Holy crap, right? So, doubling down on last week's unrelenting emotional landslide was probably the smart move, but damn. This is such a good show for being so hard to watch.
Joe Mills's reappearance at Danette's house sends Team Linden north, to the Canadian border, but a quick stop at his storage unit reveals his secret hiding place. A short fight later, Linden figures out his final victim, but it's too late to keep Holder from discovering Bullet's body in Joe's trunk.
While everyone looks for a way to let Holder loose on the guy's face, he's too busy breaking up with Caroline and becoming a wild animal to actually do much damage -- even after he risks permanent wreckage by jumping for a kiss with Sarah. As the solid one this year, she avoids the controversy, but once a heartless morgue attendant tells him Reddick knew she'd been calling all night he gets a little violent on his former mentor.
With the Pied Piper officially in custody, Adrian is finally allowed to give his own testimony, and identifies Mills instantly as the culprit of his mother's murder. A little light shed on the unrelenting darkness that is Season Three? Oh, hell no: He's lying, as an offhand comment from Danette makes clear. While Mills is properly (or at least presumably) culpable for the serial murders, he's still off the hook for Trisha Seward.
(And bonus, the scene of him finally explaining his child-molester rationale is exactly as nightmarishly visceral, technically beautiful, emotionally vile and ethically banal as you would assume. Any other show, the inexorable and pathetic account of his vampirism would be a high/low point, but in the midst of this particular episode it's only about half as awful as everything else.)
While Sarah eventually tells Skinner about this, bumming them both out, she does continue going over the evidence to save Seward from his execution (which, by the end of the episode, is taking place today). Holder's basically out of commission -- and possibly suspended after his violent attack on Reddick -- but soon enough, she's got possible evidence in hand and heads for jail.
Meanwhile, Becker's son shoots a suitor of his mother's -- notably, while Becker is once again out of pocket -- and in a flesh-crawling twist, we learn that fellow inmate Dale's ongoing attempt at Ray's redemption (which has borne fruit in many ways) was nothing but an act of final and ultimate cruelty: Without the ability to kill with his hands, he's become practiced at using words. Having talked Alton into suicide, he's been working a long con on Ray Seward. In a moment of abject faith, Dale whisks the illusion of God out from under him, committing a crime we don't even have a word for and compounding the seething misery of the episode tenfold. We'll see if it sticks, but it was sickening to watch in a way few things (on this show or off) has ever felt.
Twitch is more visibly broken by Bullet's death than even Holder is, although Lyric's infantile joy at having gotten both subsidized housing and Twitch to stay in Seattle is eventually undermined to some degree by the death of her last lover/victim. She imminently understandable, but as the person on the show least susceptible to horror of anyone, it's a bit hard to deal with her satisfaction on any level. (Which, one assumes, will obviously pay off in her brutal murder, because this show won't let anyone be happy and because she hurt Bullet's feelings moments before her murder, and because everyone on this show has horrible awful unimaginable things happen to them pretty much all the time.)
All in all, it makes sense to follow an episode full of moments of unasked-for grace with a story chock-full of surprise grief. Never maudlin, never overstated, it's not the rainy-day misery of Mitch Larsen or even the terrified hostage scenario of last week: Just unrelenting pain, in a higher register than the grief or even dread the show usually sets up. A story that's always been about the ache of limbo, transposed for the week up into the hell that lurks just beyond: Excellent, and absolutely unacceptable.
Week: Leading up to the two-hour finale, it's just an entire hour of live footage as the show's producers roam from one loyal viewer's home to the , rounding up their pets and killing them execution-style. Carnival music and laugh-track no extra charge.
PREVIOUSLYSarah Linden found a surprising compatriot in (or at least, compassion for) Pastor Mike, whose obsession with helping the lost was so close to her own -- but also so unrecognizable -- that it nearly got them both killed. Ray Seward offered to help with the Pied Piper investigation, now that his impending execution has him freaking completely out, and was subject to his own experience of radical compassion from an incredibly unlikely source (his torturer/CO Francis Becker). Stephen Holder is maybe having some kind of internal meltdown catalyzed by their dealings with the Pastor and his own disappointment with Bullet ... whose coincidental alienation of everyone she loves couldn't have come at a worse time, now that she's on the Piper's radar herself.
