TV

“The Fall” recap (2.6): Actually, it’s all about ethics in serial murder

Previously on The Fall: Holy shit, a lot of shit went down. Too much use of the word shit? Not enough, because damn, a lot of shit happened. Katie destroyed evidence. Paul destroyed evidence. Sally Ann was oblivious. Jimmy tried to beat up Paul. Paul beat up Jimmy. Katie got arrested. Paul got arrested. Sally Ann was arrested while still being oblivious. Rose Stagg may or may not be alive, we really have no idea still. And Stella played with a female detective’s hair. Like I said, a lot of shit happened.

When last we saw the detectives they were closing in on a burned out car. In the car was, luckily, not the equally burned out body of Rose Stagg. It was the burned out body of the mannequin Paul had been being creepy with last season. When the presence of a freaky ass melted-up doll is good news, you know a show is seriously intense.

DSI Stella Gibson arrives on scene and surveys the damage. It’s definitely Paul Spector’s car, but with no human remains inside (except for creepy doll hair…suppressing internal scream now). She surveys a map to see where the scene is in relation to everything else. I really like this touch because it seems like something detectives actually do instead of pushing three buttons on a mystery machine and then having a suspect’s entire life history, blood type and shoe size.

She spots an outbuilding on the map and asks if it has been searched. It has not, so Stella and the very handy crime scene supervisor (the bald guy whose name I don’t know who basically does whatever Stella asks) drive up to the house on their own. Crime scene guy thinks they should wait for his team to arrive, but Stella waits for no team of men in the pursuit of rescuing Rose. She tells him to fetch the bolt cutters. See, I told you he was a) handy and b) does her bidding.

They slap on some gloves and they go inside together. Now, my rational mind knows the house is going to be empty. Paul is in prison. Rose was driven away in the trunk of the car. It will be abandoned. But my primal mind is still on the edge of my seat as Stella slowly moves from room to room. Such is the strength of strong writing, excellent pacing and riveting storytelling.

Stella finds a door leading to the upstairs attic. No one will be up there, yet, I am so scared. What she finds is the chair Paul used to tie up Rose and the camera and tripod he used to shoot his videos of her. Stella surveys them meticulously, pulling out her iPad to play the video of Rose. She verifies that this room was indeed the place Paul brought Rose.

The intricate cat-and-mouse of this series has morphed expertly into a perverse treasure hunt. Instead of a show about capturing Paul, it’s now a show about finding Rose. She is the X that marks the spot in Stella’s conscience.

Paul wakes up in jail, where I hope he will be for the rest of his natural life. I say that, but I’m also annoyed by how un-bothered he seems by prison life. He stretches, he relaxes, he works on his fitness. If only something could disrupt his relative tranquility and give him the ending he deserves. If only.

Splice-cut to Jimmy. Hey, look at that nifty bit of foreshadowing. Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. Jimmy is still on the run with his police gun and bloody face. His wife, Liz, takes a breather outside of her shelter only to be spotted by one of Jimmy’s thugs. He promptly calls Jimmy. This can lead to absolutely no good.

Stella returns to the prison and gets briefed on who is where. Katie is still being a Teenage Mutant Cliché. Sally Ann is still oblivious. And Rose’s husband is in the office. Stella carefully briefs him on the latest developments and arrest. He asks if that means Rose is dead and she replies, “No, I’m not saying that at all. Not at all.” That is as much hope as it is fact.

Outside of the Spector house a neighbor chats with a reporter from the Belfast Chronicle as crime scene investigators crawl all over the property. He gets Paul and Sally Ann’s names from the man, then calls up a source in the jail who confirms they’re in custody. See, that’s how you work your sources.

Jimmy is also there, and he knows the reporter. Well, give the guy some credit for having a diverse source base I guess. Of course, then Jimmy steals his phone and his car, so take away some credit for his ability to pick reliable sources.

Stella returns to her office, to be informed of new downloads from Katie’s phone. Pity the poor tech who had to scour the contents of a teenager’s cellphone. So. Many. Selfies. They find, among other things, the video Katie has recorded of her sexytimes videochat with Paul. It was, shall we say, a lot more than just show and tell.

Stella watches and calls in DS Anderson to watch. Now she is rethinking whether Katie’s journals were all just schoolgirl fantasies and made-up alibis for Paul. No, no, do not rethink that. It’s exactly that. Also let’s all stop watching that video because, gross.

