Man, that was great. Did you ever see such a thing? I feel bad for people not watching this show because that was the finest hour of a show I've seen in a while. Everything happened! It's Episode 8, so it's an act break, but even still. That was some Emmy shit.
The first half focuses almost entirely on Sarah's abduction by Pastor Mike, who forces her to drive all over town while they have a mixed-message conversation that she only figures out toward the end of their time together: As suspected, he's just another Linden, somebody driven to save children to the degree that it looks crazy to everybody else. But even looking in this mirror, she still can't understand what he's talking about until it's too late.
The second she finally figures out he's not a killer, or anything bad, he notices she's been signaling the cops their location with a turned-on walkie-talkie, and takes her to a bridge to kill her (and presumably himself). She ushers the cops to their location by telling the story of the time she saved Holder from killing himself -- second tearjerker moment, after a jaw-dropping confession of her conscious efforts to lose custody of Jack over the course of the series -- and they arrive just in time for a standoff that she stops by invoking Mike's own compassion, which she shares. Beautiful moment.
And then there's Ray Seward, who is just falling apart with two days to go before he is hanged. Panicked calls to his lawyer yield no results, and he ends up having a fall-down panic attack from which he's rescued by -- get this -- fucking Francis Becker. Who flips on a dime and shows him more selfless kindness and compassion than anybody on this show maybe ever has done, walking him back out of his terror. It's temporary, obviously, but that somehow makes it even more shockingly beautiful.
After a lovely dinner with Stephen that restores both their equilibrium and turns them back into something resembling people, Linden gets the call from Ray: He'll set up a meeting with Adrian for her if she thinks she can save him in the forty-eight hours, because they both know he didn't kill his wife.
Lyric turns up back on the street, and breaks Bullet's heart into a million pieces for the obvious reasons that was going to happen. Which would be the headline here, except Bullet ended up complicating Sarah's kidnapping by telling Holder that Lyric was in the custody of the Pied Piper, none of which was true, and ends up ruining their relationship. It's a sad, ugly, sickening shit show when he breaks up with her -- and when she finally tracks down the vanished survivor Angie to make amends, he won't take the call. Which is too bad, because the episode ends with Bullet entirely alone... And getting stalked by the Piper herself.
Week: Joe Mills is back in rotation, Bullet may be in trouble, and Sarah Linden may well be shooting an assailant. The only shit she hasn't pulled yet this season.
PREVIOUSLY
Ray Seward was unimpressed by Linden's late reasoning that he didn't kill his wife, and the Pied Piper still at large chopped off Angie Gower's ring finger. Bullet and Lyric came to stay at Pastor Mike's, which turned out to be a bad idea: Off a tip that Mike's identity was stolen, the SWAT team showed up to an empty house, which left Bullet without a clue where her new girlfriend was. And -- after a scary run-in with her formerly adorable young lover -- Sarah was kidnapped at knife-point, in her own car.
NOW
Pastor Mike: "Have you ever been taken hostage before?"
Linden: "Not really. Well, this one time by Native Americans, but Holder was the one that really got screwed there. Have you ever taken a hostage before?"
Pastor Mike: "Surprisingly enough, no. We'll figure something out. I guess I should take your gun and..."
Linden: "Here you go. Here's my phone too, you'll need that so I don't call anybody."
Pastor Mike: "This is going great. Thank you so much for your help, I mean it."
Linden: "Helping people is what I do, Pastor Whatever."
Pastor Mike: "Put on your seatbelt. It is for safety."
Linden: "Safety first, good. Now let's get out of here before somebody notices us doing this."
Linden: "So, I can't help but notice that shit has spun wildly out of control for you."
Pastor Mike: "Yeah you know actually, everything was going fine before you two got on your witchhunt and fucked up my entire life and that of everyone in my care."
Linden: "Why don't you spout stuff that is normal, but sounds crazy as hell."
Pastor Mike: "I am not a pervo, I am not a baddie. I understand the pain inside these kids, that's all."
Linden: "Okay, there's a cop car coming up on our left. I just want you to know I'm not going to signal them or anything."
Pastor Mike: "You were like, born to be taken hostage. You are a cool customer."
SPDHQ
Holder: "I don't have time for your Bullet nonsense, Bullet..."
Bullet: "Uh, as usual I am ten times the helpful of anyone else. Lyric called me saying that Pastor Mike was going to kill her (after I accidentally made him kidnap us)."
Holder: "That part is interesting. Now say some lies to me."
Bullet: "He is taking her to the woods where he killed all the other girls."
Man, that was great. Did you ever see such a thing? I feel bad for people not watching this show because that was the finest hour of a show I've seen in a while. Everything happened! It's Episode 8, so it's an act break, but even still. That was some Emmy shit.
The first half focuses almost entirely on Sarah's abduction by Pastor Mike, who forces her to drive all over town while they have a mixed-message conversation that she only figures out toward the end of their time together: As suspected, he's just another Linden, somebody driven to save children to the degree that it looks crazy to everybody else. But even looking in this mirror, she still can't understand what he's talking about until it's too late.
The second she finally figures out he's not a killer, or anything bad, he notices she's been signaling the cops their location with a turned-on walkie-talkie, and takes her to a bridge to kill her (and presumably himself). She ushers the cops to their location by telling the story of the time she saved Holder from killing himself -- second tearjerker moment, after a jaw-dropping confession of her conscious efforts to lose custody of Jack over the course of the series -- and they arrive just in time for a standoff that she stops by invoking Mike's own compassion, which she shares. Beautiful moment.
And then there's Ray Seward, who is just falling apart with two days to go before he is hanged. Panicked calls to his lawyer yield no results, and he ends up having a fall-down panic attack from which he's rescued by -- get this -- fucking Francis Becker. Who flips on a dime and shows him more selfless kindness and compassion than anybody on this show maybe ever has done, walking him back out of his terror. It's temporary, obviously, but that somehow makes it even more shockingly beautiful.
