The Alienist Episode 8
Last week Kreizler and Mary finally kissed. Will they find a happily ever after? I sure hope so but worry the doctor will find a reason why they should not be together. In the hunt for the killer will new information be found in Washington? Are they getting closer to finding his identity? When IS the next Holy Day? Let’s get into The Alienist Episode 8…
Love Is In The Air
We open with a very happy Mary (Q’orianka Kilcher) placing flowers on the dining room table. Her happiness has befuddled Cyrus (Robert Ray Wisdom) and Stevie (Matt Lintz). We then find Laszlo Kreizler (Daniel Brühl) gazing out a train window in a very uncharacteristically happy manner. John Moore (Luke Evans) is riding on the train with him and is sporting two nasty black eyes. No explanation is given on how he managed to get away from Connor (David Wilmot). I have to assume after giving him a beat-down Connor just let him go.
After some casual chat between Kreizler and Moore about his black eyes, the doctor asks him if he plans to see his former fiance, Julia Pratt when they are in Washington. Kreizler is surprised when he says he has not plans to talk to her, that he prefers to look to the future instead of dwell in the past. As Kreizler explains the theory that one part of the brain controls love Moore tells him love is in the heart. As they continue to bicker this theory on the way to the dining car a man from another compartment is ominously watching them.
Washington D.C.
Sara (Dakota Fanning) explains to Commissioner Roosevelt (Brian Geraghty) that Kreizler is traveling to Washington. That he is following up on some leads that show there may be a connection between the killer and the West. Sara tells Roosevelt that Kreizler will need his help gaining access to some Federal Institutions. Roosevelt has a friend in Washington that will be able to help.
Kreizler and Moore are at a social gathering in Washington chatting with a man who works for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. They ask about examining records of unsolved massacres and are told there are not many of those. A lovely young woman then asks Kreizler to dance and when she won’t take his polite excuse not to he snaps “no”. The man they were talking to offers to dance with her and tells Moore to come see him in the morning.
St. Elizabeth’s
The next day we find Kreizler at St Elizabeth’s Hospital. As he waits a man who introduces himself as Dr. Ignatius Blunt (Jo Stone-Fewings), approaches him saying he had seen him speak at Johns Hopkins years earlier. Kreizler tells Blunt he is there looking for information on a former patient, Rudolf Bunzl. Blunt remembers the man, but tells Kreizler he did not have any facial deformity. He does remember a former patient that had a horrific tic, but does not recall his name. Another man, Dr. Dillman (Christopher Naylor), approaches telling “Iggy” not to bother the visitor. Turns out Blunt is a patient of St. Elizabeth’s, he had been an Army Surgeon at Gettysburg. This was a swerve I didn’t see coming, he certainly came across as legit, so I can’t fault Kreizler for being fooled.
Dr. Dillman informs Kreizler that Bunzl had died four months previously and was buried at Arlington Cemetery. Kreizler asks Dillman if there had been a patient there with severe facial tics. Blunt may have been a patient at the hospital, but it seems Kreizler believes what he told him. Dillman tells him he doesn’t remember anyone like that, but that he is new to the hospital. When Kreizler asks to look at the records Dillman reluctantly agrees to let him. While he is at the hospital Moore is in a library examining gruesome photos of Indian massacres. He is shocked to discover in one photo that the victim’s penis has been removed and inserted into his mouth. These are details I definitely did not learn about in school.
All Roads Lead to New Paltz
Kreizler and Moore meet up and Moore tells the doctor that every unsolved massacre was eventually blamed on marauding Indians. Kreizler tells Moore that Bunzl is dead, but he found a patient that fit what they were looking for. The man never served further West then Chicago though. Moore tells him he found a massacre that fit what they were looking for, but it happened in upstate New York. It was blamed on marauding Indians taking revenge on a minister and his wife. When Kreizler asks what town it happened in Moore says New Paltz, which is the same town, John Beecham, the man Kreizler discovered was born. There is no way that could be a coincidence. Have they finally discovered the real killer?
As Kreizler tells Moore to call Sara and have her find out more information on the massacre from local officials, the same man from the train is seen watching them. Who is this guy? Is he just watching them, or is he planning to do something? Moore calls Sara at Police Headquarters and asks her to look into the massacre that happened 16 years earlier in New Paltz. He tells her there was a son, Adam, who survived the attack and lives near Boston, he and Kreizler are going to go talk to him. Moore tells her to also let the Isaacsons know they need to go out West and talk to Beecham’s former commander.
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