You Spot It, You Got It

S03E05

Bullet has decided she's now on the team full-time, and leads them through the back alleys and creep spots of Seattle looking for an abductee who may or may not be Kallie, may or may not be related to Joe Mills, may or may not be related to the Piper, but for sure has connections to Beacon House. In the end, they find the girl -- throat all chopped up, but alive -- in a black-bag veterinarian office, and while Bullet's happy that they saved a life, one day of the realities of the Team Linden Lifestyle has her pretty convinced they're never going to find Kallie, and her ass is totally dead.

On the lighter side, it gives Linden ample time to see why Holder's so smitten with the girl -- one scene in particular, in which Bullet offers to ink Linden up with a picture of the North Star ("Because that's what you look at on the ocean. When you get lost, it helps you find your way home"), is not only an episode but a series highlight -- and Holder and Bullet a chance to really coordinate their affections in their lovely, quiet way.

Less soothing is Linden's visit to Holder's dojo, where she finds Caroline resigned to two facts: Holder isn't the sort of person who remembers Valentine's Day, and Holder is turning into a wild Linden animal right before her eyes. And when she has a run-in with Skinner's daughter at the station, it results in so many different kinds of bitchface from his wife that you can picture her just passing the hell out.

Turns out Joe Mills is Mama Dips's son, which Linden intuits almost as quickly as, later, she flips the fuck out on Danette for being such a bad mother. In both cases, you can see Linden's self-loathing from here, but it's a smooth Holder who renders it safe and on the table with "one of his addict sayings," as Linden puts it: "You spot it, you got it."

Adrian's foster mother comes to visit Ray Seward to ask for a final reconciliation; Ray strings her along until she fatally mentions that Adrian's "forgiven" him, at which point he abruptly but not surprisingly flips out. In parallel, chatty Alton has been given the chance to speak to his victims' family, in the hopes of getting points toward his appeal. It's only after the fact, when he returns empty and crestfallen, that he fills Ray in on his crime: He killed his parents in a botched burglary, and the "family" that visited -- and eventually forgave him, breaking his heart -- were his brother and sister.

These C-Block moments are really coalescing into some high-level shit, which I feel like we were promised but took a while to get going. The actors involved, of course, are a dream, but seeing their shadow play reiterations of the show's various themes could eventually turn these closed-box scenarios into more of a show highlight than even Mitch's harrowing journey into bleak stasis (and eventual recovery) was.

In the end, we're a little closer to finding the Piper and Pastor David is still pinging like hell, but the ever-fascinating Joe Mills provides much of the game-changing action. First you've got his mom running a motel to protect his perversity (while claiming he's just an innocent "young soul" that kids love), and then over the course the episode, the real scary shit: Danette received a call from Kallie's phone last night, which combined with Linden's emotional abuse has finally lit a fire under her ass. So she spends the episode driving around looking for her and calling obsessively, but just before she packs it in for the night, she calls one more time, and it rings nearby: The phone's been in Joe's possession this whole time.

Week: Bullet continues adjusting to the idea that there may have been a Killing, Danette goes fully apeshit about Joe Mills, we get some testimony from tonight's Pied Piper victim that seems to indict (the obviously psychotic) Pastor Dave, and Linden tries to convince both Skinner and Seward himself -- his execution now two weeks away -- that Ray is innocent.

PREVIOUSLY

Team Linden stormed Mama Dips's fleabag and are now tracking the pornographer she's protecting, Joe Mills, whose girlfriend Danette is the mother of the missing girl we're all looking for, Kallie, whose disappearance probably has nothing to do with a serial killer, the Pied Piper, who probably has everything to do with the murder that wrongfully put Ray Seward on Death Row, for which conviction Linden, and her former partner -- and boyfriend -- and current boss/taskforce leader were responsible in the first place.

TONIGHT

Some girl who might be Kallie (turns out she isn't) wanders out into the road, face already dicked up and bloody, and gets slightly run over by a young fella. When he gets out to check on her, she's like consumed with the irony. A scary person, seemingly male, appears between the boy and his car, having chased the bloodied youngster out into the street, and then I guess the ... young man just gets back in his car and drives away?

