Mental Pressure
Episode 4 of Unbelievable begins with Grace and Karen interviewing one of the victims, hearing that their story is pretty similar to the other two cases they have, right down to the details about being gentle and the cleanliness. As they head back to the FBI headquarters with this newfound information, they ask Agent Taggart for help. After dancing around their hunch, Taggart instead comes up with his own idea, that the crimes are escalating and becoming more violent over time. Whoever is doing this, clearly needs a bigger adrenaline hit after every rape. Meanwhile in 2008, Marie finds out there’s actually an arrest warrant out for her and she’s due to go to court for a preliminary hearing that afternoon. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have a lawyer but thankfully a last minute stroke of luck sees a public defendant take on her case. She tells the judge she’s not guilty, leading to a later court date being set. After questioning what’s happening to her, Marie is told that he’ll try and work out a plea deal with the District Attorney. As she heads home, she hears a similar suspect on the news reporting about an assault, prompting Colleen to plead with Marie to go back to the police and explain that it’s not an isolated incident, which she refuses to do. In 2011, the Detectives attempt to narrow down their search perimeters until they’re approached by a college student who gives up the name of Scott Parrish who may have been the one responsible. After hearing that he was arrested previously for something similar and his charges then were dismissed, Karen check his photos on Facebook and finds he may have a birthmark on his leg – matching the description given by Amber. Karen brings him in for questioning and as she grills him over the dates of the rapes, it turns out he has an alibi for the 22nd April as he was with his parents. From here, she changes the questioning to ask about a birthmark on his leg. She takes a photo of it and sends him on his way, crossing him off the list of possible suspects thanks to his alibi. On her way home, Karen says good night to her husband before noticing a white Mazda truck passing her on the road. Quickly putting her sirens on, she approaches the window with her gun and tells them to put their hands on the steering wheel. As it happens, it’s simply a man and his son driving home. As she gets back in her car again, she realizes the toll this case is having and sits in silence. As things begin to get more serious and we cross the halfway point of this series, the episode does well to show the mental pressures a case like this can have over our detectives’ mental state. Both Grace and Karen have issues this episode because of it and the latter really comes to a head late on with the car incident. It’s a nice touch and something that certainly adds more character to the show. For now though, Unbelievable leaves things wide open as answers appear a long way off.