After a lovely dinner with Stephen that restores both their equilibrium and turns them back into something resembling people, Linden gets the call from Ray: He'll set up a meeting with Adrian for her if she thinks she can save him in the forty-eight hours, because they both know he didn't kill his wife.
Lyric turns up back on the street, and breaks Bullet's heart into a million pieces for the obvious reasons that was going to happen. Which would be the headline here, except Bullet ended up complicating Sarah's kidnapping by telling Holder that Lyric was in the custody of the Pied Piper, none of which was true, and ends up ruining their relationship. It's a sad, ugly, sickening shit show when he breaks up with her -- and when she finally tracks down the vanished survivor Angie to make amends, he won't take the call. Which is too bad, because the episode ends with Bullet entirely alone... And getting stalked by the Piper herself.
Week: Joe Mills is back in rotation, Bullet may be in trouble, and Sarah Linden may well be shooting an assailant. The only shit she hasn't pulled yet this season.
What? No he's not. None of that is true. Bullet honey you went seven episodes without doing the thing that everybody on this show always does. I am very disappointed. Unless you're telling the truth, in which case I am an even worse pretend cop than everybody else on this show.
Skinner: "Does any of this shit make sense to you?"
Reddick: "Not at all."
Holder: "But it's Bullet! Bullet is always right!"
Skinner: "Be only so crazy. You need somewhere to go when you find out about Sarah."
Holder: "In which case it won't matter that Bullet's lying, because we need to find her."
ABDUCTION IN PROGRESS
Linden: "Mind if I smoke?"
Mike: "It already smells like shit in here, go ahead."
Linden: "Rude. And by the way, I do understand helping children until you are nothing but a bloody nub. Both because I am also crazy, and also from the other side of it, because I grew up in foster care."
"You wanna know what the worst part was? Pity. People paint a picture in their heads, and they don't ... see you. Who you really are."
Mike: "That is eerily the same as a speech I gave Lyric last week."
Linden: "PS I am psychic. It is why this show is good, but also why I am nuts."
Mike: "Or wait, are you doing this because you're a cop? Like telling your name and your children's names? Because if I am a sociopath that cuts off fingers and heads, that might not work so good. You have to actually believe in humans before you can see someone as humanized."
Linden: "Actually it was both. Goddammit."
SPDHQ
Holder: "Everybody that just left that park -- which is the entire police force -- to go that train station, stop being at the train station and go back to that park."
Skinner: "Not to mention all helicopters stop operating in twenty minutes. These dang unions."
Or maybe because Mayor Richmond made a helicopter curfew so people can get some dang sleep? I really enjoy this activity of pretending Darren's still around all the time.
Somehow, Sarah has turned on her cop radio and suddenly they are patched into it, so now the clock starts. Ohh, this is so great. A whole show about a girl who might be dead, and then you hall-of-mirrors us into an episode about a woman who is surely alive: But it's the exact same fear, and the same chase, and the same veil between the living and the maybe-living.
Man, that was great. Did you ever see such a thing? I feel bad for people not watching this show because that was the finest hour of a show I've seen in a while. Everything happened! It's Episode 8, so it's an act break, but even still. That was some Emmy shit.
The first half focuses almost entirely on Sarah's abduction by Pastor Mike, who forces her to drive all over town while they have a mixed-message conversation that she only figures out toward the end of their time together: As suspected, he's just another Linden, somebody driven to save children to the degree that it looks crazy to everybody else. But even looking in this mirror, she still can't understand what he's talking about until it's too late.
The second she finally figures out he's not a killer, or anything bad, he notices she's been signaling the cops their location with a turned-on walkie-talkie, and takes her to a bridge to kill her (and presumably himself). She ushers the cops to their location by telling the story of the time she saved Holder from killing himself -- second tearjerker moment, after a jaw-dropping confession of her conscious efforts to lose custody of Jack over the course of the series -- and they arrive just in time for a standoff that she stops by invoking Mike's own compassion, which she shares. Beautiful moment.
And then there's Ray Seward, who is just falling apart with two days to go before he is hanged. Panicked calls to his lawyer yield no results, and he ends up having a fall-down panic attack from which he's rescued by -- get this -- fucking Francis Becker. Who flips on a dime and shows him more selfless kindness and compassion than anybody on this show maybe ever has done, walking him back out of his terror. It's temporary, obviously, but that somehow makes it even more shockingly beautiful.
After a lovely dinner with Stephen that restores both their equilibrium and turns them back into something resembling people, Linden gets the call from Ray: He'll set up a meeting with Adrian for her if she thinks she can save him in the forty-eight hours, because they both know he didn't kill his wife.
Lyric turns up back on the street, and breaks Bullet's heart into a million pieces for the obvious reasons that was going to happen. Which would be the headline here, except Bullet ended up complicating Sarah's kidnapping by telling Holder that Lyric was in the custody of the Pied Piper, none of which was true, and ends up ruining their relationship. It's a sad, ugly, sickening shit show when he breaks up with her -- and when she finally tracks down the vanished survivor Angie to make amends, he won't take the call. Which is too bad, because the episode ends with Bullet entirely alone... And getting stalked by the Piper herself.
Week: Joe Mills is back in rotation, Bullet may be in trouble, and Sarah Linden may well be shooting an assailant. The only shit she hasn't pulled yet this season.
One of my favorite things about the Scream movies, which are brilliant in exactly this self-reiterating literary way, is that every installment includes one scene where a person is being killed in front of another person and they don't see, or can't hear, or whatever the missing element is -- and the more the movies start being about Hollywood itself, the more that becomes sound booths, video cameras, etc. One technologically mediated step away from being able to help.
