Sarah spends the day assuming that Jack is just playing sick to avoid an algebra test, but of course he's at death's door, so when she finally comes to check on him, Jack's dad Greg is sitting there in the dark expressing concern about her life, their child and her entire concept of parenting. To assume this goes anywhere other than directly into the crapper is to admit one doesn't know Sarah Linden very well.
After a long day of Belko nightmares, biological tragedies, wheelchair awkwardness and yet more pretty ladies feeling sorry for him, Councilman Richmond is at low tide. Luckily, Plucky Young Jamie pulls some strings at the DA's office and learns the truth: That somebody, obviously the Mayor, was behind the faked photos that got Darren arrested, released from jail, shot and paralyzed all in the space of about twenty minutes. Finally reinvigorated, Richmond takes up the cowl -- and Jamie's only too happy to get back into his Robin costume.
Outside town, Mitch's ghostly girl turns out to be very real: A fistful of angry facial piercings and bad choices named Tina. After some pretty sad conversations and emotional keepaway, Mitch decides to save Tina from her own daughter's fate... Becoming the most appealing and graceful she's been in the history of this show.
And it couldn't happen at a better time, because the nuke dropped at the end of the hour sort of radically recontextualizes everything that's happened so far: After they find him hiding at Monica's house, Alexi lawyers up, gets out of the police station and heads back to Babka's... But in fact he's just baiting Holder so that he can kidnap him for secret meeting with Sarah, in which he tells them the big secret that sent Rosie off the deep end in the first place: Stan wasn't even Rosie's father.
Stan learns that his charges in the Ahmet case have been dropped, but he won't be pleading out: He's facing three or more years for assault, etc. This -- along with the sight of the son of the man he murdered -- causes him to go crazy in a new way, and he seeks comfort in Terry's arms. But she's too busy feeling weird about their cohabitation, getting shit from her parents and strange calls from her old johns, to even really deal with much beyond the starkly depressing fact of that. So she bounces, out into a black towncar that may well belong to...
The real murderer, as described by Alexi. Turns out he abandoned the Ogi Jun thing early on after coming to care for Rosie, and was her ride to the ferry on Fridays when it was time for her to do her secret things at the Casino, because he wanted her to be safe. At least once there was a towncar that worried her, but that's all he knows, and then from the night of her death, we get a voicemail that expressly lets him off the hook and brings out this whole relationship: She called him, scared, from an unknown location, but by the time he got to the dock she was gone.
We're not quite done with Alexi -- after all, he still needs to yell at Stan for killing his dad and leaving him with old Monica and thence the CPS -- but this twist about the parentage seems both fresh and oddly obvious at the same time. One thing I don't think I would have anticipated is anything really bizarre or secretive coming up with the Larsens after all this time, so it's exciting just by existing: They've always been technically as interesting and complex as the other leads, but necessarily trapped in stasis by the facts of their claustrophobic storyline. Once Mitch comes home -- probably with her horrible surrogate hooker daughter in tow -- the Larsen marriage is going to look completely different in every way. Which is, I think, a very good thing. God knows it was nice to see Mitch smile, even once.
PREVIOUSLY
The mystery was solved! Rosie Larsen was murdered by youthful thuggaroo Alexi Michaelski-Giffords -- whose own birth father was murdered by Stan Larsen years ago -- and we can all go home.
Just kidding, don't be silly.
HOSPITAL
A creeping creepster creeps through the hallways of City Councilman Darren Richmond, well after visiting hours are over. Methinks he does not have good choices in mind -- or else it's Jamie, returning after leaving minutes ago, to say he was just bein' crazy and of course he will remain Richmond's devoted valet. But what's this? That worn black Target hoodie isn't something Jamie would ever wear! He knows better than any of us that he's a summer.
So who could it be? Why, I bet it's wonderful old Belko Royce, who shot Darren in the middle of his adorable yet sad killing spree, and this is just a dream-mirage of post-trauma. Perhaps Darren's first, considering he's been in some kind of a drugged-out haze for most of the season and his brain probably hasn't Maszlowed itself all the way to freaking out about getting shot yet. Darren's dreams, they are not happy usually, because his life has been -- like all characters on this show -- a nonstop experiment in the macabre pageantry of misery and paralysis and grief.
