Buffybot ,'Dirty Girls'
[NAFDA] "There will be an occasional happy, so that it might be crushed under the boot of the writer." From Zorro to Angel (including Wonderfalls and The Inside), this is where Buffistas come to anoint themselves in the bloodbath.
Oh, and has anybody considered the idea that the reason Strong chopped the women's hair was because generally, males have short hair, and Brandt was a male....and....well, you get the picture.
Yep. In fact, I thought that was explicitly pointed out in the episode. He chopped their hair and covered them with Brandt's cologne to make them more like Brandt so he could rape him in proxy.
Ah, score another toaster for me! Yesterday my friend who runs a print shop called about some presswork and told me she watched this week's episode (I'd talked about the show while checking proofs last week) and was impressed enough that she plans to watch regularly. If anyone at the Network asks, we now have the name of at least one grandmotherly type in her late 60s who'll be a weekly viewer.
I think what we haven't figured out is why he kept the hair.
Interesting look at Rebecca, PatK. I agree that she wasn't really there in an investigative capacity, at least not entirely. But I haven't thought through what I do think her motivations were.
The Becky/Rebecca exchange was a highlight of the ep, for sure.
He kept the hair because serial killers are supposed to be trophy keepers. This is TV received wisdom -- I have no idea about real life.
But he wasn't a serial killer in his mind, was he? He was always killing the same person, and it seems backward to keep the parts of the victims that specifically weren't Brandt.
I don't know what most (TV) serial killers think of what they're doing. However, the trophy-keeping (and subsequent discovery by investigators) is standard enough (and perhaps groundless enough) that I don't think it bears dissection.
Do serial killers ever think of themselves as serial killers rather than avengers or something? At least on TV killing mommy over and over seems one of their favourites. Though keeping the hair is a puzzle as you say. Maybe he just liked it.
I think that gets over-dramatized a bit in fiction. A LOT of them just seem to do it for sexual thrills and the sense of godlike power ending another life gives them.
edit: So, not terribly different from Detective Strong's situation.
Wikipedia lists a number of motives:
Further reading: The Aetiology of Serial Murder: Towards an Integrated Model
He kept the hair because serial killers are supposed to be trophy keepers. This is TV received wisdom -- I have no idea about real life.
Yep. I'd say it's more about having evidence to find than about Strong's psyche.