bed and has a soak in an improbably large tub. I can suspend a lot of disbelief for the sake of a Lifetime movie, but I saw that cabin from the outside. I’ve been in cabins. That does not have two full baths with soaking tubs. After her bath, Lacy flips through the press kit for Desmond’s movie and has a dream where Desmond comes in her room to tell her he’s thinking about giving his character an Arizona backstory but he needs to know how people kiss in Arizona. There are so many variations like “wetness, and passion, and flavor,” sorry if you wanted to kiss someone later and I just ruined kissing for you, but this is Lacy’s dream and her truth.

Now it’s TUESDAY, and Lacy is wearing a really cute sweater with a wolf on it (biting my vibe, Lacy). She tries to call her dad from her cell phone but she doesn’t have any service. She was told repeatedly she would have no service, for ten miles in any direction, but this does not stop Lacy from trying to use her phone so, so many times throughout this movie. Lacy, generally, is a bit dimmer, a bit less shrewd than your average Lifetime movie heroine. Lacy just fell off the lettuce truck. Anyway, Desmond is making banana flapjacks for breakfast and telling Lacy about the crazy time he ate SIX of these in Rio. Wow! Six flapjacks! I am suddenly uncomfortable about the amount of pancakes I eat in a sitting! Lacy brings Desmond his pills and asks him how filming went last night, and also, what the movie is about, but instead of replying, he shoves a pancake in her mouth.

Some amount of flapjacks having been consumed, Desmond and Lacy go for a walk in the woods and get to know each other a little. Like for instance: yes, the rumors are true, Desmond is gay. His partner is named Phillippe and they met on a cruise ship. Where’s Phillippe? Who knows. Lacy doesn’t ask and he doesn’t volunteer and the movie doesn’t seem to think this would be something you’d want to know. Lacy points out that he was engaged to some Italian actress a long time ago, and Desmond is like, yeah, Sharon put that together, the subtext being “, you hayseed.” Anyway, let’s race! And Desmond runs off, leaving Lacy alone in the woods.

Don’t worry about Lacy though, somehow she ends up back at the house before Desmond does, and she uses the rotary phone to call her dad, who’s dozing with a Stuart Woods book splayed on his lap. Classic dad. Lacy calls her dad “coach” and he badgers her: who else is there with her? What’s the phone number? She tries to explain that this is a job, and Desmond Gage is very famous, don’t worry about it, but he is immediately convinced that Lacy is in danger. She is, but that’s not the correct conclusion to be drawn from what she’s told him. That comes later. Lacy’s dad tells her to get out of there, and she’s again like, “this is what my job is. I cannot leave. Do you know what a job is?” She adds that if this goes well, she’ll get a big promotion and then he won’t have to sell the farm. That’s nice, raise another generation of hay, or lettuce, or whatever. The only thing in the establishing shot of Lacy’s dad’s farm was some horses, but okay. It’s a farm. Lacy hangs up on her dad when she hears Desmond return from his woods racing, but he immediately calls her back even though she told him not to do that. Desmond flips out and rips the phone out of the wall, because WHAT if that had HAPPENED while he was in CHARACTER? I don’t know, Leonard would have answered the phone? Is Leonard not supposed to know what phones are? He stomps into his room while Lacy cries about what a screw-up she is. To be clear, the mistake she made is giving her Stuart-Woods-pilled dad her work phone number.

Lacy recovers well enough to take a huge bath while listening to bad bleep bloop music in her earbuds. This movie seems like maybe it has some parts in where you get to see Lacy’s bare bosom, but this is the Lifetime Movie Club version, not DANGEROUS METHODS: AFTER DARK, so alas. Lacy hears a noise over her bleep bloops and wanders into the dark woods behind the cabin, where Desmond is roasting something over an open fire. It looks like a child? But it probably isn’t a child? But I never quite figured out what it was? It is within the realm of possibility that this is a Lifetime movie where a gay method actor roasts a child in the woods. Lacy manages to scurry back to the cabin before Desmond spots her and roasts her too (??).

Now it is WEDNESDAY and Desmond is throwing up in the toilet. He thinks he had too much wine but it’s impossible to say: he was “immersing” in his character and he simply can’t remember what goes on when he’s doing that. At any rate, he looks terrible, and Lacy puts him to bed. She offers Desmond his stomach pills, but he declines and instead requests to put his head in her lap and have a lil napsy nap. “You’re such a good assistant,” the movie star moans as he snuggles in.