But at least it gives Stella an idea. She tells Anderson she wants him to question Katie. He asks if that’s a good idea because of her juvenile status. But Stella wants to see how she reacts to “someone of a similar age and similar looks.” Ah, now I see why Stella picked him. The young, handsome stud factor has many layers on this show.

Wasting no time, Anderson goes in to interview Katie. She babbles on like the lovesick schoolgirl she is about Paul and music and kisses and rainbows. Aside from the brutal sexual assault and violent murder of all those women, the Katie storyline is by far the most disturbing thing about this series.

Stella is called away from monitoring the interview to watch yet another disturbing video. The manager of Paul’s sleazy hotel lived up to the sleazy status and recorded countless thousands of videos of his guests in their rooms through the peephole. Great, now I’m duct taping all peepholes in my hotel room from now on.

Among his recordings was the encounter between Paul and Katie, where he tied her to the bed and left her. Stella watches open mouthed, literally. It’s a mix of revelation and contempt, because clearly this is the worst S&M fantasy she has ever seen. Now when Reed Smith pretended to tie Stella up to a bed, that was some good S&M fantasy.

Katie can’t stop going on about how much they “love each other.” Oh how I long for the ability to reach through my TV screen and shake this girl. Stella thinks she needs a good shaking, too, and presents Anderson with a new line of questioning based on the humiliating hotel room recording.

Meanwhile, Sally Ann is being questioned again about Paul by DCI Eastwood. She recalls a necklace Paul gave Olivia, which in hindsight was probably inappropriate for a child. Well, really, any necklace taken from a dead woman’s body is inappropriate for a child. Eastwood shows her a picture of the necklace, and finally the pieces come together in her head. This isn’t about the babysitter, you fool. But I do feel sorry for her in all her obliviousness, and also that she is bleeding.

Stella decides to take another swing at Paul and brings back D.C. McNally. She has her hair down while wearing an above-the-knee pencil skirt, knee-high boots, black stockings, fire-engine red nail polish and a tight blazer. Understated it is not. Poor McNally, she is clearly nervous about the whole thing. And the clothes. I can always tell when a tomboy feels out of sorts.

Paul enters and gives her a look like, “Really?” McNally begins questioning him and presents the scissors found with his fingerprints. But Paul just laughs. Well, that’s unnerving. And then he stares into the surveillance camera and calls out Stella’s weak attempts to unnerve him with a quasi-Annie Brawley look alike.

I hate to agree with anything Paul Spector says, but I have to agree. As far as tactics go this one was as subtle as a sledgehammer.

In another room, Anderson continues his questioning of Katie. But this time he has the photos from the hotel in his arsenal. Her only response is to say that anyone describing Paul’s sexual menace as “aberrant” is narrow minded. She says he opened her eyes to the world and more such rubbish. Shake, shake, shake, shake. Anderson decides to do his own metaphorical shoulder shaking and lays out the consequences of her lies.

She will go to jail. A criminal record would prevent her from traveling if she wanted to pursue music. Many other professions would be closed to her. In short, this is what we call a guaranteed life ruiner. But Katie still has hearts in her eyes so he tries one more good, hard shake. He draws a small circle and says the neck of his victim Fiona Gallagher was compressed to that size by the sheer anger and hatred of women inside the man she claims to love.

He asks her one more time if there is anything she wants her to add, clarify or explain. But Katie remains defiant. There will always be those women who fall in love with serial killers and marry them in jail. Sadly, the universe isn’t always wired properly.

Speaking of not wired right, Jimmy pulls up outside the battered women’s home. As predicted, it does not go well. He yells, pushes the other women around, pushes his wife around, waves his gun around, strikes out at anyone and anything in his way and generally reinforces the need and critical importance of safe shelters for victims of physical and sexual violence.

He then threatens to kill his wife and all of the women there, and then kill himself because she doesn’t want him anymore. I’ve never understood men who lash out like this at the world when it doesn’t go exactly the way they want. But sadly, it has become almost routine. How many news stories have you seen about family annihilators who go after their ex-wife or ex-girlfriend and their exes’ children and their exes’ families? This may be fiction, but the reality of this mindset is all too real.

