S01.E11: Freedom from Fear

[Cardie]

3 hours ago, Winston9-DT3 said:

If the flashbacks can be fiction, I think that's dirty pool at this stage of the story.  So far they've been a reliable narrative device.

13 hours ago, Cardie said:

What the episode indicated to me was that everything we were shown in flashback happened--only we weren't given complete flashbacks. The scene where Mitch begs Morales not to blow the whistle happened as shown but the first version didn't show us Maddie sitting beside him or how the murder went down.

[Black Knight]

It's funny, I have thought pretty much from the start of the series that Tom would be the killer. Name actor for a recurring character, connected to the family, etc. And I became more convinced as the show went on week after week and it really became apparent that it wasn't Cam or Garrett, and while Tessa might've killed somebody at some point she was too young to be the SBK.

I'm actually going to spoiler the following, even though it's entirely my speculation, just because I know sometimes that people can feel like their shows got ruined by dead-on speculation.

Spoiler

 

And BAM! For the first time ever, I now suspect someone else: Alison. I felt like it looked like a female in SBK's car, it being a female explained why he would leave his accomplice instead of just bringing her into the house with him, I didn't buy for a minute her excuse about how her type-A self accidentally grabbed the wrong box...and, the glaring thing that really made me suspect her: She is the only Hawthorne whose whereabouts they didn't account for that night. Maddie, Mitch and Garrett were all busy with the coverup, Cam was out getting drugs, Tessa was sick in bed.

I hereby predict that the show will spend the final episode making us think it has to be Tom...and it'll turn out to be Alison framing him instead, to cover up her own guilt. Like mother, like daughter. Who knew that the reporter had gotten a lead on the SBK? Alison. They did show her watching elsewhere as the reporter was murdered live on TV, but I bet she got Tom to do that one for her - which will make framing him for that murder really easy. She'll kill him so he can't talk, of course. Like her mother to the core!

It's also really the only answer that would be shocking (other than 10-year-old Tessa - but that goes beyond shocking to just ridiculous suspension of disbelief). Garrett and Cam both spent so much time being made to look suspicious and we knew from the pilot Maddie was a murderer. Tom (and Sophie) are both satellite characters.

 

Edited September 3, 2016 by Black Knight

[sjohnson]

13 minutes ago, Cardie said:

What the episode indicated to me was that everything we were shown in flashback happened--only we weren't given complete flashbacks. The scene where Mitch begs Morales not to blow the whistle happened as shown but the first version didn't show us Maddie sitting beside him or how the murder went down.

Whether you interpret an incomplete flashback as dirty pool is open, I guess. 

My take is close to this: Flashbacks are what happened. What I'm not so sure is when we the audience are seeing a dramatization of character(s) past, a true flashback. Or when we are seeing a dramatization of a story told by a character, the truthfulness of which depends upon the honesty of the person telling the story. So when Madeline tell the kids the problem really was the personnel files Alison accidentally sent over to Morales, we see that...but is it still Madeline mixing truth with fiction? Leaving out pertinent details? 

If  anything is actually off kilter it's the sudden use of a flashback for audience eyes, I think.

[Guest]

I don't think it's dirty pool that they didn't show Maddie in the scene with Mitch and Morales.  I would however think it was dirty pool if we were shown Tessa pushing a man down the stairs and then told that never occurred.

The use of flashbacks to show past events is so common in these anymore I expect it, and enjoy it, to be honest. 

I'm glad this show doesn't do the trick of spending so much time in flashback you're practically living in both worlds at once.  That's another 'trying to be edgy but just being derivative' thing, to me. 

[izabella]

I'm really stuck on why SBK would break into the Hawthorne house in the first place.  That makes no sense to me.  Meticulous serial killers who have a strict ritual for their killings are not likely to break into a house full of people...people who happen to be serial crime buffs?  What? 

My guess is Maddie is linked to SBK somehow.  She didn't seem particularly shocked to find dead guy on the stairs, and was super quick to come up with a scheme to use his "death" as a way to get out of their money/jail problems.   That's quite a plan she came up with on the spur of the moment.  There is more to her story.

[ghoulina]

1 hour ago, izabella said:

I'm really stuck on why SBK would break into the Hawthorne house in the first place.  That makes no sense to me.  Meticulous serial killers who have a strict ritual for their killings are not likely to break into a house full of people...people who happen to be serial crime buffs?  What? 

