The Fall recap: season two, episode four – the net is closing on Spector
|
Version 0 of 1. Spoiler alert: do not read on if you haven’t seen series two, episode four yet. Read Vicky Frost’s episode three recap here. So now there are three journals – Spector’s horrific records of his victims, Katie’s faked teenage diary, and Gibson’s dream journal – each deeply revealing of their owner. Stella’s reaction to Paul’s entry in hers, and its subsequent appropriation as evidence, was a really compelling piece of television; a moment of barely controlled fury that he could have violated her most private thoughts, followed by sorrow for what was no longer her own. “It’s personal, and now it is lost to me” – all the emotion so usually veiled by Gibson’s unflappable manner, visible as it cracked for a few brief moments. The scene between Stella and Jim was a high point in an episode that frustrated me less than the most recent episodes of The Fall, but felt somewhat undemanding viewing. We didn’t really learn much new as the police joined dots that we were largely aware of: Spector as Annie’s counsellor; his support for Liz Tyler in the face of Jimmy; that those he has worked with feel as though he has genuinely helped them, regardless of his motives for doing so. (Although of course, there were the unlikely plotlines and questions: Stella realising Spector had been counselling Annie with half an hour before the next appointment; the hairdresser conveniently walking past him in the hallway; Spector’s total lack of digital or financial footprint; the apparent lack of urgency in the hunt for Rose.) Does Spector realise the police are on to him or merely suspect they are getting closer? The answer is surely the former: the hairdresser’s trolley, muddy footprints, Burns’ (possible) indiscretion are too much taken together. We’ve seen him almost panic a couple of times, but Spector’s return home seems to suggest that he knows Gibson knows, and is comfortable with that. Perhaps because he understands the importance of finding Rose, perhaps because he has come to understand that he will eventually have to answer for his crimes, or perhaps because he now has Katie as willing accomplice. Talking of whom … Paul is now instructing his pupil in how to take pleasure from the pain of other people, including those closest to her. “There’s suffering all around us. Why not get some pleasure from it?” he cajoles. “Happiness in others is an affront to our own pain and misery, Katie, so why not reduce that happiness? Nuture your envy, your anger.” It sounds as if Daisy might want to come down with an illness that means she can’t leave the house over the next few days. While I still can’t really buy into this relationship, I did think Spector’s tone here was interesting: how writer/director Alan Cubitt had turned the counsellor relationship on its head. Here, Paul was effectively counselling Katie into “embracing the darkness” and giving vent to her (or his) anger. Earlier, of course, we had heard Annie tell Stella how much she’d liked her bereavement counsellor: “He made me feel better about myself. He was the most helpful anyone has been.” There were a couple of references to the impact of children losing their parents this week that make me fear for Spector’s kids. Spector underlined his shared bond with Katie – the loss of a parent in a sudden manner and the trauma that caused – while the pages of Gibson’s diary he was reading made reference to her father and time spent with him as a child. Marina McPherson, the woman found dead in the woods, felt that she too was abandoned by her mother, according to her suicide note. “Nothing can happen to those children,” boomed Jim, looking at a picture of the Spector kids, sounding very much like someone setting up a plot point where something does. I would have liked to see Cubitt explore how Paul squares his belief that children are innocent, and must be protected, with the knowledge that his actions will likely result in terrible trauma for his children, Livvy particularly. It was Spector who last week likened serial killing to a slow suicide. But perhaps that is yet to come. We have two episodes remaining. Thoughts and observations • The bright, “good-looking” Tom Anderson is played by Merlin’s Colin Morgan. I presume we’re going to be seeing more of him. • Whatever happened to the thermal-imaging helicopter Gibson ordered to take a look at the farm? • I’m quite enjoying the Glen and Gail sideshow: knuckle out, indeed. • Jim’s corruption business seems to be taking a back seat again. I hope it’s not going to be whipped out to add a further twist to the finale. (I fear it is.) • The painting is Henry Fuseli’s The Nightmare. This interesting piece from the Independent discussing the composition and imagery is particularly interesting in terms of the way Spector posed his victims, and (perhaps, depending on how literal you want to be) his vision of himself. |