S02.E03: Episode 3

[Bort]

Quote

Bill gets drawn into a horrifying crime that hits close to home. Holden receives an intriguing offer while in Atlanta to interview a pair of killers.

Airdate: August 16, 2019

[Yokosmom]

@  Ford was totally unprofessional in his meetings with the two southern serial killers. Not as interesting as a clever killer like Kemper, so he just shut down and went through the motions. 

[patty1h]

What struck me from watching the first 3 episodes is that the three leads seem to HATE each other - there is no warmth or hardly any emotion beside disdain during their conversations. Like when Bill picked up Holden from the hospital, when Wendy and Bill made up after him accusing her of giving the tape to the investigators, etc.  Just massive bitchfaces!   They all seem to hate the 4th team member (name).  

Also, they all seem to give these disgusted side-eyes while another person is speaking.  Tench is always giving people the stinkeye - especially his coworkers.  When they were questioning the black prisoner Nance, the black FBI guy started talking and the camera focused on Holden giving him this look like "why are you talking?  I'm in charge here".   I thought "why is Holden making that sourpuss at his fellow FBIer?".  Another scene the team was listening to the killers tapes and 4th guy starts saying something about Aristotle and Wendy turns and they show her with a face of "who does this guy think he is?  He's basically the coffee boy".  I'm finding these facial expressions taking me out of the story.

[Atlanta]

Is Agent Barney based on the real African American profiler from Georgia? Douglas mentions him in his book and my mind is going blank. His wife tried to kill him. I've Googled and can't find his name. Ugh. I'm thinking it starts with a J.

[sistermagpie]

6 hours ago, patty1h said:

What struck me from watching the first 3 episodes is that the three leads seem to HATE each other - there is no warmth or hardly any emotion beside disdain during their conversations. Like when Bill picked up Holden from the hospital, when Wendy and Bill made up after him accusing her of giving the tape to the investigators, etc.  Just massive bitchfaces!   They all seem to hate the 4th team member (name).  

Also, they all seem to give these disgusted side-eyes while another person is speaking.  Tench is always giving people the stinkeye - especially his coworkers.  When they were questioning the black prisoner Nance, the black FBI guy started talking and the camera focused on Holden giving him this look like "why are you talking?  I'm in charge here".   I thought "why is Holden making that sourpuss at his fellow FBIer?".  Another scene the team was listening to the killers tapes and 4th guy starts saying something about Aristotle and Wendy turns and they show her with a face of "who does this guy think he is?  He's basically the coffee boy".  I'm finding these facial expressions taking me out of the story.

I don't get the impression they hate each other, but they're currently in a shaky place as a team. They just went through a lot of serious conflict. I thought the Aristotle moment was funny and not just everyone thinking he was stupid. It was more like Wendy was amused because she knew how much this wasn't something Tench would relate to, but then what the guy was saying was very practical and legitimate so Tench had to eat a little crow.

With Barney I didn't think Holden's sour faces were about Barney, they were about his disappointment with the guy they were interviewing. Like if Barney wanted to try to squeeze some blood out of this stone he could go ahead but Holden knew better. (Holden doesn't know better.)

[Irlandesa]

Yeah.  This is a small team with each member chosen to bring in something very specific.  Those specifics also happen to sometimes be at cross purposes.  Tench is the veteran.  Ford is the upstart young agent with questionable methods.  We've already seen Carr and Ford clash with what they think the goal of their project is (Holden's improvisation in the interviews vs. her academic/research desire to maintain consistency as much as possible) and Gregg is there because of his connections over "earning" the job.

Sometimes they like one another and sometimes they don't but I don't get hate.  I get irritation at most.

Edited August 18, 2019 by Irlandesa

[methodwriter85]

3 hours ago, Irlandesa said:

Sometimes they like one another and sometimes they don't but I don't get hate.  I get irritation at most.

That's kind of how I see them.

They all hate the 4th team member because he doesn't really seem to have much of a purpose or curiosity in what they're doing and he is the one that forwarded the tape of the Specter interview, although that in the end wound up working for them.

[Epeolatrix]

20 hours ago, Atlanta said:

Is Agent Barney based on the real African American profiler from Georgia? Douglas mentions him in his book and my mind is going blank. His wife tried to kill him. I've Googled and can't find his name. Ugh. I'm thinking it starts with a J. 

I think Barney is a composite of two agents, Judson Ray and John Glover. Ray is the one whose wife tried to kill him.

[Atlanta]

1 hour ago, Violet Impulse said:

I think Barney is a composite of two agents, Judson Ray and John Glover. Ray is the one whose wife tried to kill him.