Luckily, one of the women triggered the silent alarm. Sirens begin to blare in the ever-decreasing distance and Jimmy leaves without wreaking the deadly havoc he promised. But it’s enough to still leave all of them, and us, shaken.

Stella is now suited up in Tyvek as the evidence collected from Paul’s burned out car is detailed. Items from his other victims, Alice Monroe and Sarah Kay. I am so glad to see that all my worry about Paul and Katie’s evidence destruction was for naught. Sometimes I forget that this isn’t Law & Order and cases usually don’t hinge on just one enormous piece of evidence but tireless work and small discoveries that eventually add up to a mountain.

Back in his cell, Paul is calmly finishing breakfast. I have to give Jamie Dornan credit; he even makes peeling an orange seem ominous. Paul’s daughter, Olivia, is being questioned—very gently—as well. She gets asked to distinguish between the truth and a lie, and then proceeds to lie like crazy about her father. Poor girl, I do feel sorry for her. She wants so badly to protect her daddy, but her daddy is such a bad man.

Stella feels it too, as her eyes well up once again. I can’t say it enough, but it’s so refreshing to be able to watch a female character who expresses the full range of emotions and abilities as Stella. Anger, intelligence, lust, remorse, sadness and everything else. The tear that streaks down her cheek, and the way she brushes it away once noticed, mindful of its perceived weakness, is nothing short of masterful.

After learning that Sally Ann has likely had a miscarriage, the team decides to let her go because while she is “stupid and incurious” she is also innocent. So they move along their questioning of Paul. Now it is Eastwood’s turn to have a go at him. He informs him of his new charges for the murders of Fiona, Alice and Sarah.

In typical Paul fashion he says nothing to the new charges. And then, finally, he breaks his silence to say he will only talk to Stella. No one else. He repeats it directly to Stella through the surveillance camera. Sure, we all knew this was coming. But it’s still no less frighteningly thrilling.

Stella changes from one of her trademark silky blouses (p.s. Someone should start a Tumblr devoted to her best blouses. Get on it, Tumblesbians.) into a more form-fitting, low-cut red number. I love that she has this thing just hanging around the office in case she needs it to be used against weak men like the weapon it is.

ACC Burns enters questioning whether it is wise for her to involve herself in Paul’s questioning. She answers that he asked for her, so she doesn’t really have a choice.

Burns continues to question whether she should even be in the room with the non-human, evil monster that is Paul. What follows is the most clear and unwavering definition of sexism and misogyny in all its forms that I have ever seen spoken on television.

Stella tells him to stop, because Paul is not a monster just a man. Burns being Burns he naturally takes offense to this because he, too, is a man. NOT ALL MEN, Stella, NOT ALL MEN.

Burns: I am a man, I hope to God I am nothing like him.

Stella: No, you’re not. But you still came to my hotel room uninvited and mounted some kind of drunken attack on me.

Burns: It wasn’t an attack! That is unfair! I was… I just wanted…

Stella: What did you want?

Burns: I don’t know.

Stella: To fuck me? Nail me? Band me? Screw me?

Burns: I wouldn’t use those words about you.

Stella: I was saying no, Jim. Quite clearly. You ignored me and carried on.

Burns: It is not the same.

Stella: No, it’s not the same. But you still crossed a line.

If that isn’t the most perfect response to all the #NotAllMen misandrist nonsense then I don’t know what is. I wanted it to go on forever. Please, let it go on forever.

The danger we face, as a society, when we label our worst humans as inhuman, is it releases the rest of us from the responsibility of dealing with what it truly means to be human. We are deeply flawed and deeply vulnerable and deeply troubled beings at times. As a society we can either address our imperfections, even our most ugly and unsavory instincts, or we can pretend they’re the work of otherworldly monsters. We create our own monsters, and we’re also responsible for stopping them. We are also responsible for stopping the monsters within.

Stella takes the long walk down the corridor to the interrogation room. I have had a lot of procedural questions about the differences between the U.S. and U.K. police and legal system. But so far none is bigger than why Stella, and any of the interviewers, is allowed to be in a room alone with a suspected serial killer without a guard right outside the door. All I’m saying is, that’s a long way for someone to have to come running if shit goes wrong.