"Good luck with that, bloody-face girl and inexorable spree killer!" he said, and just hopped back into the car, hair and mucus and blood up in the grill, and slurped down the last of his Jamba Juice because who needs it, right? Who needs the stress? Especially when you already live in Seattle Washington, Universal Bummer Capital. It's already stressful enough just driving down this foggy street, drinking this Jamba Juice that tastes like tears and casinos and so many unsolved Killings, and a decaying manufacturing infrastructure, and public works projects on the waterfront that are really just cynical political grandstanding, and just the slightest hint of dangerously unskilled parenting. Slurp.

DANETTE

Danette is doing Danette stuff, slinking around in her briefs-and-t, smoking endless cigarettes, wiping makeup all over her face, scratching at unwashed hair, picking at toes and flipping channels at random. Joe Mills is doing Joe Mills stuff, like being beautiful and also a killer, a raper, a videotaper, of children.

Danette: "Kallie called, according to my phone. But I was too busy spending my welfare checks on steaks and Mercedes Benzes to pick up! I may have overestimated my parenting skills."
Joe Mills: "The part where you threw her out to become a hooker like in the Reba McIntyre song 'Fancy,' that didn't clue you in? Those vulgar Amanda Bynes holes in her face didn't throw any flags up?"
Danette: "Well, I was thinking about how she vanished days ago, and there is a serial killer on the loose who preys only on people who look just like her, and then I was shown video evidence that she was abducted and raped, and so I just started to like, put the clues together. Something is possibly amiss with my daughter."

Joe Mills is not worried about it. We know that this is because he is the pornographer/false-imprisoner, but Danette doesn't know that because she has a vested interest in not knowing that. (Which is to say, she also knows that.) He gets ready to scoot and Danette bitches verbatim, "You just come running the second that woman says so. I hate that." He is offended by her tone -- "that woman?" -- but I don't think we necessarily know who they're talking about.

Is he married, Joe Mills? He is quite the catch. Or else we're talking about the scene, where Holder says something about Mama Dips calling Joe Mills to come get her out of jail. What a world!

DIPS INTERROGATION

Holder: "Mamasan, your relationship with Joe Mills goes all the way back to 2006, when he first listed your motel as his permanent residence, and has continued to do that with every system-gaming application he's made for our various American entitlements and social programs."
Dips: "As if verifiable facts and a paper trail mean anything to me! To Mama Dips!"
Holder: "Is this because Joe Mills is incredible looking? Is that what this is? Because you are a crazy old bitch, which is the opposite of what he likes, which is babies."

She stares down at the picture of Joe Mills in a way for which you cannot blame her because he is incredible looking, but Linden's powers of having powers have their way of giving her powers, and she figures out that this is the way a person would look at a mug shot of a child pornographer in a secret room of their house who is their son.

Linden: "Now I have learned from my social worker that sometimes a person should check in with people around you so that you can know if you are being normal. This thing where you have a secret room in your place of business for your son to videotape child pornography, I regret to inform you Mama Dips, is not normal. Or okay. It is not healthy for your son when you do this thing."
Dips: "Oh, are we acting crazy now? Bitch I will lap you."
Linden: "I would like to see you try."
Dips: "It is because he has not been reincarnated too many times! That makes him a young soul, which is why children enjoy his company so much! They just love being around him, getting raped and videotaped by him, why, it's just like Frosty The Snowman but a porno! He would never hurt children, except by hurting them! This is a smear job!"

Linden: "I give. You win at crazy today."

DANETTE

Linden: "We have a search warrant. Let us in. Don't bother putting on pants."
Danette: "I won't, don't worry."
Linden: "Hey when I showed you that porno of your underage daughter one thing you forgot to mention is that your boyfriend was the other person."
Danette: "Don't be gross. Oh hey, speaking of your investigation, she called me last night. I missed the call."
Linden: "What a mother you are. Locking your kid out of the house, making him go homeless and live in a car, eventually sending him to live in Chicago. You make me sick. People like you should not have children. Also my mom."

