Episode 2 tells a story but it's not a great story. Seeing a woman sitting on a toilet with her business unflushed and later engaging in a prolonged awkward sex scene where she forgoes an orgasm so her deadbeat husband can groan and squirm all over her is just...kinda gross. In episode 1 we saw his bare naked flaccid bum for no good reason at all.
If it were a story about couples doing ordinary poopy things then fine, but it's also expecting us to 'feel something' for the woman that loses her child in a busy marketplace. I'm not feeling that at all; the directorial choices are not leading up that objective; by the time it happens, it's just another event. I mean, when Tilda Swindon is randomly shoved in a scene (as herself, in episode 1) one is left thinking 'why?'.
I feel the director is trying to cover too many bases rather than making decisive choices about what serves the story, and doesn't. Sometimes you have to cull material that may be edgy (in another context / film) but isn't part of the composition you are trying to frame.
Granted, there are 3 narratives going on here but the main one feels overshadowed by the sex life of the minor characters. This is definitely not interesting nor engaging.