I mention it here only because usually the veil is misinformation, red herrings, personal vengeance -- it's rare we even get both sides of a situation, much less the characters -- but the yearning horror it presents here is just so weirdly similar to the terrifying feeling of not knowing where Kallie is -- the Maybes -- or the pain of Mitch and Darren, hurting so much that it tore time and space. The Certainties.
We get mixed up about what is grief and what is fear, but part of this show is coming to understand that they're just the same thing: This existential dread of an absence where there used to be a presence. Either way you're Orpheus -- whether you can see her or not, whether you know for sure if she's gone or not, whether it's cancer or a serial killer chasing her down -- because either way, your body is telling you This can't possibly be true.
Holder looks more like a meth head than he has in a long time, cheeks gone hollow, as they listen to her try and talk him down. Some cop cuts in on the channel, and while they're shutting that down it confirms they're still in the city. So all those cops come back to HQ, yet again.
ABDUCTION IN PROGRESS
Mike: "Do you know what heroin does to a kid? What withdrawal is like?"
Linden: "Yeah, from when I worked in a jail. Say more stuff that sounds creepy."
Mike: "They are just human refuse, these junkie whores. Barely people. Nobody cares about them."
Linden: "But you do. You go looking for them."
Mike: "Of course I do. I still don't think we're talking about the same thing. Listen, you know about that girl in Tempe, right? The one that died after I kidnapped her? That was no bueno, how that went."
Linden: "She was your first? I mean, serial killing. Not just the first person you tried to save, like it sounds like I'm saying."
Mike: "Cops are so stupid. You don't fix anything, you're just trained dogs who get to feel self-righteous at the end of the day."
Man, that was great. Did you ever see such a thing? I feel bad for people not watching this show because that was the finest hour of a show I've seen in a while. Everything happened! It's Episode 8, so it's an act break, but even still. That was some Emmy shit.
The first half focuses almost entirely on Sarah's abduction by Pastor Mike, who forces her to drive all over town while they have a mixed-message conversation that she only figures out toward the end of their time together: As suspected, he's just another Linden, somebody driven to save children to the degree that it looks crazy to everybody else. But even looking in this mirror, she still can't understand what he's talking about until it's too late.
The second she finally figures out he's not a killer, or anything bad, he notices she's been signaling the cops their location with a turned-on walkie-talkie, and takes her to a bridge to kill her (and presumably himself). She ushers the cops to their location by telling the story of the time she saved Holder from killing himself -- second tearjerker moment, after a jaw-dropping confession of her conscious efforts to lose custody of Jack over the course of the series -- and they arrive just in time for a standoff that she stops by invoking Mike's own compassion, which she shares. Beautiful moment.
And then there's Ray Seward, who is just falling apart with two days to go before he is hanged. Panicked calls to his lawyer yield no results, and he ends up having a fall-down panic attack from which he's rescued by -- get this -- fucking Francis Becker. Who flips on a dime and shows him more selfless kindness and compassion than anybody on this show maybe ever has done, walking him back out of his terror. It's temporary, obviously, but that somehow makes it even more shockingly beautiful.
After a lovely dinner with Stephen that restores both their equilibrium and turns them back into something resembling people, Linden gets the call from Ray: He'll set up a meeting with Adrian for her if she thinks she can save him in the forty-eight hours, because they both know he didn't kill his wife.
Lyric turns up back on the street, and breaks Bullet's heart into a million pieces for the obvious reasons that was going to happen. Which would be the headline here, except Bullet ended up complicating Sarah's kidnapping by telling Holder that Lyric was in the custody of the Pied Piper, none of which was true, and ends up ruining their relationship. It's a sad, ugly, sickening shit show when he breaks up with her -- and when she finally tracks down the vanished survivor Angie to make amends, he won't take the call. Which is too bad, because the episode ends with Bullet entirely alone... And getting stalked by the Piper herself.
Week: Joe Mills is back in rotation, Bullet may be in trouble, and Sarah Linden may well be shooting an assailant. The only shit she hasn't pulled yet this season.
Linden: "You are talking to the wrong fucking person about that. Being a cop is the opposite of that for me, I'm talking about the exact same thing you are. Crazy wild-animal justice that never stops, even when your son is gone and your home is gone and your husband is gone and your skin is gone and your bones are gone and all you are is just fire."
She sends Holder another subtle signal about where they're going. This whole thing is very subtle, I'm pointing out the ambiguities/bivalence of the conversation not to nail it as on-the-nose or just to snark, but because it's wonderful. I just realized how bitchy I might sound, but honestly it's great. They could do this for the whole hour, talk about opposite subjects and still agree because it's where they meet, and nobody would ever know the real truth about either of them. Including them.
Skinner: "Okay, how many drawbridges are there and which ones are up right now?"
The Computer: "Two of them are up like they said. On opposite ends of the city."
Skinner: "If only we hadn't just pulled the entire police force off one location and sent them back toward another!"
Linden: "Okay, so the girl was an addict you said?"
Mike: "She begged and begged for me to let her out. No other program would take her, they didn't have the money or the beds or whatever..."
Linden: "Wait, 'let her out'?"
Mike: "Crying, throwing up for days. She made me promise. When I finally went to the store, she got out and told the neighbors I kidnapped her..."
Linden: "So you were just detoxing her?"
Mike: "Yeah, but who would believe that? You don't even believe that. A grown man literally keeping a girl prisoner... You can see how and why it would destroy my life. Don't you judge me for..."
Sarah: "No, I get it. Jack's in Chicago."
Mike: "Did he die or something?"
Sarah: "No, I'm just a terrible parent. At some point that became clear even to me."
She chooses her words more carefully than that, but not carefully enough: One of the cops giggles, betting she'll start crying soon, and they laugh. Not smart with seven feet of Bugs Bunny a couple yards away, son. Not smart at all.