Paul stares her down with those dead fish eyes. I’m pretty sure, the whole lesbian thing notwithstanding, I would never find Jamie sexy as Christian Grey because of the way he so thoroughly inhabited Paul Spector.

Stella steadies herself and sits down, matching Paul’s dispassion. Burns and later Anderson gather to watch from the control room, which is God knows how far away. Safety first, people. Or are prisoners from Belfast just naturally better behaved than their American counterparts?

And so it begins like David Copperfield. When did all this begin for Paul? When, essentially, was he born into this? Stella asks him to take her back to his childhood and family. He asks why. Because to understand the worst in us is to understand the potential in all of us. I’m paraphrasing, obviously, because she just asks about the lock of his mother’s hair he keeps.

Was it as Freud claimed all along, was this all about his mother? The mother who committed suicide and abandoned him. Paul calls her out on her mother blaming, which is actually kind of hilarious. This show keeps you guessing, that’s for sure. Paul says all children are lonely and it’s, well, deeply depressing.

Stella next pushes him on his time with the pedophile priest. Paul tells her he never touched him on account of Paul’s never bathing and stinking on purpose. I can’t be sure whether I believe him, but I think I do. I actually think, through this whole interview, Paul is telling the truth. It’s so strange. I was expecting a battle but instead we got an explanation. Though perhaps explanation is too generous a term; it’s more like a grandiose narcissistic admission of self. Look at me, look at all of me.

He tells her everything, the dark manifesto of his desires. He is so above all of our mundane sexual fantasies. Sounds are louder, colors more vivid, odors more intense, skin more sensitive. Nothing matters but the life he is about to take. He becomes a god among men, blah blah blah. Really, just a simple God complex? And here we thought you were more interesting.

Gillian asks him matter of factly if Fiona Gallagher was the first person he murdered, and he says yes. Just like that; he said yes. Like I said, this was never an interrogation. This was always an admission of self.

Granted, there’s a little back and forth. Stella asks how he resisted acting on his impulses until the age of 30. He says he always had a project (i.e. woman to stalk) or was dealing with his young children. He calls Stella a “barren spinster” for good measure because everything is more fun with a little misogynistic sprinkle.

Paul says once he killed Fiona, a switch was flipped and he was forever separated from the herd. He no longer was bound by divine or secular power. Like I was saying, all that god crap. He brags about the “elevated aestheticism” of his next kill with Alice. But the one thing he doesn’t admit to is being a rapist. He says he performs “no overt sexual acts” on his victims. But Stella insists, “You violate them, you’re a rapist.”

The session continues. Stella asks him why he says he feels protective of children, but not adult women. Stella asks him about Big Foot Chester, his videochat screen name, he shared with Katie. Stella asks him how he is protecting children when he performs sex acts for a child on that same videochat account. For what seems like the first time, Paul blinks. Stella asks him what Sarah Kay did to deserve her fate that Olivia did not.

Paul responds that Olivia is his daughter, to which Stella replies, “All of your victims are daughters.” Almost all the problems in our society can be boiled down to that simple dichotomy. Some people view other people as less than human, yet we are all of us only human.

Paul says, “I don’t hate a woman” when asked about his hatred of women. He says instead he hates everything and everyone including himself. OK, sure, but you direct that hatred at women, buddy. He continues to brag about his freedom from all man-made laws and moralities. But Stella is, per usual, having none of it and asks as a man destined for a lifetime in prison in what sense is he free? Now he is under arrest and alone.

Paul’s only response to that is to spit out a “Fuck you.” Stella just leans forward and tells him it’s an addiction that enslaves him. So Paul, out of godlike mantras to repeat, goes for the low blow and suggests Stella’s obsession about her father stems from some pre-memory moment of molestation. Look who is touting that old chestnut of the Oedipus/Electra complex now?

I’d like to take a moment to pay appreciation to the director of photography for the copious, lingering close-up on Gillian Anderson‘s face throughout this season. I cannot emphasize enough how appreciated they truly are. Give me your address and a basket of well-deserved mini-muffins are on their way. Guaranteed.

Stella moves the conversation along to the Annie Brawley attack. Paul spits out more invectives about how Joe Brawley, Annie’s brother, deserved to die because he couldn’t muster up enough aggression to hit Paul over the head when he found him assaulting his sister, or something.