Once Desmond falls asleep, Lacy extricates herself and snoops around his room a little. She finds the script for his movie, titled SINS OF THE SON, but instead of reading it, she chickens out and tidies the house instead. When she takes the garbage out, she’s greeted by a sheriff’s deputy, who has some questions about this setup. The rangers thought this cabin was vacant but there’s people here….? Lacy assures him that they’re fine, but it is unclear if Desmond is squatting in this adorable and well-appointed cabin. The deputy, satisfied that the property isn’t being occupied by meth makers or Satan lovers (or meth lovers), leaves, and Lacy goes to check out the spot where Desmond was roasting something last night. There’s some bloody bits and a hatchet and a tattered copy of a cookbook titled To Serve Man (no there isn’t).

Back inside, Desmond talks to himself in his room for a while and then emerges with a special treat for Lacy. It’s a puzzle! Luckily, Lacy loves puzzles. Of course she does. They open a bottle of wine and settle in to assemble the picture of the Taj Mahal, toasting “to new things.” Desmond gazes at Lacy and says, “Did you miss me? I sure as hell missed you.” Lacy has no idea what he’s on about, and continues to have no idea what he’s on about when he takes her hand and kisses her. Lacy! Think of Phillippe! She does not think of Phillippe, and they bone on the mustard yellow tightback leather couch. It’s a really nice couch and a weirdly graphic sex scene for Lifetime, but still, no tits. Afterwards, Desmond gazes into Lacy’s eyes and tells her, “when we’re together, the world stops, and life is complete.” Okay. It’s only WEDNESDAY, chill out.

Meanwhile, while his daughter is confusingly fucking a movie star, Lacy’s dad Harry calls someone somewhere to get the address associated with the phone number Lacy gave him. All Harry’s scenes take place in an extremely tiny sitting room at the front of his house, because they forgot they had to build this set and they Airbnb-ed this at the last minute, ah, shoot, this is gonna have to do.

THURSDAY begins with Lacy getting dressed and finding Desmond in an adirondack chair on the deck, marking up his script. She asks him if they can talk about last night, and he asks her why, what happened? Lacy cannot believe he doesn’t remember, but Desmond blithely tells her he was immersing, and it wouldn’t be the first time he offended someone while he was immersing. So, did Lacy have something else, maybe a horrible smoothie, or….? Lacy goes inside and cries and tries to call her dad from her cell phone even though we have been over this and over this, Lacy, oh my god. She goes outside to walk around the woods looking at her phone and saying “come on!”, leaving the back door open for Sylvester to escape in the process. Lacy’s dad was right, she’s not cut out for this, come home to the cotton and horse farm.

Lacy, walking around the woods failing to understand that “no service” means “no service, even if you’re really sad and worried and you just banged a famous person and it immediately got really weird,” sees the word “Angie” carved into a tree a few times and is like, “huh. Maybe Angie has a phone I can use?” Meanwhile, Desmond is looking into the mirror in his bedroom and saying things like, “Desmond, stop resisting,” and “Desmond, just let go, and trust me.” I hope his character in this movie is a gentle goat herder or perhaps a maker of pan pipes from foraged materials.

That night, Desmond goes outside and starts to carve something into a tree (stop doing that! it hurts the tree!) but then, knife in hand, hears Sylvester meow. Oh no, Sylvester, get out of this movie, quick. Lacy, still in the cabin, is coping with her hurt feelings the only way she knows how: taking a huge bath with her airpods in, grooving to some bossa nova. The deputy from a few scenes ago arrives to do a wellness check, because Lacy’s dad is worried about her. He spots Desmond doing….something….in the woods, but Desmond spots the deputy too, and sprints out of the flashlight’s beam and then somehow ends up in front of him. Desmond has method-acted himself into becoming a xenomorph. This is the future. The deputy, fully freaked, tells Desmond he just wants to talk, the father of the girl staying with him is worried about her, but Desmond takes him out at the knees. “That old bastard, he’s trying to take her away from me,” he says to the very confused and frightened little guy. Lacy, by the way, is still hanging out in the bath, doing a little dance to her jazzy tunes, while this man begs for his life and is denied. Desmond (or Leonard! let’s say Leonard) stabs him in the neck and takes the wedding ring off his dying body. So…not a pan flute guy.

