In the Dark recap: Murphy gets a break in Tyson’s case

It’s a week of very big breaks on In the Dark as Max finds himself in an awkward position and Murphy finally gets a solid lead in Tyson’s case.

We’re headed into the third episode of In the Dark and this is one of my favorite new shows of 2019. It’s so genuine yet also hilarious when it wants to be. It’s the type of show I know I will curl up under a blanket and binge-watch over and over again in the future. It just makes you feel good while simultaneously keeping you glued to the screen.

In “The Big Break”, Murphy finds out some interesting news from Kiara, Felix has to pretend to be blind, and the unwritten rules of dating threaten Max and Murphy’s fledgling relationship.

Felix gets his big break.

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After Murphy comes up with a plan to get into Tyson’s high school to question his supposed girlfriend, she sways Felix into holding an assembly there as part of an outreach initiative to influence young teenagers to be more understanding of the blind.

Once there, she quickly bails on he speaking duties to investigate a few pot-smokers in the bathroom for any intel they may have on Kiara’s whereabouts and leaves Felix to fend for himself.

At first, everything goes much better than planned with the students actually being receptive to his speech (they mistakenly believe he’s the blind one thanks to his glandular condition and emergency sunglasses) and Felix basks in the glow of their approval. “When life hands you lemons… you can’t see them because you’re blind.”

But all good things must come to an end and Murphy’s steamy tête-à-tête with a school teacher in the auditorium room quickly shuts things down.

Murphy catches a break in the case of Tyson’s disappearance.

Even though Kiara is MIA from the high school, she does pay Murphy a visit at the end of the episode at Breaking Blind and the information she has to share is disheartening to say the least.

According to Kiara, Tyson was cheating on her with a girl named Jamie. Murphy finds this hard to believe, as the Tyson she knew would never do something like that but Kiara assures her she felt similar. Tyson had a way of making you feel like you knew him better than you did.

In a flashback, we listen to Tyson tell Murphy about a terrible date only to look down at his phone at a text from Kiara saying she had a great time that night, and him echoing the sentiment. So either he really was with someone else that night and the date was in reference to that, or he was lying about how his date with Kiara went for some reason. Either way, something about that memory wasn’t entirely truthful.

At present, it appears all roads lead to Madison since that’s where Darnell believed Tyson was at the beginning of the show and where Jamie supposedly lives. It will likely be Murphy’s next stop.

Max breaks a very important… tool.

Max and Murphy spend the night together and in the process, Max channels Mark Sloan and breaks his penis, leaving him incapacitated and housebound to Murphy’s apartment, much to her annoyance.

I really want to like Max. I do. He seems like a sweet enough guy but I’m having a hard time swallowing his attitude towards Murphy. Who is he to assert himself into her life when he’s only known her for a few days? Who is he to judge her and insinuate she’s unhappy?

Regardless of what’s true and what isn’t, he has an awful lot of gall to start calling her “babe” (even after she asks him not to) and essentially try to force himself into being a permanent part of her life after she’s repeatedly told him she isn’t interested in anything serious.

It doesn’t matter what Murphy’s real feelings are, even if she does like him deep down, it isn’t okay for Max to make those assumptions or try to rush her into something she isn’t ready for.

Still, I admit when Murphy tells Max she wants to try dating him at the end of the episode, I got a few butterflies. I’m on-board for the relationship if Max can learn to respect her boundaries.

Odds & Ends

• I think the scene where Murphy helps Julia figure out how to use a tampon and the two sit on the bathroom floor goofing off and making crowns of menstrual pads might be my favorite in the whole show so far. It was so cute and undeniably hilarious, as was Dean’s cute silent laughter outside the door.
• Two other excellent scenes in this episode: The two girls in the bathroom trying to show Murphy what she looks like and the uncharacteristically nice scene between Felix and Murphy under the bleachers.
• Casual sex is fine, I’m not the type to judge anyone for how they indulge themselves but I’m finding it a little annoying that every guy immediately falls for Murphy and wants to have sex ASAP. She’s beautiful, but for the show, writing-wise, it’s starting to get repetitive. Max is a welcome change of pace if it means we’ll deviate from this somewhat but I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at little when it becomes apparent Dean has feelings for Murphy too. It’s just very CW.
• Upon Darnell’s initial introduction, I assumed the show was going to set him up to be a lazy stereotype or cliché antagonistic presence so I’m happy to see his characterization going in a different direction.

A new episode of In the Dark titled, “The Graduate”, airs April 25 at 9/8c on The CW.