Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
PREVIOUSLY
Separated for a year, Holder and Linden now hold the two keys to the long-ago murder of Trisha Ann Seward, whose husband Ray is due for execution in about a month: What Linden found questionable at the time, and Holder is starting to suspect in the present day, is that we have a serial killer on our hands. And if he's still killing -- and we'll find out tonight that he is, and has been for a while now -- that means Ray Seward, who is by any measure a terrifying bastard anyway, is on Death Row for a crime he didn't commit.
The latest victims, Ashley Kwon and (presumably) Kallie Leeds, are part of a circle of homeless teens in the orbit of Pastor Mike's Beacon House. They are survived by Kallie's trailer-trash mother Danette; her best friend Bullet, a truly amazing television character; Bullet's lady-love Lyric and Lyric's shitty boyfriend Twitch; and a limping bastard of a child-pimp we'll meet tonight, named Goldie.
TONIGHT
Holder catches Linden sneaking around in his office, feet still gross from how she just checked out the Kwon crime scene despite claiming disinterest and a total lack of connection between the two murders. While Linden is, of course, embarrassed to be found out -- and even moreso, anxious to be in her former place of employment -- she needn't be: Holder, who gave such a good impression in the last hour of having been domesticated, was already sleeping there.
They perform for each other an overdetermined round of excuses and alibis and reasons for running into each other in his office in the middle of the night, because neither of them can begin to admit that they're falling back down the rabbit hole, and as usual you get the feeling they both find this almost as dubious as we do.
Linden: "Me, creeping around the police station in the middle of the night with guts on my shoes? Oh, I was just returning this file you 'accidentally' left at my house."
Holder: "Yeah, I was just here working on some other case that is not this case or the Seward case. Apropos of 'nothing,' though, I can't find that case file you 'didn't' steal from the station a year ago."
Linden: "Good luck [never] finding that! Peace!"
Holder: "How did you enjoy 'not' looking at the Kwon file?"
Linden: "It was very uninteresting to me!"
Holder: "And so those guts on your shoes are what? Because that bouillabaisse at the factory nearly ruined my Hushpuppies too."
Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
Caught out, she grins -- that manipulative, "now it's out in the open" grin she does -- and they settle in for a quick round of Theories. He leans back, luxuriously aloof; so self-consciously still, so afraid of spooking her.
Linden: "Fine. That warehouse has rape and murder written all over it. Why the hell would she get out of the car there? It's not a place you have sex, it's a place you have your throat slashed to the bone and your fingers broken for jewelry."
Holder: "Yeah, no sign of struggle either. Maybe he had a gun, in addition to the knife?"
Linden: "Or else he knows how to control them, because he's done it before."
Holder: "Because it's obviously a serial killer and I was right all along that this is the Adrian thing?"
Linden: "No! That would be all the justification I need to go crazy again. It must be for like some other reason."
"Their throats were cut, that's it. Your girl was outside, mine was in an apartment. Yours is a teenager, Trisha Seward was 30. Yours was raped, mine wasn't..."
Holder: "Not to mention, you closed the case three years ago."
Linden: "It was a success by any measure!"
Holder: "Okay, but what about the trophy-taking? My girl's rings were missing and her fingers were broken to get to them. Yours too."
Linden: "Seward didn't take trophies. I gotta go. Good luck with this non-thing we're clearly doing."
Holder: "Cool, see you in about five minutes. Get them dogs cleaned!"
BULLET
Can't get Kallie on her phone, can't find her at the bridge, so eventually she goes over to her mom's, where Danette is looking every inch the junky, clothed and sleeping on the couch. They have a horrific and brief conversation about how Kallie did not, in fact, sleep there last night, and Bullet at least waits until the door's closed before she calls Danette a bitch, and that's that.
I know "Missing" is the high-water mark of this show for most of us, and I'm sure for a lot of people it's just the fact of the bottle episode, as a deviation from the norm -- or in this show's case, maybe a little bit getting away from the more bummer people, too -- but I liked it because it's a microcosm of the show. When somebody dies or disappears, even if you don't spend the day driving around looking for them, you feel like you are --your brain is driving around all day -- and part of you will always feel that way.
Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
So spending this whole episode with Bullet as she gets more and more desperate and puts herself in more and more danger, while we don't just spend the hour with her, I think is brilliant. Not just because it's a major -- the major -- theme of the show, but because so much of this season seems to be resting on Bullet's quest and how it intertwines (and so viscerally) with Holder and Linden's: We have to go with her, even believing Kallie's death is inevitable, because it's this grief -- or at least the void of meaning death represents -- that drives the season in large part.
This season is about seventeen Killings (or more) but -- for half the characters we've met so far -- it's also about just the one. Bullet is the mother who loses her baby in a grocery store, she's the daughter who gets a weird butt-call from her dying mother, she's the one who actually experiences the loss. And this -- the slowly declining faith, the rapidly climbing panic -- is what made Mitch Larsen what she was, and what Linden's particular empathy centers on, and what Holder's learning to mediate. So the first two episodes do force Bullet to carry a lot of the burden (even veering at the end into/near some absurdly offensive tropes), but in the interests of carrying the actual Killing, I'm not sure there's a smarter way to do it, overall. And God, you could watch her all day.
LYRIC/TWITCH SQUAT
Meet Twitch. I'm sure in real life he's a good-looking kid, but in the murk of Seattle and with this horrible personality he's got, he's only fractionally as hot as he thinks he is. But the desperation behind all of this -- he wants to go to Hollywood, perseverates on it, thinks he'll be a supermodel, an actor, a star -- comes off as very realistic. Who doesn't think they're moments away from being Found? Who doesn't have moments where that dumb hope of sudden fame or fortune is all you've got?
I predict that as shitty as Twitch is now -- demonstrably, he is a shitty kid -- that's exactly how much I'll end up loving him. Probably sooner rather than later. (Are you watching Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous? He's like if Valerie Cherish were this awkward, effeminate, horny beanpole of a high school senior. Fucking heartbreaking. Just really excellent stuff. Even if you don't care for Bo Burnham's whole deal -- which makes you a monster, I think -- you should still check it out.)
Anyway, Twitch is obsessing on some print model's "look" and how his "look" is not as "sick" as this random "look" and it's all very junky-talky and model-talky and Lyric just lies on the bed staring at him, because when she looks at him she sees a sick look indeed.
Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
Lyric: "He isn't as fine as you."
Twitch: "Duh. But his sick look! My look will be like that, you know, but sicker. Going to those Hollywood parties, getting to eat fish off naked girls, getting free swag."
Lyric: "A lot of girls would be all up on you."
...And that's all I can handle of The Killing's idea of teenagers this week. I held out pretty long, I think.
Anyway, they are very special to one other and he is obviously a total sleaze and she is obviously a total idiot and they are hookers and probably they will end up dead, but at least they don't mind the smell of each other right now, while they are all up on each other. Lol.
POLICE STATION
Reddick: "So why didn't you just give Jablonski the file? Because now he has solved a random homicide and that could have been us!"
Holder: "Oh well. It's not a loss if you don't lose it, right? Come on, we're going to the Jungle."
Reddick: "Beacon House? Jesus freaks again. What are you dragging me into?"
Honey, you have no idea.
Holder: "So I consulted with Sarah Linden on this old..."
Reddick: "Whoa, what? You know who that is, right? Record breaker for getting fired and rehired and put in mental institutions, all while on the job?"
Holder: "Anyway..."
Reddick: "Curtain match the drapes? You get to fuck her one more time?"
Holder: "There are not words for how gross you are being right now."
They come upon Bullet, who is screaming at someone at the front desk about Kallie.
Holder: "Damn! Instant karma's a bitch, ain't it, Little Man?"
Bullet: "I am so at the end of my tether I don't even have time to engage. Did you ever notice that I am a very tiny, very young woman, who is very afraid?"
Holder: "Pretty girl, that girl you're screaming about. Your girlfriend? Nice ring on her finger, too."
Bullet: "Seriously, look at me. I am falling apart. You would think a homeless gay teenage hooker would have a certain resilience, would you not? It has been exhausted, you tall douchebag."
Staff: "Nobody got picked up by that name last night..."
