The 5th-grade production of Macbeth: An eerie highlight in Slings & Arrows season 2

The second season of "Slings & Arrows" will focus on the production of Macbeth, in which the "ghost" of Oliver will speak to Jeffrey and guide him through the production, in an eerie echo of the ghostliness of the play. In the 2nd episode we meet the lead actor, Henry Breedlove, and he's such a pompous ass - this will be great. We can see Jeffrey seething as Breedlove draws all the attention to himself and basically takes over the first table reading of the play. So the conflict between them will move the season along, all to the good. I'm still troubled by the lack of clear definition of Jeffrey and the late Oliver and their relation. I get that Jeffrey is a little mentally unbalanced and prone to outbursts when he thinks he's speaking to Oliver - what to him (and to us as viewers) is a conversation to others is a Tourette-like mania. But is Jeffrey a genius director? We don't see that. Was Oliver? At times he's written off as an old-fashioned, out-of-touch has-been, but elsewhere he's a revered figure and an inspiration to Jeffrey. It's just never made clear enough, and I think honestly that the writers want to have it both ways, whatever way will suit the needs of a particular scene of episode. A highlight of this episode was the 5th-grade production of Macbeth, all done in summary (no Shakespearean language) in its simplicity and in the innocence of the young faces makes the horror and spookiness and violence the play all the more real and frightening. When Jeffrey gets the idea to do the play on a thrust stage, we actually get a chill - who wants to be that close to Macbeth? Scenes of Richard meeting with a PR "branding" expert are great, too.