The first half of the episode is a wrap-up, with various folks reacting to the deaths of Bullet and (presumably, finally) Kallie: Twitch gives up drugs, Danette is actually pretty cool, Holder goes to Bullet's funeral, Lyric is working at a fast-food joint (but still hooking on the side). Things couldn't be lovelier. Linden and a suddenly separated Skinner spend the night together, planning weekends away; Caroline accepts Stephen's apology for his flip-out with an understanding grace. Everybody is acting like a person, for the most part.
Holder and Linden's case -- an unidentifiable crispy critter in the (notably enough) backseat of a torched auto -- immediately reopens the whole thing when it turns out to be most likely Angie Gower, the Piper victim that got away, last seen talking to Bullet at that train station. So there is no "case" for us, because the case is the old Pied Piper case, which they suddenly remember wasn't actually solved at any point.
Complicating matters is the departmental reshuffling in the wake of Joe Mills's arrest: Reddick is getting a new partner, Linden is fully back on the force with Stephen, and Skinner's Task Force for high-profile cases is becoming a fixture. It's that last one that makes it tricky, because if -- as Stephen's psychic powers are suggesting -- the real Piper is a cop, that's going to double-wreck this ostensibly solved case, the task force, and any hope Sarah has of finding happiness with a guy she's plainly nuts about.
They hit the home of the first reported victim, a young girl who lived door to... Carl Reddick. Not to be outdone, Sarah's own psychic powers kick in at this point and she realizes that the Pied Piper's burial ground -- which we've always known Adrian could somehow identify, after all -- was visible from the tree house Ray Seward was talking about last week: The Piper wasn't after Trisha at all, but Adrian, who saw him that December and never forgot.
Which explains why both Angie and Trisha didn't fit the MO: They weren't Killings, they were just killings. Coverup killings, rather than the thrillful killings of being a serial killer.
So the hour ends with Holder and Linden, hiding their search from the compromised department, on a race to save Adrian. And, as luck and this show would have it, that's the exact moment somebody (The Killer? Carl Reddick? A cop serial killer we don't know about? Somebody unrelated like his foster parents and this whole thing is a trick on us?) decides to come stalking Adrian down the residential streets.
PREVIOUSLY
To make amends for her part in Linden's kidnapping, Bullet tracked down the only surviving victim of the Pied Piper, Angie Gower. But before she could give Holder the killer's identity she was murdered, which led to an attack on Carl Reddick and a bender, which luckily ended in the prison yard during the last hours of Ray Seward's life.
NOW
Sarah runs. Her breath is ragged, like it was last night; when she breathed along with Seward and watched him die. Now, with Joe Mills in prison for the Pied Piper killings, it's the only thing she's running from.
She is always finding new places on her island, things she's never seen before.
There's a lone tree, out in a clearing. It doesn't look like a larch, but it does look like a message. She stands underneath its boughs, like a woman in a thunderstorm, and she says goodbye.
Once it was raining, at night. She was running from something, then, and she found a farm full of the dead and dying. One beast was sick, dying. She shot it through the head. She kept running, all the way home.
Sarah was like Adrian, she lived in a house that was always on fire. Sarah was like Mike Sheehan, she wore herself to the bone for children no one loved. Sarah was like Ray Seward, she held herself in silence because the world demands no less. Now she runs.
VASHON
Now that it's over, Skinner can come to her. Sad, quiet in the morning on her porch.
They can nod and say it's over: She did everything she could for Ray Seward. James was so sympathetic, in the end; it was a surprise, to see him admit that their victory wasn't a victory, that all the accolades and professional success it brought them weren't untainted.
Her house is nearly empty of the things people need: Food, air. She offers him coffee. He notices she's still got the files out, and his head cocks to the side.
"He will remember," she says. "Someday." And then we will know where the monsters are.
"My wife asked me to leave, I think it's really over. She says I keep secrets, that she doesn't know me anymore."
Her heart doesn't leap, exactly. It beats.
