Don’t Mess with Miss Howard
We get a taste of 19th Century sexual harassment in the workplace when Miss Howard goes looking for Captain Connor for the Commissioner. While showing her his penis he tells her there is a hairless rat about. Howard tells him she only sees a little pink mouse. Good for you Sara! I love that she has no problem standing up to these sexist men.
Outside the station Moore asks Howard to get the Zweig files for Kreizler. She refuses to do it. She does not want to lose the trust Roosevelt has in her. Moore gives her his drawing of Giorgio’s body explaining they need her help and then walks away.
We find ourselves in what appears to be perhaps a basement of some sort. There is a pot on a fire. A black cat enters and is fed a bit of liver. We see someone holding a picture of “Gloria”, Giorgio’s altar ego at Paresis Hall. We then see an eyeball dropped into the boiling water. It seems I was right after all and the killer took his eyes, not the birds.
The Zweig Files
Moore back at the brothel and as he is leaving Miss Howard is waiting for him. He is shocked that she found him there. She presents Moore with the files that Kreizler wants. She tells Moore the only thanks she needs is to be told if anything interesting is found in them.
When Moore brings the files to Kreizler he discovers there are no details in them about the wounds and how they were inflicted. We are then at a graveyard as two little coffins are dug up. I wonder if Kreizler had to get permission to do this, or if he just did it on his own. I don’t even know if you needed special permission back then, but I would assume you did.
A Mother in Mourning
The Zweig children’s mother arrives unannounced at Kreizler’s house. He tells her it was necessary to have the children’s remains dug up. She says she has read about the boy on the bridge. Kreizler assures her that Benjamin’s desire to dress like a girl had nothing in common to Giorgio the prostitute’s dressing like a girl. She tells him that she trusted him. As she stares at him with her pale blue eyes they leave me with a very creepy feeling. She tells him both her children are dead because of him. What does that mean?
John Moore arrives at Kreizler’s house to discover brother’s Marcus (Douglas Smith) and Lucius Isaacson (Matthew Shear) there to perform an autopsy on the children’s remains. The Commissioner did not trust the Coroner’s Office to keep quiet so he lent the brothers to Kreizler. They can help the doctor for as long as he is needed. They say they won’t be missed at the department because of their modern methods and because they are Jewish. Kreizler explains he wants them to find anything that will connect Benjamin’s murder to the Santorelli murder.
Mysterious Package
As Kreizler prepares to enter his carriage he discovers a crumpled up paper on the seat. After looking at it he looks around anxiously. Spotting a mysterious man, that vanishes as a carriage drives by he chases it down. Finding the carriage empty he chases the man into an abandoned building. We go back and forth between the Isaacson’s examining Benjamin’s skeleton and Kreizler chasing the man in what is a very tense set of scenes.
The tension is very high as Kreizler chases the man into a room in the attic. As he reaches for the door handle I’m feeling very nervous about what he will find. He yanks open the door to discover a small windowless room with no other exit…and no man. Moore finally catches up to him asking where the man went. Kreizler looks up to a hole at the top of the roof. I don’t see how a man could physically get up to that hole to escape. I’m beginning to think the doctor was chasing a figment of his imagination, as Moore never actually saw the man himself. Moore grabs the crumpled paper and is shocked to find a child’s tongue inside it.
Is Kreizler Losing his Mind?
The episode ends with Kreizler giving a creepy monologue about slitting throats and plucking innocent eyes from a horrified face. As he talks about how this is the only way he will understand the killer we see scenes of young male prostitutes in the street. He ends by saying he must follow this wherever it leads him, even if it’s to the darkest pits of hell. Kreizler seems to be slipping into insanity.
I have not read Caleb Carr’s novel that the show is based on and I do not know what will happen, or who the killer is. All my thoughts on what is happening are pure speculation. At this point I find Dr. Kreizler to be very strange and creepy. It feels like I’m supposed to suspect he is the killer, or maybe he actually IS the killer. I’m really not sure. All I do know is I can’t wait for next Monday to see what happens next!
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