( continues...)
Web makes Rebecca re-live that running away, that already made her remember so vividly her past horrible experiences? He know that the memories were waking in her, I'm sure. He probably even suspects that those same memories are what gave her enough strength to get away. And still, he's going for a third round. Wow. And whom does he cast as "the bad guy"? Paul, of course. The one that's supposed to have a conscience. Hmm.
Oh, and that, to me, shows that the story is completely about the triangle of Web, Rebecca and Paul, not about the murder investigation or possible suspects. They pretty much put themselves at the center in this, in my eyes. I like that. Much more interesting than simply solving a riddle of "who of the other characters we've encountered on the show is the actual bad guy?".
It's even scarier because it seems - from what Mel and Danny say - that Web is used to this sort of process of showing what happened. The agents taking part in his "game" are just that, pawns in a game, no matter who they are (since he does it with several of them, other people each time). I liked how Danny (of all people) put it, "Little Virgil Webster and his posable action figures". Scary, especially since it probably doesn't begin and end there.
And yet, playing that scene again does seem to help in getting all the details about it. Questions that wouldn't have been asked otherwise are brought up, exposing details, for example. So it's not just a game to play with the minds and feeling of safety of Rebecca and Paul, there's more to it, right? Is there anything that Web does that has just the one way of seeing it?
And I liked how, again, the "game" of Rebecca, Paul and Web exposed the real nature of the game that Brandt was playing, how he couldn't handle it when it was for real, therefore leading them to look for the real killer.
I liked how it was revealed, on the same time, that Strong is not the innocent cop that he pretended to be, and that it was, indeed, all about Brandt for him, what with catching him and stashing him in his trunk. And again with the difference between game and real. And again with the whole control theme, too.
"That's okay. I am." - I don't remember when short 4 words freaked me out so much. Even though I already knew, saying it like that, so simply. Oh, my.
Carter is a new character for me - he didn't exist in the two older scripts, at least the versions that I read. But he was in the other two episodes, right? He didn't just appear out of nowhere?
I loved it that Strong calls Brandt by his first name, unlike anybody else. It's like now, that things have changed, the way we looked at both characters is different, so are the names.
OK, so, um, who sent the text message to Paul? I could see it working either way. I mean, again, with Web, it would be not just wanting to see her vulnerable, but also to get ahead with the case, with his usual double meaning. But if it were Rebecca, it would work better with the whole control questions of the episode, who was the one controlling a situation, even when at their most vulnerable. I want it to be Web for the whole general story, but I really want it to be Rebecca for the story of this episode on its own. Hmm.
So, in a way, the "outside" story of the episode was a bit too much for the whiteness of the vanilla that is me. However, the "inside" story, about the interactions between the characters, was, in a way, even darker, and despite that - or because of that? - I found it much more interesting. Hmm, I wonder what it says about me.
[Edit: oh, and "Who's Driving This Thing?" is the thread name that I liked best, for the record.]