"She's right," he admits. "I don't tell her anything. Haven't been able to for years. She doesn't want to know about a kid our daughter's age I pulled from a pond with her... neck sliced open, half-eaten by animals... So I just tell her I'm fine, you know, I'm just moving up the ladder, and... I mean, we talk about retirement. Buying a boat. But I don't want to buy a boat, and I don't want to retire."
She laughs. Her island is a refuge for wild things. Wild things and sick ones, waiting.
"I mean, this is the only thing that makes any sense to me. Sometimes I think that people like us, we were just supposed to be alone."
Sarah was like James Skinner. Supposed to be alone.
"That's not true," she says, and kisses him. Is it going backwards? It feels like going home.
FUNERAL
Stephen waits until the church bell tolls, and heads inside. The service for Rachel "Bullet" Olmstead is not a place he wanted to be; yesterday he couldn't have imagined it. Yesterday he was as drunk as he plans to be now. The picture up front is just hideous, all gawky teen braces and hair like a dandelion.
When Danette Leeds sits down beside him, alone in the pews, he is horrified. But she doesn't tremble; she isn't caught in the Maybes. Part of her waits to catch up, but her body knows the truth, and she's at rest. Joe Mills was a thousand, million years ago. They wonder how it is, that they should be meeting here.
"She helped me with things," he tries to explain. "We were sort of friends."
Danette knows why the hideous picture is displayed so proudly, even if Stephen doesn't.
"That's the way her folks want to remember her: The way they imagined her to be, not the way she was."
He doesn't understand this part either. The pieces we retrieve.
Danette told Bullet the story, too: How she'd close her eyes and count to five, and Kallie would still be there, when she opened them again. Wide-eyed, giggling. She closes her eyes, and opens them.
"She took care of your daughter. Tried to protect her as best she could. She was like a little pitbull. She was just a little kid. They all were."
Bullet is a piece he can retrieve for her. They can grieve for Bullet, who went past the Maybes in a taxicab trunk in a storage park. Danette weeps. It's not Kallie's funeral but it's another part of her, gone. It's not Danette's sobs but the Olmsteads', up front, that sends his body out the door. Mourning something they gave away, something half as brave and nothing as beautiful as what was lost.
Lyric sits in the front row, still invisible. Pulling together pieces of memory. Of all the girls, escaped alone to tell the tale.
MORNING
James surprises her, at the kitchen sink, but she interrupts him. His confession, his warning.
"I think you're wrong. I think we can be different."
Her smile is like a sun, coming out over all Seattle, drying up ponds and laying them bare. Islands connected to the mainland.
COURTHOUSE
Having set fire to their history and scared her away, Stephen only wants to make amends. He invented his own sobriety, its definition and its requirements; it works for him but it works if you work it, so he's come to apologize.
"I should have told you about my past. You're a step up for me, and I'm a step down for you. Five steps down, for you. I just wanted you to see the good stuff."
Caroline can't laugh, although she wants to: "That is what I see."
For a moment he can see his fears through his eyes: The story doesn't simply end when you shout, yell, scare her. She's stronger than that. It's her call. The fears are small, from her end of the telescope; just more of the hassles of teaching him love.
"We had a fight. It happens."
He can't believe it, comprehend it. For every chaotic narrative death introduces, it's nothing compared to the open spaces of love. He showed her his worst face and she stepped out of the way. It happens. The adrenaline rush of this comfort, you can hear everything and see everything as it's happening: Becker looking into Ray's eyes, and handing him a world of compassion. Grace out of nowhere. Love out of nowhere.
Stephen was like Sarah Linden: A wild thing, always running. But that's just another way of tying a bow around the story, prematurely: To say someone -- yourself -- is irredeemable, or unlovable, or too wild to be tamed.
The trick of getting back is understanding: Nobody is an animal.
C BLOCK
"Don't get too comfortable here," Becker says. Those eyes of Evan Henderson, looking back at him, still trying to understand the depths of him. "I spent half my life in this place. Just as much a prisoner as the rest of them."