Holder: "So go fuck yourself. Have a nice day."
Bullet: "I will not. I will not have a nice day."
Again, he gets in her face. Right up in there, just seething with hatred and contempt. It's tough to watch; already, you can see her through his eyes and our eyes too, how she doesn't deserve any single part of this but all he sees is a write-off, just this nasty violent garbage person. She gives it right back -- he's not even wrong, exactly -- so it's not a dealbreaker, but man. He is going to feel real bad about all this later, I bet. When he remembers the thing about the ring, yes; but even more later.
Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
Lyric: “He isn’t as fine as you.”
Twitch: “Duh. But his sick look! My look will be like that, you know, but sicker. Going to those Hollywood parties, getting to eat fish off naked girls, getting free swag.”
Lyric: “A lot of girls would be all up on you.”
…And that’s all I can handle of The Killing‘s idea of teenagers this week. I held out pretty long, I think.
Anyway, they are very special to one other and he is obviously a total sleaze and she is obviously a total idiot and they are hookers and probably they will end up dead, but at least they don’t mind the smell of each other right now, while they are all up on each other. Lol.
POLICE STATION
Reddick: “So why didn’t you just give Jablonski the file? Because now he has solved a random homicide and that could have been us!”
Holder: “Oh well. It’s not a loss if you don’t lose it, right? Come on, we’re going to the Jungle.”
Reddick: “Beacon House? Jesus freaks again. What are you dragging me into?”
Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
Linden: "So the wife wasn't found with rings and her finger was broken, and then yesterday they found a girl with a broken finger and missing jewelry."
Skinner: "You know how people think you're crazy? It's this kind of shit."
Linden: "No, I know. But they also think I'm psychic, and that's what's happening here."
Skinner: "What if Ray Seward didn't kill his wife? Listen, he called my house yesterday, thanks to that new guy he tricked, and he told me to bring my wife and kids to his hanging. 'And a bag of Ding-Dongs.'"
Linden: "...Yeah, I'm gonna go. Tell Jen thanks for the coffee."
Skinner: "These are not the actions of an innocent man, Sarah."
"I just want to be sure we're executing a guilty one."
OUTSIDE
Sarah's belting herself in to drive away when Jen appears at her window: "Stay away from us. I've forgiven him, but I don't ever want to see you again."
I feel like we knew some of this, some things about this, but I can't recall what and I know the show will remind us. I mean, we know how it looks and that's obviously what happened, but I also wonder if maybe she didn't pull Skinner in after her too, just like she's doing to Holder. Maybe it was both, and that's why she treats Holder like her drug-dealer: Because once the life/work balance is gone, and Jack is nowhere to be seen, there's nothing keeping them from falling in forever.
SPEAKING OF
Sarah Linden immediately breaks up with Cody -- which is stupid on several levels, particularly because look at him -- and while he does not take it well, he also knows her well enough to know there were rooms in that house he was never going to see. Trapdoors that could open whenever she decided.
"You don't know me. I break things. I break them, and they don't ever get fixed. But this thing? This one thing..."
He swears he can help her, whatever it is, but she won't even look at him. If he could, she never would have picked him in the first place. He leaves, eventually, after only minimal begging: Another reason.
BEACON HOUSE
Holder and Reddick mean cop/meaner cop their way into Pastor Mike's office, where he keeps a (terrifying) wall of pictures of all the lost youngsters he's shepherded, tracking their stories just in case of visits like these, or maybe because he is a serial killer.
Holder: "What's with all the security, Padre?"
Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
C BLOCK
Becker is not feeling Seward’s whole plan where he gets hanged, mostly because of all the paperwork and procedures and hassle of it all: “I got a rope and a lawn chair, what’s the holdup?” He’s done two injections, the last two years ago and another in 2001. He calls executions “being called up to the show.” What a dick.
Henderson, the new guy, is moving pretty slow this morning: Their four-month-old, Billy, is teething. Becker yells at him for a while about retaining his focus, slamming Red Bulls if he has to, and grouses generally about the state of things. As mean as Becker clearly is, his bitching is a much less attractive trait: “27 years, I’ve never seen anybody not take the needle. Seward’s turning this whole place into a three-ring circle jerk!”