Lacy finally, finally, gets out of the bath and goes outside to check on the commotion she sort of vaguely heard, wearing a crop top, leggings, and puffer coat. This is Lacy’s first big job and Lacy’s first day dressing herself. She takes a cursory look around the porch but then gets distracted by Italian pop music on the record player, and finds Desmond lighting a million candles in the living room. Lacy tries to tell him last night was a mistake, but Desmond is Leonard. Leonard doesn’t make mistakes. Leonard makes love. Lacy asks him to say the corny bad thing again, and he says those words every girl wants to hear, “when we’re together, the world stops, and life is complete,” and Lacy jumps his bones. The camera pans over some deer figurines and paintings as the deer tastefully and respectfully observe their lovemaking. Afterwards, they snuggle by the fire, and Leonard asks Lacy if he can have the bracelet she’s wearing to remember her by. Lacy hands it over even though it’s very special to her, and asks him for his underwear in return. “Oh, you’re a kinky one, aren’t you?” Leonard laughs, and this doesn’t have any bearing on the plot, but it was upsetting to hear and I need you all to be my sin eaters. Leonard tells Lacy he loves her a lot and they smooch.

Later that night, Lacy wakes up alone and hears a thumping sound, which she goes to investigate even though she hasn’t put on her crop top, leggings, and puffer jacket. She finds Desmond sitting cross-legged on the floor, repeatedly punching his bare chest, surrounded by lit candles.

On FRIDAY, Lacy’s dad calls the sheriff’s department again, and the cop who picks up says “please hold,” takes a sip of coffee, and then resumes the call, if you were wondering how this movie felt about cops. Lacy’s dad tells this guy he hasn’t heard from his daughter since TUESDAY, and, again, Lacy told him that she wouldn’t really be able to call, that this was her job, please don’t call her at this number unless he is literally dying and the only thing that will save him is hearing his daughter’s voice. But yes, sure, Lacy is in danger. That is technically correct.

Friday morning at the cabin brings Desmond freaking out because he can’t find Sylvester. He asks Lacy if she’s seen him, or if she’s been in her room at all times like he told her to be, and she’s like, what? No? You didn’t say that and also, we fooled around? He tells her they absolutely did not, and she points out the bracelet on his wrist. Desmond flings the bracelet off and is furious and aghast that she INTERACTED with him during his IMMERSION and Lacy is like, okay, well, I put on a new crop top, this one’s cable knit, so I’m gonna go find your cat in the woods. Unfortunately, we the audience find the cat before she does, really graphically dead, poor baby. This is more proof this isn’t a real Lifetime movie: Lifetime knows its audience and our precious kitty cats better than that.

Lacy returns to the cabin empty-handed to find that her car has a flat tire, and she asks Desmond to help her change it. He’s like, WHATEVER, you didn’t find my CAT, so as far as I care, you can just CALL SHARON and GET OUT or at least STAY IN YOUR ROOM for once. To be fair to Desmond, who does not deserve fairness, Lacy did let the cat out. This is her fault. Lacy asks him if he’s rehearsing tonight, with everything that’s going on, and Desmond very queenily says, “no, I’m going to quit acting and move to the Alaskan wilderness.” Lacy points out that she can’t call Sharon anyway, because he ripped the phone jacks out of the walls, and he tells her to reattach the wires, it’s not his job to assist the assistant’s assistant. Lacy just wants to go home! To Arizona and her horse and alfalfa and coach dad! She’s not cut out for this, and by the way, Desmond? It’s actually really fucked up and manipulative to act like you can just say “I’m immersing” like it’s an out of body experience and you’re not responsible for your actions. He retorts that this is his JOB. Okay! We all need to have a talk about what jobs are.

