S01.E07: Episode 7

[Door County Cherry]

Released 9/13/19

Quote

Suddenly faced with two suspects instead of one, the team races to ID the rapist and make an arrest. Marie's new counselor tries to win her trust.

[Corgi-ears]

If this ep only featured one of the following:

1. That amazing conversation over the game of gin between Karen and Grace (which possibly surpassed last ep's conversation in the car that exemplified what female mentorship can look like);

2. The Zombieland therapy sequence;

3. The scenes of evidence being collected from the rapist that finally turn the tables on decades and decades of (depictions of) rape victims being subjected to such evidence collection;

4. "Fucking gray zone." "Not a fan?";

5. Grace's and Karen's faces (i.e., Toni's and Merritt's face-acting) as they sit in front of the computer;

it would already be a great ep. That this one featured all of the above made it a powerful hour of television. I wasn't a huge fan of how on-the-nose the counsellor's "so you were violated twice -- once by the rapist, then by the police" comment was (though I would imagine it was very liberating for the real Marie to hear), and Karen concluding her account of how well the arrest went by saying "It was kinda...unbelievable" felt a bit ba-da-DUM! But amazing job all around.

Also: for once the more famous guest actor didn't do it! Ken Cosgrove from Mad Men, you subverted a trope!

Edited September 14, 2019 by Corgi-ears

[DoubleUTeeEff]

22 hours ago, Corgi-ears said:

3. The scenes of evidence being collected from the rapist that finally turn the tables on decades and decades of (depictions of) rape victims being subjected to such evidence collection;

I liked that too but it was no where near as invasive as what victims are subjected to and after being raped for hours in his victims' cases! Maybe if we'd seen them take samples from his rectum, "the area" near the rectum and stuck one of those q-tip-like swabs up his urethra for another sample, it would start to be a little closer to their exams. (If it's not obvious, I'm not advocating this. I'm just trying to make a point.)

[MrsR]

I too was very happy to see the perp exam. I can't remember ever seeing that before.

I love the Mindhunter vibe to this show.

And seeing Dale Dickey as someone who's not a skank.

[EdnasEdibles]

I loved the evidence collection from the rapist. I have never seen that at all on TV before. I also loved the dehumanizing way they just left him without clothes in the cell. 

The arrest scene and the collection of evidence was also great. This guy was not particularly smart just keeping all of that shit together - didn't even hide his gross panty collection very well. 

It was also very interesting with his brother that his first question was "Did he make a bomb?" so the brother knew he was violent and weird but didn't quite grasp exactly how violent and weird. 

[laurakaye]

On 9/14/2019 at 12:20 PM, Corgi-ears said:

5. Grace's and Karen's faces (i.e., Toni's and Merritt's face-acting) as they sit in front of the computer

Also: for once the more famous guest actor didn't do it! Ken Cosgrove from Mad Men, you subverted a trope!

Watching their faces as they clicked through the pictures was everything.  I rewound it and watched it three or four times.  TC briefly closes her eyes, MV has to look away at one point...that was some raw stuff.  Just give both of these actresses and Kaitlyn Diever all the awards right now.

Ken Cosgrove!  I could NOT place that face.  But I did love seeing Brooke Smith as the therapist.  I know she's been in other things but I personally haven't seen her since she ripped my heart out as Catherine in Silence of the Lambs.

Edited September 17, 2019 by laurakaye

[kieyra]

Hmm, party of one apparently, but I feel like this episode drags and drags. I thought the whole first half of the series was much more compelling, better paced, better plotted. The emphasis on the victims and the different detectives coming together kept things moving, then it all sort of collapses in the back half of the series. So many sequences of long, dead air in this episode especially, the muddled suspect issue with the brothers, and me wondering what Toni Collette did to anger the makeup people and make her face such a completely different color from the rest of her body.

Merritt Weaver’s family storyline also gets dropped in the back half of the series (although I haven’t watched the final episode yet. No idea what the heck they’ll use that for.) There was a whole lot of emphasis on the family gun safe in earlier episodes. 