Inside, Henderson immediately gets an off-book request to use the phone, which generally happens at specific times that are not right now.
Seward: “I need to call my lawyer…”
Henderson: “Didn’t you fire your lawyer?”
Seward: “Nice barf on your uniform. How old’s your son? Three months?”
Henderson, hypnotized: “Four…”
Seward: “time take your shirt off when you burp him. My lawyer’s gonna help me see my kid one last time, I gotta talk to him.”
Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
Henderson is taken in, cuffs him through the bars, lets him make the call. It’s not to his lawyer, of course.
IT IS CASEY JONES
The day — which is notable because it means this show has abandoned, to its credit, one more thing that turned out not to work — Linden arrives on the doorstep of her old partner from those days, Ed Skinner (Elias Koteas), with whom she broke suddenly sometime after Ray Seward’s conviction. He has also received a certified letter from the DOC, so he knows basically why she’s there. He gets her coffee; his wife Jennifer is friendly but distant, and scoots out of there quickly.
Skinner: “…Always pressure from somewhere, you know, but I’ll leave the politics to the politicians. Heading up Special Investigations is where I belong. How’s civilian life treating you?”
Linden: “I live on an island and shoot cattle in the head sometimes late at night. I am operating at peak efficiency for the time being.”
Skinner: “Ray Seward, huh? How about that.”
Linden: “You know, I always had questions…”
Skinner: “I got the credit, yeah, but you worked out a solid case. I mean, the DA, the jury…”
Linden: “So the wife wasn’t found with rings and her finger was broken, and then yesterday they found a girl with a broken finger and missing jewelry.”
Skinner: “You know how people think you’re crazy? It’s this kind of shit.”
Linden: “No, I know. But they also think I’m psychic, and that’s what’s happening here.”
Skinner: “What if Ray Seward didn’t kill his wife? Listen, he called my house yesterday, thanks to that new guy he tricked, and he told me to bring my wife and kids to his hanging. ‘And a bag of Ding-Dongs.’”
Linden: “…Yeah, I’m gonna go. Tell Jen thanks for the coffee.”
Skinner: “These are not the actions of an innocent man, Sarah.”
Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
“I just want to be sure we’re executing a guilty one.”
OUTSIDE
Sarah’s belting herself in to drive away when Jen appears at her window: “Stay away from us. I’ve forgiven him, but I don’t ever want to see you again.”
I feel like we knew some of this, some things about this, but I can’t recall what and I know the show will remind us. I mean, we know how it looks and that’s obviously what happened, but I also wonder if maybe she didn’t pull Skinner in after her too, just like she’s doing to Holder. Maybe it was both, and that’s why she treats Holder like her drug-dealer: Because once the life/work balance is gone, and Jack is nowhere to be seen, there’s nothing keeping them from falling in forever.
SPEAKING OF
Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
Sarah Linden immediately breaks up with Cody — which is stupid on several levels, particularly because look at him — and while he does not take it well, he also knows her well enough to know there were rooms in that house he was never going to see. Trapdoors that could open whenever she decided.
“You don’t know me. I break things. I break them, and they don’t ever get fixed. But this thing? This one thing…”
He swears he can help her, whatever it is, but she won’t even look at him. If he could, she never would have picked him in the first place. He leaves, eventually, after only minimal begging: Another reason.
BEACON HOUSE
Holder and Reddick mean cop/meaner cop their way into Pastor Mike’s office, where he keeps a (terrifying) wall of pictures of all the lost youngsters he’s shepherded, tracking their stories just in case of visits like these, or maybe because he is a serial killer.
Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
Holder: “What’s with all the security, Padre?”
Pastor Mike: “Pimps and exes show up here all the time pretending to be family or social workers or whatever. Like the world isn’t scary enough without me extraditing them back to hell.”
Ashley Kwon was only there for a few nights before she vanished, several days back; they’re surprised that he wasn’t more intrigued by that but even more surprised that he didn’t keep notes on her whereabouts: “After being here a few years, there’s not a lot of surprises left. I don’t pry into their lives. Beacon is a safe space, no questions asked. They can come here, and they can be kids again, even if it’s just for a few hours.”
