S01.E08: Sleep While I Sing

[Snazzy Daisy]

Season Finale

Quote

The investigation to find a possible serial killer in Gibsons continues.

Alberg and his team piece together clues and discover an unusual pattern that relates back to familiar works of art.

The unsettlement amongst the detectives prompts an urgent search to identify the killer

Air Date: Nov 26, 2024

 

[blackwing]

It was not surprising at all that the killer was the art teacher.  The pose of the Jane Doe looked too much like one of the paintings he liked.  Also not surprising was the Alberg daughter's friend who thought she could be his girlfriend even though he's easily in his 30s.  What a twit.

There were only two possible suspects, and the show spent so much time on the actor ex-boyfriend just to make us think he was the killer.  Why was this character even on the show?  Complete waste of time.

Of course at the end, Karl and Cassandra get together.  Also not surprising.  I'm glad that there wasn't a whole lot of angst about their whole breakup before they got back together.

I don't know if this show is going to get renewed.  If it comes back, it'd be nice if there were a few changes.  For one, even though this show is called "Murder in a Small Town", I never got the sense that it is in fact a small town.  In a small town, everybody knows everybody.  Most of these people seem like complete strangers to each other. 

Also, I know this show filmed on location in Gibsons, British Columbia, but the show itself did very little to showcase the town or the area.  I feel like all we saw were a few homes, the pier, the bar, the coffee shop, the library, and a few scenes in the woods.  If your show is going to be called "Murder in a Small Town" I would think the town itself should almost be a character. This was the same issue I had with another TV adaptation of a Canadian author's mystery book series, Louise Penny and the mediocre "Three Pines".

The relationship drama between Karl and Cassandra took a back burner during the last several episodes, and the show benefitted from it.  I wish this show was more of a procedural with the pace of a procedural.  

The character development that we got on the supporting characters was uneven.  I thought one of the more interesting characters was the art teacher.  But we didn't even get any kind of understanding as to why he killed at least three people, did we?  They just explained it away as "the urge" to kill every six years.  Why?  It seems like with Karl asking him if there were any others, maybe if the show gets renewed, he comes back and his story isn't done?  We didn't get any answers.

And because the teacher turned out to be a serial killer, does that mean the Alberg daughter's friend's ex-boyfriend's expulsion gets rescinded?  After all, he was the one that said something wasn't right about the art teacher.

Edited November 27 by blackwing

[AnimeMania]

2 hours ago, blackwing said:

And because the teacher turned out to be a serial killer, does that mean the Alberg daughter's friend's ex-boyfriend's expulsion gets rescinded?  After all, he was the one that said something wasn't right about the art teacher.

They never did explain how the boyfriend knew the art teacher was the one who painted the dead lady, also why was the art teacher worried about if the female student made it home safely since she ran out of his car right in front of her house  (even though she didn't actually go into her house) . 

[Snazzy Daisy]

That’s a lovely painting of Clyde.

Tommy Cummins thinks watching someone dies is intimate and magical. What a creep!

Devon’s mom needs to pay extra attention to her daughter. She likes older man.

It’s very kind and nurturing of Sid to remind Edwina that she makes the crucial Seattle connection that helps them nailing the serial killer.

I keep comparing this show to Mistletoe Murders (MM) on Hallmark+. I like everything from MIAST (the landscape, the cases, the supporting characters) except for the 2 leads. And in MM, I like the 2 leads (Sarah Drew & Peter Mooney) while everything else is meh. Nothing is perfect. 😏
 

[emma675]

This felt like a series finale to me. They wrapped up all of the storylines, including getting Alberg and Cassandra back together, stopping a serial killer, and revealing Cassandra's useless friend was just a jackass because he was hiding his and his sister's drug use. The cop who was injured came back, the cop who felt like a fraud got self redemption, and we learned more about the elder cop's background. 

I doubt this show will be renewed, but I will miss it. Mainly the scenery, where they film is gorgeous. 