But then he goes on the attack of his own, telling Stella not to pretend she cares about him. He throws back her listing of the victims to him on the phone: Fiona Gallagher, Alice Monroe, Sarah Kay. But not Joe Brawley. So, “What’s one more man to you, more or less?” Oh, is this that tired old misandry speech? Thanks, but no thanks.

Actually, would you like to talk with us about ethics in game journalism, too?

Sorry, was my feminist killjoy, man-hating lesbian showing? Right, where were we? Stella follows up Paul’s misandry nonsense with the final question that needs answering: Where is Rose? But for that, Mr. Male Tears just rolls his eyes. Stella breaks out her tabloid to show him the video of Rose where he turns the camera on himself.

Stella poses the question I posed before, who the fuck was Paul talking to when he called the viewer a “sick shit?” Him? Her? People who like to watch shows about people like him? Wait, does that mean us? Stop making me feel so introspective, show. I just like my stories, OK?

With that Paul finally clams up. He says they’re done, but they’re not done-done because it’s only just begun between Stella and him. Yeah, whatever, dude. Have fun rotting in prison. After the interview ends and Paul is escorted back out, Burns goes down to the hallway to congratulate Stella. He gives her an atta girl for getting him, but she knows it’s not over. Where is Rose? Also there’s still a half hour left in this super-sized finale, so, you know, it’s clearly not over.

In a bedroom of delusion and despair, Katie and her hopefully on-the-rocks BFF Daisy are chatting about normal girlie stuff. Police summons. Court dates. Serial killer pretend boyfriends. The usual. Katie has drawn doodles of Paul and hearts and flowers across her official charges paperwork.

Daisy gets up the courage to ask her if Paul did it. She looks up with that round, childish face and says, without hesitation, “Oh, yes.” If you didn’t feel a chill run down to your very bone then you’re clearly living on the sun.

Stella, now back in her hotel, is writing out drafts of her comments for a press conference about the arrest. Two things: 1) Stella has lovely loopy handwriting, and 2) is Stella still in her old hotel room?

But those details are almost immediately forgotten because as the camera pans out we see Stella is not alone. Anderson is asleep in her bed. She watches his slumber peacefully, and the camera cuts abruptly to Paul awake in his own bed.

The feminist in me hates that the tiny remnants of puritanical patriarchal society in me wishes she didn’t sleep with him. Granted, the lesbian in me wishes that too, but for different reasons. As much as I willfully reject the Madonna/Whore archetypes women get shoved into, I still can’t help but feel a small tinge of the reflexive, unconscionable slut shaming. I am only human, I admit that fully. But I also feel it for the guy, so does that help?

But the rest of me thinks it actually makes sense. Stella is a woman keenly aware of her image and how she is perceived, yet also keenly aware that she is an adult woman who should be allowed to do whatever the damn hell she wants. She is not bound to her desire so much as she knows there is nothing wrong with it. She is also a woman who clearly desires both men and women. That she is shown sleeping with two men, but being turned down (oh, though I so wish it wasn’t so) by a woman does not diminish her sexual fluidity. It speaks more to her partners’ willingness.

Don’t worry, this is the final recap. You won’t have to take much more of me on my soapbox, I swear.

The next morning, Stella and Anderson share a quiet breakfast in bed. Stella asks him if everything’s all right and he tells her she said a strange thing when she asked him to interview Katie. When, specifically, she suggested he was like Paul.

Stella gives him a slow blink and replies, wearily, “I meant what I said.” Oh, you have got to be kidding me? Another dude stuck in the Not All Men feedback loop? She meant similar age and similar looks. He presses, “Not anything more?” Is there something deeper in his nature she sees reflected in him?

Ever the keen bullshit detector, Stella breaks it down thusly: “So, you remind me of Spector. I fuck you, therefore I fuck Spector? Is that where this is going?” Anderson shrugs like, yeah, probably. And Stella tells him it’s a repellant thought.

Here’s the thing about sexism, the reason it remains so pervasive in our society isn’t necessarily the blatant misogynists and out-right bigots. Oh, don’t get me wrong, they are still out there. But it’s the casual, well-meaning, though willful obliviousness from far too many men about what the day-to-day experience of being a woman in his world is like that continues this cycle.

Anderson calls Paul “fascinating” with a “strange allure.” Stella takes a long, deep sigh and gives this young man a textbook lesson in #YesAllWomen.

