Timing worked extremely well in combination with how quickly Agnes gets comfortable with Zoe and opens up to her. If not a master manipulator, then a heinously calculated character like Zoe made me think back on just how many times I could have been taken advantage of in chat rooms as a kid let alone now.

By the time Agnes gives Zoe her coming out story and Zoe initiates a perplexing offer of conservatorship, I was bracing myself for another dose of catfish horror like Megan Is Missing (2011). Agnes’s stifling vulnerability with someone she just met was highly unnerving and Zoe’s lack thereof had me thinking “Oh, this is definitely some creep who preys on lesbians.” In that respect, having the Author’s Note mention that their email compilation was part of an ongoing investigation into a case against Zoe worked against my ability to imagine an intended ending. It would have been easier as an audience to go in blind and wondering where exactly the emails came from or if these girls really were who they said they were.

After 112 pages of feeling sane, I read the final five pages both laughing and being disgusted by my laughing. It was a stiff and anxious laughter, of course, but I felt that any attempt at a serious ending was sore. After all that trial and tribulation as to figuring out whether or not they could make a digital relationship (or ownership, if you will) work, all the momentum I developed from delving into Agnes and Zoe’s mentalities and psyches came to a halt. I felt like I’d been on the phone with somebody and they had just hung up mid-conversation. 

I encourage lovers of the grim and psychological to give it a try. Perhaps, ask yourself if you are on the fence: What have you done today to deserve your eyes?