Oh good, Lacy’s dad is here now! He needs to hear this talk too. He’s arrived to swoop in and rescue Lacy, but Desmond is in Leonard mode, and Leonard has a hunting knife on his belt and informs Lacy’s dad Harry that he’s trespassing. Lacy tells Desmond they have a family emergency and goes to pack up her stuff, and Harry notices Lacy’s bracelet in the corner of the room. Harry, very foolishly, tells Leonard that Lacy never takes that bracelet off, and she never seems this flustered. Better keep chatting to the guy who’s got her freaked out! Thanks for showing up, Harry! Leonard offers Harry a chunk of apple that he’s been cutting up with his hunting knife, an action only performed by people who are trying to appear threatening, or by horticulturalists in apple orchards, and Leonard is no horticulturalist. He’s not even a goat herder. Harry politely refuses the apple, and Leonard counters with: he’d like to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Harry is thoroughly baffled, and when he turns to go wait for Lacy in the car, Leonard knocks him out with a heavy liquor bottle.

By the time Lacy makes it downstairs (did she stop to take a bath??) her dad is gone and Leonard is pleading with her not to leave. She’s his soulmate! Lacy assures him that he is not her soulmate, even as he gets on one knee and pulls out a ring. While it is always excruciating to say no to a marriage proposal, Lacy ably says absolutely fucking not, and runs outside calling for her dad. Leonard follows her, yelling, “Angie!” but Lacy, who is not Angie, is hiding under the deck and then climbing through a window into the cabin’s basement. This cabin has a basement! This is the Zodiac killer’s house.

In the basement, Lacy finds the script to the movie Desmond has been shooting and flips through it. Oh, here’s all the stuff Desmond has been saying to her! So it turns out when they’re together, the world doesn’t stop and life isn’t complete. That’s just a line Leonard says in the movie. If you can’t trust a gay, partnered movie star to tell you the truth when you’re boning down in a rented cabin two days after you met, you can’t trust any man. The other thing Lacy finds in the basement is the body of the deputy who came to do a wellness check on her, covered by a sheet. She screams, which Leonard hears, but she does have the presence of mind to use his radio to call for help. A smarter murderer would have taken the radio, but Leonard is not written as a smart man. Before she gets a response, Leonard finds her in the basement. Lacy whacks him with a blunt object and runs past him while he’s down. Lacy learned how to fight on a farm in Arizona, don’t mess with her.

Lacy manages to flee to her dad’s truck in the driveway, but when she starts it, the headlights illuminate her dad, tied to a chair on the porch, Leonard looming behind him. He looks like shit, and you gotta wonder what’s going through his mind. Does he feel vindicated, because even though Lacy is an adult woman doing a job lots of people do every day, he was right and she was in danger? Or does he feel profoundly foolish and pointless, because his presence here did not help Lacy at all? Leonard takes the duct tape off Harry’s mouth and he rasps, “run, Lacy,” but Leonard snarls, “her name is Angie!” and slits Harry’s throat.

Lacy takes a brief little sojourn to the woods but then returns to her dying father. Leonard asks her, “Angie, why did you run?” and Lacy draws herself up and delivers her lines: “I’m sorry Leo,” she starts, and yes he’s her soulmate, they’re meant to be, the world stops, et cetera. Just real hack shit, as you would expect from the writer of DANGEROUS METHODS. Leonard is so happy! He and Angie are going to be together forever amen! They embrace, and Leonard tells Angie he loves her so much, and Lacy says, “my name…is Lacy,” into his ear and stabs him in the gut with his hunting knife. She is then immediately shot in her own gut because the cops are here and they’re so, so, so stupid. “Suspect down,” one cop says into their radio. Hey do you think the guys who wrote this saw Get Out?

“My name is Lacy” is the last thing Lacy is gets to say in this movie, because for the last scene, Lacy is comatose in a hospital bed. Sharon, her boss, is sitting with her when a hot doctor comes in to tell her that Lacy is stable, but “a projectile entered her” really close to her heart, so they had to induce a coma. Another way of putting that would be “a cop fucking shot her even though she was the one who called for help, and they didn’t give her any warning they were going to shoot.” The hot doctor has a question for Sharon though: does she know anything about the pill bottle Lacy had on her? Because that wasn’t for stomach pain or whatever Sharon said it was, it was fucking HALDOL, an antipsychotic commonly prescribed to people with schizophrenia, and Desmond wasn’t even taking them, a flashback shows us that he was dropping them down the sink. “Haha, nope! So weird!” Sharon says, which satisfies the doctor. “So sorry,” Sharon says to her comatose employee before leaving her, and that is how the movie ends. Or…is it? No, it is, as far as I know. Wait, did Desmond die? Who knows! The end!