Stella: A woman, I forget who, once asked a male friend why men felt threatened by women. He replied that they were afraid that women might laugh at them. When she asked a group of women why women felt threatened by men, they said, “We are afraid they might kill us.”
That woman, it should be noted, was Margaret Atwood.

Stella tells Anderson she despises Spector with every fiber of her being. As her truth bomb settles around the room, her phone rings. Spector has come up with an offer. So they get dressed and arrive at the station to a waiting Eastwood. When he sees the two of them get out of the car together he raises his eyebrows in that smug way. It makes me want to crush the vestigial traces of my own slut-shaming psyche into a fine, unrecognizable powder.

Paul has given them a location, but won’t say whether it is Rose or her remains. Sally Ann calls then and agrees to the other half of the deal. She’ll bring Olivia in to see her daddy—her woman-hating, woman-murdering daddy. Arrangements are made for the transport, which will have Paul apparently show them where something is in the forest. Anderson wonders if it’s a wild goose chase, but she tells him just because I fucked you doesn’t mean you can question my command. Basically.

Stella walks Olivia into a small room with a child’s rights advocate (I’m assuming) and some cinderblock walls. Paul enters, dressed in his jail attire. I have questions about why inmates wear what appear to be hooded rain slickers while in custody, but I guess that’s not the point. Though Olivia comments on them, too, so I don’t feel entirely off the point. He calls them “work clothes.”

Paul takes his daughter’s hand and tells her “watching you grow up has been the best thing that ever happened to me.” He apologizes for missed cuddles and his “projects” taking up so much time. And he wants, despite everything, for her to be happy.

We like to make our heroes and villains all good or all evil. But the truth is we are all somewhere in the gray area. Some darker, some lighter — some much, much, much darker. But when people ask how a man can be good to his family and terrible to the world, it does not surprise me. When the news reporters descend on a killer’s neighbors, they almost always say, “He seemed like such a nice guy.” And he probably did. To them.

Olivia asks when her daddy is coming home. He says not for a while because he has work to do. She asks if he works for Stella and he wrinkles his nose and replies, “Sort of.” I nearly chuckle, which does surprise me. I’ve forgotten how to watch this show with anything but my breath tightly held.

Paul and his daughter exchange hugs and I love yous under Stella’s arched brow. Don’t worry, I feel no pity for Paul and his predicament. He made his own terrible bed. But do feel for Olivia, who had no say in who her father was or how her father acted. Poor child, so many future therapist bills.

Next the business of Paul’s transport is at hand. Stella has asked for PC Ferrington and PC Hagstrom and their partners because they are obviously the cutest likely lesbian and definite lesbian detectives on the force. Stella straps her gun on. I will confess that while I am totally for stronger gun control laws, except when the gun in question is being held by a fictional female television character. Then I’m like, go get ’em, girl.

Paul is led out of his cell in some sort of Night at the Roxbury getup. Leather and denim? Well, if they wanted to punish him for his crimes they’re off to a good start.

Burns asks if Anderson is a wise choice to escort Paul. He wonders if he is too scrawny. OK, fellas, measure them later, OK? Stella says he deserves it and is “strong enough.” And they’re off.

Across town the Chronicle reporter gets a call from his jailer source about Paul being moved. He calls Jimmy and asks for his car back. I can already see the chain of events unfolding. I know what will more than likely happen. But I still can’t leave the edge of my seat.

Jimmy pulls up and predictably wants to know all about where Paul is going, then insists on driving there. Meanwhile, the police caravan grows as crime scene techs and EMTs join the line and they all head deeper into the woods. The heartbeat score ramps up matching my own.

They stop, and Paul tells Stella to go “in there.” Not what’s in there, mind you. But just “in there.” Stella gives him a once over, trying to read what she’ll find. But his blasé face reveals nothing.

But Paul sees a look Stella gives Anderson, and him back, and reads right into it. So now there they are, these two men, locked together with shackles side-by-side. If we’re supposed to read something into this about Stella’s transference, I will not. And you can’t make me. So sod off with any such insinuation, OK, show?

Stella decides to go into the woods alone, because, sure, this show isn’t suspenseful enough already. The reporter and Jimmy drive up nearby, the reporter hops out with his cameras and Jimmy peels out. I mean it, dude, pick better sources.

