DJariya

Synopsis:

Sarah deals with the consequences of her past mistakes; Holder wrestles with personal demons; and Seward tells the truth.


Episode 10 of 12


Next week is the 2 Hour Season Finale. No word yet if there will be a 4th season.

OldBoy

Excellently intense episode!

andicus

Wow... Another tough watch.

If there's not a 4th season after the huge improvement this season, I will be shocked.

anomynous

Excellent episode.










With that said, I still don't see the relevance the Seward storyline has to the teenage hooker murders. Maybe it was covered in one of the first episodes.

Raul3

I had my doubts when the initials credit rolled in, and saw "Written by Veena Sud" (I know that she wrote the first episode of the season too, and it was good, but still). And the first 20 minutes or so, with just Linden and Seward were tiring, I was getting anxious.

Then Holder showed up and everything changed. "I won't kiss you..." Fucking Holder, even drunk he's so great.

The last 5 minutes were so great, great acting from Peter Sarsgaard there.

Geofferson

Very good episode this week. Sarsgaard really did a great job here and more drunk Holder

TimeandTide

Wasn't Seward's wife's ring found amongst Mills' trophies?

OldBoy

yes.

OldBoy

i actually thought those scenes were brilliant and thought the whole episode was going to be just that and i would have been enthralled.

anomynous

Totally forgot about that, but even then it seems weird we got a whole season long story line about someone barely related to the case.







Not that it was bad, last night was arguably the best episode of the series.

Shannon Nutt

I thought last week's Jonathan Demme-directed episode was much better. Last night was all about Sarsgaard...that's the kind of performance that gets one Emmys.

Ropes Pierre

i thought they said even DNA evidence wasn't good enough for a stay of execution. i wonder what is.

if more people watched this, it could open a discussion on capital punishment. which really should occur at a national level i think.

for what amounted to a two hander, this was a really exciting episode.

having rewatched Rectify (from sundance channel) last night, capital punishment is really on my mind.

aynrandgirl

Maybe it's the setup for next season's case.

Navinabob

That was brutal TV. Just loved it.

dolphinboy

Loved the episode. The Linden stuff at the beginning was slow, but it was intense and well done. Of course my man crush on Holder grows by the week, so when he started up about the "kiss" it totally cracked me up. I also love that he so fully supports Linden that he didn't want her to give up, when he was drunk and feeling, with good reason, sorry for himself.

I know the show returned for strange reasons, but I feel like it's a brand new show this season. It would be such a shame if the powers that be cancelled this show after a season worthy of award nominations for just about everyone.

Sarsgaard gave this interview about the show, his role and capital punishment:

TVLINE | Did you know Ray Seward’s full arc when you took this role, or did you base your decision on the Season 3 premiere script alone?

I knew the whole thing. I didn’t know all the details, but I knew where it was going.

TVLINE | I kept thinking, or at least hoping, that Ray was going to get a reprieve, or an extension, because it’s pretty clear he was not guilty of murdering his wife. But no, they actually end up hanging him!

One thing I liked about [the story arc] was that nothing was going to be perfectly solved. For Ray Seward, in his heart, he believes he’s guilty, even though it appears that he’s not guilty of this crime. On a deeper level, he feels like he’s guilty — guilty of being a terrible father and a terrible husband and a terrible human being. And that was something [executive producer] Veena [Sud] and I talked about from the very beginning. One, I didn’t want to play the character forever. But two, in terms of the issue at stake, it’s going to affect people very strongly — knowing that a quote-unquote innocent man is being killed. That’s the thing everyone always gets upset about with the death penalty. For me, I’m also upset that guilty people are killed via the death penalty. I don’t believe that anyone should be killed. Period. By the state or by people.

TVLINE | Tell me about the pivotal moments of the episode: Becker telling Ray that, because of a state mandated guideline, he’s not going to see his son before he’s executed; Ray walking down the hallway to the gallows; and then Ray ascending the platform and being hanged.

Oh God. The first thing we shot [for the episode] was the hanging, actually. But the part where I find out I’m not gonna see my son, it’s honestly a mixture of feelings. I know in the episode it looks like anger and grief, but there’s also a part of Ray that’s too scared to see his son. What’s he gonna say to him? Would it even be good for his son to see him after all these years?

TVLINE | Based on Ray’s interaction with his own dad a few episodes ago, it’s easy to understand the reluctance.

