The Sinner - Season 2
(l-r) Carrie Coon as Vera Walker, Bill Pullman as Detective Lt. Harry Ambrose | Photo by: Peter Kramer/USA Network
The Sinner TV TV Recaps

“The Sinner” Ep. 2.06: “Part VI”

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Well we’ve been looking for answers for several weeks now and boy howdy did we finally get some. Episode six of “The Sinner” was chock full of information we didn’t previously have and, as usual, some more questions. But that’s what this show does so well.

The Sinner - Season 2
Carrie Coon as Vera Walker -| Photo by: Peter Kramer/USA Network

Even at the end of the Cora Tannetti case in season one there were still a handful of unanswered questions, just like there always are in cases like this, but all the information we needed to know was given to us. If I had to guess season two will do the same, but we’ve still got two episodes left to see how much of the truth Vera has actually told us.

We begin with the juxtaposition of Vera and Julian’s present circumstances. Vera is looking at all of Julian’s art searching for clues while Julian himself is huddled in solitary confinement scratching his arm raw while the Old Hag looms behind him. It’s been terrifying the entire time so far, but now that it’s impacting Julian in his waking hours as well as when he’s asleep it feels even more sinister.

When we join Harry we find out he’s still staking out Glen Fisher, though off the books now since he’s been relieved of his authority in the investigation. He trails Glen to what appears to be the place in Keller to go and pick up sex workers. Glen picks a woman and takes her into his car in the full daylight. I don’t know how Keller operates but I do appreciate that there’s apparently no shame in hiring a sex worker. At least the town is progressive in this aspect if no others. In any case, Harry waits until Glen is done and once he’s gone Harry approaches the woman and asks her about Glen. It turns out Glen doesn’t pay her for sex so Harry doesn’t get a ton more information, though he does notice cigarette burns on the woman’s foot that look just like the ones on Carmen’s foot from a few episodes ago.

He takes this information and goes back to the psych ward but Carmen had an episode after Harry and Heather saw her and she’s not allowed visitors now. The doctors won’t tell him anything but another patient lets slip that Carmen received a mysterious phone call and went completely bonkers. Harry takes advantage of his other connections in the Keller PD, specifically Deputy Brick and has him trace the phone call to a trailer park. Brick is a little worried he’ll get in trouble for helping but Harry assures him he won’t throw him under the bus.

At this point, every single scene with Jack is more suspicious to me than the one before and I can’t decide if I’m really suspicious of him specifically or if I’m just suspicious of everyone at this point. What I do know is that he’s being kind of a dick to Heather all of a sudden; first in this scene when he tells her about a new dating app he heard of where the girls choose. In my opinion what he says next is the worst most tone-deaf thing he’s ever done. He literally asks his lesbian daughter who’s considered the guy and girl in a lesbian relationship…I couldn’t handle it at all. Neither could Heather who, as it turns out, is super annoyed at her dad and presumably every man in her life. When Jack starts talking about how he wants her to come around the house because he’s out of beer and his laundry is piling up she peaces out so fast I was surprised there wasn’t a Heather shaped hole in the wall of the diner.

Vera and Julian’s relationship continues to fracture when she goes to see him and notices his arm and the fact that he’s been drugged. He won’t talk to her at all so she’s left with no recourse other than yelling at the guard which doesn’t go great. It remains a spectacular performance by both Carrie Coon and Elisha Henig who really embody their relationship with real beats that are heightened by their extraordinary circumstances.

Harry spends a lot of this episode quietly following his own leads that we don’t fully understand until he does. He remains at the trailer park for hours, until well after dark, when a man I didn’t recognize leaves the trailer. Harry continues his B&E spree and manages to find a ton of evidence that someone has been following him.

There are surveillance photos of Harry along with information about the Cora Tannetti case and the deposition video of Carmen that was missing from the records department. Harry sends the video to Heather and also takes it to Vera who after viewing several minutes of the video agrees to tell Harry everything.

This launches us into some more flashbacks to the time during Marin’s pregnancy. We get to see some cracks in Vera’s devotion to both Mosswood and The Beacon starting when she sees a pretty severe wound on Bess’ leg; the results of an intense session of “The Work.” Vera brings it up to The Beacon who brushes off the concern and instead turns it around on Vera and her past trauma which is exactly the kind of rude shit cult leaders are always pulling.