My guess is Maddie is linked to SBK somehow.  She didn't seem particularly shocked to find dead guy on the stairs, and was super quick to come up with a scheme to use his "death" as a way to get out of their money/jail problems.   That's quite a plan she came up with on the spur of the moment.  There is more to her story.

I agree with all of this. My very first thought was why SBK would choose a victim that had such a busy household. The older kids are all coming and going, have boyfriends coming over, etc. Too many ways that could go wrong. It made me think the guy on the stairs wasn't even SBK. In fact, I wondered if Maddie and Caleb hired someone to take Mitch out. They were having an affair and he was fucking up with money. But it went wrong, so they framed it as SBK and took the accountant out while they're at it. And yea, maybe Maddie or Caleb were tied to the real SBK somehow. Still so many scenarios at play here.

[atomationage]

On 9/3/2016 at 8:43 AM, Winston9-DT3 said:

 

If the flashbacks can be fiction, I think that's dirty pool at this stage of the story.

I agree with this, but it's a device that's being used more and more by writers.   Didn't they do it in The Family and How To Get Away With Murder?

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, ghoulina said:

why SBK would choose a victim that had such a busy household.

If it's Tom, he would've known Garrett was off with Molly and Cam with Toby.  Who knows where Alison was (or am I just forgetting?)  She's probably in on it.  Tessa was supposed to be dosed.  

In that scene with Tom present, 'Silver Bells' was playing in the background.  

Maybe Alison knew about the embezzlement and wanted her dad to pay, so she either turned in the wrong box on purpose or arranged for him to be killed.  She's been described as a do-gooder, protector of the people in some scenes.  

2 minutes ago, atomationage said:

I agree with this, but it's a device that's being used more and more by writers.   Didn't they do it in The Family and How To Get Away With Murder?

I think the 'unreliable narrator' device has been really popular lately since Gone Girl used it so effectively.  But do they really show an event and then backtrack?  Or just show it in unique perspectives or missing pieces type flash scenes, like the Morales one here? 

[Free]

1 hour ago, atomationage said:

I agree with this, but it's a device that's being used more and more by writers.   Didn't they do it in The Family and How To Get Away With Murder?

It did, it's a common trope among these kinds of mysteries.

[Black Knight]

Yes, there's nothing new about this device. It was Damages' bread and butter, too. (Well, technically they were flash-forwards, but it was the same concept in the end: The show would always start off a season with a flash-forward and then gradually fill in the pieces in a variety of ways, like shifting the camera angle, etc. that very often would end up making the truth of the flash-forward quite different than it had appeared initially.) And of course, all the way back in 1995 was The Usual Suspects...but, even older than that is Agatha Christie's 1926 mystery novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. It might go back even further than that, I'd have to think about it more, but it's certainly been around for the past 90 years at a minimum. It ebbs and flows in popularity like any other storytelling device.

[Guest]

I feel like we're talking about two different things.  Flashbacks/forwards, and flashes that aren't reliable.  Is there a show that used unreliable ones?  Not like Cam's drugged memory or Maddie not shown in the first Morales scene but actually showing a detached camera view of action that never occurred.  I don't think The Family ever did that.  

I enjoy a GOOD flashback/forward aided story but I do think some tricks are overused and a bit unfair.  I won't spoil Bloodline season 1 but I feel like it and HTGAWM season 1 both suffered from some of the same audience manipulation tactics.  And The Family.  They have characters act in ways no rational person in their position would act, so your base assumptions in trying to solve it are what stand in your way.  Like in The Family, your base assumption is that Adam must be dead because he's not being held captive by the evils anymore and any abducted kid freed would go to the police or go home.  Not hide out in Canada and plot revenge on the other abducted kid.  If Alison is guilty here, I think they will have done the same, to a much smaller extent.  She was directed to act completely clueless about any shenanigans early on, iirc.  I guess the writers would justify it with "Alison the character is just a really good actor", but I think it skirted the line, but I'd have to rewatch those scenes to tell for sure.  Compared to The Family, I think it was nbd, though.