Exactly. Ray is thinking, “You don’t need to be touched by this at all. I want this to never have been a part of your life.” But of course it’s going to be. And as far as the walk down [to the gallows], he’s just trying to find the strength to do what he needs to do. It felt like I was in a Greek tragedy at that point, that this was some trial by fire I had to go through. I wanted to do it in a way that was strong, in a way that I kept my humanity, that I didn’t just turn into a f****** quivering mass of emotion. On the walk right up to when I see my son [outside the window] — I was working a lot with my breathing, because your breath is obviously one of the first things that gets to be dysfunctional in a situation like this. It’s the thing that brings out a lot of feelings, and it’s a thing you can use to stifle a lot of feelings. So it turned out I was holding my breath quite a bit during that time, and I blacked out during one take — moments before we got to that window. I was holding my breath being a very intense actor. [Laughs] I definitely approached this episode with the idea of how we as a society execute people — and to honor that, I wanted to really, fully play it. I figured, “It’s a sprint — I’m not gonna have to do this but for a couple of days,” so I really tried to go for it, really put myself in the given circumstances, and be there absolutely 100 percent in every single moment. And it turns out I’m somebody who would’ve held his breath and blacked out for a moment. [Laughs] But after I finished that take, I was like, “All right: You’ve got to settle down! A good actor is not someone who actually hurts himself while he’s working. That’s not a sign of good acting. Nobody cares.”

TVLINE | What about the moment of seeing your son out the window, standing there with Linden?

My son emboldens me. I get a lot of power from him. But none of that is filmed in sequence, so the thing about this episode is knowing that you can be emboldened one moment and be weak the next. It’s not a perfect arc of any kind. And I knew that in reality, my feelings would be flying off the wall the entire time we filmed anyway, so I didn’t worry a whit about emotional continuity.

TVLINE | With the actual hanging, our worst nightmare gets realized: It’s not an instantaneous death. What was your reaction when you read that in the script?

I really thought Veena was going for the jugular in a great way. [Laughs] It’s a fantasy to think we can kill people in a way that’s painless. A lot of people who want the death penalty might not care if a person experiences pain; they might even want the person to experience pain. So I don’t know how many hearts and minds this episode changes — and it’s a different situation if it’s your daughter who was murdered. Obviously the anti-death penalty movement focuses on innocent people being killed rather than guilty ones. But even when you “euthanize” people through lethal injection, it’s not a perfect, fun-filled fantasy ride. The truth is, there’s not a humane way of doing it — mainly because the buildup to it is inhumane. The idea that you’re going to die on such-and-such a date, that someone is going to kill you, it’s inhumane. For people who haven’t had that drilled into their heads, maybe that last little beat at the end [of the episode] will do it.

TVLINE | And like you pointed out, the fact that the person knows he’s walking to his own death is a pretty brutal reality.

It’s horrible. I remember seeing, right before we filmed, the Chinese executed this guy and they filmed a lot of it for national television. He was a drug dealer who’d been convicted of killing people on the river. They steady-cammed him down the hallway toward the execution chamber — and I actually watched a little piece of that. What was interesting about that guy was how contained he was. That’s the other kind of person, the one who can’t believe what’s about to happen.

TVLINE | Did you do a lot of research into the experiences of death-row prisoners, watch a lot of that kind of footage?

Just a little bit — because at a certain point it becomes just like voyeurism. I just wanted to touch base with it. The first movie I ever did was Dead Man Walking, so I visited death row on that movie and stood outside during an execution and met families on both sides. I’ve got some experience with it, but in the end, as an actor — we talk about our research — but the real research comes from your own heart, your own body, your own mind.

TVLINE | The frustrating aspect to Ray’s death is the complete lack of answers. He never truly explains to Linden why he was in that apartment, why he’s been reluctant to speak the truth, whether he’s protecting anyone and if so, who it is he’s protecting. What’s that about?

Story-wise, why Veena does it is that it leaves open the question of whether this person is in some way guilty; he’s apparently not guilty of having killed his wife, but he may be guilty in other ways. Does it matter in terms of us killing him? For Seward, he feels he’s guilty on a cosmic scale. With him not answering those questions, it’s a form of anger and futility. He has the wrong idea of what it means to be a hero and a man: You don’t plead, you don’t beg for forgiveness, there are no excuses, and if you’re going to be grand inquisitor on me, you can absolutely go f*** yourself. “I’m guilty!” It’s like a child — that’s the best way to understand Ray: “But if you didn’t do it, why are you acting like you did?” It doesn’t make adult logical sense. It’s emotion-driven.

TVLINE | Do you have an urge now to go off and do a light comedy?
I have a deep urge to go do a movie where I shoot the right people.

[Laughs]
No. I have a deep urge to do a movie that’s not rooted in reality too much. That sounds very appealing.

dolphinboy

Another terrific interview with Veena and Peter...it goes much more in depth than the first one.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/kateaurthur/...-sud-interview

DJariya

Watched this tonight and all I will say is that was one hell of an episode.

to Peter Sarsgaard. That was an intense and powerful performance. Agree that was Emmy Worthy.

The scene leading up to Seward being executed was so intense.

Nothing really else to say about the episode. It was all about Linden and Seward.

Enos did good work as well.

SuckaMC

Great episode. Some really fantastic acting going on.

Also super intense. I told my wife they could use that episode to dissuade young potential future criminals, much like I think Requiem For a Dream should be shown to high school kids as a drug use deterrent.

Final knife twist was brutal.