Holder: "Get out or your face will not survive. There is nothing funny about a woman with a knife to her throat. Even a hireback. Even the craziest person we have ever personally met. Because I'll tell you this, that was her scariest ugliest secret. Half of last season wouldn't even have happened if she wasn't so ashamed of that. She just opened a vein for your motherfuckers."
Man, that was great. Did you ever see such a thing? I feel bad for people not watching this show because that was the finest hour of a show I've seen in a while. Everything happened! It's Episode 8, so it's an act break, but even still. That was some Emmy shit.
The first half focuses almost entirely on Sarah's abduction by Pastor Mike, who forces her to drive all over town while they have a mixed-message conversation that she only figures out toward the end of their time together: As suspected, he's just another Linden, somebody driven to save children to the degree that it looks crazy to everybody else. But even looking in this mirror, she still can't understand what he's talking about until it's too late.
The second she finally figures out he's not a killer, or anything bad, he notices she's been signaling the cops their location with a turned-on walkie-talkie, and takes her to a bridge to kill her (and presumably himself). She ushers the cops to their location by telling the story of the time she saved Holder from killing himself -- second tearjerker moment, after a jaw-dropping confession of her conscious efforts to lose custody of Jack over the course of the series -- and they arrive just in time for a standoff that she stops by invoking Mike's own compassion, which she shares. Beautiful moment.
And then there's Ray Seward, who is just falling apart with two days to go before he is hanged. Panicked calls to his lawyer yield no results, and he ends up having a fall-down panic attack from which he's rescued by -- get this -- fucking Francis Becker. Who flips on a dime and shows him more selfless kindness and compassion than anybody on this show maybe ever has done, walking him back out of his terror. It's temporary, obviously, but that somehow makes it even more shockingly beautiful.
After a lovely dinner with Stephen that restores both their equilibrium and turns them back into something resembling people, Linden gets the call from Ray: He'll set up a meeting with Adrian for her if she thinks she can save him in the forty-eight hours, because they both know he didn't kill his wife.
Lyric turns up back on the street, and breaks Bullet's heart into a million pieces for the obvious reasons that was going to happen. Which would be the headline here, except Bullet ended up complicating Sarah's kidnapping by telling Holder that Lyric was in the custody of the Pied Piper, none of which was true, and ends up ruining their relationship. It's a sad, ugly, sickening shit show when he breaks up with her -- and when she finally tracks down the vanished survivor Angie to make amends, he won't take the call. Which is too bad, because the episode ends with Bullet entirely alone... And getting stalked by the Piper herself.
Week: Joe Mills is back in rotation, Bullet may be in trouble, and Sarah Linden may well be shooting an assailant. The only shit she hasn't pulled yet this season.
And even now, not for her: This is about getting the Pied Piper. About not dying before that happens. Mike orders her into a parking garage, cutting up the signal, and Sarah can't think of how to flag that for the radio. Or if she even -- oh, Orpheus -- if they even can still hear her.
Linden: "Why are we here? I'm gonna keep asking."
Mike: "I used to find them down here sometimes. Turn off the car."
Linden: "You can tell them, we can explain everything..."
Mike: "It took how long for you to even get there? And neither of us are entirely sure you believe me even now? Yeah, no thanks. Hostage thing's still going on."
Mike cries, while she lights another cigarette. It goes on and on, it's perfect. It stops being about hostages, or the Pied Piper, or police work, or being a hostage. It becomes a confessional. Whether she dies today or not, Pastor Mike has opened something. Thrown it wide.
"Okay, fine. I lied. I didn't lose Jack in a custody battle. Nobody took him from me. I lost him all on my own. I let him go. I didn't know how to tell him... This is all I've got. I can't give you any more. This is what I am."
"I'd come home when he was four or five, and he'd be under the blankets on my bed. This little warm lump. I'd act like it was the biggest surprise, and he'd start cracking up... That was all he wanted, that was it. I must have done it a hundred times."
Mike: "Sometimes the ones that hide are the ones that wanna be found the most."
Linden: "Tell me about it."
Mike: "I don't want to be here. Can you take me to the water? Please?"
Sarah: "Yeah."
But the way she says it, my God. Like she's doing a friend a favor. "Yeah, sure." "Yeah, of course." "Yeah, why not? Why wouldn't I?"
MORNING
"Where are we going now?"
Holder's been pacing circles around the radio since before the sun came up.
Linden: "Where, near the water? That bridge over there? I found my friend standing there, on that bridge one night. Right in the middle of the highway."
Mike: "Why are you telling me this?"
Linden: "He had lost hope too. Thought there was no going back. But there's always a way back, a way home. Just standing on the median, like he was dead, like he was all alone. He didn't even know I was coming to find him, or that I would even be looking... I found him, just by loving him, and I got him back."
Man, that was great. Did you ever see such a thing? I feel bad for people not watching this show because that was the finest hour of a show I've seen in a while. Everything happened! It's Episode 8, so it's an act break, but even still. That was some Emmy shit.
The first half focuses almost entirely on Sarah's abduction by Pastor Mike, who forces her to drive all over town while they have a mixed-message conversation that she only figures out toward the end of their time together: As suspected, he's just another Linden, somebody driven to save children to the degree that it looks crazy to everybody else. But even looking in this mirror, she still can't understand what he's talking about until it's too late.
The second she finally figures out he's not a killer, or anything bad, he notices she's been signaling the cops their location with a turned-on walkie-talkie, and takes her to a bridge to kill her (and presumably himself). She ushers the cops to their location by telling the story of the time she saved Holder from killing himself -- second tearjerker moment, after a jaw-dropping confession of her conscious efforts to lose custody of Jack over the course of the series -- and they arrive just in time for a standoff that she stops by invoking Mike's own compassion, which she shares. Beautiful moment.