[Black Knight]

Alison's already been shown to be a good actor - and no, not just in the "she's a politician, she must be a good actor" way. Look at the way her whole affair with Naomi went down, where she prompted Naomi into making a move on her with some "my marriage is on the rocks" stuff, play-acted guilty when Tom found Naomi's negligee, didn't erase Naomi's concern in the obvious way when Naomi asked worriedly if Tom had found her negligee, by telling her about their open marriage...for Alison it apparently wasn't as fun to just tell Naomi she'd like to sleep with her and is totally free to. She was also quite convincing in that conversation with the amputation victim - although that woman was too smart to fall for the performance, it was because she used her brain, not because Alison's acting wasn't convincing. And let's not forget that in the pilot when the siblings are discussing what to do with the box of bells and clippings, Alison is the one who nixes doing anything about it. Sure she had the excuse of the election, but it's certainly convenient.

(As far as The Family goes, Adam was still captive nearly the entire season; he only just got free in the finale, and given that the showrunner has said that Claire would have seen him in the first few minutes of the second season had there been one, he clearly would've gone home almost right away. He called home quickly, too, shortly after his escape; he had no way of knowing that Ben would be the one to answer the call, and in fact the odds were 4-1 against it being Ben. What he said to Ben wasn't a declaration of revenge; it was an angry statement that he was coming home. He has every reason to be angry with Ben given that he doesn't know Ben was told he was dead, or that Ben originally contacted the family to tell them Adam was dead, not impersonate him, or that the impersonation was Willa's idea, or that she and Claire have both fully signed on now - all Adam knows is that Ben finally managed to escape and yet instead of telling the police that Adam was still being kept captive, which might've led to him being found sooner, took his identity instead.)

[Guest]

As for The Family, my complaints are mostly laid out in this thread, p.2.  Though they lost me with the reveal about the completely inept foster system, so they were already on thin ice with me.

Alison and Tom's open marriage is a good example of characters not acting how they should, given the facts disclosed later.  Alison and Tom did not act like people in an open marriage, like you said.  I would label it more a retcon than clues to the mystery but we'll see how it all plays out.  

This show actually has about 20% fewer viewers than The Family, but it's summer, too.  I would watch another season if they made it an anthology.  

Edited September 5, 2016 by Guest

[Sandman]

I don't see how the theories about Sophie or Tom being the accomplice explain the other murders in the SBK spree; making Tom the accomplice gives him potential (though far from certain) access to the alarm code, but it's not clear to me that Sophie even knew Cam at the time. I've no doubt that the accomplice will end up being someone close to those crazy Hawthornes, but I don't see how it's going to makes sense. Heck, maybe it's Molly, feeling spurned by Garrett!

[Sayla Vee]

16 hours ago, Sandman said:

I don't see how the theories about Sophie or Tom being the accomplice explain the other murders in the SBK spree; making Tom the accomplice gives him potential (though far from certain) access to the alarm code, but it's not clear to me that Sophie even knew Cam at the time. I've no doubt that the accomplice will end up being someone close to those crazy Hawthornes, but I don't see how it's going to makes sense. Heck, maybe it's Molly, feeling spurned by Garrett!

The bolded is exactly my problem.  At the time of the Morales murder, 2002, Allison notes that the election might be more in her favor during her junior year of college.  This makes Allison (and probably Tom) a 19 or 20 year old sophomore.  At this same time, Cam is in high school.  Since his friend can drive, I assume Cam is somewhere between 15 and 17...say 16 just for now.  Tessa is 10 as confirmed by all the evidence gleaned from Garrett, Brady and other Hawthornes.  The first SBK murder occurred in 1999 so you have to subtract 3 years from all ages.  Since Tom and Sophie went to school with Allison and Cam, this would make two of them 16/17 and 13 for Sophie/Cam.

I don't think the guy who entered the Hawthornes' home was SBK; I think he was a hired killer...probably hired by Maddie, but perhaps even Mitch.  And it wouldn't surprise me to find Caleb was also involved.  Didn't he tell the girls that although his big romance with Maddie had started in high school, it was an "I can't quit you" situation.

I'm hoping they aren't playing tricks with flashbacks, and that what they show us is the real deal.  I don't consider the scenes shown during either Garrett's or Maddie's narrations to be flashbacks.  The only true flashback I acknowledge is the kind shown at the end of the episode, where there is no narration, but only a true look back at what really happened (Maddie being the killer) in that location or at that time.   Truth be told, I do believe Garrett is telling the truth in the dramatizations of his narration, or at the very least, the truth as he knows it.

