Episode Report Card LuluBates: A | 6 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Wannabe
By LuluBates | Season 1 | Episode 5 | Aired on 05.02.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Eddie Izzard plays Dr. Gideon, a seemingly mild-mannered surgeon who murdered his wife and her family on Thanksgiving. Holidays, amirite? Gideon’s a good patient at the old psych hospital until he snaps and plays voodoo doll with the night nurse, skewering her in so many places that everyone suddenly thinks Gideon is the infamous serial killer the Chesapeake Ripper. Gideon’s more than happy to take the sash, crown and title. Graham and the FBI team are called in to assess whether Gideon really is the Ripper. Graham is suspicious.
Soon enough the real Chesapeake Ripper makes himself known. Turns out that while the Ripper has been silent for two years (which coincides with Gideon’s prison term) Crawford has been working on the Ripper case for a long time. Via a series of flashbacks, we meet Miriam, a young recruit who Crawford brought in straight out of the Academy to work on the Ripper case. She had some of Graham’s skill set with forensics and was helping Crawford a lot until she disappeared. Crawford thinks she was the last victim of the Ripper, until he gets a phone call from her in the middle of the night.
Meanwhile, the team is still trying to determine whether or not Gideon is the true serial killer, but evidence is mounting that he is, in the words of Graham, "a plagiarist." When "Miriam" calls again, they realize there is no way that Gideon is the Ripper. After a series of calls, they finally trace the number to a disposable cell phone that is technically in Miriam’s possession. Unfortunately the arm holding the phone is not attached to Miriam’s body.
Elsewhere Lecter hosts yet another dinner party where he serves mystery meat to his unsuspecting guests. He also draws closer to Crawford, counseling him about how to cope with his wife’s cancer and her impending death. One thing Lecter doesn’t mention in their tête-à-têtes? The fact that he strangled Miriam years ago when she came to his door while she was investigating the Ripper and found some evidence tying him to the murders. Yep, he doesn’t mention that at all.
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Want more? The full recap starts right below!Somehow I forgot that Hugh Dancy is married to Claire Danes and now I can't stop imagining them having crazy-eyed face-offs in their marital bedroom. I mean, they probably have a master class for two in glazed looks and wild goggling. Can't wait for them to get really drunk and leak a YouTube video. Anyway on to the latest installment.
Eddie Izzard is guest-starring in tonight's episode as a prisoner who the guards find lying face down in his cell. They rush him to the prison hospital and, as expected, despite being restrained, the moment he's alone with the nurse, he kills her. I love Eddie Izzard, especially when he plays bad guys.
Jack Crawford and William Graham show up at the hospital to try and positively identify the prisoner as the serial killer known as the Chesapeake Ripper. While the name is undoubtedly supposed to sound terrifying, I'm pretty sure it's the name of a specialty cocktail at a Baltimore crab shack, which is, in its own way, completely terrifying. On their way into the hospital, Graham mutters, "I'm always afraid going into these places." "Why?" Crawford asks. "I'm afraid they won't let me out," Graham says with a straight face. Ugh, is this show trying to sound hackneyed and hit every cliché in the thriller manual?
Anyway, the warden/head doctor has heard all about Graham from someone (maybe the pesky blogger?) and has no qualms showing a severe lack of social graces and good manners by telling Graham that he possesses "a unique cocktail of neuroses and personality disorders make you a great profiler." He then invites Graham back to the hospital for examination, which Crawford quashes, because what is that guy even doing anyway. Who wrote this episode? Crawford and Graham finally get down to work trying to determine whether Gideon (Izzard) is actually the Chesapeake Ripper or just some wannabe who wants the credit within the psychopathic community and with those insane women with low self-esteem who write love letters to crazytown. The man in charge takes them to see crime scene, where the body has been left in situ. It's grotesque -- so grotesque that the doctor is pretty sure the prisoner was the infamous Chesapeake Ripper. Graham does his thing, channeling the killer and walking in his shoes to recreate the crime.
Flashback to a young FBI recruit (played by Anna Chlumsky, formerly of My Girl and currently of Veep) being called into a younger and goateed Crawford's office. He explains that he is putting her on the Chesapeake Ripper taskforce, because even though she's still at the Academy, they need bodies on the case. Cut back to the psychiatric hospital where the doctor is explaining that the killer, Gideon, received quite a bit of fan mail during his stay at the hospital. Dr. Bloom -- who has joined the team -- is surprised, because Gideon murdered his first wife. Graham thinks that is one clue that Gideon is not the Chesapeake Ripper, murdering his wife was too spontaneous, while the Ripper was methodical. Graham and Bloom will both be interviewing Gideon. As it turns out, Bloom has interviewed Gideon before and Gideon is a big fan of her work. Gah, this show is like porn for psychologists. Who is a fan of psychologists? Unless any of you are psychologists, then you are very attractive. While Bloom and Graham both know that Gideon killed the nurse, their task is to determine whether or not Gideon is truly the Ripper. As Gideon, Izzard does an impressive job of channeling Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter in "The Silence of the Lambs." This is not a bad thing, but just a thing. Bloom and Graham point out that the Ripper brutalized the body while the victim was still alive, but he played voodoo doll with nurse after she was dead. Graham is very suspicious of it all.