And then there's Ray Seward, who is just falling apart with two days to go before he is hanged. Panicked calls to his lawyer yield no results, and he ends up having a fall-down panic attack from which he's rescued by -- get this -- fucking Francis Becker. Who flips on a dime and shows him more selfless kindness and compassion than anybody on this show maybe ever has done, walking him back out of his terror. It's temporary, obviously, but that somehow makes it even more shockingly beautiful.
After a lovely dinner with Stephen that restores both their equilibrium and turns them back into something resembling people, Linden gets the call from Ray: He'll set up a meeting with Adrian for her if she thinks she can save him in the forty-eight hours, because they both know he didn't kill his wife.
Lyric turns up back on the street, and breaks Bullet's heart into a million pieces for the obvious reasons that was going to happen. Which would be the headline here, except Bullet ended up complicating Sarah's kidnapping by telling Holder that Lyric was in the custody of the Pied Piper, none of which was true, and ends up ruining their relationship. It's a sad, ugly, sickening shit show when he breaks up with her -- and when she finally tracks down the vanished survivor Angie to make amends, he won't take the call. Which is too bad, because the episode ends with Bullet entirely alone... And getting stalked by the Piper herself.
Week: Joe Mills is back in rotation, Bullet may be in trouble, and Sarah Linden may well be shooting an assailant. The only shit she hasn't pulled yet this season.
It takes an aching amount of time for Holder to understand. She just keeps repeating "my friend, my friend" as the batteries falter on her walkie, and finally his eyes light up, terrified. He knows the bridge she means. It's all moving too fast for anybody to notice why that story spoke to him. Or maybe they're just too classy.
ABDUCTION IN PROGRESS
Mike: "That's why I was so specific with Angie. She wanted to die, rather than going back into the system."
Linden: "So that's why you took her to the vet. That's why all the blood. Man, Holder was wrong. I knew in my body he was wrong, but I couldn't think of something better."
Mike: "Cash on the counter, ring the bell. You wouldn't have believed me if I'd tried to explain."
Tired, he leans against the window -- and that's when he sees the walkie. She actually tells him to chill out instead of grabbing it, but it's too late. He makes her pull the car over, and they get out. Some kind of gross bridge situation. Before you know it, they're standing at the apex, right where it ends over the water. He gets her down on the edge, gun to her head. She looks out over the water. She doesn't cry. It looks so clean.
Finally old Mike just sits right down to her, because ain't this some shit. She's too scared to move, but when he begins to pray, her eyes tear up. With sympathy.
"I've fallen so short, I don't know what to do. I've failed them."
The cop cars come and he throws her gun into the water; Sarah nearly leans into him, in relief. And the whole time, never pity: Only sympathy, only compassion. She kept telling Holder he was turning into her, and now there's Mike to say, You can always fall farther down that hole. You're still on your first life.
She doesn't have to turn around to know he's got his hands in his pockets and he won't be taking them out and he won't be turning around, not until they have to kill him. She knows this because she's felt it. She was just telling him a story about it, in fact.
Only standing in front of him, guns pointed at them from every direction -- her tiny body, against his giant back -- does she realize she knows what it will take. The only thing that would work, because they are the same:
"If these men shoot you, they'll carry it all their lives."
It's enough for him. She watches Holder and Reddick cuff him, and weeps for him. Nobody, ever, understands what she's doing. The life goes out of her limbs and, embarrassed, she falls shaking to her knees. Soon enough they're all gone, and only Stephen is there, on the bridge -- the only bridge that matters, still; to this day -- and she lets him rub her back.
Man, that was great. Did you ever see such a thing? I feel bad for people not watching this show because that was the finest hour of a show I've seen in a while. Everything happened! It's Episode 8, so it's an act break, but even still. That was some Emmy shit.
The first half focuses almost entirely on Sarah's abduction by Pastor Mike, who forces her to drive all over town while they have a mixed-message conversation that she only figures out toward the end of their time together: As suspected, he's just another Linden, somebody driven to save children to the degree that it looks crazy to everybody else. But even looking in this mirror, she still can't understand what he's talking about until it's too late.
The second she finally figures out he's not a killer, or anything bad, he notices she's been signaling the cops their location with a turned-on walkie-talkie, and takes her to a bridge to kill her (and presumably himself). She ushers the cops to their location by telling the story of the time she saved Holder from killing himself -- second tearjerker moment, after a jaw-dropping confession of her conscious efforts to lose custody of Jack over the course of the series -- and they arrive just in time for a standoff that she stops by invoking Mike's own compassion, which she shares. Beautiful moment.
And then there's Ray Seward, who is just falling apart with two days to go before he is hanged. Panicked calls to his lawyer yield no results, and he ends up having a fall-down panic attack from which he's rescued by -- get this -- fucking Francis Becker. Who flips on a dime and shows him more selfless kindness and compassion than anybody on this show maybe ever has done, walking him back out of his terror. It's temporary, obviously, but that somehow makes it even more shockingly beautiful.
After a lovely dinner with Stephen that restores both their equilibrium and turns them back into something resembling people, Linden gets the call from Ray: He'll set up a meeting with Adrian for her if she thinks she can save him in the forty-eight hours, because they both know he didn't kill his wife.
Lyric turns up back on the street, and breaks Bullet's heart into a million pieces for the obvious reasons that was going to happen. Which would be the headline here, except Bullet ended up complicating Sarah's kidnapping by telling Holder that Lyric was in the custody of the Pied Piper, none of which was true, and ends up ruining their relationship. It's a sad, ugly, sickening shit show when he breaks up with her -- and when she finally tracks down the vanished survivor Angie to make amends, he won't take the call. Which is too bad, because the episode ends with Bullet entirely alone... And getting stalked by the Piper herself.
Week: Joe Mills is back in rotation, Bullet may be in trouble, and Sarah Linden may well be shooting an assailant. The only shit she hasn't pulled yet this season.
She can't look him in the eye, but she lets him rub her back.