Something about that last line rings weird, but this show invented red herrings so we’ll see about that. He directs them to motel off a highway — “kind of a last resort for some of the kids” — and sends them off with a final hands-clean flourish:
Pastor Mike: “…If I don’t keep track of these kids, no one will.”
Reddick: “So you’re just the light at the end of the tunnel?”
Pastor Mike: “No, the light at the end of the tunnel is the train that’s speeding towards them. I’m just trying to pull them off the tracks.”
BLEAK
Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
Twitch shows his dick to a man, but it turns out this is not work and in fact it’s his last drug test for probation. The guy’s nice, tries a medium amount, but of course Twitch is not feeling him, his talk about GEDs and an actual plan for his life. Those are not the things, you see, that Twitch is all about.
Twitch: “I’m heading to LA, doing some modeling and acting…”
Officer: “Yeah, the problem with dreams is that they stay dreams, not reality, for most. Remember, you’ve got to be the one to make things happen. So stay clean, focused, and um, I’ll see you week with the results?”
He doesn’t hear a word.
“Yeah, when Twitch starts modeling he said we’ll have lots of money and we won’t have to pull dates anymore. He was like begging me to come with him to California Please baby. Please please please. And I was like, Okay.“
THE STREETS
Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
Whoever Lyric’s talking to, she seems moderately impressed by what is clearly a lie. They’re approached by Goldie — a limping grotesque youngster who looks a lot like poor Belko did when he was a baby, before he got hot — and immediately head the other way. Goldie’s ambition is to be a pimp, and he seems to be in the business of kidnapping girls to make that happen.
Bullet: “Hey, everybody. Have you seen Kallie?”
Goldie: “I saw Kallie, down at the 7-Eleven. Candy aisle. Chickenhead slut got her throat cut, now she’s a Pez dispenser.”
It’s interesting the way Ashley’s death filters down through the disconnected layers of communication in the community. I mean, I don’t know anything about anything, but that seems realistic: Nobody knows who Ashley was or that she’s dead, really, but they all know people are getting their throats cut. That’s the first meaning, that death hangs over them like urban mythology: Go out for dates these days, maybe you become a Pez dispenser.
The second one is that maybe Goldie is involved in either the murders or the disappearance of Kallie — who is still missing, after all, and only presumed dead — which makes this even darker in a lot of ways. Bullet attacks, of course, instantly, and he pulls a gun on her also instantly, and they yell at each other for a long, long time. In the end he backs down, grandstanding to the collected street kids that they were just joking, but you can tell he’s embarrassed. With his limp; shouted down by a tiny little girl.
C BLOCK
Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
Becker’s yelling before Henderson’s even entered the room: They’re both in trouble for the phone call Seward made yesterday, that he said was to a lawyer but was in fact to the cop, Skinner, that he blames for his conviction and impending execution. It’s savvy to focus so much of Seward’s crazy, obsessive energy on Skinner, because nobody is interested in putting Linden’s name anywhere near the list of people responsible for a department success — least of all Linden — so she can skulk and do her Linden thing without Seward going the full Hannibal on her while she investigates. She was just a bystander, and Skinner did the job; Skinner got the promotion, held onto his marriage, while she got fired like a hundred times and can’t even hold onto her actual relationships.
Henderson: “He was talking about his son, he asked me about Billy…”
Becker: “Aw, that’s sweet! So just the two of you swapping baby tips? Like two daddies in a playground.”
Henderson: “That is, oddly, exactly how it felt.”
Becker grabs a chair and a three-ring and heads out to Seward’s cell; the guy over, Dale, looks on.
Seward: “Go get the other guy. Tell him I want to order a Meat Lover’s pizza.”
Becker, grinning: “Chapter One. Essentially, execution by hanging is strangulation effected by restricting the executee’s air supply at the neck, unconsciousness occurring between two and four minutes, and death within resulting in death by asphyxiation…“
Dale: “That’s not needed. You’re a better man than that, Francis.”
Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
Seward: “I knew a Jimmy Becker, at Cedar Creek. Any relation? Isn’t your whole family prison guards and racecar drivers?”
