In Review: The Mysterious Benedict Society (S1 – EP4) A Whisper, Not A Shout

Synopsis: In ‘A Whisper, Not A Shout’ Reynie and Sticky pursue the coveted messenger status, while the girls try to stay afloat in class.

The Story

Picking up from where last week’s episode left off. Kate and Constance are failing their coursework and must find a way to succeed. After having communicated with Mr. Benedict they set about figuring out how they can cheat. Reynie comes up with a plan, which requires Sticky to tap out the answers to the questions in Morse Code. But unfortunately, the plan fails and Sticky winds up spending a lot of time in the waiting room. When he is questioned by Dr. Curtain. Sticky is able to resist and gets sent back to the room that he shares with Reynie.

Elsewhere, Mr. Benedict and Milligan go for a hike in the woods. To find a good vantage point where they can get a better idea of what Curtain is up to by spying on him.  Their mission pays off when they spot Curtain making use of a secret underground passage of some sort, which is camouflaged by a big rock. 

Meanwhile, Number 2 suspects that Rhonda Kazembe is up to something and follows her, but learns that she is just doing a bit of graffiti. 

The Acting

Seth Carr does a great job of conveying Sticky’s anxiety about helping the girls cheat. His scenes in the waiting room are really effective and build up nicely to his meeting with the intimating Dr. Curtain (Tony Hale). Likewise Hale once again does a brilliant job of portraying two very different roles. So much so that an untrained eye may not notice that it is the same actor playing both Mr. Benedict and Dr. Hale. I also enjoyed Hale’s scenes with Milligan in the woods.

Overall

Overall ‘A Whisper, Not A Shout’ successfully achieves what it sets out to do insofar as moving things along to the next level. By the close of the episode, Reynie and Sticky have successfully reached their goal. Although I suspect that they both feel that it was somewhat easy. A little too easy in fact. While having achieved their goal. The team of child spies has also got some valuable intelligence on Dr. Curtain, which they will likely try and communicate to Mr. Benedict in next week’s show. This is also when we get to see why the role of a messenger is so important.