'The Killing' recap: Two have seen the Pied Piper's face and lived

By Blake Hennon

July 1, 2013 12 AM PT

It’s unpleasant-look-in-the-mirror week on “The Killing,” as Det. Sarah Linden sees what she might have been in Danette, and death row inmate Ray Seward gets a preview of his future.

“Eminent Domain” begins with a panicked Danette rushing into a police station after having apparently escaped Joe Mills. When her unruliness meets the desk officer’s sit-down-and-be-quiet attitude, it ends in her arrest.

That would have been a fine opening, had not Danette’s survival been spoiled by last week’s next-week-on-“The Killing” teaser. “Scared and Running” had a chilling ending, with her in eminent mortal peril from her boyfriend Joe after discovering the cab driver/maker of underage porn had her missing daughter Kallie’s cellphone … and then the promo immediately deflated that tension. Boo.

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But on to the investigation: Linden and fellow detective Stephen Holder are at a hospital interviewing Angie Gower, the redheaded victim who escaped -- minus her left ring finger -- from the unidentified serial killer known as the Pied Piper. Describing her encounter with her assailant, she recalls, “He said he wanted to save me.”

Angie doesn’t ID Joe Mills from a six-pack of mug shots, insisting the man she saw isn’t among the photos despite unethical pressure from Linden. As the detectives leave, the vulnerable Angie says to Holder, “He took the left one. What if someone wants to marry me?”

Holder scolds Linden for her aggressiveness: “Everybody thinks [Joe Mills is] good for it except the girl who actually saw the killer.” And he notes there’s no connection between Mills and Ray Seward, who was convicted on his wife’s murder, which Linden believes was actually committed by the Pied Piper.

A question about Angie: Who delivered her to the animal hospital (where the detectives found her hidden in the last episode) and paid for her care? From what Holder’s regular partner, the cruel-finger-joke-cracking Carl Reddick, tells him about the way the veterinary technician/illicit ER doctor works, the guy wouldn’t have seen whoever dropped her off. But that wouldn’t be the Pied Piper anyway. So who would do that? Who would: a) know about this underground medical operation and b) pay for Angie’s care? Pastor Mike? Angie’s finger was found near his Beacon shelter. She may have knocked on the door, and he might have taken her there -- he has said the teens he works with avoid city hospitals.

In an interrogation room, Danette tells Linden that she barely escaped from Joe. She gives no details, nor does she bear any sign of injury. Linden chides her for not telling the police things sooner, and Danette replies, “You have no idea what it’s like -- to have a kid and be alone and have everything riding on you.” But Linden very much does. And, when her son Jack was living with her, he did disappear for a day (it turned out he was hanging out with his father). Danette begs Linden to find Kallie.

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Ray Seward, who has requested that the state hang him, gets a look at his fate on death row. He wakes to the sound of fabric tearing. It’s coming from Alton Hill’s cell. He quickly figures that his ally is going to commit suicide and tries to dissuade him. When it’s clear Alton is choking to death, Ray is supportive: “Now just let it go, kid. Nothing worth holding onto.” He stares long after Alton is dead.

Adrian Seward’s foster parents, in Seattle PD Director of Special Investigations James Skinner’s office to complain that Linden spoke to the child without permission, say that the incident caused him to regress. He’s sleeping in the closet again, as social workers said was his longtime habit. That sends Linden and Holder back to the old Seward crime scene.

As Linden picks the lock on the apartment no one has lived in since the murder, Holder muses that maybe they’ve been approaching the case wrong: “We’ve been going at it all Copernicus when we need to be Galileo … you feel me?”

Inside, Linden enters the closet where Adrian was during the murder of his mother, lies down -- noticing the glowing star stickers on the ceiling -- and has Holder walk the path the killer would have: Adrian would have been able to see his face.

She takes this information back to Skinner, her old partner (and former lover) with whom she worked the Tricia Seward case, and he’s having none of it: “There’s a difference between following your instincts and following an obsession.” She insists she’s following the evidence, that the 30-year-old Tricia Seward and all the slain teen girls are part of the same case.

Ray, not the most sociable guy, has arranged a visitation. He sits down not with his lawyer or his son, but with another prisoner -- his father. It becomes apparent that Dad was the one who arranged for the razor Ray found in the shower (and used to remove his chest tattoo with Adrian’s initial and birthdate), though saying that in barely disguised terms with four guards in the room doesn’t seem like a bright idea. The family reunion doesn’t go well, but it does include an intriguing line from the old man: “I’m proud of you … for doing your time with your mouth shut, for going out like a man.” Does Ray know who killed his wife? The son retorts: “Dying in a jumpsuit doesn’t make you a man.”

Later, Ray gets a visitor: Linden. After getting a don’t-know-him from Seward on a photo of Joe Mills, she tells him that Adrian saw the killer, and mentions the star stickers, which Ray says he’d put there. He seems almost tender talking about his son’s strange sleeping habits, but any warm feeling ends when Linden says, “I know you didn’t kill your wife” and that she needs to talk to the child and needs Ray’s help. Seward is furious: “You came to this realization, what, three years after the fact? ... Just 12 days before I hang?” He tells her not to come back.

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Back at the station, Holder is staring at the Pied Piper victim photos: “It’s not any girl,” he says. “It’s the lost ones.” He realizes the way Angie described how the man positioned her -- she in the backseat so he can see her in the rearview mirror but she can only see his eyes -- is like a confessional. He and Linden then set out to try to find Angie, who disappeared from the hospital under Reddick’s watch.

They head to Beacon. And they’re thinking there may be more to Pastor Mike than meets the eye.

Suspect derby

The show places Pastor Mike in the lead. But if he is the Pied Piper, I’m unsure why he’d position victims like they’re in confessional. He’s not Catholic. In the premiere, when Holder called him “Father,” he corrected him and said it’s “Pastor.” And what access would we have to those biohazard bags that are found with the victims?

Joe Mills is still in the running -- he does have Kallie’s phone and was hiding that fact.

Carl Reddick doesn’t seem like he can move as fast as Angie said the man who attacked her did. But she did disappear from the hospital under his watch.

How about Francis Becker? He was missing from his shift to take care of something (Angie?). He might have access to biohazard bags via the prison infirmary.

Lingering questions

Who dropped off Angie?

Why does Danette latch but then unlatch her door?

Where’s Joe? And Kallie?

Last things

The reason for the Seward apartment being uninhabited for three years seemed flimsy. Holder cites eminent domain for “Mayor Richmond’s waterfront project.” It’s only been a year since the events of the first two seasons, when Richmond was running for mayor. And then-Mayor Leslie Adams was the one behind the waterfront development project, which if memory serves was just beginning construction back then.

Hey, there’s three death row inmates we didn’t know existed -- and they’re all heavy sleepers.

Bullet and Lyric kissed. Aww.