I guess I'm assuming the centre line with no actual evidence.

Phew. As always, a bit behind on the watching of the episode.

This episode was bloody brilliant, and I'm glad to see that people not us seem to have liked it more than earlier eps: TWOP was mentioned, and the Something Awful thread, I'm happy to report, is much nicer about this episode than they've been about past ones (the Something Awful TV discussion is actually quite nice - huge Veronica Mars fans, for example, a lot of them - but when they don't like something they can be amazingly crudely mean. Reading the Inside thread has been hard for me, but it was better for this one).

Me, there were definitely bits I adored. Finally seeing Danny and Mel in some seriousness made me very happy - I loved the "who'dve thought I'd get to be good cop?" and the facial expression that went with it, and everything Mel was gold. I want Rebecca and Mel to really become more friendly (though not friends - Rebecca isn't anywhere near the point of friends yet) in the future, they have a good banter. The "in a tree, yes" scene was brilliant.

I also loved Rebecca in this episode. I've never been in the camp that thought Rachel's character was hard to get a feel for due to bad acting, but this episode really proved that. For the first time, it was obvious even to casual observation that Rebecca's not a robot: she's just really, really bad at being human. She hasn't figured it out yet. The first scene, the tactlessness of her discussion about the baby and whatnot, really made that clear. And the treehouse thing made it clear that she's, well, not quite right in a lot of ways. Madison was a monster, yes, but confronting a 10-year-old monster like that, with such surety, requires someone who's a bit of a monster herself. It's like Allyson said in her article: just a little twist of the Rebecca dial and she's collecting heads.

I love killer kids. They're so terrifying and strange. So that aspect I liked, though I wish the Madison-did-it thing had taken a bit longer to be obvious. Honestly, when I first heard her mention her one-year-older best friend Nora, I thought Nora was going to be the killer; at least until the conversation at the pool and the freaky, freaky red flag. That was scary. I do wonder how on earth Madison saw that conversation, with the big ol' fence in the way?

I like that Madison was going to stab Nora, or at least seriously scare her with the knife. I know, I'm sick, but it shows that the little freaky kid wasn't always a perfect genius manipulator, despite out-thinking Rebecca in the tree. Her frame of pool guy was very well done, but if she had hurt Nora with the knife it would have all gone away. The mother thing was a complete surprise, and I liked it, though I wish she didn't have to die. And I wish the ending had been a little less anvilly in some ways. No reason to show the ultrasound - anybody who had been paying attention would know what Paul was thinking.

Also, was Rebecca intentionally trying to piss him off? Is she trying to seperate herself from him? That would be interesting.

All in all, good show. I didn't like it any more than the previous episodes, but I didn't like it less either, which is good, since lots of other people seemed to like it more. Keep bringing the good writing and freaky stories!

The sharpness of the knife doesn't help?

I know nothing about gutting 8 year olds.

I wish the Madison-did-it thing had taken a bit longer to be obvious

I really liked it this way. As with the act shifting, it means that it's not a whodunnit. It's a how/if justice will get served, and who'll buy it along the way.

There are no good arteries on that path, though. A stab to the stomach is going to take forever to kill the kid. Unless she lucked out with his relative smallness and got through the guts.

I'd buy genitals to sternum. Looked like there was splatter on the pavement by the pool. My guess would be that she came up behind him and reached around. Stick him right above the pelvic bone and zip up to the solar plexus. Thin enough knife, slack enough muscles, strong enough psycho ten-year-old...I'd buy it. Kid didn't look like the type to have real good muscle tone, if she zipped it up fast enough, he might not have clenched up on her.

Nothing in the groin area?

Not centre line and in the front, no. The big distributor is behind the guts, and splits fairly high up.

Mesenteric artery system.

Nothing in the groin area?

Only the femoral, which would require cutting along the join of the leg, I think -- not what occurs to me when I hear "gutting". On the other hand, I kind of breeze past the specific physical details anyway.

And to tell the truth, I have no idea what I'm talking about.

I did really like this episode. I thought the tape over the doll's mouth was a lovely touch, perhaps the touch that made the difference between too obvious and interesting for me.

For all the gore that has been shown and the complaints by reviewers about all the gore that has been shown, the only thing that really bothered me was in this episode. Up until now, the explicit mutilations, etc., haven't bothered me (well, they bothered me because, ew, but not such that I wouldn't want them included) because they really seemed necessary to the show. But in this episode, the full on view of Henry's (I think that was his name...the dead boy) dead mom's face at the end just seemed gratuitous.

In general, I really want to see more of the supporting characters. Well, we're seeing enough of Paul, and almost enough Webb, but too much Rachel and not enough of Mel and Danny. So far, I really like Mel and Danny and want to see more!

Hate to post and run, but must actually do work now. I'll be back later to see how much everyone disagrees with me. Keep up the good work, Tim!