Were recapping the entire season, so follow along page by page.
(Just maybe dont eat first.)
Instead, the hour is more concerned with them realizing how ill-equipped they are to confront this terrifying phenomena.
Credit: Patrick Harbron/Netflix
Whereas the local officer is making demands of Cody, Holden simply tries talking to him.
Is it a response to the political turmoil of the era?
The world barely makes sense, so it follows that crime doesnt either, Holden suggests.
In the end, who knows?
Holden decides he wants to go back to school to learn about the new developments in criminology.
One of the classes he audits does raise one interesting point: Are criminals born or made?
As part of the B.S.
- unit, Bill travels the country teaching classes to local police.
This is exactly the kind of case Holden and Bill have been talking about.
He makes the mistake of saying to the frustrated Frank, which pisses both Frank and Bill off.
This seems like the makings of a beautiful partnership.
In Episode 2, Holden and Bill take their dark road show to California.
Holden is particularly jazzed to be out in the Golden State.
No, not because he wants to work on his tan.
He wants to interview a serial killer!
Obviously, his first choice is Charles Manson, but theres no way hes getting in to see him.
Luckily, he gets a lead from a local detectivesEd Kemper, a.k.a.
Apparently, hes a very talkative fellow.
(Bill goes golfing instead.
Who has the better time in California?
You want an egg sandwich?
Ed will get one of the guards to deliver it to you whether you like it or not.
Edlovescop shows and says thats how he managed to evade capture for all those years.
And like everyone else on this show, Ed notes that Holden is super tense.
Britton is also frightening in this role, theres something menacing lurking just beneath this mannerly exterior.
In fact, he refers to his murder spree as his oeuvre.
These interviews with Ed start getting to Holden and its all he can think about.
Thank God, I didnt egg salad sandwiches before because I definitely wouldnt want to after that Freudian slip.
Realizing bae needs some help, Debbie gives Holden some tips to make Ed open up.
He actually uses Holdens own neck as a prop.
Naturally, this leaves Holden quite shaken, but he thinks hes making progress.
Holden offers to work around that.
However, Holden changes his mind, and so he and Bill tell Shepard whats up.
and that convinces Shepard to let them keep working.
And, in stark contrast with supervisor Shepards conclusions, Carr thinks Holden and Bills work could be revolutionary.
He theorizes that psychopaths wear an outward mask to mimic normal behavior.)
And even with full-time efforts, a legitimate academic study could take four to five years to complete.
And hes probably white.
(Sound like another loquacious killer we know?)
But the most telling bits of evidence are the harsh red scratches up and down Dwights arm.
He claims theyre from wood; the detectives are pretty sure theyre from a canine.
Im talking about real darkness
And thanks for the beer!
Bill (thankfully) interjects, before Holden can offend once again.
I hope we havent seen the last of Kemper; hes just so entertaining.
Warning: Plenty of NSFW language.)
Holden can hardly keep his composure.
Its a long shot, Bill warns him.
[Shepard] hates you already.
Hes beginning to hate you too, Holden replies.
Right, so why half-ass it?
The way they use sex
and women, she cuts in.
Our square is becoming more well-rounded, it appears.
Most Fed Up Moment:It has to be the aforementioned vocal cords in the garbage disposal bit.
The accident leaves Bill particularly shaken afterwards, and he clumsily admits to Holden that hes not okay.
Ah right, we have to talk the killer of the week.
After all, the guy likes lying about as much as he loved Big Red soda.
Dr. Carr sees past either assessment.
The victims actions affected when and how Rissell acted in response.
Its a pattern, but not an exact, meticulously arranged one that Kemper would prefer.
More importantly, Rissell has a completely unexpected attitude toward his killings.
He imagines a life with his father instead, a life in which he would have found his way.
And it hits Holden and Bill: Rissell sees himself as the victim.
Bill worries theyre helping him by giving him a shoulder to cry on.
Holden reminds him theyre simply using him, but its hard to tell if hes simply lying to himself.
Besides, they have another case to figure out.
I go to church with these people, he tells Holden and Bill.
At least the two have yet to interrogate Beverlys fiance, who left the town to stay with relatives.