But this one is particular is stressful, as Belko enters his hospital room with an insane rictus grin on his usually beautiful face, and then shoots him approximately 137 times in the abdomen. Be careful, Darren! If you die in your dream, you will totally wake up dead in your real life. I learned that in Science.
DAY EIGHTEEN
Linden & Holder: "So the idea is that Ogi Jun was going to stalk and murder Stan himself, as in the comic book, from three houses down -- but then he met Rosie and thought, why not kill what's most precious to him instead? Leave Stan twisting on the rotisserie of Mitch's resentment until everybody is about to commit suicide, and then drop off the bloody backpack! Aftershock!"
Policeman: "Linden, I brought you guys some coffee..."
Linden: "Coworker, avert your eyes from our doings and relinquish the caffeine delivery system. We are investigating in secret."
Policeman: "I'm totally cool with you acting like that."
Linden: Slam!
Holder: "Maybe people will think that we are in love and fucking in here with all these pictures of a little dead girl, and that's why you flaked on your boyfriend for thirteen episodes in a row. Not because you are mentally ill, but because of my junkie lovin'."
Linden: "That seems unrealistic, Coworker. Given how obviously crazy I am."
Jack: "Mom, I think I'm sick. Maybe from being homeless or from not ever eating food."
Linden: "Progeny, it is probably a virus. Check the green suitcase that we live out of, in lieu of a home, for medications. If they are not satisfactory..."
Holder: "No, just go take care of your kid. Like this one time."
Linden: "Coworker, I have got things under control. We will pick up a name brand cold reliever on our way to investigating this Killing."
MONICA KROL-MICHAELSKI-KROL
Monica: "In a life full of disappointments and shame, I would really most love to talk to you guys about my stalker serial killer son."
Holder: "Yeah, like how you got him put in the system and he got molested?"
Monica: "Um, what?"
Linden: "Monica, I too am harangued by my Coworker for the ways in which I constantly neglect my son. I know how it feels to be a terrible mother. My only hope is that my terrible parenting does not result in murder, like yours did."
Monica: "Fine, he's downstairs in some kind of Silence Of The Lambs sub-basement."
Linden: "You just have to talk to them in their language, Coworker. The language of complete dissociation and altered, flat affect. I would think as a drug addict you would have a better grip on self-loathing."
Ogi Jun Alexi Giffs Gifford Michaelski is curled up in whatever haunted hidey-hole Monica has provided, curled up fetally in a sleeping bag with the tattoo clearly visible. Aww, Alexi. He's like an angel when he sleeps. Like an arsonist, murdering, tattooed sociopathic angel.
LARSEN
Stan: "Mitch, I'm leaving you this voicemail as a performance of masochistic futility. Your remaining children are going crazy and your sister is a prostitute that only accepts fine diningware as payment, while I have accidentally killed like eleven people and pissed off the Mob. Call me back at your earliest convenience, or never. Both promise to be equally depressing."
Stan hangs up, weeps for awhile in different locations around the house, and then goes to listen outside Rosie's door for the depressing music her ghost likes to listen to... Oh wait, as will become clear later it's actually Terry that listens to hipster music from two years ago all night long. So but why does he linger outwith her door? What nihilism moves him?
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
HOSPITAL
I'm sorry to say it, but Darren's hair has finally given up the ghost. It only took five days, but he now has that equal-lengths dandelion buzz-cut you often see on the porches of your finer halfway houses and outpatient facilities. Of all the disappointments and failures among these very human characters, I must admit this one took me by surprise.
Darren: "I better watch some TV and sigh intermittently. Oh, a cop show! Nothing better than a mystery getting solved in an hour, am I right? Hey, I hope nothing happens that reactivates my... Gunshots! Who would have predicted."
Darren wheels himself down the hallway and back to the elevator, but balks at the number of people already onboard who will be standing too close to his shame. An orderly holds the door open for him -- "Room for one more!" -- and Darren gets on, but on the floor it fills up, and it's very poignant: To be the only seated man in the center of a big old elevator of people, all of whom have their own private tragedies melting them down, all of whom have now mentally checked you off in their heads as Wheelchair Guy, and now everybody including you is thinking about how, when your floor comes up, you're going to have to speak up and say, "That's me," and then everybody has to pretend it's totally not annoying that they have to get out of your way, and that's going to be your life forever: The lonely hot Wheelchair Man with the formerly proud hair, now forever adrift in a sea of butts.