YES! I knew the name started with a J. Thank you! Judson is who I was thinking of.

[Portia]

Holy snap, was anybody besides me freaking out that the murder victim in the vacant house was a toddler...and that Tench's little boy could be a suspect? There have been suggestions since season one that his kid is "off." And in a recent episode he was transfixed in church by the statue of Jesus suffering on the cross. Bill also found the door ajar, and the boy wet himself unexpectedly...so many weird little things. I'm not saying he actually did it, but I predict Tench will have to grapple with this suspicion. 

BTW my spouse and I can't remember for sure...did the Tenches adopt their son? 

Edited August 20, 2019 by Portia

[Epeolatrix]

Quote

did the Tenches adopt their son? 

Yes, Brian was adopted.

[tennisgurl]

I suspect that the Tenches son might be involved in that poor kids death. They have worried that he was "off" for awhile now, and he just peed himself in the bed, which is one of the early signs of being a serial killer. For their sake, I hope thats not what happened.

The Atlanta Child Murders is such a sad creepy case, so of course we are covering it now. The woman at the desk getting Holden to go talk to the moms was what I figured was happening,  but I wasn't sure where that was going until they showed the three women at the diner. I get desperation, but maybe give the guy a tiny heads up before all of that? 

Of course people in the community immediately jump on "cults and satanism" as being the cause of the kids death. This is 1980 so we are in the middle of the Satanic Panic that swept the nation, so of course people jump right to occult murders, even as Bill says thats probably not whats going on here.

Of course Holden totally checks out when he finds a killer not "exciting" and flashy enough for him and just dismisses everything they get from them as useless. Even though the others find interesting stuff there, he needs more flash now.

Edited August 20, 2019 by tennisgurl

[festivus]

11 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

The Atlanta Child Murders is such a sad creepy case, so of course we are covering it now. The woman at the desk getting Holden to go talk to the moms was what I figured was happening,  but I wasn't sure where that was going until they showed the three women at the diner. I get desperation, but maybe give the guy a tiny heads up before all of that? 

Yeah, I knew she wanted something from him because her face changed as soon as she saw he was FBI. I understand her not wanting to tell him the real reason for asking him to dinner. She doesn't know him like we do, she would have no reason to think this white guy from another city would care. What I thought was interesting is that he did think it was a date and he wanted to go. I've mostly forgotten last season but wasn't Holden being awkward with women a thing? I think he got the girlfriend last season because she was the straightforward one. Correct me if I'm not remembering this right.

[sistermagpie]

2 hours ago, festivus said:

I've mostly forgotten last season but wasn't Holden being awkward with women a thing? I think he got the girlfriend last season because she was the straightforward one. Correct me if I'm not remembering this right.

In this case he thought the woman was being the straightforward one again!

[TattleTeeny]

Quote

which is one of the early signs of being a serial killer. 

To be fair, it's not predictive. But yeah, I wonder if that's where they're headed with this because I really don't know why else we'd have needed the scene. 

[Clanstarling]

On 8/16/2019 at 7:24 PM, Yokosmom said:

@  Ford was totally unprofessional in his meetings with the two southern serial killers. Not as interesting as a clever killer like Kemper, so he just shut down and went through the motions. 

Yeah, he is an arrogant snot most of the time.

On 8/19/2019 at 7:15 PM, Portia said:

Holy snap, was anybody besides me freaking out that the murder victim in the vacant house was a toddler...and that Tench's little boy could be a suspect? There have been suggestions since season one that his kid is "off." And in a recent episode he was transfixed in church by the statue of Jesus suffering on the cross. Bill also found the door ajar, and the boy wet himself unexpectedly...so many weird little things. I'm not saying he actually did it, but I predict Tench will have to grapple with this suspicion. 

BTW my spouse and I can't remember for sure...did the Tenches adopt their son? 

Here I was thinking I was a little off for thinking it might be their son. I hope not. It seems a little melodramatic for this show, despite the themes and storylines.

5 hours ago, TattleTeeny said:

To be fair, it's not predictive. But yeah, I wonder if that's where they're headed with this because I really don't know why else we'd have needed the scene. 

Yeah, I was thinking about all those perfectly innocent bedwetters who get tarred with that brush. I wonder if the reason it's on the list is more to do with psychological damage incurred by how their families dealt with it (beating, humiliation, etc.) than the actual act itself.

[TattleTeeny]

Exactly--and the bedwetting itself isn't an issue on its own; it would be taken into consideration with two other "symptoms," for lack of a better term.