Carr would rather they stay out of town, too.
Shes peeved theyve spent so much time on an ongoing investigation instead of interviewing murderers like Rissell full time.
Rissells latest testimonial is bearing fruit at least when it comes to the taxonomy of their project.
In other words, Rissells nothing like Kemper and everything like Kemper.
Low intelligence yields disorganized kills; high intelligence yields organized.
And so on and so forth, until the trio exhaust Kempers cards.
Theyll have plenty more cards to play with soon enough.
The team is stunned, and as they return to their B.S.
basement, they allow themselves some smiles.
No, Monte, I dont.
When Benji starts crying, the men get up and leave.
And how would an out-of-towner know where the dump was?
seeing other people).
And it turns out he was right.
And he asked her to bring cleaning supplies.
When she got there (having forgotten the cleaning supplies), Frank calmly told her that something happened.
Rose explains that she helped them because its just what Ive always done.
(Remember, she had to take care of her brother throughout their childhood while their mother worked).
But the biggest question of all remains unanswered: Who killed Beverly Jean?
As for who mutilated Beverly Jeans dead body, that remains a mystery, too.
What could keep her from work this important?
Do you have a husband?
Carr shakes her head.
Sometimes a truthful answer isnt the whole story.
Thats certainly the case with Beverly Jeans murder.
but claims he didnt kill Beverlyorsee Benji do it.
Rose, Frank, and Benji were in it together.
But convincing the D.A.
or at least convincing the D.A.
that he could convince a jury proves to be a challenge.
Holden and Carr pay D.A.
Peterson a visit to dissuade him from his plan to go after Benjamin first.
Peterson seems to get it.
Peterson does not get it.
Hell spend 5 to 20 years in a state psychiatric hospital; Benjamin will fry.
Peterson shrugs it off as a good deal overall the lowest cost for the highest quality of justice.
This is an hour loaded with communication breakdowns.
(See, its possible to talk about things together.)
While Bill tries to reconcile his job and his personal life, Carr returns home to do the same.
Carr seems at ease as she strolls through a snowy college campus.
Ann Wolbert Burgess, the woman Carr is based on, is currently a professor of nursing.
As impressive as Carr is, its worth reading up on Burgess).
Carr excuses herself and never looks back.
Carr looks like she hates the apartment.
Most Fed Up Moment:The D.A.
is willing to let a couple of killers off easy because of a jurys attention span.
Unlike Holden in a clothing store, Carr loves a pattern.
But what really gets under our agents skin is Brudos suggestion that Kemper told him about them.
Prisons are like knitting circles, he says.
At the door to the prison, Holden worries over Brudos suggestion that Kemper called them idiots.
It doesnt sound like Ed to me, he frowns.
Someones too attached to a serial killer.
Holdens comfort in the world of murderers is starting to concern the people around him.
The partners dont seem to hear that last part.
Brudos turns chatty when he sees the pair of size-16 womens heels Holden picked up while shopping with Debbie.
You were persecuting him about something that challenges your masculinity.
It is not possible to communicate with someone like Brudos and be fake, he argues.
We can hassle him or we can open up to him, but either option has a cost.
Its a cost Bill has been weighing lately.
Nancy scolds Bill for bringing work home.
His response is breathtakingly bad (his son is not much fun!
But Bill was right earlier: Its cause for concern if this jobdoesntget under your skin.
He studies the shoe and hesitates; she asks if he doesnt like it.
No, he loves it.
Is he worried that its him?
As that relationship sputters, the newly single Carr looks to form a connection.
Heres hoping her patience is rewarded.
Most Fed Up Moment:Brudos is a little too cheery about the mechanics of breaking jaws.
So, can he help at all?
Could it escalate, though, to something more sinister?
Thats what Holden is concerned about.
And you cant blame him for thinking the worst when you consider hes interviewing serial killers for a living.
Roger, of course, defends his behavior with his students and flat-out refuses to stop tickling them.
So yeah, not a great episode to be Holden.
And his personal life isnt faring well either.
Something tells me it might be time for these two to take a break.
(Imagine how excited Holden would be by 2017s glut of murder podcasts and documentaries.)
Maybe hell give you an autograph, Bill says sarcastically.