It's easy to say, when you're the one ordering their days and nights; it's also true. Jail is a virus passed down through generations. He wanted so much, so badly, to be a man. He tried to teach Ray Seward, and broke in the process. He tried to teach his son, and made him a killer. But the definition remains; Evan Henderson helped him more than he knows.
And he learned. When Evan holds his son in his arms, he'll think of Becker, and when he counts to five, Becker will be gone.
THE NEW CASE
Holder can't believe it, when Linden shows up on the job as if nothing is gone. They can smoke if they want, they can try quitting if they want. They can do whatever they want. The thing that sent her to the hospital, the thing that sent her into Rick's arms, is over now. She can stop leaving Adrian's paintings where she can see them, reduce it now that Ray is dead to a hope that one day Adrian will remember. The face of the Piper will replace Joe Mills in his memory, replace his father's face, and they will be free.
He wonders if she didn't plan on leaving for Chicago, as Jack requested, but Ray Seward taught her about this too: That she can love him from here.
The body was in the backseat of the burned-up car when it was set on fire, yesterday afternoon. It could be a boy, but it isn't: It's a girl.
"You look nice. I see you changed your ... thingy ... And shaved. Kind of."
It isn't a suit and it isn't a junkie costume either. It isn't a costume at all. They have learned, she thinks, the trick of getting back. She can run because she loves it.
DANETTE
Recognizes Lyric, sitting in the fast-food restaurant where she works. You have to show employment to hang onto the apartment, so she does. In Bullet's honor.
"You were at the church this morning. I'm Kallie's mom."
Lyric trembles, gets ready to flee. She can't do this at work.
"I never had a job when I was your age. I was too busy messing around with boys, and partying. Plus I had Kallie..."
Lyric nods. This wasn't her story. She hasn't seen Kallie in a while. Danette perks up: She knew her?
"I mean, kind of. Her and Bullet were always hanging around..."
Danette apologizes, for what happened to Bullet; she breaks down, and then apologizes for that too. Desperate, as Lyric's turning away.
"I never had a lot of girlfriends. I didn't want the competition, I guess. But Kallie knew better. It's good to have girls around. Remember that."
Bullet taught them that, first and foremost: That though the world tells you men are necessary, the truth is that they are a choice.
"-- You have really pretty hair," Danette barks. "It would look good short, too. You ever cut it short?"
She remembers Danette's job, the way Kallie loved it at Beacon, and she smiles, finally warm to the touch.
"I could do your hair sometime? I mean, like if you wanted me to. Could blow it out, or cut it, or curl it... It'd be on me."
It's good to have girls around. Women. She can't believe the generosity; she knows where it's coming from. The kindness of the offer and the kindness of her thanks. Maybe they will see each other again, and maybe they won't: Their only connection is Bullet, not Kallie, and Bullet's dead. But it's not Mitch, begging for a replacement. Danette's too much like the Jungle girls for that. And if she sees some clothes around the place, if Lyric ever comes by maybe she will offer those too. It won't be begging, it'll be goodbye.
Back home Twitch goes digging in a jacket for a lighter, and finds a little baggie. Ray Seward, he knew they'll get you whether you did it or not, if getting you is what they want to do. He was clean for months before it happened; what he learned is that there's no real reward for staying clean. Get clean, they'll only want to hurt you twice as much.
But in this house, it still smells new. If you weren't doing it for the reward, if you weren't doing it to finish out your probation, why would you do it? Why stay clean, if it doesn't matter? That's the trick of getting back: Writing it on yourself, every morning, before you take a breath.
He misses her, too.
SPD
It's awkward, when Stephen comes back to the office: Reddick's there, cleaning up his stuff, moving to new digs. Partnered with Jablonski, the one nobody wants, Fat Hitler Jablonski that lies in wait to ruin Reddick's pristine record.
"I was out of my mind," Stephen tries to explain, but he knows.
"Don't think you're not still a dick," Reddick grins, and warns him never to show up again at his house. His wife filed a formal complaint with Skinner, but Reddick called off the dogs.
