This was a riveting series to watch, and I avoided spoilers like the plague. And yet, I still spoiled the end for myself; but and however, I still had not idea why, under what circumstances, or when they would reveal that information. I have to say I hate when a movie or series waits until the last five to ten minutes of itself to tell me everything I needed to know to close the mystery loop that was going on in my head.
Brief synopsis: Anna and Jack Harper are an estranged married couple. Jack is a detective in their hometown of Dahlonega, GA (which is a real place by the way) and Anna is a prime time reporter in Atlanta. Suddenly, Rachel Hopkins, a former friend of Anna’s, winds up murdered in the woods having been stabbed 40 times. And guess what? More people die in the town and we all want to know, “Who murdered these people?” Whodunit did surprise most of us. Let’s talk about it.
There will be spoilers after this sentence. Well, coming soon. You’ve been warned. So, Anna’s mom is in the mist of dealing with accepting that she has dementia…or is she. My interpretation of the ending is that she was faking the dementia the entire time. Here’s what I mean. Alice Andrews (played by Crystal Fox who I love. You recognize her from Tyler Perry’s “The Have and the Have Nots“ amongst other things.) was the person in charge of Jack and Anna’s baby, Charlotte, when she died. Crib death is what she died from, and although no one’s fault, Alice took the weight of that. So, Anna, disappears. She goes off somewhere to get herself together. Alice and Jack are left behind. Now, I assume Anna didn’t really know how to deal with her mom after the death of her child in her care, but Jack stuck with Alice the entire time. When we first meet Alice, Jack mentions coming by the house to check on Alice. She’s not in the best shape, but I think Alice is in a state of depression and not dementia. I think once she started to kill these women she leaned into faking like she had dementia which she used as her cover.
I enjoyed this twist, but you all know me. There were some problems here. Before I get to the problems, I want to point out the complexity of the ending letter Alice wrote the Anna confessing her crimes. Anna was raped by boys enticed by pictures sent to them by Rachel, Helen, and Meg. Meg said she didn’t know it was going to go that far, and said to my screen, “Lies!” But I digress. She left that part of the story out when she was telling the story to Jack, which was an odd plot device. I guess, in that moment and much like Jack earlier in the series (we WILL get to him in a moment), she didn’t want to make herself more a suspect than she was formerly perceived. But at that moment, it was all over, and she could have told Jack the truth. I guess that part was more for us and not for the scene itself, but it wasn’t the greatest move. Alice finds out about the rape and enacts revenge on those women. My interpretation of that is her thinking here is that if she kills these women it lifts a weight off of Anna and could possibly get her back in her good graces when she told her. She was right. People always forget about the help. No one really sees them. As an aside, in “Bel-Air” this final season, Will always makes sure he spoke to the school’s cleaning lady and he even got her a shirt. In the end, she was the reason he was able to get a second chance for a school he wanted to apply to. In this situation, Alice was forgotten and made fun of. Minority women have always found work caring and cleaning for the elite. Some are gracious and some are like the girls in this series. Honestly, I think these killings had as much to do with Alice’s feelings towards these women as it did revenge. Furthermore, this movie made me reevaluate the locks at my own house. I steer clear of having those electronic, numbered door locks on the outside of my house, but now I wonder about the locks I have. Do I have enough money to give a cleaning lady a key? Absolutely not, but I still wonder. Anywho, her being a cleaning lady for all of these key places was a hidden clue we as the audience threw away. We also glazed over Alice which is exactly what she wanted.
Now, where there is so much good in what I just said about Alice…there are some holes and I’m going to fuss about em. You want me to believe that no one caught bare feet prints in the dirt but they caught the boot print? You want me to believe she stabbed Rachel, took off her clothes, and no one found em in that area? You also want me to believe that this old woman was strong enough to disable two women in their like 30’s? Did I love the ending? Sure. Did it bother me when she started to go through it and I said, “Wait a minute?” Yes, yes it did.
Detective Patel deserves something. I was waiting for the moment where she cracked it all, including Alice being the murderer. She didn’t get Alice, but she got Jack because Jack was stupid. I don’t know how anyone else didn’t see it, but Jack was doing way too much. The scene where she’s explaining the bracelets and the connects between the girls was enough for me. He’s yelling and trying to dispel when she’s laid out on a board. You know how convinced a person needs to be to make a board with pictures and evidence? He was lucky she didn’t out him to his boss by tell him that he’d been messing with the case to protect himself. I was rooting for her every episode and I’m annoyed she didn’t get her due. All she got was to save Anna and Jack.
If I were Jack, I think I would find a new line of work. Even of you take out the fact that he and Rachel had an intimate relationship and his estranged wife magically appeared back in town after disappearing after their daughter’s death, I don’t think I believed he would solve this case. I think Alice could have murdered the town and he wouldn’t have figured it out. I’d say do better, but I don’t think he can.
I would ask if you figured it out but there weren’t any clues to really go on that would have lead you to Alice. I think the message here is the love a mother has for her child. It’s a little odd here because you know how parents or people say they will kill for their child or significant other. This is a literal instance of that and I don’t know if Alice was telling her, “You’re a mom again now and you will understand wanting to kill someone for your child.” Kind of odd advice if you ask me, but go on. What did you think about these plot holes?