C BLOCK
Ray: "So that cop who arrested me for that murder that time, and now says I didn't do that murder and shouldn't be on Death Row. Um, were you gonna call her back, or...? Because trust me that it's important. I can't seem to get through to her, but I'm sure it's not because she's busy getting abducted."
Lawyer: "I have no faith in Sarah Linden, because I do not know her. Your last appeal is done with and honestly that's how that works. So."
Ray: "Uh, I'ma need to keep trying, actually. Turns out getting hanged is some bullshit."
Lawyer: "Wait, you want to fight for your life and you're showing remorse and suddenly you didn't hack your wife's head off? Speaking as your lawyer, any one of these things would have been helpful to know about before today."
Ray: "I only recently found them out myself."
Lawyer: "This is cute, but I've seen it a million times before. Let's talk about what I should do with your remains. Do you want a tombstone, or..."
His face goes cold, just horribly sad. On the way back to his cell, he has a panic attack. Becker, of all people, gets him under control and talks him through it. It is beautiful. Even more beautiful because it is so, so temporary, but in that moment there is a little bit of God. More even than Sarah's confession, there is a light through the clouds for a second. I'm not going to lie, I have to take a little break. That is too much. It's too big.
Okay. I mean, you know what I mean? It's so scary because he's whimpering and wheezing, and then Becker grabs him by his lovely face and refuses to let him slip off into a freakout. Just looks into his eyes, and breathes with him. Gathers all the pieces together in his hands and holds them together just long enough.
"I have you," he says. "Everything is okay," he says.
"You're not dying."
SPDHQ
Skinner: "How's she doing in that debrief?"
Holder: "Well, she already lit a cigarette in the guy's face, so. The usual. Givin' 'em hell."
Skinner: "You know Mike's not the Pied Piper, right? We just confirmed that various cop ways. Also, Bullet lied to you. She got picked up a half-hour ago, hustling all night."
Holder: "She was in his house..."
Skinner: "Yeah, he started acting weird and she left because he was acting weird, and so she went to work. Your CI lied to you. You need to make this right."
Man, that was great. Did you ever see such a thing? I feel bad for people not watching this show because that was the finest hour of a show I've seen in a while. Everything happened! It's Episode 8, so it's an act break, but even still. That was some Emmy shit.
The first half focuses almost entirely on Sarah's abduction by Pastor Mike, who forces her to drive all over town while they have a mixed-message conversation that she only figures out toward the end of their time together: As suspected, he's just another Linden, somebody driven to save children to the degree that it looks crazy to everybody else. But even looking in this mirror, she still can't understand what he's talking about until it's too late.
The second she finally figures out he's not a killer, or anything bad, he notices she's been signaling the cops their location with a turned-on walkie-talkie, and takes her to a bridge to kill her (and presumably himself). She ushers the cops to their location by telling the story of the time she saved Holder from killing himself -- second tearjerker moment, after a jaw-dropping confession of her conscious efforts to lose custody of Jack over the course of the series -- and they arrive just in time for a standoff that she stops by invoking Mike's own compassion, which she shares. Beautiful moment.
And then there's Ray Seward, who is just falling apart with two days to go before he is hanged. Panicked calls to his lawyer yield no results, and he ends up having a fall-down panic attack from which he's rescued by -- get this -- fucking Francis Becker. Who flips on a dime and shows him more selfless kindness and compassion than anybody on this show maybe ever has done, walking him back out of his terror. It's temporary, obviously, but that somehow makes it even more shockingly beautiful.
After a lovely dinner with Stephen that restores both their equilibrium and turns them back into something resembling people, Linden gets the call from Ray: He'll set up a meeting with Adrian for her if she thinks she can save him in the forty-eight hours, because they both know he didn't kill his wife.
Lyric turns up back on the street, and breaks Bullet's heart into a million pieces for the obvious reasons that was going to happen. Which would be the headline here, except Bullet ended up complicating Sarah's kidnapping by telling Holder that Lyric was in the custody of the Pied Piper, none of which was true, and ends up ruining their relationship. It's a sad, ugly, sickening shit show when he breaks up with her -- and when she finally tracks down the vanished survivor Angie to make amends, he won't take the call. Which is too bad, because the episode ends with Bullet entirely alone... And getting stalked by the Piper herself.
Week: Joe Mills is back in rotation, Bullet may be in trouble, and Sarah Linden may well be shooting an assailant. The only shit she hasn't pulled yet this season.
Dealer: "What kind?"
Bullet: "Oh, just whatever. Just some drugs for me to abuse. You are the expert."
Dealer: "Heard anything about Kallie?"
Bullet: "Uh, I have to go abuse all these drugs now. Thank you for them."
Dealer: "Check it out, be careful. A fingerless girl bought drugs from me earlier."
Bullet: "It's weird that you say that. Maybe I will hold off on abusing these drugs."
VASHON
Sarah: "Thank you for not asking me if I'm okay. Everybody kept asking me that, it made me feel that one feeling. Anger."
Stephen: "Well, are you? Because you shouldn't be."
Sarah: "I know, but I am. I guess telling your biggest secret helps more than being held hostage hurts."
Stephen: "Like if I said for example, If something happened to you I would die."
Sarah: "Yeah. Like that. Or when I admitted that same thing to you, years after the fact, back on the bridge."
So she pays him back in kind. I am glad to see them play this game, it is my favorite game. Do you remember that game show several years back where they would hook the people up to the lie detector and ask them bigger and bigger secrets until they couldn't handle it anymore? That got ripped on so much, but to me it was like church.
Oh my God I was so jealous of those people. Even when their secrets were tiny and dumb, you could just watch and wait for the look of grace that would come over them. It made me ecstatic, every time: So small -- just a microexpression, just for one second -- but you could actually see it, knitting them back up on the inside, to say it where somebody could hear.