Holdens eyebrows knot together.
That would be inappropriate right?
It is the funniest line Jonathan Groff has delivered in the eight-plus hours of this show so far.
Speck wants people to know his name.
Everybody knows your name, Holden replies with something akin to reverence.
Youre crazy, Speck, a mass murderer, says to Holden, speaking for all of us.
Later, Holden brings up Specks suicide attempt, which Speck denies over and over again.
You know why those cts died?
Cause it just wasnt their fing night.
Holden isnt ashamed and says he said what he did just to get Speck talking.
That excuse is wearing thin, Bill says.
Holden recommends that Greg keep some things off the permanent record, and Greg complies, citing audio failure.
At night, passing a laundromat, Holden sees Debbie inside and enters.
Holden cowers (although objectively, he didnt do anything wrong.
Debbie invites the woman inside, but she balks and shames Holden one more time before leaving.
Lets see if it sticks, Carr says.
Weve all suffered Agent Fords head-fing.
Richard Speck, what a s stain, huh?
And why would they care about him?
He murdered eight women.
Carr listened to the tape.
And she showed their supervisor.
Finally, Bill is yet again the one with the most common sense.
He says they should just burn the tape and let it end right there.
Holden gets a slap on the wrist and is told not to behave that way in another interview again.
A terrible decision, objectively, but whatever he has to do to sleep at night.
Most Fed Up Moment:Speck throwing a bird into a whirling fan.
Or Holden saying the phrase eight ripe cts.
The episode begins with a reminder of the shows most interesting relationship: Holden and Ed Kemper.
But criminals, especially criminals who have recently passed lie detector tests, are overconfident.
And so is Holden.
Who cares if she didnt have her majorette baton on her person at the time of the murder?
The point isnt honesty; its theater.
All this an FBI thing?
a police officer asks.
Its, uh, his thing, Bill replies.
He continues: You gotta make it with that young py before it turns into mom.
The line is almost an exact echo of something Kemper said to Holden in episode 2.
Turns out, it was just foreshadowing.
But as hes relaying the story to his girlfriend, shes back in full Rooney-Mara-in-The-Social-Networkmode.
Debbie asks about his work.
But Perry Mason never got off on it.
Her bitter Fincher-girl resentment is off the charts.
The story reads like coercion, and Georgia is a death penalty state.
I had hoped we could complete our research before we see it used to this end, Carr says.
Their work has officially left the academic realm and entered practice.
She says she thinks back to the first time they met.
You were so sweet and curious, Debbie says.
Im still…curious, Holden replies.
No man who can so comfortably repeat the words of Ed Kemper can possibly be thought of as sweet.
The conclusion surprises him as he says it: Shes breaking up with him.
And before she even has to say a word, theyre broken up.
And Holdens relationships at work begin to fracture, too.
But Holden is remorseless: He admits everything hes done and takes full responsibility.
Youre developing a pattern of behavior that will not sustain you here, one of the board members says.
One of the men tells him that leaving now would be a mistake.
The only mistake I made was ever doubting myself, Holden says.
Kemper, it turns out, read the newspaper story about Holdens miraculous confession gathering.
You said we were friends, Kemper says.
In the shows most terrifying sequence, Kemper begins a slow intimidation of Holden.
Although hes chained to the bed, Kemper is able to rise with a clanging thump.
Holden doesnt move as Kemper gets closer and closer.
The only way I could have those girls was to kill them, Kemper said.
They became my spirit wives; theyre still with me….
He comes even closer, and Holden realizes there is no way to call for help.
I could kill you now, Kemper says.
Then youd be with me in spirit.
Holden is shaking, almost crying, but he doesnt move.
Why are you here, Holden?
And Holden delivers the best line of the entire season: I dont know.
Kemper lunges forward for a hug and Holden flings himself away.
His once perfectly pressed shirt is wrinkled and unbuttoned.
He collapses on the floor of the hospital hallway, suffering from a profound panic attack.
He descends into unconsciousness as a nurse approaches to take care of him.
Eventually though, the BTK Killer was caught.
Most Fed Up Moment:Funny thing.
In the ICU theres no system to alert the guards.