INTERROGATION
Alexi's still so sleepy! Too bad for him Holder's got him first: He yells at him about all kinds of things, names breakfast items he can't have for awhile, and then -- getting nowhere -- he finally takes away Alexi's chair and throws it in the hallway. Alexi just sort of smirks and stares at the wall about Holder's bad-cop act, which just makes him act bad-copper!
Carlson: "Linden, summarize all the evidence linking Alexi to the murder."
Linden: "Done. But Superior, I am watching Holder interrogate the suspect. Please do not distract me with your talking and confusing social queues."
Carlson: "Linden, you have eight hours with this kid. He better be our Doer, because I am tired of all this red-herring stuff."
Linden: "Superior, the boy has not requested representation and therefore we shall hold him 24 hours."
Carlson: "No, because this counts as holding him overnight."
Linden: "Either way it's all one episode, sir. That's how this show works. So you're really just splitting hairs to be a dick."
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
HEARTBREAK MOTEL
Mitch: "Oh, I missed a call from Stan? Guess I'll stare blankly at the bleakest thing I can find. Ah, that ghost of my daughter is a real person. Still smoking down by the pool. And with a shitty boyfriend. I better spread my personal brand of cheer all over her already depressing situation."
LARSEN
Stan & Terry: "Mareks, please stop bothering us and trying to take the kids away."
Mareks: "Why did Mitch leave you?"
Terry: "Rude!"
Stan: "I have to leave in the middle of this conversation."
Mareks: "We are every bit as charming as our daughters."
MOTEL DINER
Waitress: "Ghost Girl, I am not bringing you food unless you can pay for it."
Ghost Girl: "Yeah, I... Understand how commerce works."
Waitress: "Don't make me refuse you service!"
Ghost Girl: "Seriously, what a shitty day I'm having."
Waitress: "Let me ask you something, have you ever made the acquaintance of someone with a septum ring, and ended up happy and satisfied with the end result?"
Mitch: "I will buy her all the food she wants. I ask only for her company, here in my shadowy sad booth."
Ghost Girl: "Um, okay. And then I'm guessing we're going to have a threesome with a guy in your room. Which is fine, I just gotta eat first."
Mitch: "Uh, no. I'm not a creep. I mean, I am, but not that kind. I am not a procuress."
Ghost Girl: "But you are clearly married, pretending not to be. Did he beat you? My worldview is jaundiced. And at such a young age!"
Mitch: "You're sort of a horrible bitch. You remind me so much of my daughter. She was brutally murdered."
Ghost Girl: "Neat! Would you like to buy some postcards?"
Mitch: "Sure, whatever. Christ I must be lonely."
INTERROGATION
Alexi: "So what are you, the Good Cop?"
Linden: "No, Suspect. I am the motherfucker with a melon baller that has arrived to take tiny scoops out of your brain by talking about my own experiences and how they parallel your own. My mother gave me up several times. I tried to hide her emotional issues from CPS because I knew the home would be worse, and it was. Every time our mothers gave us up, it got easier for them."
Alexi: "I feel weird..."
Linden: "Stan Larsen took away the only person who could have saved you or protected you. He deserved what he got. And I bet you were real jealous of Rosie Larsen and her perfect life..."
Alexi: "-- Her perfect what?"
Linden: "You know, her loving parents, all the things we didn't have..."
Alexi: "She hated those assholes. Have you like met them? Anyway, you had me and you lost me, sorry. You've got two hours and I'm gone."
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
Alexi: "I feel weird..."
Linden: "Stan Larsen took away the only person who could have saved you or protected you. He deserved what he got. And I bet you were real jealous of Rosie Larsen and her perfect life..."
Alexi: "-- Her perfect what?"
Linden: "You know, her loving parents, all the things we didn't have..."
Alexi: "She hated those assholes. Have you like met them? Anyway, you had me and you lost me, sorry. You've got two hours and I'm gone."
God, he was barely a suspect for ten minutes before they started treating him like another lead instead. But also, as shitty as the kids are on this show, it's not going to be a kid, because part of this show is about drawing a Saturnian line from bad parenting to exploitation to full conspiracy: That the worst and most helpless feeling in the world is not having a choice, because there are people or forces that are bigger than you. Whether it's sexism or bad family dynamics or the Mayor and Ben Abani or the worst conspiracy of all, the fact that death is irreversible and you can't argue with it or plead with it or change the details of it. That grief is about being angry at that sick inarguable quality of the universe; that it feels like being back in foster care, trapped without a single choice.