[Yokosmom]

Yes, bedwetting is taken into consideration if it is combined with starting fires and/or cruelty to animals.  Bedwetting by itself isn't a symptom of future criminal misbehavior.

[sinkwriter]

On 8/19/2019 at 10:09 PM, tennisgurl said:

The Atlanta Child Murders is such a sad creepy case, so of course we are covering it now. The woman at the desk getting Holden to go talk to the moms was what I figured was happening,  but I wasn't sure where that was going until they showed the three women at the diner.

I thought that scene with the moms was excellent. The actress who played the mom who did most of the talking (the one who initially dismissed Holden as being too young and pretty much said forget it, at first) was SO good. The way she stared Holden down and just talked so personally about what their community has gone through and how their children were being murdered.... I got chills. She was terrific. (IMDB says her name is June Carryl and her character is Camille Bell.) Powerful performance that really showed the distrust of the police and the enormous frustration they must be feeling, in wanting answers and not getting them and not seeing anyone take the cases seriously enough. 

[Clanstarling]

12 hours ago, sinkwriter said:

I thought that scene with the moms was excellent. The actress who played the mom who did most of the talking (the one who initially dismissed Holden as being too young and pretty much said forget it, at first) was SO good. The way she stared Holden down and just talked so personally about what their community has gone through and how their children were being murdered.... I got chills. She was terrific. (IMDB says her name is June Carryl and her character is Camille Bell.) Powerful performance that really showed the distrust of the police and the enormous frustration they must be feeling, in wanting answers and not getting them and not seeing anyone take the cases seriously enough. 

Quite a while a go in the SF Bay area (over 20 years ago, closer to 30), there were a number of little blond and blue eyed girls who went missing. The media blitz was strong - and I was anxious to a certain degree because my own child fit the profile. Sometime during that period, I read a little blurb about a black girl who'd gone missing. That was it - not even two column inches on the inside of the newspaper. I was horrified by the lack of coverage.

I must have repressed the details, because I don't remember if any of the girls, white or black, were found. But I'll always remember that bias.

[dramachick]

Holden is such a snob.

That first inmate they interviewed had me laughing with the malaprops! Especially when he said, "The judge said I was continent to stand trial." But then he got scary when he was asked about one of the women he killed, and he said, "She called me a moron. Once."

The Atlanta child murders case is depressing on so many levels. It was sickening to hear about the political calculus of not bringing attention to the murder of black children because of the need to attract business and money to Atlanta.

I did not expect to see the chalk outline of a toddler in that garage. It seems that this murder case is going to intensify the fucked-up nature of Tench's family life.

[swanpride]

I was a little bit taken aback, though, when the show kept acting as if the one who kept messing up the words was born stupid or anything like that - if I understood his story correctly he apparently used to be pretty smart until he received some sort of brain damage. And brain damage can make you violent if specific parts of the brain are affected. Or did I misunderstood the backstory of this guy? Because I felt initially sorry for him, thinking that he might truly not be responsible for what he did, but then the show went all "eh, just always stupid".

[Clanstarling]

4 hours ago, swanpride said:

I was a little bit taken aback, though, when the show kept acting as if the one who kept messing up the words was born stupid or anything like that - if I understood his story correctly he apparently used to be pretty smart until he received some sort of brain damage. And brain damage can make you violent if specific parts of the brain are affected. Or did I misunderstood the backstory of this guy? Because I felt initially sorry for him, thinking that he might truly not be responsible for what he did, but then the show went all "eh, just always stupid".

I wasn't sure if the "brain damage" was one of his lies/stories. If true, it certainly seems a data point that might be of interest of the team.

[leighdear]

The "Georgia" accent for the first killer, Junior was abysmal.  The dude is Canadian, so I guess his crappy accent is understandable.  Stuff like that takes me right out of the story. 

I did like the glimpse of Paco Rabanne aftershave Ford slapped on post shower, preparing for dinner with Tanya.  Nice touch.  

[Blakeston]

The Atlanta cop was so full of shit when he said, "We get 10 child murders a year on average here, so this is nothing unusual."

I'd have to think that the vast majority of child murders happen because of a) abusive parents, b) other children, c) gang activity, or d) stray bullets.

To have all those kids (from the same background!) being abducted and killed would have to be very out of the ordinary.

Also, early in the episode, I thought it was odd that Barney didn't just explain to Holden why those kids were walking around with their arms linked. Wouldn't he see the value of the FBI at least being aware of the situation? And it's an interesting story, if nothing else.

[Roseanna]

4 hours ago, Blakeston said:

The Atlanta cop was so full of shit when he said, "We get 10 child murders a year on average here, so this is nothing unusual."

