Main cast: Israel Broussard (Spencer Harris), Aurora Perrineau (Ashley), Dora Madison (Marissa Cornell), Frank Whaley (Parker Harris), and Samantha Mathis (Dr Victoria Harris)
Director: Chelsea Stardust

All That We Destroy is a tedious Lifetime movie of the week-tier episode that takes all the “Mommies are bad!”, “Cloning is bad!”, and “Scientists are mad!” clichés and toss them together in ways that don’t make sense.

We have the crazy mad scientist mother, Dr Victoria Harris, a geneticist who decides that the best way to protect her serial-killer son Spencer is to clone Spencer’s first victim, Ashley, over and over so that he can kill each clone to indulge his blood lust; according to her logic, that will protect him from getting arrested for killing other people. Two problems arise in this episode: Spencer is getting bored of doing in Ashley so many times and for so long, and he has his eyes on their neighbor, the lovely Marissa that doesn’t suspect a thing, and the latest Ashley clone seems to be more aware than her predecessors as to the jam she is in.

The premise may not be the most original one I’ve come across, and it’s not too bad. However, this episode is still about a crazy homicidal neighbor stalking a woman that initially thinks he’s just a nice guy, and it can easily be called something like The Wrong Boy Next Door and fit in nicely with the rest of the dire sludge in the Lifetime catalog. I’ve seen all this before, and the episode doesn’t offer anything else to make this rehash stand out, aside from getting shiny, monochromatic set pieces and passing these things off as mad science gizmos.

Also, as the episode progresses, things become increasingly nonsensical as the episode sacrifices coherence for sideshow spectacles. How on earth does Victoria keep getting away with doing what she does without anyone knowing, for example? How come no one in the law analyzes Ashley’s DNA—this episode is supposed to be about science, after all—and realize that she’s some missing lady and interrogate her further about what happened to her? What’s the point of this whole episode anyway, aside from telling me that crazy mothers are bad—a message that has been preached from the very first time human beings discover marriage all the way to every freaking anthology show on TV ever?

All That We Destroy looks shiny and glossy, I give it that, and it boasts a pedigree of cast that is of higher caliber than most shows of its kind, thanks to Samantha Mathis and Frank Whaley, but ultimately, it’s just a white-bleached sheen of meh.