OUTSIDE

Linden: "Give me the keys of the car. I will drive."
Holder: "You are being particularly Linden right now. Hey, did you notice how you got totally personal and projecty on her back there and it wasn't really about her at all?"
Linden: "Do not start with me. Do not mention my actions."
Holder: "You spot it, you got it."
Linden, verbatim: "Is that one of your addict sayings?"
(Beat.)
Linden: "That was maybe out of line."
Holder: "I mean technically yes, but also what I was saying is also true. Which kind of proves the point."

Skinner calls to tell them about the bloody-face girl, giving Linden all the excuses she already doesn't need to dodge her own shit.

C BLOCK

Alton: "[Practices repenting before the family of his victims.]"
Ray: "It's a little wordy. Get in, get out. You always talk too much."
Alton: "God forbid I try to be explicit and thorough before I am put to death."
Ray: "Except this is about clemency. You want sympathy because you still see a way out. You still have the affliction of hope. Look at me, I probably didn't even do the thing that is why I am here. You don't see me doing anything about it, do you?"

Dale is the guy whose cell is adjacent to Ray's; he also has thoughts on this subject.

Alton: "In the last ten years, eight inmates met with the victim's family -- and all eight got their sentence reduced to life on the appeal. Every one."
Ray: "So is it about forgiveness or is it about self-interest? Dale, your thoughts?"
Dale: "I ask for forgiveness every day."

Ray: "Isn't that just kissing God's ass instead of the family? Isn't it still manipulating?"

"God already has done it. Forgiven me. And everyone in here. Even you, Ray."

This is something I feel strongly about: A certain Christian theology that says redemption is the process of realizing you're already redeemed. The medium is the message. It is pretty clear why Ray cannot sign onto this; it is even clearer why we can't let anybody else have this. It's because we can't give it to ourselves, so we'll be damned if anybody else gets off. But I do believe it. I do believe that the thing inside you that allows you to do terrible things is not a thing but an absence of a thing, which is the ability to believe that you are loved completely, already home and already saved. At some point, that ability was taken away from you, beaten out of you and you went deaf to grace.

In the first two seasons we saw a lot of the "them" side of it: That nobody could let anybody else off the hook because once you give up vengeance then you are left with meaninglessness and the oppression of an uncaring chaotic universe. Blood calls to blood, calls to blood, because the alternative is realizing how small and insignificant we all are in the face of absolutes like death. Because if you keep asking "why, why, why" over and over, eventually you -- like this show -- can constellate any random mess into a reason.

But the "me" side of it, we didn't really get into -- and when we did it was just Darren's self-flagellation, which has no humility in it -- except through the concept of addiction, Linden's and Holder's particularly, which is that you consider yourself -- your pain, your shame, your guilt, your hunger -- so tremendously important that it is bigger than God. That your inability to forgive yourself is so strong it outpaces omnipotence.

THE ROAD

Skinner: "So you just saw the guy in your headlights, you didn't have a chat?"
Kid: "No, he just stood there and then went into the woods. He seemed to be very task-oriented."
Skinner: "I hate talking to this kid. Where is Reddick?"
Holder: "Not in this episode. Better give us the download, was it Kallie?"
Skinner: "Kind of? Her face was all jacked up so maybe."
Linden: "I have little faith in the Mohican skills of a cut-up white girl. She could be in this park, or the city, or in many pieces. But she is very likely a dead person."

By Jacob Clifton

Holder: "Linden, where are you going?"
Linden: "Partner, I dowse."

In short order, Linden has found an unused bright-red biohazard bag in the trees, confirming that the ghostly Hitcher the kid saw was the Pied Piper, and that whether or not Kallie is the girl in question, the girl in question was not yet murdered at this time since she is not in the empty bag. A few screeching turns and bleak urban deathscapes later, we find ourselves in a warehouse district.

Holder: "Have you ever talked to your son Jack? It's something I do a lot."
Linden: "That sounds enjoyable for a person to do. He is good company."
Holder: "He's really happy. Better about Shytown every time we talk."
Linden: "What a good thing to hear from you, a person who is not his parent."
Holder: "Do you understand that I am telling you to call your son?"
Linden: "Do you understand that I am about to brake-check your face?"