I'd have to think that the vast majority of child murders happen because of a) abusive parents, b) other children, c) gang activity, or d) stray bullets.

To have all those kids (from the same background!) being abducted and killed would have to be very out of the ordinary.

Although the mothers were hurt when the police suspected family, the parents are the likeliest culprits, although we don't like to think about it.   

One mom told Holden that when her child who (if I remember right) was 11 years old was missing, the police told her to wait a couple days. The child could have been still alive and in any case he wasn't yet buried.  

[Blakeston]

19 hours ago, Roseanna said:

Although the mothers were hurt when the police suspected family, the parents are the likeliest culprits, although we don't like to think about it.   

One mom told Holden that when her child who (if I remember right) was 11 years old was missing, the police told her to wait a couple days. The child could have been still alive and in any case he wasn't yet buried.  

I'd think that this many parents from the same community coming forward and demanding answers from the police would suggest that the parents weren't the killers.

I get that there are some people who kill their kids and then go public claiming their kids are missing (like Scott Peterson), but multiple families coming forward and insisting there's a link would have to be pretty out of the ordinary.

[Boilergal]

During the interviews, I took it more that Ford was annoyed that he was being stifled and had to stick to the script instead of using his usual "crude" methods of getting the guy talking.  Kind of like he was getting back at the team by not getting them what they needed, you don't like my methods then you get nothing.

The baby chalk outline was disturbing - but the mom's reaction of they didn't ruin the carpet or break a window - was more disturbing.

[shrewd.buddha]

On 8/18/2019 at 1:12 AM, Irlandesa said:

Yeah.  This is a small team with each member chosen to bring in something very specific. 

Yes. It seems as if the new FBI director recognizes that Holden is reckless but has a talent that the team needs.  Holden needs to be pointed in the right direction and monitored.

My impression of Holden interviewing the Atlanta prisoners was that he was bored and not at all impressed with their pedestrian, haphazard killings. He seems to want to interview the serial killer superstars who are intellectual and use elaborate schemes ... and people like Manson. 

[shrewd.buddha]

On 8/17/2019 at 2:46 PM, patty1h said:

Another scene the team was listening to the killers tapes and 4th guy starts saying something about Aristotle and Wendy turns and they show her with a face of "who does this guy think he is?  He's basically the coffee boy".

My impression of that scene was that the rest of the team members were surprised, and begrudgingly impressed, that Agent Smith had something relevant to add. Plus, he had some historical, psychological insights.
I had thought they would try to dump him from the team after the tape incident. 

[Lillith]

On 8/27/2019 at 11:35 AM, Boilergal said:

During the interviews, I took it more that Ford was annoyed that he was being stifled and had to stick to the script instead of using his usual "crude" methods of getting the guy talking.  Kind of like he was getting back at the team by not getting them what they needed, you don't like my methods then you get nothing.

The baby chalk outline was disturbing - but the mom's reaction of they didn't ruin the carpet or break a window - was more disturbing.

To be honest I found that scene, and a lot of this episode ,to be darkly comic. Like she was clearly horrified but her "professional" brian kept engagig as well and she was worried about the house and it being "saleable" while trying to fight the urge. 

[HC87]

I don't think the term "let's jet" was used in 1979....minor quibble

[HurricaneVal]

I kind of have a different take on Holden interviewing the two Atlanta killers.  I think he was still shook from his panic attacks after Kemper's hug.  I think he was tentative and holding back because of that, and angry with himself for being like that, and trying to fall back on the framework of the survey to get through the interview.  Then he ran out of steam, and was grateful when the other guy picked up the thread of conversation and pulled that Holden-like move with the peanut butter cups.  But I also think y'all are not wrong with thinking that Holden was bored with these two run-of-the-mill killers.  He's a complex guy, he can pack all kinds of flavors of angst and boredom into the same situation!

[foxfreakinmulder]

On ‎8‎/‎17‎/‎2019 at 11:46 AM, patty1h said:

What struck me from watching the first 3 episodes is that the three leads seem to HATE each other - there is no warmth or hardly any emotion beside disdain during their conversations. Like when Bill picked up Holden from the hospital, when Wendy and Bill made up after him accusing her of giving the tape to the investigators, etc.  Just massive bitchfaces!   They all seem to hate the 4th team member (name).  

Thank you. I said the same thing after watching season 1. I'm not comparing Holden and Tench to Mulder and Scully but they had heated disagreements all the time but you knew they respected and liked each other. I don't get that from Holden and Tench and definitely not from Wendy.