[AnimeMania]

51 minutes ago, emma675 said:

This felt like a series finale to me. They wrapped up all of the storylines, including getting Alberg and Cassandra back together, stopping a serial killer, and revealing Cassandra's useless friend was just a jackass because he was hiding his and his sister's drug use. The cop who was injured came back, the cop who felt like a fraud got self redemption, and we learned more about the elder cop's background. 

I doubt this show will be renewed, but I will miss it. Mainly the scenery, where they film is gorgeous. 

I think they have a the whole second season planned out according to this article from TV Insider. They just need the renewal confirmation.

‘Murder in a Small Town’ EP on That Serial Killer Finale & What’s Ahead in Season 2

[LakeGal]

TVTimes has said it is a safe bet this will be renewed.  

[Linda956]

I actually liked this series but I didn't like the fact that it was only 8 episodes.  How can you possibly develop characters or any storylines in 8 episodes?  The program seemed to end just as it began. This needed a full season order or at least 13 episodes.  This is my big complaint about most of the series on television now.  Unless it's a long-standing series like NCIS, etc., they don't do enough episodes to develop the character/series.  Don't even get me started on Masterpiece Theatre/Mystery on PBS where no series is more than 8 episodes long.  Last season's All Creatures Great & Small was over before it began and had me wondering exactly what happened that season since it was so short-lived.

[Badsamaritan]

On 12/1/2024 at 12:14 PM, Linda956 said:

I actually liked this series but I didn't like the fact that it was only 8 episodes.  How can you possibly develop characters or any storylines in 8 episodes?  The program seemed to end just as it began. This needed a full season order or at least 13 episodes.  This is my big complaint about most of the series on television now.  Unless it's a long-standing series like NCIS, etc., they don't do enough episodes to develop the character/series.  Don't even get me started on Masterpiece Theatre/Mystery on PBS where no series is more than 8 episodes long.  Last season's All Creatures Great & Small was over before it began and had me wondering exactly what happened that season since it was so short-lived.

I really like it too, they could've at least given us 10 episodes, this 8 episode bullshit is for the birds. Plus it really appeals to my OCD nature by having an even 10, that 8 just makes me itch. I hope it gets renewed.

The show did a great job for me in setting the tone in this episode. I knew it was the art teacher, could see it a mile away, yet I started to doubt it and wondered if it was a red herring with the addition of Devon's 32 year old high school boyfriend (come on, you were thinking he looked older than most of the police force too, right?) and Cassandra's sketchy friend Roger, played by Lucas Bryant, who is known to us Hallmark watchers as one of their occasional leading men. Makes sense given both film in Canada. Anyway, I enjoyed the tension thinking Devon was in danger in the beginning. I even considered it was her that Roger ran over until we saw her in Karl's house. I think that's a good way to describe the episode, the tension was really well done for me. At one point in the beginning I even considered if it was a past killer that had maybe escaped and just went full-on crazy, until Edwina made the connection to a serial killer. 

I'm also glad to see Holly got over herself and seems to genuinely like Cassandra now and was spending time with her on purpose. I think I may be one of the few that likes Karl and Cassandra together. I'm ok with that. He's a protector type, but also intelligent and sensitive. Kind of a smart Ferdinand the Bull type. Cassandra is a smart modern woman who I think probably made all the wrong choices of men to get involved with. Totally relatable lol. They're both damaged, a little sad, outwardly cynical but I sense there's still that small spark of hope in them of finding true love. They're romantics at heart but have learned to hide it well. In other words, they both still have that soft, gooey center that life hasn't completely hardened, and I think they see that in each other. There was a scene in one of the first couple episodes where they had sex at his house and were hanging out and he sat in a chair and she came over and sat in his lap facing him and there was just something about both their expressions that struck me. And now I'm rooting for those two depressed, crazy kids in that morose and ridiculously dangerous town. 🤷🏽‍♀️😁🫶🏽