Edited to add: when this came up on Netflix, I saw the “inspired by true events” tag and assumed that meant it was 90% fiction based on a bunch of badly handled rape cases. I further assumed it was highly fictional once we got to the various scenes of law enforcement and detective teams that were made up entirely of women and minorities. I had no idea how closely the whole thing adhered to real events, even down to the mistaken identity of the brothers and whatnot.

In other words, the parts that weren’t working for me as fiction/storytelling ... weren’t fiction. I didn’t realize it was more of a docudrama. Mea culpa.

If you came in blind like me, see media thread for more details.

Edited September 17, 2019 by kieyra

[JasminePhyllisia]

5 hours ago, laurakaye said:

Ken Cosgrove!  I could NOT place that face.  But I did love seeing Brooke Smith as the therapist.  I know she's been in other things but I personally haven't seen her since she ripped my heart out as Catherine in Silence of the Lambs.

Agreed on both, the Ken Cosgrove guy was driving me crazy, had to look him up on imdb.  Totally pegged that actress from Silence of the Lambs right away--she actually is aging well and still looks surprisingly young considering how old that movie is!  Anyway, good casting choice.

Edited September 18, 2019 by JasminePhyllisia

[tennisgurl]

Oh yeah, they caught them a piece of shit rapist! Not a very bright guy leaving all of his creepy souvenirs considering how long he went without getting caught and how much work he put into leaving the crime scenes clean, but I guess he wanted it all close by for his creepy purposes.

Ken Cosgrove! As soon as I recognized him, I assumed he was the rapist, on the "its that one guy I know from that thing!" guilt principle, but it was actually the other brother. I did feel rather bad for the non rapist brother, I cant imagine what it would feel like to find out that someone you loved, shared a home with, was a monster. 

The therapy session with Marie was absolutely riveting, how the therapist let Marie control the whole conversation, how Marie started opening up just a bit talking about the plot of Zombieland, and how she slowly used that as a segway into talking about what happened to Marie and how its affected her, and how she picked up so quickly on Marie being a survivor of sexual abuse, and listened and believed her. It was so heartbreaking listening to her saying how people will always let you down and no one really cares about anyone. I mean, I cant blame her, she was betrayed and treated like garbage by basically everyone in her life, even people that are supposed to care about her and protect her. 

Lots of great face acting from Karen and Grace at the computer, and then the whole Gin monologue, holy crap Merritt Wever is so good.

[Racj82]

15 hours ago, kieyra said:

Hmm, party of one apparently, but I feel like this episode drags and drags. I thought the whole first half of the series was much more compelling, better paced, better plotted. The emphasis on the victims and the different detectives coming together kept things moving, then it all sort of collapses in the back half of the series. So many sequences of long, dead air in this episode especially, the muddled suspect issue with the brothers, and me wondering what Toni Collette did to anger the makeup people and make her face such a completely different color from the rest of her body.

Merritt Weaver’s family storyline also gets dropped in the back half of the series (although I haven’t watched the final episode yet. No idea what the heck they’ll use that for.) There was a whole lot of emphasis on the family gun safe in earlier episodes. 

Edited to add: when this came up on Netflix, I saw the “inspired by true events” tag and assumed that meant it was 90% fiction based on a bunch of badly handled rape cases. I further assumed it was highly fictional once we got to the various scenes of law enforcement and detective teams that were made up entirely of women and minorities. I had no idea how closely the whole thing adhered to real events, even down to the mistaken identity of the brothers and whatnot.

In other words, the parts that weren’t working for me as fiction/storytelling ... weren’t fiction. I didn’t realize it was more of a docudrama. Mea culpa.

If you came in blind like me, see media thread for more details.

There was no emphasis on the safe. It was just there routine. In another hack show it would be a chekovs gun thing. But, this show is anything but trite. Thus, there was nothing dropped.

Above all else on this show, I loved not shoehorning in any affairs or marital strife. The show didn't need it and we learn so much about them naturally as characters.