Becker: (Seething; not yet threatened by this obvious threat.)
Seward: “Get on with it, Francis. It was just getting good.”
Becker: “Depending upon the equipment used, there will be some physical trauma to the executee’s body. A mathematical miscalculation can result in…“
QUEENS HOTEL & RESTAURANT
Is in a strip mall, near a barbeque place and a liquor store. It is grim.
Reddick: “Last exit to nowhere. Why can’t these kids ever find a place with a bar?”
Holder: “Do this with me and I’ll buy the first round.”
They watch a tiny girl lead a gross old dude into one of the rooms as they’re headed to the office, and Holder suggests that if he asked, they’d let Reddick watch.
Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
Grace Zabriskie: “My full-time job is being me! Welcome to the Queens.”
Holder: “Hey mamacita, seen this girl around?”
She doesn’t even look up, and eventually they get antsy, slapping badges on the glass.
Zabriskie: “Honey, go get a warrant.”
Reddick: “Ugh, you are the worst! This whole thing is the worst!”
Holder: “Fine. Then my partner and I need a room. We work together, yes, but we also are in love. Do you have an ice machine? We will need it for several days, because we are going to be doing a lot of fucking. We are going to be cops that live at your motel. Does that sound fun to you? Because second to having gay sex with each other all the time, ruining your life is now our main deal. My big old bear over here, when he gets started on that vibrating bed…”
It does the job. She slides the drawer out and looks at Ashley’s picture.
Zabriskie: “Never seen her.”
Reddick: “Witness says she was here two nights ago.”
Zabriskie: “Fucking Kallie said that? Kallie was cussing up a storm in the parking lot a couple nights ago, and I had to boot her out, and now she’s trying to say I know some dead girl, which is a damn lie. I try and help these kids, and this is how they repay me?”
Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
Holder: “Wait so if Kallie — for whom my mortal enemy Bullet was still looking this morning — had to walk back toward town, toward the Jungle, she’d be going back down the 99. There are kids here, right now, that would have seen her…”
Reddick: “You just piggybacked a non-murder non-investigation on our murder investigation we shouldn’t even be doing, that has already wrecked our week? Fuck you and fuck this, your big old bear’s gettin’ drunk.”
Holder: “Okay bye! Please still believe in me!”
THE ISLAND
Sarah’s deep into her files, her evidence, when Regi finally gets tired of knocking and comes in. Man, I love Regi. There’s never enough Regi. But I guess the point is that there never can be.
Regi: “I brought you wedding cake. Ironically, Ellen wanted it off the boat because she lacks self-control, and now look at you.”
Sarah: “Go ahead, say it.”
Regi: “Say what? Something I haven’t said a million times? This is what you need to do, I know better than most you won’t stop until you’re done doing it.”
Sarah: “See those trees? Adrian drew that, over and over, after I found him in the apartment. He’d been trapped there for six days with his mom’s decomposing body. I never told you that part.”
As if by merely describing the angles, the geography of exactly why this made her crazy and continues to make her crazy, Sarah can get Regi’s permission to go crazy.
Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
Regi: “So the plan now is to drag him back into this? Make him relive it all over again?”
Sarah: “He’s been seven years in and out of foster homes…”
Regi: “Look, Sarah. He’s not you. And he doesn’t need you to save him.”
Sarah: “He deserves to know the truth.”
“Will that make it better for him? Or just you?”
C BLOCK
It’s interesting, there’s not even a commercial break. We just cut to Sarah, in the same sweater as before, now sitting in the Death Row phones, waiting for Ray Seward, who barely remembers her.
Seward: “Where’s Skinner?”
Linden: “He couldn’t care less about you.”
Seward: “I remember you from the trial. His partner…”
Linden: “I was, once. Why are you so obsessed with him.”
Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
“He lied in court. He called me a coward, he said I was weak. There’s nothing weak about holding down a woman and sawing through the muscles, the tendons, in her neck, all while she’s looking up at you with her windpipe cut, trying to breathe. You tell Skinner that I want him to be here. I want him standing right there, when they put the noose around my neck. And tell him that I want him to look me in the eye, because then we’ll find out who the real coward is.”