C BLOCK

Becker: "Two weeks is how long until the hanging. We have to be on our best behavior, or they will take away this very exciting opportunity for us to hang a person by the neck and watch the life slowly leave him. Seven is how many people get to attend the lynching. I am one of them. Over the two weeks, we will hold tests of horribleness to see who are the other six grossest people who work here. May the odds be ever in your favor, gentlemen."

TO BEACON

Holder: "Why are there always homeless kids everywhere... Hey, where are you going?"
Linden: "Once more I dowse, partner."

She finds a finger. Awful anyway, but right in line with the profile of our unsub, who cuts off your finger sometimes. But what's that within view of the finger? Beacon House, home of Pastor Dave.

Holder: "Whoever this girl is, she's down a finger. Do you think one of your homeless kids snuck her in last night?"
Pastor: "Uh, there is no way for them to do that. Our lockdowns are pretty hardcore, due to safety and children and all that. And also because it's a little bit creepy, just like me."
Linden: "What if you were down a finger?"
Pastor: "Well, they don't go to hospitals, or trust any city institutions at all because they're terrified of going back into the system, for which I do not blame them. The system is broken. It treats them like criminals."
Linden: "That is an interesting narrative because you care a lot, but outside this church place, they are being killed one by one. Finger by finger."
Pastor: "Fine, out of nine 24-hour clinics in Seattle, there are now three left. Due to the system is broken. I am impotently enraged by this."
Linden: "Yes, you are very anarchy."

Linden: "That is an interesting narrative because you care a lot, but outside this church place, they are being killed one by one. Finger by finger."
Pastor: "Fine, out of nine 24-hour clinics in Seattle, there are now three left. Due to the system is broken. I am impotently enraged by this."
Linden: "Yes, you are very anarchy."

Bullet: "So there are a million cops over there talking about fingers, and some girl apparently got away from the Piper? It is all very interesting!"
Linden: "Await instructions, small person."
Bullet: "I mean, that's going to be Kallie, right?"
Linden: "All but the finger of her."

Bullet immediately hops in the back of their car and pulls a bunch of wonderful Bullet shit that has them both secretly cracking up, and before you know it she's giving them street-by-street directions to where the girl/Kallie would go: "You need supervision, it's obvious."

I have wondered how Linden would deal with a face full of Bullet, but I never expected her to be down so immediately. I mean, she'd ditch the kid in a second -- it's her whole deal -- but the good humor with which she accepts Bullet's place in this fight is a real surprise. Not an out-of-character one, just a reminder that not even robots are robots all the time. Maybe she sees that same thing in Bullet that she infected Holder with, that thing that never stops. That animal thing that needs to solve the equations, chase the monsters back underground, or it will wither and die. I think Bullet has secrets we don't even know enough to ask about yet, that's what I think.

TANK

Sadly, the bridge under which Kallie would occasionally take her respite is currently occupied by Tank's strange band of post-apocalyptic badlands raiders, which gives even Bullet pause: "If those guys are down there, Kallie wouldn't be there. They hate girls... I could kick any one of them punk's asses, but not when they're all together, all high like this."

Holder gets his junkie hoodie out, and a whole year's worth of progress goes down the drain. It is worth noting that Linden's smile, already lurking in the corners since Bullet showed up, bursts out like the sun. If Seattle had a word for that.

Down in the canal, Holder has a long tense talk with Tank's gang that involves dog-whispering their pitbull Gristle, the phrase "chowder-bag" in reference to Holder's tender scrotum, and general ickiness. But up in the car, before the two threads come together, there are a couple of good moments. I mean, you can say this comes out of nowhere, but on at least two levels -- the show telling us about Linden, telling Linden about Linden, but also a sign of the ways in which Bullet is a sort of spiritual composite of both of them -- it's totally called-for.

By Jacob Clifton

The difference between a person you can trust and everyone else on earth is rarity, and you learn quickly to find it, located in the corners of even the quietest face. As a fairly intuitive person who came to it via survival myself, I'm saying, it's not that farfetched that Bullet would be able to check out just a few microexpressions on Linden's face and figure out her deal: That nothing could have made her peaceful with a mind that nobleness made simple as a fire, etc. That what Sarah Linden is to Seattle, and Stephen Holder is to Linden, Bullet is to the Jungle: Shepherdess, and mother. The North Star.