On 9/16/2019 at 4:28 PM, MrsR said:

I too was very happy to see the perp exam. I can't remember ever seeing that before.

I love the Mindhunter vibe to this show.

And seeing Dale Dickey as someone who's not a skank.

Seconded on the Dale Dickey. I always feel like she's playing some version of her skanky prostitute character from my name Earl. Now, she just got to be a kick ass cop.

14 hours ago, JasminePhyllisia said:

Agreed on both, the Ken Cosgrove guy was driving me crazy, had to look him up on imdb.  Totally pegged that actress from Silence of the Lambs right away--she actually is aging well and still looks surprisingly young considering how old that movie is!  Anyway, good casting choice.

I only know the therapist from Grey's Anatomy. That's her biggest pop culture touchstone besides Lambs.

[Ms Blue Jay]

9 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Lots of great face acting from Karen and Grace at the computer, and then the whole Gin monologue, holy crap Merritt Wever is so good.

Karen and Grace, like on Will and Grace!  That's funny.

[Cheezwiz]

On 9/14/2019 at 9:20 AM, Corgi-ears said:

Also: for once the more famous guest actor didn't do it! Ken Cosgrove from Mad Men, you subverted a trope!

THAT'S WHO THAT WAS! I knew he looked familiar, but I couldn't place him! And the Silence of the Lambs woman - totally forgot about her prior roles. She was great as the therapist. I'm not familiar with Dale Dickey, but I loved her in this - hope to see more of her in other roles.

23 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

Lots of great face acting from Karen and Grace at the computer, and then the whole Gin monologue, holy crap Merritt Wever is so good.

The computer scene was really well done - especially when they stumbled on poor Marie. A very powerful episode. I was glad Marie has been been spending time time with an adult who is willing to sit and really give focused listening attention to her.

[Kel Varnsen]

On 9/14/2019 at 12:20 PM, Corgi-ears said:

That amazing conversation over the game of gin between Karen and Grace (which possibly surpassed last ep's conversation in the car that exemplified what female mentorship can look like);

What I thought was amazing about that scene was it was basically Mike Ehrmantraut's backstory from Breaking Bad, but Merritt Weaver crushed it so much that I didn't even care.

I also liked how much the therapist was kind of playing dumb with respect the the zombie thing I think. I mean I don't think you can know nothing about zombies but still be comfortable using the phrase zombie apocalypse.

I even liked how those little scenes of lab work were intercut with the rest of the episode, just to show how long the process of DNA testing would take. I always hated on CSI how none of their tests ever took longer than 30 seconds.

Edited September 20, 2019 by Kel Varnsen

[MagnaMater]

On 9/17/2019 at 6:32 PM, kieyra said:

So many sequences of long, dead air in this episode especially, the muddled suspect issue with the brothers, and me wondering what Toni Collette did to anger the makeup people and make her face such a completely different color from the rest of her body.

Toni’s makeup has been bad through the entire show.  Distractingly bad. 

[buckboard]

I love Brooke Smith and was glad to see her as Marie's therapist, but they made it seem as if Marie only met once with her and then only had a constructive conversation in the final 20 minutes and that was all that was required by the agreement and that they settled Marie's problems in that time.

I imagine it was all telescoped for time and wasn't intended to be an accurate portrayal of the mandated sessions.  I didn't need to sit through several therapy sessions, but if the therapist had just said, "Have you thought any more about what we discussed last session?" rather than just making it appear that there was just one 50 minute session.

[Roseanna]

On 9/18/2019 at 8:31 AM, tennisgurl said:

Oh yeah, they caught them a piece of shit rapist! Not a very bright guy leaving all of his creepy souvenirs considering how long he went without getting caught and how much work he put into leaving the crime scenes clean, but I guess he wanted it all close by for his creepy purposes.

I also wondered why the same man who was so careful in his actions, could keep all the evidence against him in his home! Why not have some have som store elsewhere? It would have made a better story if the police had found nothing at home - and only later invent the store.   