Linden: “You’re very impressive, and Lord knows Sarsgaard is a gift to the craft and I could do this all day, but you have no idea the robot you are dealing with. What did you do with your wife’s ring.”
Seward: “My what’s what?”
Linden: “Your wife we’re pretending you killed, you broke her finger and took her ring.”
Seward: “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I did that. Quite bravely! And I pawned it.”
Linden: “Where.”
Seward: “A pawn shop?”
Linden: “Thought so, punk. Do you recognize this drawing of trees.”
Seward: “This is very weird. And also no.”
Linden: “We are done here.”
Seward: “I don’t have a son!”
Linden: “Now who is acting weird.”
BACK IN THE CELL
Across the way is a new inmate who may or may not matter, a man who seems to have a problem with pressured speech, who immediately recognizes Ray Seward — “Aw damn, is that Ray Seward? Is that Mr. Big Noise? Ray. Ray! Hey! Man, everybody up in here’s got your name in their mouth. Man, I don’t know who’s trending more, you or Jesus! Can you give me some advice?”
Again, this strange Clown Prince of Crime thing with him, where his celebrity seems like it’s bigger in the outside world than we’ve gotten to see yet. I’m still stuck on that idea that brigands would have assaulted the transport to Death Row in order to rescue him, like, where did that come from? And now the publicity about the hanging thing seems like it’s bothering the hacks, and this guy is treating him like royalty, like he’s working the system somehow. I mean, I guess just the fact that it’s the first execution in two years? But I don’t know. I think he has some kind of following, maybe. Do-gooders, bad-doers too.
Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
Which should be interesting, since even one of the arresting cops doesn’t think he did it, and still isn’t on his radar even though she just sat across from him asking questions clearly designed to pull his prosecution apart. I think he’s playing a game and we don’t know what it is, but his pathetic manhood obsession with Skinner is what’s going to keep her safe to work. Does that sound right?
CAROLINE
Finally! Holder’s girlfriend Caroline is played by no less than Jewel Staite, and played onto the scene with a pretty funny triple-joke: His wigga tattoo across his chest says Serenity, which is of course a reference to his sobriety, but having Jewel Staite of all people making fun of your “serenity” tattoo — “Mmm, sounds like a stripper’s name” — hangs a little bell on it.
Caroline: “Hey, crimefighter!”
Holder: “Is this toothbrush here for me?”
Caroline: “Yes! And then I am going to kidnap all your clothes and invite your friends over and then you’re buying me a ring and then a dog, because really I want a baby but I don’t want to scare you so first a dog…”
Holder: “Okay, very funny, crisis averted. But I am attached to my old toothbrush. Marty the Molar gave it to me in third grade, because I had proper flossing technique.”
Caroline: “Well, as long as it’s not a crushing fear of commitment or a harbinger of the hell you’re going to put me through as Sarah Linden drags you off into the dark. Now, I have prepared popcorn and queued up some shark-attack reality TV for us. Floss and brush your teeth with whatever technique you like, just as long as you keep having tattoos and wearing those amazing suits at the same time.”
It’s already happening. He sticks around when she’s gone, rocking back and forth a moment. Feeling himself changing back into a wild thing.
Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
TWITCH
Has merrily spent all of Lyric’s money on the hairdye of the stars, whatever that means, and he’s applying it carefully — in the dark, of course, because on this show that’s as good as it’s gonna get — when she comes home. Even Lyric is a little turned off by this mismanagement of funds, but he redirects this — “this is an investment!” — before sending her off to do some hookering for the actual money they need to live on. God, Twitch is the worst.
Twitch: “I was gonna pull a date tonight, but apparently Hollywood Star hairdye has to stay in there all night.”
Lyric: “Sure, I’m just a child and have no idea how anything works, including corrosive chemicals. I would be happy to prostitute myself while you lie around literally giving yourself spa treatments.”
Bullet, appearing: “Yo, Lyric! Where is Kallie?”
Twitch: “Way to knock, Bullet.”
Bullet: “Shut the fuck up. Where is Kallie? She’s not at the bridge, or the Beacon…”
Twitch: “You know, Goldie’s been turning out a new girl, at his pad… He’s always been interested in Kallie, romantically speaking… Maybe she’s there. Like in sex slavery, I mean.”
