[S3E6] The Thrill Of The Game !!EXCLUSIVE!!

The Following continued its strong third season this week with another gripping, terrifying installment. This episode marked the return of Joe Carroll, the end of another villain, and the dawn of a third villain, who might be the shows most terrifying baddie yet. And what a thrill ride it was.

[S3E6] The Thrill of the Game

So she acquiesces, warning Jack that her father is not as "charming and harmless as he appears to be." And of course, the Baron turns on the charm when Jack addresses him formally as Lord Fisher, telling him "No airs and graces between us, Jack. Please just call me Henry." LOL. That's not going to happen in a hurry. Though Fisher the Elder takes his own latitude and determinedly does not address Jack as Inspector - either to play up his daughter's social relationship with the man in hopes of it working to his benefit or simply soothing his nerves by not having to acknowledge Jack's status as an officer of the law. Cue another JPS that we are flagrantly denied. Phryne takes over the interrogation and learns that Henry never wired the money her mother is so desperately in need of. When he evades the question of how much was in the bag, things escalate quickly, Phryne practically comes out of her skin when Henry attempts to cover his lie by laying guilt at her feet. Jack has enough sense to know it's time to put an end to the scene before it turns ugly, somehow still managing to be polite to his future father-in-not-quite-law-but-something-more-feministically-acceptable as he manhandles Phryne and literally pushes her out of the room. What this episode is lacking in close up shots is marginally made up for in sound editing because we can actually hear the fleshly connection as Jack forcefully grabs her by the arm, calling for an "intermission" to keep her from returning to the fight. I really shouldn't like that as much as I do. Phryne probably shouldn't either. Sorry. Not sorry.Speaking of connections, let's talk about the Day 1 costuming. While not glaringly obvious, there are signs that the two detectives are very much connected to one another. She's in a striking modern, geometric print duster of beige, red and black with bright red cuffs, scarf and cloche over an all white ensemble. (It's little wonder that this coat was a favorite of both Marion Boyce and Essie Davis - they called it "the pebble coat.") Jack picks up the red in the lining of his overcoat of course, but that's not all. The black stripes in his dark grey tie mirror the black lines of her coat. A subtle but steady reassurance.The detectives head up to the roof and Phryne, in her ridiculously eager and curious way, slides down a chute that could have just as easily led to an incinerator as it did the laundry. One of these days Phryne really is going to give Jack a stroke and I fear it won't be in bed. But on the plus side we do have Jack up on a rooftop, his hand placed widely on the balustrade and my brain instantly went to the magnificent "Orange" chapter in the seldarius fic, "The Sky Tastes Like Raspberries." If you've read it, you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you haven't, get thee to fan fiction pronto! Anyway, Jack all but throws himself down to the basement of the hotel and instead of throwing the chute door open, he knocks on it first, forcing Phryne to echo her father's sentiments that there is no need to be so formal! LOL!Meanwhile, Constable Martin is standing guard and lets the creeper in anyway. Dude! You certainly do have a lot to learn! Dot is doing a much better job at keeping her eyes and ears open than he is. Though one thing he's clearly got down pat is the way to get Dorothy Williams to spend a bit more time with him. He appeals to her better nature, asking her to teach him all the while emphasizing that he realizes that he in no way is taking Collins' place. If he were made of wood, his nose would be a foot long. Of course, something else might be... I feel the need to point out that he's denoted as "Senior Constable Martin" in the ending credits and even though I noticed his banded cuff was different than Hugh's, I find this incredibly hard to believe. They must be hard up in Wangaratta. Jack and Phryne are back to questioning Mrs. Cobb who clearly is not a fan of the Victoria Police. The hotel has fallen far from it's previous grace and is clearly a place of some disrepute judging from the number of raids and that the maids may or may not be prostituting on the side. (Just a hunch at this point but, pretty well confirmed later on.) There is something that Nathan Page turns on whenever the Inspector has to question a woman. I think the intent is to show that Jack isn't entirely blind to using his own brand of charm or else Nathan just can't help himself. But I swear that when he asks Mrs. Cobb, "Is there somewhere we could talk?" the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. After giving the hotelier no room to back out, she finally agrees to meet them after she serves lunch to the guests while Miss Williams and Pinnochio-Schlong Martin mind the guest counter.Back when The Grand was incredibly grand, it was home to the Twilight Waltz. Mrs. Cobb has tried to keep the tradition going and we find the detectives waiting for her in the ballroom having what turns out to be a very revealing conversation."I wonder if the Twilight Waltz was ever a respectable proposition?" the Inspector ponders."It was the height of fashion before the