I'm enjoying this show, but am terribly annoyed at the plot errors......Suspected SBK remaining unconscious for 5-6 hours, then feeling fit enough to engage in a knife fight; Mitch keeping papers that prove guilt in a box on his home desk; that Mitch has a company large enough that he can negotiate to build tunnels under a city and still not have a payroll office, financial officer or budget department.  Who files the paperwork with the IRS?  And why are you throwing Gunther and Mrs Caramel Owner at us if they aren't involved? 

Question:  Did SBK steal anything from the homes of these wealthy victims or was it just for the kill?

[Sandman]

1 hour ago, Sayla Vee said:

Suspected SBK remaining unconscious for 5-6 hours, then feeling fit enough to engage in a knife fight;

Ehh, he was only mostly dead. (Yes, what this show needs is more Miracle Max!)

I don't know if I'm convinced by the idea of Maddie hiring a Fake SilverTone Bell Killer, either, though it would certainly explain how the intruder knew the alarm code. Hiring a proxy would seem to introduce another layer of variables that wouldn't be under her direct control, and I think she'd prefer to maintain control wherever possible, (see: Morales, David J.) It seems much more likely to me that she took opportunistic advantage of a chance event.

Although, to be honest, I wouldn't have said she was sloppy enough to give Mitchell the chance to leave a Big Ol' Box of Incriminating Evidence around, either.

Edited September 7, 2016 by Sandman

[theatremouse]

On 9/1/2016 at 9:30 AM, iMonrey said:

Meanwhile, tiny little Madeline can strangle a guy from behind for approximately 12 seconds and kill him dead. OK then.

The editing in that scene gave me the impression it wasn't intended to imply it was happening in real time. I mean, I know TV is notorious for strangulations happening way too fast, but they had some kinda...filter on...I took it as "we're showing you this so you see she did it", not to imply that's literally how long it took.

On 9/2/2016 at 1:47 PM, NorthstarATL said:

What really took me out of the episode, though, was I totally remember still being gay in 2002, with LGBT not yet a "thing".

If it helps, my high school, in 2002 had an LGBT alliance (pretty sure earlier, but the year I'm sure of happens to be 2002). So it may have been less of a "thing" than now, was but twas a thing in New England at that time.

6 hours ago, Sayla Vee said:

Suspected SBK remaining unconscious for 5-6 hours, then feeling fit enough to engage in a knife fight;

I don't remember if they said where in Maine Garret went? Plenty of parts of Maine much shorter drive from Boston than that. Still absurd, but not necessarily 5 hours absurd.

[boochez]

Assuming there is only one accomplice, I'm going with Sophie.   First, she definitely stalked Cam.   He made the comment during the flashback from five years ago when he was recalling how they had met during art school that he had been seeing her all over town before she popped up in front of him and said she was his new girlfriend.   Second, during the funeral when Cam and Sophie are in the bathroom before their "make out" session, she takes the drugs from him and makes the statement that he needs to be "present" for the funeral / to feel the emotions..........that she had gotten really messed up after her father died (I believe SBK was her father).   Third, there has been a lot of peppering about the inherited genetics and mental issues.  Jack definitely has issues..........but, that could be explained as a child who has a serial killer for his maternal grandfather, a grifter for a paternal great grandmother, definite psychological issues with his paternal grandmother, addictive personalities of both of his parents, with the potential of his mother having actually been a serial killer as well.   When Cam and Sophie are in bed and he mentions problems with Jack, Sophie comments that of course he has problems, Jack is half her and half him.   Fourth, I think there was a very definite reason they showed how easy it was for her to gain access to the security code for the doctor's office by smoking on the dock.  Obviously, that's not how easy it is to gain access to a home security code, but it shows that maybe she was "trained" by someone in the past............her father/SBK.  As others have mentioned, the original painting is supposed to portray a father and daughter, thus Sophie and SBK.   And, the casual mentions that have been made about her sneaking into places.  

The sheer fact that the name of the series as well as each episode has been the name of a famous art piece leans me toward Sophie as well (yes, I know Cam is an artist as well....just not the accomplice)   Frankly, I initially thought this pointed toward Maddie as the imagery of her as Whistler's Mother at the end of the first episode is actually what made me first notice the art tie in with the show.............(I love looking for the imagery in each episode to see how they've recreated the original masterpiece with the show).  The creepy dolls were also recreations of when Sophie came to the hospital................Tessa, Alison and Maddie are all wearing the clothes from that day  (I honestly didn't pay as close attention to Garrett or Cam).  But, I did notice that on Cam's doll, it's almost a replica of the shot of Cam and Sophie during the bathroom "make out" sesh where his glasses get knocked askew and he's looking up toward the ceiling.  