Linden: "Coworker, give me a cigarette. Gum is not going to cut it this time. I am starting to feel that perhaps Rosie was not a normal, happy teen."
Holder: "Something happened, like six months ago. Maybe Alexi told her about her dad and Janek?"
Linden: "Then why would she hate Mitch too."
Holder: "Have you like met Mitch Larsen?"
Linden: "Good point, Coworker. Let's see what Alexi's phone can tell us. Maybe it will have another clue-crammed video on it that ultimately is zero help."
Holder: "Without a warrant? Wasn't Carlson up your ass like less than one second ago about this?"
Linden: "'Without a warrant,' how droll you are. Come on, Coworker."
Holder: "I know, I just thought it would be funny to say that."
Stan: "Hey, I know it's weird for me to just show up, but I was kind of in the Mob and maybe killed some people that..."
Linden: "Mr. Larsen, please do not look in that window of that interrog... Dammit."
Stan: "Um, that's the son of the man I murdered, yeah?"
Linden: "Yeah. We are on top of it. Avert your eyes, return to your home, and be more mindful of your cholesterol."
HOSPITAL GROUNDS
Darren: "Fresh air, thanks! Maybe this will help my hair situation."
Pretty Lady: "Do you mind if I smoke? I'm just here visiting my brother. He has cancer from smoking."
Darren: "I have a sister but... We're white people, so you know how that is."
Pretty Lady: "...Listen, I'm just going to put out this cigarette and get the hell out of here okay?"
Darren: "...I peed, didn't I?"
Pretty Lady: "Sorry to say yes. I'm going to get your an orderly or something."
Darren: "This is starting to be a regular thing."
It never gets old. By which I mean, I don't love seeing Darren go through this, but I'm also not getting used to it. It is at least as horrible as it was two days ago when the same thing happened. Well, actually, now there's not even Jamie so I guess technically it's worse.
SPOOK COUNTRY
The cop who hacked Alexi's phone without a warrant works from inside a William Gibson novel, and he has located a voicemail from Rosie that day she died, at like 1:14 AM. There's an ambient sound like a generator, and a sliding-door kind of sound, and then there's her, begging Alexi to come get her: She's not supposed to be wherever she is, she "saw him again," and she was waiting for Alexi to rescue her. Guess he didn't.
Linden: "Suspect, we know she trusted you and that you didn't kill her. Her fingerprints were at your house. But you must answer questions. Who did she 'see again.' Where was she? What was the situation?"
Holder: "Here's what we know and what we think: Regardless of your fathers' history, you used to drive her on Fridays to the ferry so she could go to the Casino every week, because you didn't want her on the docks alone. And then this one time, you left her there..."
Alexi, crying: "No, I called her back, and then when she didn't pick up I went to the docks and waiting all night, but nothing. Also, I did not leave her bloody backpack around."
Linden: "Suspect, who was the him she feared. What was his apparent age and relative height. What was his hair color. What distinguishing marks or tattoos did he have. Answer me."
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
Alexi: "There was this one guy she hid from one time in my car, but she wasn't scared, she was laughing..."
Linden: "Be there for her now, the way you could not then. Help us solve the mystery of her Killing."
Alexi: "Okay, I'll talk! The mysterious man she was afraid of, the man she glimpsed sometimes at odd hours but only soon before her murder realized was a threat, the man for whom you've been looking for weeks, the man that can lead you to your break in the Rosie Larsen case is..."
Carlson: "Time's up!"
Linden and Holder follow Alexi's lawyer's car straight to... Babka's restaurant, where Holder just knows Janek is going to end up reprogramming him to be Ogi Jun again.
Linden: "He called me 'Good Cop.' Can you imagine."
Holder: "Yeah, the whole good cop/bad cop thing doesn't really apply to us, does it?"
Linden: "As long as the people involved in this case continue to have personal problems that are identical to mine, we still have a chance."
Holder: "Then I guess we just wait and hope that even more people involved were in foster homes, let some random unrelated murder go unsolved, or are horrible mothers."
Linden: "Our version of optimism is not like other people's."
Holder: "I'm starting to think the awful weather of Seattle is less a private pathetic fallacy for you, and more of a factual representation of what it's like to live here."
LARSEN
Terry: "As usual, folks, it's been a delight."
