Well, last week brought us Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan) coming out of his coma with a six-year memory lapse, while Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson) began to uncover some unsettling evidence about Spector and his dangerous proclivities. Will Spector regain his darkness, or will Stella find the evidence that she is looking for?
As the story begins, Stella is looking over Spector's notebooks, studying them for any additional evidence that she can recover. Her main goal with her and her team: to prove that Spector is responsible for murders that happened before Fiona Gallagher, his first supposed kill. In the notebooks, there are multiple pictures of other women that Spector has stalked in the past. He recorded his findings in several notebooks, kept garments and posed mannequins (and himself) in bondage-like photos with those garments. Clearly, Spector is darker than Stella and her team even knew. With the women in the notebooks, the mission now becomes to prove whether Spector had killed the women he drew or just obsessed over them.
Meanwhile, Spector remains in the hospital, continuing to be probed and questioned by psychologists to determine his current knowledge. While in prior episodes we knew that Paul had changed his name from Peter Baldwin to Paul Spector, we now learn why: for a clean start. Peter Baldwin had lost his mother at a young age and never knew his father. He does not remember much, but his last vivid memory is one of taking Olivia (Sarah Beattie) to a musical playgroup, then to the park. Olivia was only two at the time. Any further memories that Spector has, he equates to seeing flashes of, like in a thunderstorm. He wishes he could remember rather than live in his current state, because he does not understand what he did wrong.
After a discussion with her team, Stella is ready to speak with ACC Burns (John Lynch) and her superiors in order to give a run down of the investigation and discuss Spector's wife Sally Ann (Bronagh Waugh). Prior to her going in, Dr. Spencer (Barry Ward) advises Stella of Spector's condition, particularly his long-term memory loss. Stella still believes that Spector is held accountable for his actions, despite his current state, but believes that Sally Ann should not pay the price for her own naivete on the matter. Unfortunately, her superiors believe otherwise and are ready to charge Sally Ann as well, Burns sealing Sally Ann's fate.
Sally Ann sits at her dining room table, going through photos of her family. A packet of pills sits beside her, as she pops out three and takes them. She is not coping well with Paul being arrested and her family falling apart, but she does not break down. There's an almost serene state to her nature, despite how putting charges against her could have terrible effects.
Healy (Aidan McArdle) and Wallace (Ruth Bradley) go to visit Spector in the hospital. It is then that Paul finally hears of the crimes against him. Healy proceeds to go through the murders with Paul: Fiona Gallagher (strangled), Alice Monroe (strangled), Sarah Kay (strangled and pregnant at time of death), Annie Brawley (survived the attack), Joseph Brawley (stabbed to death with shears), and Rose Stagg (survived kidnapping and being locked in trunk). Upon Rose's name, Paul mentions that he remembers a Rose McGill and the last time he saw her was in early summer 2002.
Rose Stagg (Valene Kane) goes in to give Stella her testimony. She was numb during the attack and still remains numb to this day. Her main concern was one of making sure that Peter (Paul) didn't harm her daughter. Stella goes on to mention the video that Paul had taken of Rose, where Rose was sat in a chair while Spector held the camera so that Rose was talking to him. During her interrogation, we see glimpses of Spector out of bed stretching. Eerily, these are similar stretches to what he would do after a night of stalking and/or murdering his victims. Cut back to Rose, she had been found with marks on her arm. Stella tells her that the marks looks like someone cut "I love you" into her arm. Horrified and disturbed by this news, Rose continues to explain how she feels a void instead of love, but Stella continues to remind her that she survived.
To prepare for his first court appearance via video, Nurse Sheridan (Aisling Bea) helps Spector dress. Katie (Aisling Franciosi) stands vigilant outside the courthouse, hoping to catch a glimpse of Paul. Instead, she only sees Stella walk in. Paul is led to the room for the video feed via wheelchair and helped to stand, a clear difference from his stretches prior to the court appearance. As court goes into session, the Judge (Andrea Irvine) starts to listen to Spector speak. Healy addresses the memory loss while Spector looks on through the camera, looking nervous and panicked.
Sally Ann watches the news from her home, hearing of her own court appearance. Still fragile and rattled, she must prepare for the possibility that she herself could go to prison. Later, she is seen in her kitchen preparing warm milk, her packet of pills laying beside the stove. It looks like she has added the pills to the mixture and not until we see her give Olivia a glass do we realize the intended recipients: Olivia and Liam (David Beattie). She is seen later to be driving her and the children to an unknown location. When the car stops, she is at the beach, close to the water.
Stella is ready to proceed with further psychological investigation as Paul will be transferred to a mental hospital for additional evaluations. She is not so sure that Spector has lost his memory and feels that he is lying instead. Recommended to talk to Dr. August Larson (Krister Henriksson), the doctor agrees to evaluate Spector and help Stella. Later, Anderson (Colin Morgan) presents Stella with a potential lead on one of the women in Spector's notebooks, a Susan Harper. Susan was murdered in August 2002 and the person imprison for the crime was a David Alvarez, who was coincidentally in the same home as Spector at the time of the murder.
Back at the hospital, Nurse Sheridan is seen talking to Spector. He doesn't understand the kindness from the Nurse, but welcomes it all the same. Nurse Sheridan listens to Paul talk about his dream of the dark tunnel with the bright light at the end. In the tunnel, he heard his mother's voice, as well as Olivia's voice. When it came down to the decision to be with his mother in death or stay with Olivia in life. As Sheridan leaves the room, we are left with Paul. The look on his face denoting that the Old Spector is in there somewhere, waiting.
So has Paul regained his memories? What will Dr. Larson find when he finally meets Spector? And what in the world is Sally Ann planning to do? Hopefully all these questions will be answered in next week's episode of The Fall!