Not to get too Thoreau, but Stella is going through the woods deliberately. This is the most nerve-wracking hike in the forest since Little Red Riding hood took that stroll with her picnic basket. I don’t know what I’m expecting: booby traps, tree elves, the Blair Witch.

Stella is skeptical, and Anderson radios back that Paul says to go deeper. Ew. Somehow the reporter has found her, guess it’s a small forest, and starts shooting pictures. Paul, meanwhile, offers Anderson some unsolicited advice. He says there’s clearly something going on between him and “fragrant Stella.” Double ew. But he tells him not to do it if he hasn’t already because “I’ve tasted both the fantasy and the deed. The fantasy is way more piquant.”

So is that remorse? Should we read that as remorse? I think it’s only remorse for the loss of his terrible, terrible fantasies.

Stella continues into the woods. She has only been in there for like 1,000 years now. She has to be to grandmother’s house by now. Each of her footsteps is so foreboding. And then she reaches a small berm. She climbs up it and finally. Rose’s car is there.

How Paul drove it in there without leaving an enormous trail through the forest is beyond me, but I’ll allow it because compared to all other crime shows the level of suspension of disbelief is staggeringly low. The car is abandoned, but the trunk is locked. So Stella calls for a crowbar.

The helpful bald crime scene supervisor arrives with a crowbar and they pry open the boot. Hey, I’ve been watching a U.K. show for a while now, the terminology just seeps in. Inside there is…drum roll…ROSE STAGG. Well, what perhaps was Rose Stagg. Is she alive? They can’t find a pulse. Then she moves. I had a horrible flashback to that moment in Seven, you know the one. Sloth. *shudder*

But Rose is actually alive, at least for now. Stella radios it in and Paul deems the results, “unexpected.” He says this with detached curiosity, like a science experiment went awry.

The chopper has spotted the reporter, which we knew they would. PC Hagstrom and partner are sent to investigate the distraction. But, wait, I don’t even know if she’s had a chance to chat up Ferrington yet. This could be their meet cute. You are ruining everything, newspaper guy.

Rose is taken out on a stretcher and Stella implores the medics to not lose her. See, now that’s remorse, not that weird fantasy shit Paul was talking about. Inside the trunk they find water and some food, which Paul clearly left her. But then he left her, in the dark of that car trunk for however many days.

They show Stella something Rose has carved into her forearm. It says, “I love you.” A message to her family, no doubt. Our human instinct to do horrible things to each other can only ever be outweighed by our human instinct to love on another — if we let it.

Paul smiles a small, but real, smile at the suffering he has caused. All seems over. He has confessed. Rose has been found alive. Stella walks back slowly up the road. But then fucking Jimmy. Angry, jealous, vengeful Jimmy pops up out of the woods with the gun he stole and starts shooting.

He hits Anderson, he hits Spector. Ferrington fires back, and thankfully her aim is better. Stella runs up the road toward the mayhem.

She runs right to Paul. Paul before Anderson. Ferrington runs to Anderson while Stella calls for something to tamp the blood. The helpful crime scene supervisor runs over and gives her a towel, for Paul. Anderson and Ferrington look on incredulously. I look on incredulously.

Stella cradles Paul on her lap as she calls frantically for help. And then, as the blood pools, she cries out, “We’re losing him. We’re losing him!”

And that’s our show, folks. I’m sure this ending will be controversial. I’m sure some people hate it. But do not read it as the more simplistic and more insidiously sexist overtures to Madonna and child. This is not Michelangelo’s Pietà.

This is a clear signal of priorities. What is more important to Stella? What matters to Stella? It’s not the tenuous emotional attachment to a man she just slept with just once. Her eyes, and heart, are not clouded by the pretense of wispy fairytale romance. Stella cares about the man she intends to bring to trial. The man she has single-mindedly chased and now caught.

Some may say being shot down in the road like a dog is what this man deserves. I wouldn’t necessarily argue that point with you too loudly. But Stella thinks he should be tried for his crimes by the laws of humankind, not our emotions. Let him have his day in court and live out his days caged up. Let this man pay for what he has done against women. Not die quietly in the arms of one. This is not about compassion, this is about justice.

More by Ms. Snarker: @dorothysnarker or dorothysurrenders.com.

 

 

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