Gracepoint Episode 1.02 (SPOILERS)
SPOILERS
We start with Danny’s mom laying on her bed, grieving. Carver is taking a walk to the lookout point, and notices that there are cameras. He wants the footage. He also comes face-to-face with Renee, the Rosemont reporter. Carver isn’t that impressed with seeing her. She wants to bury the hatchet with coffee. He kind of seems like he wants to bury the hatchet in her face.
Ellie’s at the Solano house, and the family is getting fingerprinted to eliminate their prints, which yes Mr. Solano, IS necessary. Unfortunately, they are not allowed to bury Danny because his body holds the most evidence to who did this. The bearded CSI dude takes Ellie aside, and points out that Danny had $500 taped up under his bed, and Chloe (the sister) had a bag of white powder under a floorboard. “Oh that? It’s just my emergency baking soda. It’s totally not cocaine.”
Carver goes to talk to Nick Nolte (Rhinehold), and he remembers seeing Danny talking to a hiker of some sort one night. Meanwhile, Ellie is confronting Chloe about the cocaine, and she assures that it was a one time thing, and that she was just holding it for a friend (like the cops have never heard that one before…). She begs Ellie not to tell her parents, and assures that Danny was in no way involved in drugs, and she plays dumb about the money. Turns out that Gemma, the Brit innkeeper, was the one who gave it to her. Gemma tells it differently, and that she asked Chloe where she could get some drugs for a really rich couple from Seatle who asked for some, but she took so long to get it, that by the time she did, the couple was gone. So, she gave it back to Chloe.
Ellie assures her that it will be okay, and that they can try to keep the charge quiet so she won’t lose her hotelier license. Carver bitches her out for reassuring townsfolk, and she totally tells him off for being an asshole and his ‘big city cop’ routine.
Oh yeah? That big city brooder has some sort of needle problem. More than likely drugs, but heroin junkies usually don’t inject into their thigh, so it could be something more. He was on the verge of passing out, either from some allergy, blood sugar level, or jones for drugs, we know not yet.
Danny’s mom (Beth, so imdb tells me), gets cabin fever and needs to just leave, and blows up at her mother for smothering her. People at the grocery store give her that ‘I’m sorry’ look, but it’s also with avoidance, the way that people are when they don’t know how to deal with tragedy. She loses it in the parking lot, and is approached by the town priest. Turns out she’s pregnant. The priest and she seem to have a past, and she doesn’t know what to do, because it’s not really the kind of news you bring up after your child dies.
One of the local townsfolk want to go down to the beach and tear down the tents around the crime scene because it’s keeping away tourists, and Gemma the innkeeper reads him the riot act about grieving decently. I really liked her in that scene, being the voice of reason. Ellie also reads Carver the riot act about not trusting people, and he tells her off for being *too* trusting.
Carver goes to visit the creepy woman with a dog that’s been hanging around in the background for the last episode and a half. Turns out she cleans the little building at the lookout that has the security camera. He wants the keys, and she’s TOTALLY suspicious about it. We get a shot of inside her trailer, and Danny’s skateboard is in the closet. If Ellie’s son Tom hadn’t deleted all his texts from Danny and wiped the hard drive of his computer, this would be the most suspicious thing we’ve seen so far.
After the commercials, we see a pretty empty church given the situations. Danny’s grandmother, Rhinebeck, and the creepy dog woman are there. Creepy dog woman looks like she’s either about to shit her pants, or is worried about bursting into flames. Beth’s mother urges the priest to reach out to Beth. The padre doesn’t want to, but she urges it. Seems to be asking for trouble, given the sexual tension that they had in the parking lot.
Ellie goes to the park to spent a few minutes with her kids, and she’s bombarded with copterparents worried if they should lock their kids in the basement. Her kid is still acting withdrawn and suspicious, but they just think he’s upset about his friend (which is logical, you wouldn’t think a little kid’s first action after hearing his friend died would be to delete all communication evidence). Rhineback is lurking around the playground, looking like a sexual predator.
At the office, Carver has the images from the camera, which only takes stills once every two minutes. It shows Mark Solano there, waiting for someone. Then, conveniently, the power goes out everywhere south of Main Street from 10:30 to 2 AM. They’re interrupted by the dude that’s been doing the phone lines in the police precinct. He tells them that he’s been getting a message about water, and that it’s Danny that’s giving him the messages. Carver and Ellie are properly dubious.
Renee is taking Owen out for a walk, fishing for info. She mentions the Rosemont case that Carver fumbled. He disappeared afterwards. The Rosemont case involved three missing girls, and she leaves it at that. She wants Owen to help her interview people, and get to the bottom of the story.
Carver and Ellie interview Mr. Phone Lines. His shirt says Raymond. Carver’s super pissed and won’t even listen to the guy. He says he doesn’t ask to hear these voices, and that Danny was in a boat or something like that when he died. He agrees to let his fingerprints and DNA be taken for elimination purposes. Carver tells him to get lost, and Raymond says that ‘she forgives you. About the pendant.’ We’re not sure what that means, because Carver doesn’t elaborate.
He’s on a total tear to go talk to Mark Solano, but Ellie stops him when they get the journal records from Danny’s computer. He’s talking about that he’s ‘sick of it all’, that he has to do something about ‘it’, that he has to leave, and that Budapest sounded nice, and that his dad is really going to kill him.
Meanwhile, the priest is giving a talk on the news to help bring the town together, but Mark does everything to make himself look like a guilty hot-head by storming out of the house and threatening a priest right in the view of a news van. Mark Solano? Meet the position of Lead Suspect.
Chloe is with her boyfriend, and they have an argument about the cocaine. He doesn’t want her telling the cops where she got the drugs. She storms off and winds up meeting Renee. Renee does admit that she’s from the Globe. She promises she’s not going to interview her, and gives her back the monkey. She says that someone would steal it and sell it online (so true – there’s a huge market for artifacts from murder investigations). She also puts her number into Chloe’s phone under ‘a friend’. Pretty smart sneaky reporting. Now Chloe sees her more as a friendly face than someone who’s going to write about her in the paper.
Carver goes to visit Mark Solano, and shakes down his alibi. He says he met a friend after being told about the video evidence. He also says he can’t remember the friend, and it’s TOTALLY as lame as it sounds. He’s a terrible liar. Turns out his lies don’t matter, because at the Harvey Ridge lookout house, they find Danny’s blood and Mark Solano’s prints. BUSTED! Busted…? Doubt it – there’s still 8 episodes to go.
