Summary
The case takes some twists and turns in the second episode of Grotesquerie. While we might have met our prime suspect, it’s unlikely that there won’t be several more surprises in store.
The pilot episode of Grotesquerie was fittingly grotesque, and Episode 2, “True Crime Catholics”, doesn’t exactly become a comedy. In fact, it might be even more disturbing in some ways, since its horrors aren’t contained solely to the killings. On that note, we also get an inclination of who the perpetrator might be, and if it’s not him, then he’s just another nutter to add to an increasingly large pile.
Anyway, let’s get into the meat and potatoes here, as there’s a fair bit to unpack. First up, flashbacks!
Lois Has Issues (Pt. 2)
The first episode made it clear that Lois was an alcoholic, or was at least in the process of becoming one and implied some issues in her family that included her being slightly less concerned than seemed warranted about her husband, Marshall, being in a coma.
The flashback that opens Grotesquerie Episode 2 sheds some light on this. It seems like Lois, Marshall, and their daughter Merritt are all addicts. Lois likes a drink, granted, and Merritt overeats, but Marshall has a sex addiction. At least, that’s what Lois claims when she confronts him about an affair (or perhaps several).
I said in my recap of the previous episode that Merritt being overweight would become important. In the flashback, we see Marshall complaining about it, worrying about her blood pressure and general health, and getting annoyed with Lois for not backing him. You’ll note that in the present-day sequences, Merritt is even bigger, implying that since Marshall has been in a coma, Lois has indulged Merritt’s eating, probably as an excuse to justify her own drinking.
Sexy Redd
We now have a better sense of why Lois struggles to be affectionate when she visits Marshall. What we don’t have a better sense of is what is going on with Nurse Redd, who continues to goad Lois about how little attention she shows her husband. But it gets weirder.
A bit later Lois catches Nurse Redd giving Marshall a “sponge bath”; she’s quite clearly masturbating him. She plays dumb and aggrieved once she’s caught but then basically admits it and uses it to provoke Lois further. I still have precisely zero idea what is going on here.
The Killer Preacher
We established at the end of the pilot that the killer was probably a religious nut. We don’t know he’s a preacher yet – although he very much might be – but we do know he’s preaching, at least according to Sister Megan.
This is to counter Lois’s theory that the killer might be a student. Megan doesn’t think so. Anyone who is murdering this many people in such grandiose means has a God complex. It won’t be someone with a mundane, everyday life.
It’s worth mentioning that Lois does worry about Megan’s coverage in The Catholic Guardian. She’s a bit more giddy about murder than seems reasonable for anyone, let alone a nun, so we shouldn’t totally discount the theory that she herself is the killer – though that admittedly seems a bit unlikely.
A Potential Suspect
A much likelier suspect is Father Charlie Mayhew, one of Megan’s higher-up Catholic associates on whom she’s clearly harboring a crush that seems to be reciprocated. In any other show, these two would seem like an ideal match. They have a bite to eat and bond over being true crime junkies, and discuss the case and some religious matters. They’re cute together.
Then Father Mayhew goes home, masturbates, and self-flagellates for his sins. The scars on his back imply he sins quite often.
This is quite clearly the show positioning Mayhew as a suspect, but I’m not sure. It seems too obvious, for a start. Plus there’s the fact that if the good Father is serious enough about his faith to whip chunks out of himself for having a tug, I’m not sure how he could square feeding a man to his family and boiling a baby with his conscience.
Still, his blaming the crimes on Satanists does come across like him deliberately steering the investigation in the wrong direction.
The Killer Is One Step Ahead
Lois isn’t buying Megan’s Satanism angle. She thinks, thanks to a match on the blood found on the sidewalk outside the Burnside house, that the culprit is an unsavory type named Sullivan Firkus. She and a SWAT team bust into his mother’s house and find him dead in the basement.
This was all a setup. Sullivan had been dead for weeks. The real killer had clearly planted his DNA to leave a deliberate trail back to him to antagonize the police. He leaves behind a calling card signed “Grotesquerie”, which is the name he has given himself.
Lois needs a drink.
The Last Supper
Grotesquerie Episode 2 ends much like the first – with Lois getting drunk at home, having trouble with the record player, and potentially sensing an intruder. Then she gets word of another crime.
This killing is a grisly tableaux of The Last Supper, with 12 unhoused people all dead and posed to look like Jesus and his disciples. The Jesus stand-in is a man Lois tried to help earlier, implying that the killer is watching her and now staging crimes to affect her more personally (unless it’s just a coincidence, which is possible but unlikely.)
Thus far, there seems to be no connection between the victims, no consistency to the modus operandi, and no motive. This is shaping up to be quite the case.
Lois, again, needs a drink.
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