Burn Me When I’m Gone
Episode 2 of Tell Me Your Secrets begins with Emma leading her liaison officer, Peter, into the cabin where she found Jess’ body. Only, she’s gone. Instead, a really unconvincing and hilarious prop pelican lies in her wake. Anyway, Peter is concerned about her well-being, especially the toxic cocktail of drugs and alcohol she seems to have ingested, which can cause hallucinations. Emma decides she should check up on Jess but she’s warned against this given her history. Well, things take a turn for the worse at the hairdressers. A girl called Rose rocks up with a broken nose, the same girl in fact who Emma smashed head-first into a mirror in the diner last episode. Things are tense, especially when Emma is given the task of cutting and washing her hair. After, Emma manages to get a ride home with a police officer, who agrees to join and help take a needle out of her leg. After, she rings Peter again and tells him about Jess, believing there’s definitely something wrong given she seems to have gone missing. Emma continues to slip, thinking back to moments with Kit as he gave her the tattoo we’ve seen so much of. After, she honors Jess’ memory by floating a small boat up the river with candles. Rose meanwhile, is locked inside her house as her Mother claims she can’t be trusted. Speaking of Pete, his partner, Lisa, heads to therapy and claims that Pete is a good Father but not a good husband. It turns out he’s listening to all this through a tracker he seems to have on her. Elsewhere, John continues to work at the supermarket while deliberating over whether to help Mary or not. Eventually he caves and sits at his laptop, messaging Mary as she shows up to meet. They sit and eat at the diner, where John jokingly mentions this is like a scene from Harry Met Sally. It’s fair to say this most certainly is not. Anyway, John tells her he’s not a cop and that Karen has disappeared off the radar. Mary is convinced that he can fill in the blanks, deciding to apply his killer mind to find Karen. Instead of just, y’know, hiring a private investigator. Anyway, John starts going through TV footage, settling on number 8130 which happens to be where Parker was living. Of course, this is all a ploy to get close to Angela Parker, Kit’s Mother. John and Angela head out for food together, where John claims that his daughter’s name is Theresa. He notices red around her fingernails, which of course is the paint from her house. Anyway, she even claims Mary is his wife too. Back in town, Mary makes a big show for all the girls that were victims of Parker. The church is full of people as Mary orchestrates the service and talks about how Theresa is out there and other daughters could be too. That evening, Mary receives a call from John, claiming that Karen was a foster child from Minnesota. He’s not able to leave Texas, given it would breach his parole, but she agrees to help bend the rules and forces him to leave the state to continue this investigation. As the episode closes out, we cut back to Emma one more time as someone throws a brick through the window with the note “You are a bad Mother” scrawled in red ink. She knows she’s not crazy, and remains determined to try and save Jess.
The Episode Review
I’m really struggling to see how John is a better investigator than many different PI’s or competent police officers out there. Beyond his ex-convict mind, there’s absolutely nothing here that a undercover police officer couldn’t do better or more effectively. In fact, even a corrupt officer may have been able to break into the system and find out what happened to Karen, saving us 9 episodes of convoluted plot contrivances. Meanwhile, Emma’s investigation is at least intriguing although it’s already clear that Peter is probably going to be the one responsible for the murder. We’ve seen glimmers of him being controlling and manipulative, and since this show is designed around serial killers, I’d imagine that’s what we’re looking at. And just to top it all off, we ‘re graced with an unconvincing pelican prop. The ending certainly leaves the door open for more investigative work to follow but right now this is not a particularly thrilling thriller. Hopefully things pick up soon.
