‘Lisey’s Story’ Recap: ‘Jim Dandy’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode Four of ‘Lisey’s Story’.
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When we're young, we're taught to respect the power of a story and everything that it has to offer simply because our parents understand more than we do how easily a quality story can suck a person into the world it creates, sometimes in an unhealthy manner. This unhealthy preoccupation with a fictional world can cause our responsibilities in the real world go forgotten or cause our interpersonal relationships to suffer because we choose the story over people. This is an important lesson that we should quickly take to heart, partly because we don't want to let our parents down, but mostly because we understand the draw of fiction the instant we pick up our first book and don't want to step away from a world that offers us so much from a sensory and emotional standpoint.

Although many of us heed this lesson, sometimes, as is often the case, there are some people who ignore it because their experiences with everyday life are unappealing. Fictional worlds provide these kinds of people with something more, which encourages them to lose touch with reality. Although that might seem harmless at first glance — since one would expect that a person that makes this decision would do nothing more than bury their nose in books and become something of an introvert — this is a decision that can become quite deadly. When a person truly reveres a fictional world over everyday life, the real world becomes the place where rules don't apply and where anything goes. When that change happens in someone's mind, they feel free to do scary things. This feeling is relevant to our discussion today because the darker side to embracing the power of fiction served as the theme of the most recent episode of the AppleTV+ series, Lisey's Story.
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This week, the episode 'Jim Dandy' saw Mister Jim Dooley meet Lisey Landon in person, and their initial face-to-face contact went as well as one might expect. Jim was quick to turn to violence to subdue Lisey in the hopes of holding her attention so he might finally get her to understand why it was so critical for her to hand over Scott's unpublished works. His primary motive is that he saw Scott's words as a form of gospel. The kind of gospel that somehow healed Jim's soul and mind and gave him direction in life. The kind of gospel that Jim felt should have allowed for Lisey to take pity upon him and understand that he needed these fresh words to offer him guidance toward a normal life and internal peace. But with Jim, no pity could be felt because he made it clear that he saw himself as a warrior for and the savior of Scott's work — and the only way to protect it was to punish anyone that wouldn't release it.

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This scenario played into part of a strange ritual in Jim's mind where he could finally be the hero of the story — the hero that epically vanquishes the villainous Lisey. To emphasize that he was willing to take a life to complete the illusion of heroism of in his mind, Jim hurt Lisey badly — to the point where she was left unconscious from the violence and the pain. This was definitely the most frightening segment in this series to date because it put the evil that men are capable of on display in a frank and harrowing manner. This segment also did a fine job of reminding us of the true dangers that come forth when a person drops the boundaries between a story and reality.

Although that segment alone could have carried this entire episode, there were still more horrors to explore in this tale. Shortly after Jim left to allow Lisey to ponder upon the penalties that he laid out for her regarding noncompliance, she was forced to truly face the reality that there was no escaping Jim's clutches through traditional means. Calling the cops meant certain doom for her sisters, and obviously, in her physical state, fighting back wasn't an option. These circumstances led Lisey to take a moment and reflect on her journey with Scott and how his secrets might be the key to saving her life and her future. Minute by minute, she remembered her time in Boo'ya Moon and everything that Scott taught her about it on their honeymoon. Boo'ya Moon's healing powers and lurking dangers might be able to help her vanquish her foe and save lives — provided, of course, that's she can remember how on earth to breach the thin fabric that separates our world from its twilight sky.
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All in all, this was simply a terrifying episode. Not only did it do a fine job of exploring the dangers of blurring the lines between reality and fiction, it also took the time to remind us that trauma refreshes trauma. It took severe physical duress for Lisey to remember the parts of her life that she opted to forget because those moments with Scott genuinely disturbed her and left her wondering about his mental health. One hopes that Lisey's return to such worrisome moments in her mind will let a different kind of healing take place. At this point, it's clear that a trip to Boo'ya Moon is in order. A trip that can heal some physical wounds and where Lisey can scout for something that can help her be free of the living nightmare (Jim Dooley) that now plagues her. It will be fascinating to see what Lisey finds when she finally decides the time is right to turn on the faucet and let the current take her away to a strange world that she hasn't seen in years. Until next time, Dear Reader.

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