Summary
Emmy Rossum and Lola Petticrew deliver dynamite performances in “Pick A Sticker”, while the case gets twistier on more layered on all fronts.
I’ve got to be honest, I’ve seen more romantic proposals than the one that opens Episode 5 of Furious. But it’s the thought that counts! Whatever Alden sees in Catherine, it’s something that most people don’t: a childlike vulnerability and an authenticity beneath all the layers of obfuscation and deception that she has had to wear her entire life, first as a trafficked sex slave and then as a serial killer. He sees her, and he loves her, and I think that, in her own way, she loves him back.
She probably couldn’t articulate this. She even tries at one point when she attempts to explain her new engagement to Hal, the Easton family lawyer and — spoiler alert, I guess — her latest victim. But she isn’t sure how she feels. She accepted Alden’s proposal at least in part because his heart is failing and the problem will go away on its own soon enough, and also because she needed to give him enough incentive to hack into Hal’s laptop and unearth the dirt he claims to have on Jay Easton. But part of me still suspects that she cares for him almost as authentically as he cares for her. It’s just that her heart clearly belongs to another — Isabel, with whom she was very much in love.
This is why Catherine is out for revenge. Her suspicion is that Jay killed her and that Hal helped to clean it up, which is at least half true. Hal was summoned to the scene after whatever happened to Isabel, but he seems adamant that Jay didn’t kill her. He also seems adamant that Catherine should know this, that she should remember something crucial that explains it, but she can’t. Her memories are oddly conflated with Isabel’s; in a grim touch, she blames her spotty recollections on how many times she was choked unconscious by men.
Hal is a bit different from Catherine’s other victims in that he wasn’t directly responsible for what happened to Isabel. So, Catherine keeps him alive longer, lets him talk more. She even opens up a little about Isabel and Alden and her plans for Jay Easton. As far as the latter is concerned, Hal can help. He has been siphoning off kompromat for years on the off chance that he ever had to use it to take Jay down. But having something to bargain with doesn’t save Hal. Whatever sympathy Catherine might have for his predicament is overwhelmed by the rage she feels over his complicity. She wants to know who else was in the room when Isabel died, and he seems like he might tell her, but she’s pulled away when Alden’s ventilator alarm goes off. By the time she has realised he set the alarm off intentionally by wheeling over one of the tubes after seeing her wanted poster on the news (more on this in a minute), Hal has mounted an escape attempt. Catherine tackles him, straddles him, and plunges the syringe into his eye while Alden watches on in horror.
As much time as Catherine gets in Furious Episode 5, all of which is valuable, we really need to talk about Emmy Rossum. She’s superb in this. After being sidelined in the previous episode, she’s living up to the show’s title all on her own, and her stress meltdown when she gets back to her apartment is incredible stuff. Needless to say, she isn’t going to stop investigating the case. She immediately pulls a name, Deputy Carter, from Isabel’s murder case file, and meets with her. She claims that when Nora first came on the case, she was determined to solve it. Her deciding the matter wasn’t federal seemed to come out of nowhere. She even sent Carter her extensive notes, which included a fixation on a “hospital” bracelet Isabel was wearing that didn’t seem to match any nearby hospitals.
Alice knows something is amiss; Nora transferred out of her department the day she closed the Jane Doe case. And she also knows that whatever’s up probably involves Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ed George, who was Nora’s boss at the time, and remains so now. He inserts himself into the case apropos of nothing and immediately tries to divert focus away from Isabel. Whatever he’s hiding, it’s the reason Nora was forced to close the case, and it could be a connection to Jay Easton and his pals. Alice can see what’s going on even from outside the war room. When she offers Nora her help off the books, Nora reminds her that unless she makes the Marshall thing go away, she’s going to remain a liability.
So, Alice sets about making the Marshall thing go away, which is where Rossum really comes into her own. Alice’s relationship with Marshall is longstanding and complex; she keeps old photos of them together alongside the photos of her battered face after Marshall assaulted her. She still loves him on some level, is still susceptible to his charms, but is also so angry at him that she could pull her gun and kill him at any moment. Marshall still wants to talk to Alice in that smug, controlling way abusers always do, and she sees her opportunity. She invites him over, dresses provocatively, gets a bit tipsy, and makes a move on him. When he gets into it, she tricks him into drinking, then tips a full bottle of whiskey down his throat, imploring him to do whatever he wants to her. They’ll have been caught on camera talking earlier, so if he hurts her, the dots will connect. He smashes a lamp instead and leaves, so Alice calls her nosy neighbour and tells her to report the drunk man outside with a gun. That’ll do it.
The reason this scene works is that Rossum plays every emotional layer of all this dysfunction. She’s still frightened by Marshall, but still a bit turned on by him and the threat he represents, which is why she has continually tried to replicate it in her personal life; she acts subservient to entice him, apologetic and tearful to disarm him, slightly aggressive to sell the illusion that she’s into him. It’s masterful stuff.
After, Alice also finds a picture of an ultrasound scan in her bag, which makes her think of Isabel’s bracelet. It gives her an idea that leads her to a safe surrender box — a place for mothers unable to cope with their children to safely deposit them in the care of the authorities — attached to a survivors’ shelter near the Candelight Lounge. When mothers drop their children off there, both mom and baby get a bracelet like Isabel’s, in case they change their mind about the abandonment. Isabel had a child. That’s why she always wore the bracelet.
Alice goes to check the shelter out and happens to spot Catherine in the mirror, sitting in the waiting room behind her. She left Hal with a syringe in his eye and Alden alive and well; he’s found by Danny and Choi when they raid the place after a tip from Alden’s other nurse summons the authorities. It’s in response to Catherine’s mugshot doing the rounds, which is also how Alden found out about her murderous proclivities. Earlier, Nora had bumped into Danny in the elevator and strongly advised him not to release the picture. He got the message. Even with Ed sniffing around and Alice officially off the case, certain people are refusing to take no for an answer.