Her age definitely puts a question mark on this theory, but I'll say the writers did a really good job of throwing red herrings out there if it is not her..........

We'll see tonight if there is a reason they have chosen to circle back on the episode's title.............the first episode is entitled Arrangement in Black and Grey (actual name of Whistler's Mother) and this finale episode is entitled Whistler's Mother..........why circle back? 

[sugarbaker design]

There are only 3 mothers on the show:  Maddy, Alison and Sophie.

[izabella]

Sophie is a drug addict, not known for meticulous serial killing planning or reliability as an accomplice, not to mention how young she would have been when SBK was on his killing spree (13-15, not even old enough to drive, just like Cam at that point).  I don't see how Sophie can be involved in anything since she didn't meet Cam until art school (college age).  At the time the SBK stuff happened, Sophie was not in the picture at all with Cam or this family in any way.

Edited September 7, 2016 by izabella

[sugarbaker design]

3 minutes ago, izabella said:

At the time the SBK stuff happened, Sophie was not in the picture at all with Cam or this family in any way.

But that's the point, Sophie was SBK's daughter and accomplice.  Sophie wondered what happened to SBK Daddy in the Hawthorne mansion.  She then set out to meet and date Cam in order to get more info, along the way she and Cam got addicted to drugs and each other.  They have little psycho Jack.  She knew her father had nothing to do with David Morales's death, so when the belt was revealed and tied the Hawthornes into the plot, Sophie started adding two and two together, as much as an active drug addict can.

[izabella]

How can Sophie be an accomplice at the age of 13-15?  Literally, what can she do to assist a serial killer father when she can't even drive?  Polish his silver bells? It honestly sounds absurd to me. 

[sugarbaker design]

This is an absurd show.  Jack tried to drown his cousins and barely got yelled at.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, izabella said:

Sophie is a drug addict, not known for meticulous serial killing planning or reliability as an accomplice, not to mention how young she would have been when SBK was on his killing spree (13-15, not even old enough to drive, just like Cam at that point).  I don't see how Sophie can be involved in anything since she didn't meet Cam until art school (college age).  At the time the SBK stuff happened, Sophie was not in the picture at all with Cam or this family in any way.

I'm not a huge fan of it being Sophie but do we know or just assume she's that close in age to Cam?  If she's even 3 years older it gets less ridiculous.  

Didn't SBK tell his accomplice to "wait for his signal then come in"?  So the accomplice may do something besides drive or ride along.  I don't see posing the bodies tied to a chair with a bell next to them as particularly artsy.   Hannibal would laugh.  

I suppose Sophie would be preferable to me over Tom, who has had like four lines the whole show.  

I can't watch it until tomorrow night, probably.  Waah.  

[Enigma X]

IF SBK was doing all the heavy lifting, so to speak, I don't see why it can't be a 13-year old Sophie.

[Cardie]

Plenty of people take time off before enrolling in college, and for all we know, this art school may have been a place for concentrated study after one gets a BA. Sophie could well be 34 now, even if a bit older than Cam. I think Tom makes more logical sense as the accomplice but Sophie makes better thematic sense. 

[theatremouse]

4 hours ago, Winston9-DT3 said:

So the accomplice may do something besides drive or ride along. 

We already know (or can safely assume) the accomplice helps clean up. Brady established that with his speedrun.

[sjohnson]

I can't envision anyone relying on Sophie to do a good job cleaning.

[Sandman]

7 hours ago, boochez said:

We'll see tonight if there is a reason they have chosen to circle back on the episode's title.............the first episode is entitled Arrangement in Black and Grey (actual name of Whistler's Mother) and this finale episode is entitled Whistler's Mother..........why circle back?

I thought about this, too. I can only assume it's because of Maddie's place at the heart of the mystery. She's the beginning and the end of the story? (Maddie's image was turned into the representation of the painting at the end of the first episode.)

[Cardie]

Props to boochez who made the very convincing case for Sophie being the accomplice.

[Anela]

I really liked this episode. Unfortunately, my DVR didn't record tonight's episode - was it the finale? 

[boochez]

Thanks, Cardie!  :)

[Cardie]

11 hours ago, Anela said:

I really liked this episode. Unfortunately, my DVR didn't record tonight's episode - was it the finale? 

It was, the last two episodes shown back-to-back.