DANETTE
Is sad-sackingly putting up flyers on the cars outside her trailer when she hears a siren in the distance. Heading back home, she sees the door open: The place has been wrecked, presumably by Joe Mills, but she's in enough of a state that she assumes instead that it's Kallie for some ineffable but understandable reason, and heads right on into danger. Her reaction to Joe Mills's wolfish grin is the opposite of mine. She does not clap, nor does she cheer.
ADRIAN'S SCHOOL
Linden: "Now that we have access to the human child, we must get permission to treat him as a credible witness."
Holder: "He can read passably well and hasn't shit himself in years. Already he is more credible than most witnesses we have ever dealt with."
Linden: "Speaking as a product of the System, it is possible this will take all day. Not only is this a longshot because he is quite small, but he is also continually remembering more about how he saw his own mother get butchered in front of him. We must cross our detective fingers."
They immediately get the call about Joe showing up at Danette's, meaning they won't have to sit around waiting for this evaluation to take place. Which is probably best, considering Linden's unnerving on her chillest day, and Holder's been getting twitchier and twitchier the further he gets from his real life, and from Bullet.
DANETTE
Danette: "Not only is he a child pornographer who abused my daughter, but he also touched my shit!"
Holder: "Yeah he seems to have a problem with boundaries. Listen, is it possible he went to go find other children to violate? In the same way as your vanished and probably dead daughter?"
Camping and fishing gear, and snow chains, along with her money and car: He's headed for the border, where he used to engage in what Danette troublingly refers to as "backwoods stuff" back when they were first dating and everything was so super romantic and she thought they would be together for always. Just doin' hair, snugglin' on the couch, lettin' her kid be a hooker. The American Dream.
Linden: "Before we begin to scour Canada for one small sexy man, we must visit his storage unit. It contains detailed maps, a chronicle of his 'backwoods' activities."
Holder: "You have got to stop saying that word. This is already so creepy, you can't add that word on top of it. Simply say instead bucolic, or even pastoral."
C BLOCK
Becker: "You keep leaving messages for that weird cop, do you really think that'll help?"
Seward: "Maybe I found God, like the cliché of everyone that's ever been here. Or maybe I'm right, and she's getting me out. And when I am free, the first thing I'm going to do is get in line for your whore wife just like everybody else."
Becker smacks impotently at the bars with his nightstick -- "You can do better than that, Francis!" Ray laughs delightedly -- and then abruptly quits the scene, hurling abuse and mean faces at Henderson the second he's through the gate.
STORAGE
Linden gets the call that it'll be just like another hour before the kid gets cleared, and they enter the units.
Holder: "You can have a cigarette when you buy me a pack. This is not a beneficial arrangement to me at this point."
Linden, sweetly: "Come on! I gave you one that time, you gave it to Bullet..."
Holder: "Ugh."
Linden: "What, did you break up with her while I was being held hostage?"
Holder: "Yeah, I still can't talk about that. Don't worry about it."
The unit is creepy: Kids' toys, bikes, hunting stuff. Oh, and a bed. Which explains a lot. Linden picks up a cigarette butt and he laughs at her for being a fiend... Then notices it's still smoking.
They give chase through the complex, halls and rows of units, and eventually she rounds a corner into Joe's arms, gun flung wide. Holder comes running as they punch each other, grunting like animals. He finds her, easy as anything, and as she rolls around covered in face blood, he subdues the guy so she can... Whoa! Kick the shit out of him.
Linden: "Sorry, that was about Pastor Mike. I have some adrenaline stored up."
Mills: "It was very intense!"
Skinner: "You are all banged up!"
Linden: "Yeah, but I honestly feel great. That dude is in custody..."
Reddick: "-- And look what I found! A whole box full of rings, like trophies."
Linden smiles, already beautiful and rare, but especially through the nicks and bruises of her dust-up. I mean, he's the suspect and he's acting wicked crazy, so she must feel validated by it. But as a viewer who does not trust this show's red-herringness -- merely enjoys it -- I am only intrigued, rather than elated. I mean, as if homegirl's ever allowed to smile without a huge asterisk hanging over it.
While the cops cheer and get the wheels moving, Sarah digs through the cigar box: One crystal pendant in particular draws her interest. Downstairs, Holder walkies that there's another body possibly in Mills's trunk, given the blood all around, and she screams not to open it.