Bullet: "Bugs is pretty lame but he grows on you."
Linden: "Bugs. Explain."
Bullet: "He looks like a stretched-out white rabbit. Can I have a cigarette?"
Linden: "Of course."

Bullet has drawn a winged placard on her wrist: Faith. "Because no one's got any in me but me. Helps me remember." Linden approves.

"You'd be the North Star. I'd draw that on you because that's what you look at on the ocean. When you get lost, it helps you find your way home."

You spot it, you got it. But Bullet's not the only one getting psychic: Down in the canal, Tank's man Jebediah has smoked himself into a vision.

"I heard your dog, man. Crying because La Llorona got her. La Llorona was out looking for her dead children... I heard her. She killed her kids, and now she lives in the water crying out for them. All night. Coming from the river."

Growing up the Southwest it's a familiar story, but spun into new mystery here: First the Occam's Razor of it, that Jebediah is pointing out the direction of the girl/Kallie's ongoing murder tour of the entire city. Second the comparison to the myths we've already had woven in for us, Keylela that canoed too far, Orpheus that couldn't keep from looking back, it's an interesting way of re-centering the season on the motherhood stuff. Danette, Mama Dips, even Sarah (this year as a conspicuous absence), even Ray, actually: The things we do to our kids out of selfishness, out of what we think holds higher precedence.

Bullet: "So if he ain't your boss, then what is he? Your man?"
Linden: "We are no longer speaking as colleagues. Please do not smoke in my car."
Bullet: "You are right now at this moment smoking in your car."
Linden: "It is my car."
Holder, returning: "Bullet, get in the backseat. Stay always in the backseat if you are going to do this, be a cop with us. We have to pretend there are rules. And it's hard enough, Sarah always alpha-dogging me, without competition for the No. 2 spot."

Nearer the river they find a bloodied sewer pipe, and stand quietly grossing out; Bullet's at the other end looking horrified. It seems the Piper found the girl and dragged her out of the pipe, picking up his serial murder where he'd left off. Holder bums a cigarette from Linden, and takes it immediately over to Bullet so she won't have to ask.

Bullet: "What's the move? I know lots of other places..."
Holder: "For tonight, this might be time to call it..."
Bullet: "Do not misjudge Kallie, and do not shit on the faith I put in you. I will break into a thousand pieces if you give up right now. To underscore, I will now punch you in your beautiful abdomen."

Linden: "I mean, she's got our number. She clearly knows we don't know how to stop."
Holder: "Well, a year off has taught me some basic life skills. Come to the dojo and rest with me."
Linden: "You are not my man. I will not eat your tofu. I will not eat your lentils."

RIP 17

Danette drives around, smoking and slurping Tab in her jittery weirdo way, and slowly takes in the beautiful pageantry that is the thriving teenage hooker trade, of children's disposable flesh. On the wall, someone has spray-painted "RIP 17." It gives her pause. None of these kids are her kid; they are all her kid.

The question starts to become, will the show mistreat her enough that she gets a shot at redemption? The opposite of Ray Seward: A criminal that got away with it, and doesn't know enough to feel guilt.

She has half the time to do twice the work Mitch did.

C BLOCK

Dale, the other guy we've not heard much from, is too full of excitement to leave Ray alone: His "intended" is coming to visit, their first face-to-face meeting. I am tickled by our fascination with those people, those inmate-loving people. They must seem so sane to themselves, and they seem so crazy to us, but I think both ways are wrong: I think the pathology of the pen-pal lover is more about banal low self-esteem than anything. Not self-hatred or hybristophilia: Just the honest (and subtly contemptuous, à la "never make a pretty woman your wife") belief that nobody would settle for you without some seriously extenuating circumstance.

By Jacob Clifton

RIP 17

She has half the time to do twice the work Mitch did.