"I couldn't see him, you know? Just his eyes in the mirror. And his voice... I kept thinking that this is what it must've been like for all those girls, how alone they must've felt. Just his eyes, you know, looking at 'em. Knowing that was the last thing they were gonna see. Fuck."
Linden: "Only it wasn't even him."
Holder: "I should have got there sooner."
Linden: "You got there. You found me."
Then it's quiet. Just because we are not in love, they say, Doesn't mean I love anybody more than I love you.
Holder: "Do you go to bed with the Trisha Seward file? Eat dinner with it?"
Linden: "They're going to kill him in two days."
Man, that was great. Did you ever see such a thing? I feel bad for people not watching this show because that was the finest hour of a show I've seen in a while. Everything happened! It's Episode 8, so it's an act break, but even still. That was some Emmy shit.
The first half focuses almost entirely on Sarah's abduction by Pastor Mike, who forces her to drive all over town while they have a mixed-message conversation that she only figures out toward the end of their time together: As suspected, he's just another Linden, somebody driven to save children to the degree that it looks crazy to everybody else. But even looking in this mirror, she still can't understand what he's talking about until it's too late.
The second she finally figures out he's not a killer, or anything bad, he notices she's been signaling the cops their location with a turned-on walkie-talkie, and takes her to a bridge to kill her (and presumably himself). She ushers the cops to their location by telling the story of the time she saved Holder from killing himself -- second tearjerker moment, after a jaw-dropping confession of her conscious efforts to lose custody of Jack over the course of the series -- and they arrive just in time for a standoff that she stops by invoking Mike's own compassion, which she shares. Beautiful moment.
And then there's Ray Seward, who is just falling apart with two days to go before he is hanged. Panicked calls to his lawyer yield no results, and he ends up having a fall-down panic attack from which he's rescued by -- get this -- fucking Francis Becker. Who flips on a dime and shows him more selfless kindness and compassion than anybody on this show maybe ever has done, walking him back out of his terror. It's temporary, obviously, but that somehow makes it even more shockingly beautiful.
After a lovely dinner with Stephen that restores both their equilibrium and turns them back into something resembling people, Linden gets the call from Ray: He'll set up a meeting with Adrian for her if she thinks she can save him in the forty-eight hours, because they both know he didn't kill his wife.
Lyric turns up back on the street, and breaks Bullet's heart into a million pieces for the obvious reasons that was going to happen. Which would be the headline here, except Bullet ended up complicating Sarah's kidnapping by telling Holder that Lyric was in the custody of the Pied Piper, none of which was true, and ends up ruining their relationship. It's a sad, ugly, sickening shit show when he breaks up with her -- and when she finally tracks down the vanished survivor Angie to make amends, he won't take the call. Which is too bad, because the episode ends with Bullet entirely alone... And getting stalked by the Piper herself.
Week: Joe Mills is back in rotation, Bullet may be in trouble, and Sarah Linden may well be shooting an assailant. The only shit she hasn't pulled yet this season.
C BLOCK
Mrs. Becker: "Where's my husband, do you know? He hasn't been home in a couple days. I know you don't think much of me, but it's hard being there. Married to him."
Kid Becker: "She ain't lying."
Henderson: "He's tough, no joke. But if you saw what I saw today, you'd... My ideas about him have been a little bit radicalized this episode. Still waters, you know. Mean-eyed, violent, still waters."
Mrs. Becker: "Set aside the fact that you know I'm a huge whore and just be friends with me for like one second, please? I am all alone in this world. You're the only person who even knows him."
Henderson: "I got my own shit to worry about. I'm not wading into your stuff. I'm sorry."
TRANSIT STATION
Bullet: "I see by your fingerlessness that you are Angie Gower?"
Angie: "Everybody needs to stop talking to me forever."
Bullet: "I need you for a gift. I need to give you to a friend I hurt very badly."
Angie: "No thanks. The Piper comes for us all."
Bullet: "Cool, here are some extra drugs for later. Just tell me who the Piper is?"
She lays down every charisma vibe she's got in her tiny, strong little body. It's impressive, you know it is. Angie is strong too -- hell, that bitch won't stay down -- but even having beat the Reaper I don't think you could stand up to the full power of Bullet. Even when she came up against Linden, the Immovable Object v. The Irresistible Force, they still couldn't do better than holding on for dear life and saying psychic love things at each other.
VASHON
Holder: "One of these pictures makes me think Ray Seward loves his kid more than he lets on."
Linden: "Obviously, but that's not going to help."
Holder: "It reminds me of my nephew Davey. Remember him? The one I replaced with Jack when my meth ruined my family relationships?"
Linden: "Oh, is that still weird?"
Holder: "You steal from a child, there's no statute of limitations. Of course they're still watching me, waiting for me to fail."
Linden: "Take it from me, Sarah Linden, that you are misreading their affection for you."
Holder: "Uh yeah, I'll totally do that."
The phone rings, he doesn't pick up. I was scared it would be Caroline, but it's Bullet. Which is awful, obviously, but not the end of the world.
Man, that was great. Did you ever see such a thing? I feel bad for people not watching this show because that was the finest hour of a show I've seen in a while. Everything happened! It's Episode 8, so it's an act break, but even still. That was some Emmy shit.
The first half focuses almost entirely on Sarah's abduction by Pastor Mike, who forces her to drive all over town while they have a mixed-message conversation that she only figures out toward the end of their time together: As suspected, he's just another Linden, somebody driven to save children to the degree that it looks crazy to everybody else. But even looking in this mirror, she still can't understand what he's talking about until it's too late.
The second she finally figures out he's not a killer, or anything bad, he notices she's been signaling the cops their location with a turned-on walkie-talkie, and takes her to a bridge to kill her (and presumably himself). She ushers the cops to their location by telling the story of the time she saved Holder from killing himself -- second tearjerker moment, after a jaw-dropping confession of her conscious efforts to lose custody of Jack over the course of the series -- and they arrive just in time for a standoff that she stops by invoking Mike's own compassion, which she shares. Beautiful moment.