A long sequence of Holder breaking into the car as she beats it down the stairs to him, to stop him. He breaks the window, popping it from the cab, just as she's arriving.
First the skin crawling, and then the tears, based solely on her sad eyes, and then before you know it, you know what she's about to say. The whole story is laid bare. The only story we are ever telling.
Orpheus.
"Don't look inside. Just come over here. Walk directly to me. Please. You don't need to be here."
And for a moment you're Sarah Linden, begging him not to look. And you're Stephen Holder, connecting the dots, unable to not look. Either way, it's not true until he looks: Orpheus as Schrödinger.
Either way, the show just keeps telling you the same story, stories within stories, of what happens when you do. That toxic free-radical cloud around looking, and not looking, and the moment before you look: The naked lunch on every fork. Is Kallie dead? Yes, and no. Not until we know.
Is there anyone in that trunk? Yes, and no. It is empty for a second; it is full of only faith.
She wrote it every day on herself, too poor for ink and too proud and too wise to make it permanent: A tattoo is one decision, but what she did was every day. Every day she would open her eyes, and remind herself that faith is all we have. A promise she'd inscribe upon her flesh, every single day.
He's so young, turning away from her, as she begs him not to look. But of course he looks. The most wonderful and the most terrible thing about him: He looks. He can't stop. And until you see it, you won't know.
And then you do, and then you do.
SPDHQ
Holder stares him down, through the glass; cuffed to the table.
Reddick: "She died less than twelve hours ago. After calling you at least that many times."
Holder: "She fought back. Right?"
She raised hell. She bruised and cut every bit of herself on him, wore herself away on the unstoppable, until there was nothing left of her at all. She could feel it hanging over her until the very second it descended, and then she fought like a motherfucker. We expect nothing less.
Reddick: "The report already says he resisted arrest. But he looks fine to me. You have five minutes, if you want it."
Not even Sarah could stop him. Not even Sarah wants him to stop. It is rare in this life that we are presented with such a clear-cut opportunity. To feel better, to make it stop; to put it in another box and then beat that box until it's bloody, until it goes away. To erase someone from the outside, in. To finish the job she never could have, and never should have had to.
On Stephen's way out, away from the opportunity -- away from losing everything to the hoodie, to becoming the animal outside that he's becoming inside -- even Skinner can see it on him; even Skinner's body nearly reaches out. Even Skinner knows what he needs right now is to run, so far and so fast not even the rain could touch him.
Reddick and Skinner talk about the Piper and logistics, autopsies and warrants. I can't hear them. Sarah can't even hear them, because where there were two people to save now there is just one: Ray Seward, whose time is running out. She couldn't save Stephen from this, nobody could. But there are twenty women in this case, now. Not eighteen, not nineteen. And of them all only Trisha Seward makes a difference for the future; only Trisha's justice can save anybody, now.
"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.
It's the only way to honor her, now. It's the only thing she'd want. For Kallie and Ray to find their way home. For the North Star to lead them there.
Skinner: "He'll only talk to Danette. He keeps demanding it."
Linden: "I have to do this, maybe more than I have to do almost anything. And as you know, I have to do everything I do."
Skinner: "I want a confession, I don't care how. Let's make him comfortable."
Linden: "There was no blue ring in the cigar box."
Then Kallie's on the table, and Danette is the perfect person to do it. Or she would be, if she weren't so imperfect.
OUTSIDE
In his human disguise, camouflaged by the hoodie, Stephen makes his way past the reporters gathered outside, and runs to his car. Caroline spots him, and joins him out of the rain. He barely notices she's there.
Caroline: "I don't know what to say except that you are hurting and it's horrible, I heard the whole thing. These kids, I mean..."
Stephen: "She would have died either way? She's homeless and a statistic and we spend all day overlooking the human misery that surrounds us then when one of them is special you look at them, bifocal. One, she was always going to die. Two..."
Caroline: "That's not... I'm not that shallow. You loved her. I understand..."
"I am these kids. Not like Sarah, not like Mike. Like me. This tattoo on my chest is not a fucking joke about Firefly, it's the entire story about the man you love. I am an addict. For the rest of my life, I am the person who shot meth into my actual veins, who lived as a tweaker and made decisions as a tweaker and stole money from a baby because that is who I was, and that's who I am. I am disgusting; merely by you looking at me I become disgusting."