Mr. Marek: "Terry, before we go, I just wanted to say that you living here with Stan is giving everybody the creeps."
Terry: "I have valid reasons for doing what I'm doing."
Mr. Marek: "Yeah, but you should have an actual boyfriend and not just your sister's screwed-up husband. You're letting your life slip away because of this Killing."
Terry: "I still have a couple of married boyfriends I'm counting on."
Mr. Marek: "I'm beginning to think Ames is never going to leave his wife for you."
Terry: "Yeah, well. Romantic self-sabotage is an even more complex proposition when you are already a hooker."
MOTEL DINER
Ghost Girl Tina sings "Gloria" into a spoon at a surprisingly high and lovely volume, cracking up Mitch and reminding you that, even if you barely ever get to see it, there are few sights as satisfying as Michelle Forbes's beautiful smile.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
Tina: "So you left your daughter as well as your husband? What is wrong with you?"
Mitch: "I didn't leave her, she left me."
Tina: "And you want my help finding her? I ain't no stoolie."
Mitch: "Can you tell me why you ran away?"
Tina: "If I were Linden, I would be cramming an entire pack of gum in my mouth right now. Thanks for lunch."
Mitch: "I am in room #214, above the pool, if you need anything. I'm serious. And I will be back here for dinner, FYI."
Tina: "Two broken things don't just magically fit together, lady."
Mitch: "I'm starting to figure that one out."
SAD PARK SOMEWHERE IN SEATTLE
Jamie: "Ah, my old ex who now works for the DA. I bought you coffee."
DA Lady Eve: "Jamie, nice to see you. You're looking particularly shattered today. How's work going? What's it like running a campaign for a man who maybe killed a little girl and is now paralyzed and crazy?"
Jamie: "Let's talk about you. Your work. Specifically how the DA took shit for dropping the charges against Darren, whence that decision was made, and how far up the chain I have to go before I can nab the Mayor and Ben Abani, and make Darren crawl back into bed with me."
Eve: "You are not so smooth, my tiny friend."
STAKEOUT
Linden: "Progeny, it is a relief that your sickness has subsided without any help from me. I can only assume that it was real illness, and not a desperate plea for attention. I have been thinking much of you today, blabbing intimate details of your sad childhood and my own in order to more efficiently manipulate the grieving."
Holder: "Want a cigarette?"
Linden: "Does the fact that I can barely talk around the amount of gum I have in my mouth and stored in my cheeks answer that question."
Holder: "I miss your son."
Linden: "That is a perfectly reasonable human response from what I have heard."
Holder: "I will now evict myself from the car and continue the stakeout, so you can check on your sick son with your own eyes."
Linden: "The conspicuously awkward way in which you are doing that tells me that something weird is about to happen in this location and you are possibly in danger. Therefore, I will be on my way. My thanks, Coworker, for your simple hints on parenting that I cannot manage to innovate for myself."
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
HOMELESSNESS SMELLS A LOT LIKE HELO
Sarah: "Jack, is that you sitting creepily in the dark. Are you still very ill."
Helo: "No, it's me! Jack's father! Sitting creepily! He had a temperature of 103 when I got here and you don't even have a thermometer in that suitcase you call a hospital."
Sarah: "What on earth. Get out before I call the cops. Also, how rude that you sent your lawyer to harass me."
Helo: "Fine, but let me just say this. You care more about that dead girl than you do your own son."
Sarah: "Thanks for the insight, but we are all well aware."
BABKA'S HOUSE OF MAFIA REPROGRAMMING & DIVERSIFIED REVENUE STREAMS
Right on schedule, Holder is immediately kidnapped by Alexi in his backseat, who tells him not to turn around or bug out -- "Just drive" -- which was so obviously going to happen that it might as well have been Holder's actual plan.
RICHMOND'S HOUSE OF HAIR NEGLECT & BEING EMBARRASSED
Jamie: "I'm back, of course!"
Darren: "I'm just chilling here in the bathroom, weeping my eyes out."
Jamie: "You think that's a bad thing, but it's more like my birthday came early."
He gets him into bed, does what he can to make Darren comfy, and then refuses to leave for any reason.
Jamie: "My grandfather was in an accident that ruined his life and led perilously near his own death, but eventually he fought back and eventually he got everything to where it was supposed to be. He told me bad luck eventually destroys you, or makes you the man you were meant to be."