[sistermagpie]

2 hours ago, Roseanna said:

I also wondered why the same man who was so careful in his actions, could keep all the evidence against him in his home! Why not have some have som store elsewhere? It would have made a better story if the police had found nothing at home - and only later invent the store.   

That was very believable to me. It seems like he's a criminal mastermind, but he's really just following a pattern he likes. He read about evidence and liked doing that stuff at the scene, but in the end the real purpose was his own satisfaction and that meant keeping things at home where he believed they were safe once he got away with it. He started with a big advantage, that it's hard to catch him. Even when he left a lot of evidence he wasn't caught.

Edited October 6, 2019 by sistermagpie

[Roseanna]

43 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

That was very believable to me. It seems like he's a criminal mastermind, but he's really just following a pattern he likes. He read about evidence and liked doing that stuff at the scene, but in the end the real purpose was his own satisfaction and that meant keeping things at home where he believed they were safe once he got away with it. He started with a big advantage, that it's hard to catch him. Even when he left a lot of evidence he wasn't caught.

Because he wasn't caught in the first time, it evidently created hybris and he believed that his home would never be searched.

Yet, even if he chose lonely women who had their routines, there was always a possiblity that somebody else had by chance been nearby and noticed something suspicious. 

[roughing it]

Wow.  When Karen was talking about the domestic disturbance she attended in her early years, which she had a funny feeling about, but went for beers with her coworkers anyway against her better judgment.  And the husband bailed out and came back for his wife later that night...

Wow, just wow.  Merritt Wever was just incredible in that scene.

[Roseanna]

15 hours ago, roughing it said:

Wow.  When Karen was talking about the domestic disturbance she attended in her early years, which she had a funny feeling about, but went for beers with her coworkers anyway against her better judgment.  And the husband bailed out and came back for his wife later that night...

I thought that the scene was sheer bullsh*t. It's understandable that Karen felt guilty but she had no reason for it: she is no God and can protect people all the time, least of all those who, like that wife, don't want to be protected. Nor should Karen do it for it would mean sacrificing her own children.

If anything was guilty besides the husband, it was the system that let him out. In the same way, however admirable the women detectives are, the most essential thing is that the culprit could go on so long because of the police departments didn't co-operate. In the end, it matters most how good the ordinary detectives are.

[roughing it]

Agreed.  However the point is that Karen had a gut feeling and she denied that gut feeling, and it still haunts her to this day.  

[Roseanna]

Marie has really understood the general truth: if the matter is too unconfortable or too strange to oneself, one doesn't believe it. 

Maybe the thought a rapist could come from the window was too scary - also they could have lived in fear. So it was simply relief to them to believe that Marie had lied.

[KnoxForPres]

When Amber the victim was onscreen in I guess episode two I was like, she kid of reminds me of the victim in Silence of the Lambs. Then the therapist showed up and my mind was like !

[FoundTime]

The actress who played the therapist also played the sheriff on Bates Motel!

I think part of what made her so effective was also that she didn't have her own expectations of Marie and the many ways she could (would?) screw up, like all the other adults in her life. She was meant to be an objective professional and that's what she was.

Agree that in "episode time" the DNA testing seemed to take forever. Now I'm kinda curious what all the different steps are. (And I was unreasonably excited when the lab tech selected the Y-STR test 😊)

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I was so relieved when they found all that evidence. I was afraid that the brothers were going to end up being a false lead or that there would be nothing else to tie him to the crimes.

I liked that when the brother found out, he didn't defend his brother or deny it. He just asked if he were sure it was his brother. And his only concern was that their mother would be upset, not that he was worried about his brother.

Merritt Wever and Toni Collette have been amazing throughout the season, but their facial expressions while they were looking at the pictures that were found on the rapist's flash drives showed that they can act without saying a word.

Everything that Marie said at the therapist's office just broke my heart, from just wanting bad things to stop happening and not being able to trust people to saying that the only thing she would change would be lying sooner. That poor girl has been through so much and has had almost no support system. She has learned that if the truth is inconvenient, people don't want to believe it.