He screams at her until she gets out; until she jerks and steps out, into the rain. She doesn't look back.
TWITCH
Walks slow, back into the squat. She picked up his paperwork at Social Services: He's off probation, thanks to that little matter of his rape. Lyric's social worker has found them housing. He can go to California, start his modeling career, become an actor; she'll finally have the home Bullet fought so hard to get her. And Twitch, grunting with it, bowing beneath it, can't even choke it out.
In retrospect you can see how, and how much, he loved her. Her faith and her tenacity, her disappointment in him. Leading him home, like the North Star, even passing Lyric back and forth under the moon: The way her righteous anger kept them all alive.
Her anger and her faith were born of the necessity of their survival. Their survival depended upon her anger, and her faith. Back and forth, under the moon. Held in her hands.
He chokes out her name, and Lyric breathes it in.
INTERROGATION
Just as Sarah's getting clearance on Adrian, Danette sits down across from Mills. He reaches out, lovingly -- all alone in this place -- and she looks at him, cold, finally able to drop the act now that he can't hurt her. Unintimidated, letting her revulsion finally show. It takes a while for his eyes to catch up with her face, before he draws himself back across the table, away from it.
Danette: "Where's Kallie."
Mills: "I honestly don't know. None of this is me. I could never hurt anybody."
Danette: "And your cell phone?"
Mills: "I was trying to save her from that hotel, she was high and screaming at me, she jumps out of the cab..."
Danette: "And what were you doing to her there?"
Mills: "Nothing! I loved that kid. You know that."
His belief in what he is saying is so strong. The whole department watches as he promises, in tears: All he needs is bail and they can go find her together. Be a family.
Danette: "I talked to your mother. She told me everything you'd done. She said you're not her little boy anymore. She's done. We're done with you."
His face goes corpse-white, rage and sadness at once. The face he was wearing falls away, tumbles in on itself. The innocence and the ugliness of him, pouring out onto the table as she demands to know why.
His explanation is vile, flesh-crawling. It's a promise he made to himself, and it's a lie be believes. The man who gave them French fries, who told them to stay out of the rain. Stephen told his story, last week, but about the wrong man: Some shepherds husband, but some shepherds slaughter.
Danette climbs onto the table, screaming, and they swarm upon her, dragging her back. Sarah Linden doesn't blink.
ADRIAN
Linden: "Do not be scared of my beat up face. Now tell me if you saw a person in your house that night."
Adrian: "Uh."
Linden: "Trust me, it will be fine. Speak clearly into this recorder. You are doing awesome. Tell me what you saw."
Adrian: "The man hurt my mom, with a knife. I was in the closet, full of stars. Too dark to see the man, but I the Christmas tree was always lit. My mom was traditional in some ways."
He points out #5, Joe Mills, and she nearly jumps out of her skin. When he asks to see his father, she smiles at him luxuriously.
SPDHQ
She's still smiling, as Skinner tells the press the Pied Piper's been caught. Their silent conversations are always so intimate; she grins and jerks her head to the left, to tell him their mistake is nearly cleared up. The blood's almost off their hands.
And still, smiling, she retrieves her messages from the front desk: Five messages from Ray, and she's so jumpy she can barely dial the jail. She hangs up with the recording, though, when Danette appears. "Hey," she says warmly.
Danette: "I maybe deserve this. I have a history with shitty guys, and he was so sweet with her and with me, he bought her dumb lame presents and saved money, worked in Alaska to earn money for us..."
Linden: "Presents like what?"
Danette: "Oh, you know. One of those creepy dolls with the hair that grows, to be like mommy. She liked it, but she was a little too old, he was a little off always about that. She was twelve, nobody wants dolls when..."
Linden: "Wait, this was three years ago? Joe was in Alaska three years ago?"
Danette: "Christmastime, gone until February, I picked him up myself..."
Linden: "He was not in Seattle the day after Christmas, three years ago?"
The smile crashes onto linoleum. You knew it wouldn't be long, but Jesus. This episode is half over, by the way. Half over. She was this close to telling Ray she'd saved his life.
C BLOCK
Ray screams, screams for the phone, as Dale watches the silence. Nobody's reacting, nobody even moves, it's just Ray pushing his face against the bars. And then Becker.