C BLOCK

Dale: "You've known love, have you not? What about your wife that you brutally murdered, surely you loved her once? Let's talk about that, it seems very romantic."
Ray: "Actually it is. Trisha raised hell every day of her life, she was wild. I liked that, at first, when it started, but she wasn't made for staying. For being a wife, a mother. She was a whore. (Literally.) Enjoy it while it lasts."
Dale: "You are a little bit jaded."
Ray: "I guess so but mostly I was talking about how you're on Death Row. Like literally you will not be married very long."
Dale: "Your wife disappointed you. Is that why you killed her?"
Ray: "I have no response to that."

The hack comes, but in a surprise twist he's there for them both. I guess visiting hours at this prison are: the middle of the night, sometimes.

Tess Clarke: "You don't know me, I'm your son's foster mother."
Ray: "Let's not talk about him overmuch."
Tess: "He is beautiful, he is growing at a normal rate, he plays soccer and video games. He loves to draw, especially the one site of where a serial killer dumps all his bodies..."
Ray: "Those are examples of you talking about him."
Tess: "Well, the thing is that he asks about you a lot, and we're interested in adopting him permanently, and... It would be better for Adrian if you gave your blessing. I brought the paperwork..."
Ray: "You came here, without your husband, with the paperwork..."
Tess: "My husband is not interested in your mess, Mr. Seward."
Ray: "In two weeks I'll be dead, and Adrian will be yours either way. What's the real deal?"
Tess: "The real deal is that Adrian wants to see you."
Ray: "That's not happening."
Tess: "He's forgiven you, Ray..."

Linden: "Then why are you here? Have you checked in according to procedure?"
Girl: "I'm just waiting for my dad..."
Linden: "Who is Skinner, based on the fact that his wife is standing right over there staring frag grenades into my soul for talking to you."
Girl: "Nice to meet you, robot lady."
Jennifer: "Bethany, come away from that slut. Skinner, I warned you about what would happen if I found out Linden exists."

DOJO

Linden: "Old friend, I have no home but the island, which is unavailable to me."
Holder: "You should have just come! Come in."
Caroline: "Sarah Linden! It is nice to meet you informally."
Linden: "It is confusing to me that you are here. But I shall resolve my questions quietly and quickly... I have done it. Hello. You are Holder's human connection in the world. It makes me feel weird."
Holder: "Come, eat of our tofu and our lentils. Watch with us a show about people who fish for catfish. It is called noodling but it also is about how they keep the chi aligned with the lake's stratosphere."
Caroline: "Yes, he really is like this all time. Come, enjoy our fun night as a couple. Eat out of boxes, not in the formal dining room as one might hope."
Holder: "Linden is a wild animal, she needs no table. Only her paws."
Caroline: "Yes, it is very enjoyable and comforting to see what you are turning into."

They "enjoy" and "rest" and learn about noodling.

Caroline: "I almost forgot! Here is a red velvet cupcake..."
Holder: "What a kind gift for our guest! She lives on sugar."
Caroline: "It is actually for you, Stephen. It is gluten-free and vegan and everything else stupid that you are into. And the why is that it is Valentine's Day, which you have forgotten just as foretold by Carl Reddick. This is my way of putting you on notice in front of your work wife."

He tries some bullshit about how didn't she know that he celebrates V-Day on the fifteenth, as some kind of half-assed -- but very believably Holder -- show of anti-consumerism. Nobody is buying. Even Linden looks like she's going to crawl out of her skin. They are all three relieved when Bullet calls Holder with a fresh lead on the girl/Kallie.

"You kids be safe," Caroline says, only mildly exasperated by her shitty night. You bought it; you might as well read the warranty. I wonder how much of this she could tell just looking at him, you know? Like you work your way through law school and up into being an ADA, and at some point you're like, "This detective is rough-hewn but seems to have ambitions that make us a probable match."

If she had no idea what he was capable of -- how easy Sarah could pull him down with her -- it would be very sad. But something about the way she performs her indulgence of all this makes me think it's more like Dale's intended: She didn't check the teeth before she bought the horse because either way it was good enough, for what she deserved. A man only half in the world, with much to offer nonetheless. I'd imagine it's the same math Sarah's ferryboat boyfriend did in his head, too; I'd imagine he was thinking about exactly that, when he let her slip away so easily.

THE VET

Bullet: "[A complicated 'Joe told me Jim told him Jake said' narrative about this lead] ...And Lobo said he saw some guy carrying a girl into the alley behind that vet, she was bleeding all over the place..."