Bullet takes off, because everything is the worst, and over at Goldie’s house she hears a prisoner screaming, somewhere in there, and he surprises her while she’s investigating, and then he rapes her because she embarrassed him earlier. Hurt his feelings.
FOSTER HOME
Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
Linden says she was worried about Adrian, everything going on with Ray, but the foster mom says he’s been doing great. They’re still talking about how best to approach that whole thing, but he’s happy and good. When they get upstairs to his room, the mom figures out that Adrian’s in the backyard, and Linden’s happy to look down, just to get a glimpse — doesn’t even want to talk to him, now that it’s here — but then, on the wall, she notices them: A whole gallery of trees, a hundred pictures of a place he knows well but his father didn’t recognize.
“He’s been drawing again, lately. Since he heard the news about his father.”
SOME LINDEN MAGIC OCCURS
And she walks directly to the place with the trees that she’s been staring at pictures of for seven years, finds it directly, stands there staring at the trees and feeling weird but I don’t know exactly what because this whole bit makes very little sense, and then she finds it: A little swamplet back behind them, where all fifteen bodies lie, wrapped tight in bright pink plastic.
WEEK
Holder's feeling that the murderer of this latest victim could be a taker of souvenirs -- specifically, snapping corpse fingers to get at their rings -- lines up with some of the psychic vibes Linden's been getting. She tries to pretend that she isn't totally investigating this and thinks it's a serial killer and that Ray Seward should not be dying, but because she is the worst pretender of all time, she correctly gives all three impressions.
Linden visits her old partner in the Seward case, a grizzled Elias Koteas, and he's of no help, but we do see that the wife holds quite a goddamn grudge about their relationship, which is interesting. Oh, and she breaks up with her hot boyfriend for no reason other than that Sarah Linden loves making bad decisions more than anything, more than cigarettes. More than justice itself.
Bullet spends the entire hour looking for her bestie, who is clearly a dead corpse by now, but it does give us more time with her lady-love -- the tragically named Lyric -- and her crappy and equally tragic wannabe-model boyfriend Twitch. A run-in with a very shitty young aspiring pimp early on sets the stage for later, when he rapes her, because God forbid Bullet have like one second where something horrible isn't happening to her.
Over at the jailhouse, Seward weaves his way into the heads and lives of the main COs -- Aaron Douglas (!) and a mean scary man I don't know [Joe Dick from Hard Core Logo! -- Ed.] -- and we see that he's a little bit obsessed with Elias Koteas, whom he believes to have been the main person that got him for the crime he probably didn't do. Seward is a very confusing person, but watching him ranks among life's greatest pleasures, so it's fun to ruminate on what he is doing and why.
When not canoodling with Jewel Staite (!), Holder's search leads him to the safe house where the kids congregate -- and the Pastor there, who clearly has weird secrets -- and then to a motel run by Grace Zabriskie (!), which immediately quadruples the creepiness of all situations. In the end, though, it's Linden who breaks the major moment: Little Adrian Seward is drawing those trees again, and somehow through her power of mental telepathy, Linden is able to locate those same trees in the real world... And the 15 or so dead girls stockpiled just a little further into the swamp.
Week: Everybody feels traumas! They decide maybe this is a serial killer that is killing these girls so very ritualistically (and serially). Little Adrian does more weird stuff. It rains a lot; Goldie might be holding Callie as a prisoner but probably she is just dead. Holder feels bad for being so shitty to Bullet all the time and/or continues to be shitty to Bullet. Uppance for most things has still, generally, yet to come. Linden gets her job back as a police person, then loses her job as a police person before the commercial break, but then when we come back from commercials she has her job back again. This happens several times over the course of a single day.
Skinner, Holder and Linden start a Special Investigation; Holder finally reaches out to Bullet; Adrian is presumably less forthcoming than would be ideal.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Killing, Pretty Little Liars, Mistresses, and Defiance for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as a regular column for Tor.com, Geek Love. A new short story, “This Is Why We Jump,” appeared in the June issue of Clarkesworld Magazine.