"You got all your calls. You left all your messages. She's not coming. No one's coming for you. Get there."
He stretches himself, extending his shoulder as far as it'll go: Just fingers, brushing the air in front of Becker's face. Becker pulls out one message he's forgotten: A message from the state, reminding him that 24 hours from his execution he'll get a whole extra hour of yard time.
Becker: "Get as much air in those lungs as you can, Ray."
Dale whispers, between the cells, when he's gone: There's always time, always hope. We are always the Orpheus to ourselves and our redemption. The camera pans slowly back and forth between them. Inches of concrete, like a blank canvas.
TWITCH
Looks at the pictures of them all, stick in a shattered mirror. He counts his money, grabs a rucksack, and heads out. They put on brave faces as they enter their home for the first time.
Lyric: "You paid the deposit? This is mine?"
Twitch: "Ours."
She dances; the place is beautiful. Empty, but bigger on the inside. They cleave together in the emptiness.
"It's so clean."
It smells like new paint, like home; she stares up at the ceiling suddenly, mid-twirl, embarrassed by her joy. Her safety.
HOLDER
Is silent when Sarah lets herself in; he hands her a cigarette without looking, and settles back against the couch. He can't talk about Bullet, so he asks about Adrian.
Sarah: "He confirmed Mills. Who was not in Seattle. He lied."
Stephen: "He must've seen him on TV. Trying to make you happy."
When Orpheus looks back down that path, his eyes have not adjusted to the darkness, so he sees shapes. Sometimes a girl, sometimes a monster. Short-persistence phosphorescence memories, afterimages his brain naturally assembles into something whole.
Trying to solve the crime without solving it, trying to make it go away; the thing we all do, the thing everybody does on this show, every time. Constellating the stars into shapes, just to have a story in place against the night. Putting the hardness of narrative up against the giving texture of chaos.
Linden: "Nobody knows he was out of town. I could still, um, use Adrian's testimony to get Seward a stay. It won't hold up long-term, but..."
Holder: "Burying evidence. In a way that would serve us both, emotionally."
Linden: "And literally. Ray Seward is going to die by hanging tomorrow."
They sit in the enormity, pushing back against the night.
Stephen: "I should have picked up."
Sarah: "Don't do that. You will sit here until you die. Please believe me that it's not your fault."
He lunges for her mouth, and she takes control of the moment, angling around. Bumping foreheads to break the assault. He's so ashamed, in the moment, he can't even look at her; his headache is compounded. He brushed up against something as fragile as a glycerine bubble, and disrespected everything. For just a moment, because he is an addict. And she knows this too, because she knows him, so she knows to reach out, calmly, and tell him it didn't count.
He cries for the trespass, because he can't cry about anything else. He weeps so hard it's half-formed words. She whispers comfort back, half-formed; leaning back beside him, smoking his cigarettes. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay.
THE YARD
Dale: "Don't hate Sarah Linden. She didn't want to let you down."
Ray: "Maybe my hope is the culprit here."
Dale: "Tell me about the birth of your son."
Ray: "I was in prison. We met when he was seven months old. Already a person, almost."
Dale: "No matter how alone you feel, no matter how afraid, God bigger than. It's the purpose of God, to be bigger than these things. To hold you when there is nothing holding you."
He falls to his knees, praying in earnest. There's a reason the deathbed confession is a cliché, and Ray knows that now. Only those who fall to it can understand it: That in our lives there is a space we don't see and can't feel, that exists to remind us we are smaller than we think. That we are held in the arms of something infinitely strong, passionate about us. That hears our story and remembers it. He feels it; he is bathed in it.
And Dale begins to laugh, flashing bright teeth. The long con. The cruelty of animals, caged up.
"Alton was easy. You -- I thought you'd be harder to crack."
Some of the worst crimes we do can't be prosecuted. It's what Holder wanted to say, he fought it back with a near-kiss that could have wrecked the world. Some offenses are so insidious they can't even be detected; harms inflicted on the soul don't always come with outside bruises. Like a street magician, he whips the cloth away: There was nothing there, the whole time. You're exactly what they think; you've always been exactly that.
"Outside I would use my hands, watch the lights go out of them. Here, all I have is words. But they kill just as easily. You lived for your rage and your hate, growing up a whipping boy, and I starved you of these. You gave yourself up to something beautiful, and now you have nothing left."