She tries to follow them into the vet's office, but even Team Linden knows how damaging that would be, and then there are moments of tension. They find the young veterinarian still on the premises, protesting as they force him to his knees, and then the girl on whom he operated: Her neck chopped to bits and down a finger, all now sutured up with veterinary skill. "She was worse when she got here," he swears. "And I don't know who brought her, I'm paid not to know..."

Downside, it's not Kallie. Upside, it's clearly a Piper victim who narrowly escaped death. Which means we posit a fourth player in this girl's night because obviously it was neither Car Kid nor the Pied Piper that brought her to this secret black-ops vet clinic to save her life. Pastor Dave is an outside possibility, but that complicates rather than explains. Upside two, once she stops screaming and bleeding and PTSDing, she's going to have information about the Pied Piper's whole deal, since she ran into him like eight times last night when she wasn't busy escaping and bleeding all over Seattle.

Bullet: "First of all, is that girl gonna be all right?"
Holder: "Yes."
Bullet: "Good. In less-good news, I am starting to think Kallie is dead."
Holder: "Probably."

And she lets him see her cry; and when he moves her head slowly to his shoulder, she is gone enough she doesn't really resist at all. I had the whole thing a few weeks ago about when she claimed her dad gave her extra cash, which I thought was her elision for keeping Holder a secret for her street cred and thus a sad note on her desire to connect with him, but then the boarding school thing made me think maybe she's still got moneyed connections somewhere else and she wasn't really calling Holder her dad.

By Jacob Clifton

Bullet: "First of all, is that girl gonna be all right?"
Holder: "Yes."
Bullet: "Good. In less-good news, I am starting to think Kallie is dead."
Holder: "Probably."

Both ways work, I think. In the first two seasons, the visual core of the show was Linden, and Holder, held in tension by the enigmatic face and precious presence of Rosie Larsen; if this show ran a million seasons from now, you wouldn't be able to think of Season Three without seeing Bullet, big as the world. She defines loss the way Mitch did; she defines the search the way Linden does, she defines the balance-beam liminality of street-level spirituality the way Holder does. They spent so long trying to bring dead girls back into the world, it's like they brought her back with them. They didn't turn back and look, for once, and Rosie went to her rest finally, and Bullet was the reward. After all those pillars of salt, a girl who lived: Half me and half you.

Joe Mills: "What'd they want?"
Danette: "Nothing of import."

Joe Mills steps into the shower, brusque beyond sense, and bored, Danette tries one more time. After all that driving in the rainy Seattle night, looking at those kids, wondering how many of them would be dead by Christmas, and down at the bottom of the box is Hope. She dials again, and Joe's backpack rings immediately. She can't process it, it takes her forever to even get up off the bed and look for what part of her already knows she's going to find; when she finds Kallie's phone in his stuff, she's left it ringing long enough to get his attention. She stands at the window when he comes out of the bathroom. She can't even turn around, stuck to the spot, as what I would imagine is several months' worth of terrible decisions suddenly make themselves clear, even to Danette.

First of all, if you're going to gaslight somebody with their abducted daughter's phone, turn that ringer off, stupid. You know that shit was going off all day, it must have gotten irritating. Secondly, I admire this bitch's ability to ignore the obvious: After seeing a literal porno of your daughter and your boyfriend, after having the cops come to your house multiple times to explain that a serial killer is killing teen hookers who look just like your daughter who is a teen hooker, after having Sarah Linden of all people question your parenting -- danger zone! -- it still takes a literal moment of the call is coming from inside the house before she gives up the ghost. That's the kind of can-do attitude in the face of adversity (and all evidence) that a small business owner such as Danette really needs to develop, at the very least.

WEEK

Danette somehow escapes Joe Mills and stops being his second-biggest fan, bloody face girl speaks up about the Pied Piper, Pastor Dave finds new ways to be sketchy and Linden returns to harping on the subject of Ray's innocence, despite the fact that nobody -- including Skinner and Ray himself -- wants to hear it.

JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Killing, Pretty Little Liars, Mistresses, True Blood, 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.

By Jacob Clifton

WEEK