On the fourth episode of Ragdoll, Baxter and Rose try to outsmart the killer. It goes about as well as one would expect, considering there are still several episodes left to the season. Edmonds gets a little more fleshed out, with glimpses into her story that raise more questions than answers. And Rose makes a decision he may come to regret.
Far Too Clever
With several members of the kill list dead in less than a week, Rose decides to change tactics in dealing with the Ragdoll Killer. What they’re doing now is clearly not working, so it’s hard to blame him for wanting to think out of the box a little. Of course it doesn’t work, since we have several episodes left to the series. But I commend him for trying.
Convinced that the killer has somehow bugged Matthew Wingate, the trial judge and next intended victim’s house and thus knows their plans, he persuades Baxter to commit a little subterfuge. They will act as though they intend to transport him to a safe house via the usual police procedure, stage a shooting, and then escort him out the back door. It’s a fairly solid plan. The only problem is, of course, that the Ragdoll Killer had indeed bugged Wingate’s house and used voice masking technology to disrupt their plan, leading to Baxter being stripped of all power and authority but not of title.
It is perhaps the most common criticism of this kind of storyline. The Ragdoll Killer is good. We know he is, and he has to be. But at a certain point, isn’t he just a little too good? He knows how to dissect hands, hack into two police officers’ cell phones, and use voice masking technology to imitate their voices. Which he does well enough to fool both Baxter and Rose, who clearly know the other’s voice and speech patterns fairly well. And, of course, on top of that, he has the ability to plan these elaborate, theatrical murders and get away with it – at least to this point. At a certain point, it strains credulity that one person could do all these things.
Who’s In The Trunk?
Which may be why Edmonds suspects Rose of being in cahoots with the killer. That and, let’s be honest, Rose is hardly acting like he’s innocent, since he’s sneaking around and doing his own investigating. He’s not even letting Baxter in on his activities. Of course, he really can’t since it seems he got this ball rolling in the first place.
So Edmonds’s suspicions may be understandable, but it seems her hands aren’t entirely clean. In a flashback, we see her driving with someone in the trunk of her car. Who’s in her trunk? Also, why? And where is Edmonds taking her? Those mysteries remain. We also discover that Edmonds has a tendency to run when she can’t be in control of the situation, which is both contrary to what she led Baxter to believe previously and also poses a potential problem for the future, since nobody is control of the Ragdoll Killer situation outside of the killer himself.
There’s a lot still to uncover with Edmonds, clearly. Which we no doubt will do, just as she continues to try to unravel the mystery that is Rose’s seemingly nefarious activities.
Meeting Of The Minds
While the Ragdoll Killer is making elaborate plans to off a full list of victims, it’s clear that his real purpose is to engage in a cat-and-mouse game with Rose. It’s working, at least to this point. Rose keeps chipping away at the mystery and mystique surrounding the Faust Killer (a.k.a. the Ragdoll Killer), but he’s realistically not much closer to finding the man at the center of the plot than he was three episodes ago.
All of that is about to change. At the end of the episode, the two men agree to finally meet. No doubt, Rose will concoct a plan to trap the other man, which will somehow go awry. (Again, there are several episodes left to the season.) But it’s a giant step forward that should help give the audience more answers, at least.
It will be interesting to see Rose and the killer (whose real name appears to be Thomas) meet. I wonder if Rose will be struck by the apparent ordinariness of the man in question. He probably shouldn’t be; as a police officer, he should be well aware that sometimes the greatest evil hides behind the most unassuming of faces. It’s part of why people like Thomas get away with it for so long. They’re always the “quiet neighbor that nobody would have suspected” of committing evil deeds.
In this case, the quiet neighbor with the somewhat weird dynamic with his wife. I don’t know why their scenes struck me as slightly unnerving. But they did.
Ragdoll airs on AMC on Mondays at 10/9 c.