war, completely above board, despite my father's patronage," Phryne claims. "This was where he wooed my mother," she informs him and Jack becomes noticeably more interested. Her voice has taken on the self-confident timbre that is the dead fail giveaway that she is trying to downplay the matter at hand and he has heard it."He claimed he had tickets, but all he really had was a vague connection to the brother of the doorman, who escorted them through the kitchen each night when the maitre d' wasn't looking. Mother should have known that that spelled trouble.""Obvious, but inherited powers of persuasion." Oh. Look at that smirk... Wait! Where was I? Oh yes. Once again, Jack makes the comparison of Phryne to her father and this time she smiles back at him. "Mother blamed it all on his dancing - claimed that one whirl in his arms forced all reason from her head." To this point, Phryne has been talking away from him. Lecturing, almost, as he follows her through the room. Now, she speaks directly to him in her affected way as if to say she could never be so entranced, so foolish."A good waltz can do that." He utters this with such artless candor that my thighs just spontaneously combusted. Will someone please call the fire brigade? "I never believed her," she retorts, looking away from his penetrating gaze. He continues to stare at her in near disbelief as he realizes that despite her regular enjoyment of sensual pleasures, she has never allowed herself to give over to the foolishness, the giddiness of romance. In this arena, it is Jack "I think we're more of a waltz" Robinson who is the risk-taker, the passionate one. There is no question that the seed is planted in that very moment. A brief chat with Mrs. Cobb leads them back to Enid, who really gets Phryne's goat when she relays Henry's sob story of not having anyone else... yes, no one beyond a daughter whose 10,000 pounds he just stole while leaving her mother destitute and frantic. More lies. I'm amazed Phryne kept her composure. Outside of a few bats of the hairy eyeball, she was really quite civil. Okay, she may have implied that Enid was turning tricks for trinkets at the hotel but that's probably not untrue. Enid reveals that Henry lost everything in a card game. It's really no wonder Phryne can't abide playing cards - I'm sure this isn't the first time it's happened. Downstairs, Mrs. Cobb denies any charges of illicit gambling at the hotel but Dot and Constable Martin's sleuthing points to the contrary. When they go looking for the Pole, Karol Valenski, who appears to have won the previous night's game, they find him in a scuffle with Henry and Enid. The most fascinating part of that to me is that Valenski accuses Enid of betraying him. Unless she's been harbouring a vampire fetish after seeing Nosferatu one too many times, I don't exactly think the maid has taken up with him for the fun of it. After questioning Valenski at the station - in Polish no less because while Miss Fisher hasn't mastered ALL of the slavic languages, it's important to be able to order your pirogies just the way you like them - it appears that after Henry Fisher lost an amazing sum, the safe containing his money, coincidentally robbed. With the Baron and Miss Fisher holed up in Jack's office, we get a sense of just how uncomfortable future holidays are going to be and no doubt Jack is counting his lucky stars that he only has to deal with Aunt Prudence on the regular. Seriously. I want to make a mask of Jack's face when Henry tells him to arrest Valenski for cheating and hold it up every time anyone says something stupid to me. But things turn serious when Henry admits that, yes, the stolen bag did contain most of the money that he was meant to wire to Margaret. Now, what I can't believe is that Phryne actually trusted him to do that. And I know she's kicking herself for it. But, that just goes to show why she is so incredibly guarded with her heart. Even when she knows her father only seems capable of doing the wrong thing, she ends up hoping he will do the right thing. Of course, he never does. Consider that she has had to deal with this for a lifetime and then I dare you to judge her. But it seems that the one line Henry flat out denies crossing is murder. The question is, do we dare to believe him? It flabbergasts Jack that Phryne - in this instance - may not. Out in the hall, away from prying eyes and ears, he questions, "You suspect your own father of murder?" and concern is written all over the softness of his beautiful, profiled face as she relates the story she remembers from when an altercation took place with a man who turned up at the house in England during the war... and then an unidentified man was found dead nearby the next morning, the description of his coat matching the one Phryne saw the stranger wearing."Have you ever spoken to him about it?" Jack asks. I wondered why that moved me so much when it seems an obvious question. But, we so rarely see Jack asking her past. I think I loved that he felt he could. When she answers, she tells him that she didn't because she didn't want to accuse her father of murder. It's a stone she has intentionally left unturned because she might be wrong, but even more so because she might be right. That's a rather large weight to be carrying around in your heart. Even if one carries themselves as well as Phryne Fisher. I have little doubt that it was shortly after this incident that she up and joined the war effort as a means of escape. 041b061a72