I very much disagree. I think Strong was gay, self-hating, and hated his attraction to Brandt so much that he became obsessed with him. Blamed Brandt for that attraction. I think the rapes were a sick way of fucking Brandt, being inside the place he was just inside. These rapes weren't about power at all, I don't think. Not in the sense of the typical rape mentality of exerting power over women and treating them like holes to be used.

This was about being close to Brandt. I don't know why he kept the hair aside from it being useful to the plot. Cutting it was to make the victims more Brandt-like. Spraying cologne on them to make them smell like him.

I think these rapes were really about the sex, about him using these women as a surrogate for Brandt.

I very much disagree. I think Strong was gay, self-hating, and hated his attraction to Brandt so much that he became obsessed with him. Blamed Brandt for that attraction. I think the rapes were a sick way of fucking Brandt, being inside the place he was just inside. These rapes weren't about power at all, I don't think. Not in the sense of the typical rape mentality of exerting power over women and treating them like holes to be used.

I agree that it was not at all about the women and all about Brandt, but I don't agree that it was homosexual attraction turned to obsession.

Strong believed that a smug asshole (which Brandt was) got away with rape. In Strong's mind this guy could get away with anything, probably if he believed that Brandt had talked the victim into recanting, because of his money, charm and looks. Much like he probably believed his father got away with rape because of money, charm and good looks.

So, he's revolted that this guy could get away with such a crime, but probably also drawn to the power he associated with the money, charm and good looks.

He rapes a few women and gets off on the power, begins to think he's worthy to take on Brandt. Obsesses over it. Rapes and murders the women Brandt has been with. I'll grant that he was cutting their hair and putting his cologne on them to turn them into him, but not because of an initial attraction, but because it was his warm-up to taking power from Brandt. But more on cutting the hair in a moment.

This was about being close to Brandt. I don't know why he kept the hair aside from it being useful to the plot. Cutting it was to make the victims more Brandt-like. Spraying cologne on them to make them smell like him.

I actually have a slightly different take on the hair cutting. Yes, he was using these women as a Brandt surrogate, but cutting the hair was not only about making them man-like. It was also about taking power, a sort of castration. Think Samson and Delilah. In that context, keeping it makes perfect sense.

I think these rapes were really about the sex, about him using these women as a surrogate for Brandt.

I think it was initially about the power Brandt had that Strong saw manifested in sex.

Hafta say Allyson's take is mine as well, all the way down the line.

Harrington says he also read Ellroy's "The Black Dahlia," based on a famous Los Angeles murder case.

Beg to report: anybody who read that book got a much better idea of James Ellroy's fetish for pairing off L.A. cops* ** than of anything to do with deranged crime.

I mean, unless you consider James Ellroy to be committing deranged crime every time he puts fingers to keyboard, a theory I can get behind.

* All cops have a dark twin, if only they could find each other, preferably in the boxing ring, with attendant contrasting nicknames.

** Ellroy can't quite bring himself to pair these cops off in the explicit sense, and usually punishes one of the twain with death or dismemberment in the denouement. Still and all, I am regularly shocked that he is not slashed on the internet like a Zorro emblem.

I am regularly shocked that he is not slashed on the internet like a Zorro emblem.

Heh. I'm going to have to start referring to Chandler's similes as Nuttyesque.

I am undecided on the question of whether Strong was homosexual or heterosexual, really. Certainly something about Brandt snapped him into a place where the sexuality itself became much less important than the expression of power that it represented, and self-hating attraction is certainly something that could have that effect. But I'm not sure it's what it was, exactly.

One theory I rather like is that Strong, being rather screwed up himself pretty clearly, had some experience with rape or abuse in his past that has been stewing inside his brain looking for an outlet. When approached by the initial "victim," his jaws closed down around the case as an opportunity to revenge this past wrong on somebody who got off on the expression of power in his sexual experiences, somebody who could easily be seen as a surrogate for whatever rapist Strong was hoping to get his revenge on. When the case fell through, he couldn't let go, and attempted to get his revenge anyway by raping others of Brandt's ladies, hoping he could get Brandt the easy way by slapping him into jail. But that didn't work. Eventually, the obsession with the revenge became an obsession with the idea of expressing power over Brandt, which he expressed through the rape and murder of the women, in two different ways.

First, he used them as a surrogate for Brandt, raping them with short hair and his cologne, probably calling them by his name as he beat them. But he acknowledged that they were surrogates for Brandt, not Brandt himself, and kept the hair as personal evidence that he was more than Brandt. He went further than Brandt ever would in his lust for sexual power; he took it all the way, and with women that Brandt himself had failed to finish. He was more than the man he was revenging, better at what he perceived as their shared, disgusting perversions and that made him powerful enough to finish the job. He knew all along he would kill himself once it was complet: he hated that he liked the power trip, as he hated that Brandt liked it. But he had to bring Brandt down in the only way he could before he put himself out of his misery.

Tim's mom is a TV critic? Like a professional...or in the same way that I'm a TV critic?

Also, I hate the neighbors and their damn smoking right outside my window.

!!!!!!

Speaking as a smoker who's sensitive to other people's issues with smoke, why not just let them know it's coming in your window? If I knew, I'd find another place to smoke.

I've tried telling folks that their smoke is blowing up my ass, but it never seems to help.

Tim's mom is a TV critic? Like a professional...or in the same way that I'm a TV critic?

I believe Cindy was making a joke about the critic's massive praise of the Timster.