Dale weeps with pleasure, and heads back inside. It's a different kind of loneliness now.
INSIDE
Another hack's selling the accoutrements -- the shackles, the hood -- for thousands of dollars, after the execution. Henderson, rather than punching the dude, simply says he's not on the team, and thus won't be around to pick over the relics.
CO: "Really? Your name's on the list. Guess Becker volunteered you."
He stares at the note, wondering what kind of torture this -- or if he just did this, neutrally -- but puts it down for a call: A screaming woman, summoning them home.
BECKER HOUSE
Francis's son has shot a suitor of his mother's, is what's going on tonight. Becker wasn't at the jail -- was unreachable -- so they called Henderson. When Becker shows up he seems very confused. It doesn't seem that confusing, from the outside.
THE MORGUE
Sure, why not. We already killed Bullet -- and God -- so there's nowhere else to go. A hairpiece interrupts Stephen's vigil, over the covered body, smacking gum about her personal effects, et cetera, et cetera. Can't hear him.
Her name was Rachel Olmstead, once. (Derived from the Old French ermite + Old English stede: The place of the hermit. Home of the homeless. The North Star.)
"Thought Mills like killing girls, not boys," he jokes, and Stephen's body quickly carries him out of striking distance.
"Bad timing, I guess. Me and her both," the man says, doubling down. "She called the station a million times, last night. Looking for you."
Under the anger there's recognition: She knew something, something was happening. She wasn't merely reaching out. She wanted something. She spoke to Reddick, he says, and Stephen disappears.
Stephen drops Reddick the second he opens the door. The wife and daughter scream, pulling at Holder's clothes; Reddick is terrified and bloody when Holder's gone. His body wanted something, and got it; but he hasn't harmed the case.
Sarah stands before a shrine: Twenty girls; twenty bags of evidence, remainders of whole lives. Holding them all in her eyes. Skinner arrives -- they've matched the jewelry, mostly -- and she speaks up. One right act in a sea of mistakes.
"I was wrong. There's no connection between Ray Seward and Mills."
He's sorry for her, for them. But no more girls will die. She won't be attending the execution. He invites her out with the guys, for drinks, and she smiles. Every part of her wants to fall into his arms; he congratulates her for her service and vacates. Wisely.
"For whatever it's worth, I think you should stay on. This is where you belong, hireback."
And if she can convince him, maybe she can convince herself.
Bullet's picture stands alongside theirs, now. Sarah waits for something to occur to her. Something does.
Usually I recap this show live because it's funnier that way, easier to keep from getting lost in the tangle of references and extrapolations, stick to the authentic response. But sometimes, it's because it would be unimaginable to survive it twice. And you never know which, until it's already happening. Until it descends.
Ray Seward's body is covered in scars, a palimpsest of violence so crowded it shouldn't let any light in. Stephen Holder's chest reads serenity, the thing his life is tasked with finding; the thing he'll never reach. Rachel Bullet Olmstead inscribed faith upon herself, every morning upon rising. The thing there's never enough of. On every cell and molecule of Sarah Linden's body, if you could look close enough, you'd see a single word.
HOME
Stephen sits down, back against his door in the dark. Ray looks out into nothingness. Sarah drives, straight to the jail.
WEEK
With minutes to spare, Sarah tries to get Ray to identify some evidence. She pops Holder back into action, somehow, and gets another round of testimony out of Adrian. Hopefully it will not be quite so painful, week. And then, of course, comes the finale.
I hope that you are well, tonight, or whenever this finds you. I hope that your loved ones bring you comfort; I hope for light to keep the shadows out. We come to the dark and the monsters looking for a story that will help us make sense -- of loss, of the eternal puzzle of absence, of the holy Mystery of Orpheus -- and I suppose the story gives us that. It takes so little honesty to irrigate our wounds, and heal.
It is better to put our monsters outside -- trapped in a story, on a screen -- than to leave them in the dark. It is better, I think, and stronger, to mourn for a girl like Bullet -- the strongest person in the world, girl and boy and man; somebody who can teach you faith, and anger -- than to stand unprepared for such a loss out here, in the dark, when it comes for us. Which it will.
There is no practicing for grief, but perhaps this is the -best thing.
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.