"Guess I'm old school. Cops don't rat on cops. You can thank my TO for that."
TASK FORCE
They're formally charging Joe Mills this afternoon; Skinner's riding high, filling up boxes, clearing everything out.
"Looks like I'm gonna be keeping this office for a little while. I'll be cherry-picking the big cases, the headline makers... I couldn't have done it without you."
Sarah smiles. She likes it. Coming to work, seeing him, going out to see cases. That whole year on the water she tried so hard to be Regi: Humble work for a humble woman, not smoking. Making a home for one person seemed barely doable, much less a home for two, but she tried. Maybe the reason she failed at it, came back, fell down the hole, was because she was asking the wrong question. Maybe somewhere between Skinner and herself was the truth: Not hating any single part of herself, but containing it all. Finding a way to be whole, without hiding.
"This morning I was thinking about how you used to sing in the car. All the time. Same song, for days, under your breath. Used to drive me crazy. I missed it. You don't do that anymore?"
Before they found Adrian, he means. Before the world cracked open. She can barely remember being that woman.
"Holder's missing out," he grins, and she loves it.
"You know, um... I'm gonna be at the lake for the ... For a few days. Why don't you cut out early, pack a bag? Come and join me for the weekend?"
She would love to; she hums but does not sing, and shakes her head.
"We caught a body. Burned up... It's gonna be hard to even get an ID."
But he wants to take her away, to the lake. Away from all this death.
"Why don't you just give it to someone else, Sarah? Use the rest, use some time by the lake. I'll build a fire, get some wine..."
Holder walks into something that buzzes like bees, and shivers.
"Sorry, sorry. The coroner's got something for us..."
Skinner shakes his head. He knows she has to go. This girl needs to be identified. The story needs an ending. Count to five.
EN ROUTE
Holder loves it, laughs until his belly hurts as they drive.
"You and the bossman! Going to the lake, making a fire... I don't gotta be my sleuth par excellence to see that the cat's got the hand in the jelly jar. And it ain't the first time, neither!"
She begs him to stop laughing; she begs him to continue. Through his eyes she looks like a woman. His dirty jokes are her applause, for a life well-begun. "Don't look at me like that!" she chuckles, begging him to look like that forever, to stick her in place, to call her "1-900" again.
"You are a human being! You're actual flesh and blood! I'm just as surprised as you are!"
She cuts clever eyes at him, finished with the joke. "You jealous?"
She is proud of him for smiling again.
GONE GIRLS
Danette stands on the bridge, where Bullet told her Kallie loved to be. She wonders who Kallie was, briefly. A couple of young girls walk by -- it's good to have girls around -- and their private laughter turns her body around to face the water.
She counts to five, with her eyes closed. When she opens them, Kallie's gone.
Out on the street, Lyric wonders what she'll do, when a car drives up alongside. That sound of the engine, purring, pacing you. She knows to look into their eyes, now, and see what's looking back.
When it happens, he seems nice enough.
On a roof far above the city, Twitch takes out the bag and looks at it. Counts to five and lets the stuff float away on the wind, and smiles to himself. It's a funeral.
It's daytime in Seattle, there's cloud cover, you can't see the stars; but if you could, if you looked north from high enough, you'd see one shine very brightly, for just a moment. Just for him.
MORGUE
Estimated time of death sometime yesterday afternoon, early evening. Stomach contents partially digested. Gunshot to the head, point-blank; two to the chest. Execution style, with a .45. Female, judging from the pelvis. No idea of her age. No fingerprints left on her fingers, although they pulled partials from the backseat that might be hers. Every tooth was pulled from her head, postmortem. An expert job; almost every loose end snipped. But it's not about what could be there, and is missing: He rubbed off every edge. It's about what isn't there, that he couldn't obscure: Angie Gower's left ring finger, sawn off two weeks ago.
Mills was locked up last night, and shootings aren't the Piper's MO. But there's something. Sarah hears it buzzing, and pushes it away. Grits her teeth.