And then there's Ray Seward, who is just falling apart with two days to go before he is hanged. Panicked calls to his lawyer yield no results, and he ends up having a fall-down panic attack from which he's rescued by -- get this -- fucking Francis Becker. Who flips on a dime and shows him more selfless kindness and compassion than anybody on this show maybe ever has done, walking him back out of his terror. It's temporary, obviously, but that somehow makes it even more shockingly beautiful.
After a lovely dinner with Stephen that restores both their equilibrium and turns them back into something resembling people, Linden gets the call from Ray: He'll set up a meeting with Adrian for her if she thinks she can save him in the forty-eight hours, because they both know he didn't kill his wife.
Lyric turns up back on the street, and breaks Bullet's heart into a million pieces for the obvious reasons that was going to happen. Which would be the headline here, except Bullet ended up complicating Sarah's kidnapping by telling Holder that Lyric was in the custody of the Pied Piper, none of which was true, and ends up ruining their relationship. It's a sad, ugly, sickening shit show when he breaks up with her -- and when she finally tracks down the vanished survivor Angie to make amends, he won't take the call. Which is too bad, because the episode ends with Bullet entirely alone... And getting stalked by the Piper herself.
Week: Joe Mills is back in rotation, Bullet may be in trouble, and Sarah Linden may well be shooting an assailant. The only shit she hasn't pulled yet this season.
Holder: "I don't want you to steal from Adrian, in terms of the details of his father's possible crimes."
Linden: "That's a good point."
Holder: "Okay, shower and sleep for this bunny, and then back to the Joe Mills porn. Actually you know what, let me be your second set of eyes with this Seward file."
And she lets him take it! Amazing. This has got to be one of the... Yep, episode 8. Everything changes. I wish I'd remembered to check that going in, maybe I wouldn't have cried through the entire thing.
BULLET
"I am a fuckup and you have every right to pound me into the ground, but please call me. I really do have something." Her most grown-up voice. It's funny to watch her do the Linden/Holder thing, where it all gets cathected together into one big deal: She needs Bugs in order to find Kallie, which becomes needing Bugs, which becomes loving Bugs, and then they are all the same thing. Her shame at what she did, for no good reason -- and now no reason at all -- becomes shame at what it did to him, now that he's a real person. It puts Bugs and Kallie together at the end of this very dark tunnel, and now she has to fight through the tunnel to get to them both. Either, and both.
VASHON
Ray, calling collect: "Did you talk to Adrian?"
Linden: "Fosters won't let me."
Ray: "But you think he knows something, obviously. I can help with that. I didn't kill my wife, I wasn't there, and you believe me."
Sarah: "...Yeah, I do."
Ray: "Two days, Sarah. Please."
Bullet keeps calling Stephen, over and over. Shaking in a diner. No home, no Mike, no Stephen, no Lyric, no Kallie. Just this phone and a voicemail she's filling up.
And out there on the street, watching her: The Piper. Not entirely alone after all.
WEEK
Becker's viciousness continues looking less and less distinguishable from kindness, as he embraces his psychopomp role with what looks less and less like enjoyment. Joe Mills comes back into the story (yay!), and possibly attacks Sarah (boo!). And God knows what's going on with Bullet. Outlook hazy on that one.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Killing, Pretty Little Liars, Ray Donovan, Mistresses, and True Blood for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as a regular column for Tor.com, Geek Love.
Man, that was great. Did you ever see such a thing? I feel bad for people not watching this show because that was the finest hour of a show I've seen in a while. Everything happened! It's Episode 8, so it's an act break, but even still. That was some Emmy shit.
The first half focuses almost entirely on Sarah's abduction by Pastor Mike, who forces her to drive all over town while they have a mixed-message conversation that she only figures out toward the end of their time together: As suspected, he's just another Linden, somebody driven to save children to the degree that it looks crazy to everybody else. But even looking in this mirror, she still can't understand what he's talking about until it's too late.
The second she finally figures out he's not a killer, or anything bad, he notices she's been signaling the cops their location with a turned-on walkie-talkie, and takes her to a bridge to kill her (and presumably himself). She ushers the cops to their location by telling the story of the time she saved Holder from killing himself -- second tearjerker moment, after a jaw-dropping confession of her conscious efforts to lose custody of Jack over the course of the series -- and they arrive just in time for a standoff that she stops by invoking Mike's own compassion, which she shares. Beautiful moment.
And then there's Ray Seward, who is just falling apart with two days to go before he is hanged. Panicked calls to his lawyer yield no results, and he ends up having a fall-down panic attack from which he's rescued by -- get this -- fucking Francis Becker. Who flips on a dime and shows him more selfless kindness and compassion than anybody on this show maybe ever has done, walking him back out of his terror. It's temporary, obviously, but that somehow makes it even more shockingly beautiful.
After a lovely dinner with Stephen that restores both their equilibrium and turns them back into something resembling people, Linden gets the call from Ray: He'll set up a meeting with Adrian for her if she thinks she can save him in the forty-eight hours, because they both know he didn't kill his wife.
Lyric turns up back on the street, and breaks Bullet's heart into a million pieces for the obvious reasons that was going to happen. Which would be the headline here, except Bullet ended up complicating Sarah's kidnapping by telling Holder that Lyric was in the custody of the Pied Piper, none of which was true, and ends up ruining their relationship. It's a sad, ugly, sickening shit show when he breaks up with her -- and when she finally tracks down the vanished survivor Angie to make amends, he won't take the call. Which is too bad, because the episode ends with Bullet entirely alone... And getting stalked by the Piper herself.
Week: Joe Mills is back in rotation, Bullet may be in trouble, and Sarah Linden may well be shooting an assailant. The only shit she hasn't pulled yet this season.