Darren: "Whether or not this story is made up, I am nowhere near the man your grandfather was. Also, why are you even here?"
Jamie: "But this isn't really the point of the story. There is a twist! The photo proof that got you arrested that night was faked. Faked! You're conceding to Mayor Adams and it turns out he framed you. How about now?"
Darren: "See, I thought you were gonna zig, but then you zagged."
Jamie: "Even your hair just perked up. Let's destroy him, yeah?"
HOMELESS HOTEL
Poking through boxes of creepy evidence, Sarah hears a scary sound and goes out into the hallway. A broken lightbulb is joined by much darkness and scarier sounds, and Sarah starts going just about nuts. But that knock at the door is just Holder. Poor kidnapped Holder, with Alexi downstairs ready to explain some more things.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
LARSEN
Lawyer: "Remember that teacher you almost got murdered? Well, we still have to deal with that. It's down to a trial for kidnapping and aggravated assault. I was really hoping your dead daughter would help, but we're still looking at a year just before this trial, and then you'll be in jail for upwards of three years."
Stan: "But that's over a thousand episodes of this show! Now my nihilism knows no limits!"
UNMARKED CAR CONFESSIONS
Alexi: "Yes, I was going to give Stan Larsen the full Ogi Jun. Stalked him, got right up against his life. But then just like you thought, I became friends with his daughter..."
Linden: "Yes, Suspect. You had feelings and emotions. But who was the him. What did she fear."
Alexi: "It was a luxury model towncar in the drop-off lane, when we were at the ferry. It had tinted windows, so I couldn't see inside."
Linden: "Cars are not to be feared, not people. It must have been an unknown person inside, that she feared."
Holder: "Great, so all we get is that it was a rich guy that took the ferry one time. Awesome."
Linden: "Do not despair, Suspect. You have performed at acceptable levels."
THE BIG FINISH
Stan goes back to Terry's chillwave cave and comes inside, holds out one hand, and raises her to standing. He kisses her, then, and just before things get real bad her phone starts ringing from a private number and they pull themselves together, alone again, for a sad, chaste hug. It is one of the more complex, relatable, terribly sad things that has ever happened on this show. Well done.
When he's gone she bursts into tears because life is unmanageable, and then the private number calls back. Who could it be? A friend? A lover from the past? Good news of any kind? Yeah, I bet you one hundred dollars it's somebody calling to tell Terry everything is going to be okay.
Alexi: "Rosie Larsen was a girl with secrets. You may be aware of that. But one thing you don't know is that the big change she went through had to do with her dad. She found out..."
Sarah: "-- That he killed your dad."
Alexi: "No, something else. Something very mysterious."
Sarah: "What was it. Use your words."
Mitch watches Tina get into a black car; Terry grins in her eight-inch heels at the person driving a black towncar, and gets inside. Hmm. Not that it's the same car, but it's interesting that we're focusing now on one of the guys on this show that would be in one or all of these black cars: Ames, Drexler, the Mayor. That's it, right? We're back to rich white guys? It should always be a rich white guy. In real life it usually is.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
Sarah: "What was it that Rosie found out about Stan Larsen. What was it. What was the thing that changed their relationship. What is the twist."
Alexi: "Yeah, he wasn't actually her father."
Mitch: "Oh, DID I NOT MENTION THAT?"
Although now... That's actually a pretty great twist. A lot of Mitch's grief w/r/t Stan -- the secret house, leaving him out of everything, Stan's own weird preoccupation with everything but his dead daughter -- makes a whole new kind of sense now. Was this on the table before and I just don't remember it, or what? Either way I love it. Of all the dads and daughters and mothers and sons, this is the most ironic possible thing. Or at least, I think, the trail of dead in Stan and Belko's wake would agree.
WEEK
Gil cockblocks Sarah's warrants some more; Alexi yells at Stan for probably a variety of healthy reasons; somebody was getting blackmailed; everybody's back in the hopper, and the Ames family returns to be gross and scary some more. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I really wish this TV drama would get back to the waterfront land deal. I don't think anybody's ever said that in history, but it ties together so many very interesting people in such a strange way that I've always thought -- when push comes to shove -- that'll actually be the seemingly boring glue that actually brings it all together. Plus, Tom Drexler has been much missed. At least by me.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps Gossip Girl, The Good Wife, and The Killing for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, on Twitter, and on Facebook.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11