"Angie Gower was a street prostitute, it's a high-risk population."
Holder reels it in.
"Who would have known Mills was our number-one suspect? We didn't make it public. Bullet called headquarters the night she was killed. SPD was all over that storage unit... Only a cop could have had access to our files and known about Mills. Only a cop could have found that storage unit before us, planted those trophies. If our victim's Angie, and if our guy's a cop..."
He argues it out, Sarah balking, barely moving. She opens her mouth and something surprising leaps out.
"Do you have any idea what this is gonna do to him? To his career, his life? And if you're right, Joe Mills will probably walk..."
Holder can't believe her. Ray Seward was a bad man, innocent of Trisha's murder. How is this different? She's talking about Skinner, but also herself. This was her freedom, this cobbled and unaligned solution; this was her new life, starting, the island going green. New places she hadn't run to yet. It's an attack, every movement her body makes is defensive. He goes still, and asks again.
"He takes girls into some filthy backroom, makes them take their clothes off, and films them!"
Which is vile, but isn't killing. It's only when he mentions Seward's hanging that she gives in. Pouts, even. She hears it coming; she smokes her cigarette.
SPD
The safest place in the world should be the station. She was starting to believe it. But coming back now isn't coming home. Every man in uniform, everybody with a badge. Reddick, looking at her with the usual disgust. And then the calmness coming over, when she sees Skinner in his office.
She won't know how long he stands there, once she's looked him up and down. How he watches her go, and breathes deep, and looks down at the desk, lost in thought. Lost. Things are set in motion, now. If he leaves he can get it all done before anybody notices he's gone.
He wanted her to see the good stuff.
DRIVING
Everything is with the DA for Joe's formal charge; Holder offers to call Caroline but she reminds him they're working in secret. Nobody can know. It can't be official, because it would ruin her life if it weren't true. It will ruin her life if it is, she can almost hear that one this time, but she just forces her gaze out the window as he drives.
"Gonna take a look at those anytime soon?"
She nods to herself and acquiesces. All the way back. Kallie's ring wasn't in Mills's space. Stephen's questions follow a line she can't immediately follow, jumping from place to place, every connection he can make.
"Who was the first victim? Angie said he put her in the backseat, watched her through the rearview. Made her feel like a prisoner... Or like a criminal, in the backseat of a cop car. Maybe that's how it started, with an arrest. He's chasing that first kill."
It rings like a memory but it hasn't happened yet. Somewhere on the island, waiting. Counting.
DELAHANTY
The first victim, Brigitte Delahanty, was killed in early June, 2009. Same story as Ashley Kwon, as all of them: Drugs, street life, alienating her family as quickly and violently as she could as she fell down the hole. Possession, solicitation -- even an undercover cop, once -- and the rest of them.
"She was doing better, you know? Then she just took off again..."
If only somebody had caught her, his thought hangs in the air. Caught her as she was falling.
"Think they're gonna ask for the death penalty? I hope so. I want to be there when they do it."
She can't even hear him say this. A grieving parent can think and say whatever wants, it doesn't change the facts. It doesn't change the peace she's holding onto. No, she thinks, You don't.
It was never a fear of caring, much less the incapacity: It was her inability to stop.
Sarah climbs up into the treehouse, risking her neck and pissing Stephen off. She sends him, then, to the edge of the pond. To the edge of the burial ground, past the trees from up here, and looks down. And he looks up.
They can see each other.
ADRIAN
Walks very deliberately home to his foster mother, bouncing a soccer ball like a basketball; a gray sedan stalks him through the streets, moving like an oil slick, like a shark. He's been nervous since before the execution. Now he just feels numb.
They'll tell you what you're supposed to do, when a car drives up alongside: Drop your ball, find the nearest adult. Get to a safe place.
That sound of the engine, purring, pacing him. It slides into view. Past the trees in the windshield he can see the man's eyes. He looks down. Counts to five. He looks up.
They can see each other.
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.