We flash forward to Marin’s labor. The baby is born healthy but Marin starts hemorrhaging. I was certain we were about to be done with Marin but apparently, Bess is a magic doula because Marin is totally healthy in the next scene. Unfortunately, she’s not able to nurse Julian and she seems very disinterested in being a mother. Interestingly, Vera starts lactating and nursing Julian, thus establishing their close relationship. In the midst of all this drama, there are lots of sessions going on at Mosswood where Glen Fisher and other townspeople come to participate. Vera believes, and I agree, that it’s at the expense of the Mosswood residents, but The Beacon doesn’t care even though it really feels like the guys from town are only doing it so they can engage in some kind of creepy torture porn fantasy scenarios where they put out cigarettes on women’s feet.

Vera and The Beacon have another confrontation about Marin not being ready to get back into the work and The Beacon decides to go to his cabin to ponder the next evolution of Mosswood. While he’s gone Vera cancels the work much to Glen’s entitled chagrin. It really comes across like he’s disappointed he wasn’t able to beat the shit out of Marin or whatever they’ve been doing.

When The Beacon finds out he confronts Vera and hilariously tells the baby to shut up multiple times. He decides Vera, Marin and Bess are too attached to the baby so he takes him to his room instead. It’s at this point that Vera takes matters into her own hands and serves The Beacon some tea. We can only assume it has a healthy dose of jimson weed.

Back in the present Vera is visibly upset. She admits she allowed horrible things to happen at Mosswood because she believed in The Beacon and the work because it healed her. She does seem truly remorseful which I appreciate because it makes a much more interesting story if she’s actually a good guy, just a little weird. She says she “woke up” when she first saw Julian and she changed Mosswood from the inside once she realized what was happening. She claims The Beacon simply left them once the direction of Mosswood changed but I’m pretty sure he is dead as hell. Vera does ask about the timeline for Carmen’s deposition and when Harry tells her it was 2002 she seems to realize something.

Off of whatever Vera told him, Harry goes to confront the DA pursuing Julian’s case and fully accuses him of campaign finance fraud in front of several colleagues. It looks like there was a lot of money coming from Mosswood or Mosswood adjacent people like Glen Fisher in order to keep charges like Carmen’s from moving forward through the courts. Harry’s had about enough of that and insists he’ll keep quiet if the DA sends Julian’s case back to family court and drops the charges from murder to manslaughter. It’s a nice break in the case for Julian.

Based on Carmen’s deposition tape the police department decides to drag the reservoir aka The Purple Lake. Heather and Harry make up at the site which is super nice. This half an episode where they weren’t interacting felt wrong. They find a car at the bottom of the lake with a Jane Doe inside and I don’t think it’s clear enough that it’s Marin but Heather does and she’s understandably very upset. Jack doesn’t share her feelings and gets even more suspicious when he tells her now she can “move on” and “forget about Marin” which is an alarming attitude to have regarding your daughter’s former best friend. I’m predicting now that he’s Julian’s father and also the one putting cigarettes out on ladies feet. Heather gets very angry, as she should, and she and Jack have it out about nearly everything including Heather’s mom before she storms out of the bar.

The episode ends with Julian being sent back to the foster home which is a relief. Harry goes to visit him and they talk about the Old Hag nightmares. Harry suspects it’s a side effect of feeling guilty and he admits he was the one who set fire to his house as a child. Julian says he truly believed Adam and Bess would “start over” when they died and he seems truly sorry for what’s happened. He asks when you stop feeling guilty and Harry doesn’t really have an answer beyond trying to deal with it or else it will end up eating you alive emotionally. Julian seems to take this to heart when he starts seeing the Old Hag again that night. Unfortunately, it turns out it’s less a manifestation of guilt than it is a super real person who actually steals Julian away from the foster home!

Next week it looks like we’re searching for Julian and they suspect it was Vera who took him. I tend to disagree since she appears to have come to some kind of arrangement with Harry. I think it’s more likely that Jack or a still alive Marin/The Beacon stole Julian instead. One thing’s for sure, I can’t wait to find out!

I’ll be live-tweeting “The Sinner” every Wednesday on Shuffle Online at 10/9c. You can follow me at So…I’m Watching This Show. 

Featured image credit: Peter Kramer/USA Network

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