The Bridge: The Murderer Might Be Closer Than We Think in “ID”

Gina , the little girl, deals with the aftermath of seeing “the beast”, Marco handles the fallout of his personal life while trying to find connections between all of the victims, while Frye and Mendez head south of the border again to get their own answers.

The clock’s running out to figure out whom the murderer is and with every episode, it seems they’re getting closer…or the murderer is getting closer to them. The murderer now seems to be following them and one witness becomes his next target, setting the anxiety levels even higher.

Gina is taken to the station to try and ID the guy who killer her father but, can’t remember. Sonya believes she’s helping but, only comes up against a wall. Marco encourages her to try and connect with the girl to help get more information out of her. It’s only towards the end that Sonya and Gina find some sort of connection but, not in time to save her from “the Beast” attacking again.

Daniel becomes more conscientious as he starts to dive further into the case and gets Mendez’ help as they go south of the border to try and get answers. What they come up against is the remnants of fear that the people have garnered of Fausto and his reach. They find a man’s body knifed to an electrical pole and people just standing by and gawking at the body, which made for a disturbing scene.

They do find out that Marco is connected to the murder of Fausto’s brother and the death house, as he looked over the case and then made it disappear. Marco and Fausto’s history goes way back, as far back as their fathers apparently and Marco’s struggling to make his way out of it, saying that they’ve “taken different paths.”

We also got to see how far back Hank and Sonya go and it goes as far as her sister’s murder. Hank becomes wracked with guilt as he shoots the only lead in her case, which explains why he seems to be protective and tries to help her through things. Almost as if he is atoning for what he did in that case, without Sonya knowing that Hank was the one in charge of that case, which could possibly explain Marco’s visit to Fausto.

Sonya visits her sister’s killer in prison after the day she had, not being able to save Gina and not getting any closer to a positive ID. All that we find out is a pair of creepy eyes that Gina was able to distinguish, the proof of that on Sonya’s desk as she cleans off the rest of the blood off of her shirt. We find him coloring, showing signs of the after effects of a bullet to the head and surviving. Now knowing that she will never get answers, motive, reasoning, it’s a truly disheartening and hopeless scene just imagining being in that position and given that her sister was her last piece of family she had.

The Bridge: The Bridge Butcher Takes it to Another Level In “Maria of the Desert”

The search is on for Maria, Charlotte makes a deal, and we see more to Sonya in this week’s episode of The Bridge.

In a race against time to find Maria, Sonya and Marco try to find Daniel who was the one that has been communicating with the serial killer, for any new information he may have as they find him completely wasted at a woman’s house.

There’s some friction between the detective pair and the FBI that have joined the task force, with differing points of view on how they’re going about solving this crime and finding this girl. Daniel is brought into it again and starts to see the killer’s point of view not before of course; the serial killer contacts him for a drop point.

Charlotte has to deal with the aftermath of her refusal of keeping the tunnel open, which resulted in a gruesome visual of a horse being hanged upside down. We learn how Charlotte became the second wife, through her continually rough interactions between her and her step daughter. The step daughter also throws the gauntlet when she tells her that Tina found Marco’s wallet in the guest bedroom.

Steven continues being creepifying as we see yet another body in his car, this time in the back seat. Continuing down the ever confusing plot line, he brings the body to what one can only assume is a religious ranch. He tells ranch owner, Bob that the woman has come to change her life. Turns out he’s actually trying to help her hide from her pimp, Hector. What’s great about that scene, was while I had thought it would have been a slight possibility that he was going to help her, it seemed more and more likely that he was giving her over to some bigger evil.

Meanwhile in Mexico, we see a glimpse of two men speaking about how many loads they have missed and how much business they’re losing. They eventually ask the help of the woman who is insisting Charlotte keep her tunnel open. My guess is that they lost their “loads” to the serial killer.

Marco finds himself in some shady business when the man who approached the woman about the tunnel comes to him and offers him the ransom the killer asked for. The conversation ending in a very ominous “I know where to find you, Marco Ruiz.”

As they’re preparing for the drop off, Sonya cracks the location of Maria wide open saving her, all because of a simple shadow. Her obsession to find this woman and her need to avoid all else actually endeared her a bit to me as we see a bit more of her emotional side, which we got especially from her conversation with the sheriff.

And, in a turn of events that many could have seen coming, the serial killer has Gedman drop his ear piece and cut communications with the team as they start trying to look for him, Frye’s phone strikes again as he finds some appalling thing in the dumpster. My idea, nothing good could come from it, assuming it’s someone’s body; while Marco gets attacked by what we assume is the serial killer.

What the killer leaves at his side as he knocks out, is the suitcase of money and a video of Gedman and a woman, ending the episode.

Is anyone bothered by the Charlotte storyline from the home? I just can’t seem to bring myself to care about her step daughter, or want to look further into her story. The one compelling point is that the tunnel just happens to be on her property that she inherited from her husband. I know we’re only four episodes in and a lot can happen in a few episodes.

The Bridge: It Gets Dark and Twisty in “Rio”

With no sense of enlightenment in sight, things get twisty, and chock full of dark and creepy, in this week’s episode of The Bridge.

Karl’s funeral opens the episode which went along normally enough, until a mysterious woman who we later in the scene find out is the woman Charlotte spoke with during the pilot.  They go toe-to-toe and find that she is also the client the lawyer referred to in last week’s episode.

Steven, or the strange man that took that woman from the club, is at the trailer again. While the mysterious man, that picked up the woman that got away who we learn is named Maria, is driving off and we still have no shot of any discernible features to find out who he actually is.

Charlotte’s predictably rocky relationship with Karl’s daughter is showcased in part at the wake along with some strange interactions with some of the guests that were co-chairs for a charitable organization. The scene felt strange to watch and almost disconnected with everything else that happened in the episode, like it sort of came from a different kind of show. For most of this episode, I was still unsure of how she would fit into the broader narrative but, most definitely figured it out towards the end, not just tied by her husband’s name and fortune, but some other rather predictable late night events.

Marco and Sonya end up actually finding Steven’s trailer and the ominous trash can. But, they only seemed to have found women’s clothing. Which begs the question, does this mean he helps the killer with disposal or was he seriously only trying to help this woman out?

They bring him in for interrogation and possibly shed some light on what his character is actually up to, especially when he’s saying things like “I’m just a people person who helps people.”

Sonya doesn’t stop being annoyingly stringent with the rules and extremely lacking in compassion, which is why it is still difficult for me to completely like her. Then again, maybe that’s the point of her character, no matter that she’s the lead. Either way, at three episodes in, it’s hard to see where a character like that is going.

Daniel and Adriana venture to Juarez to try and get more information about Maria and who she was while he gets a phone call the killer asking for money, a million from four different wealthy Texans including the late Mr. Millwright. And, there’s our connection to Charlotte.

While there, Daniel gets a taste of the dark side of Juarez as he witnesses a man getting shot point blank in the head, which was shocking and done so matter-of-factly that it was more jarring than I thought.

Marco pays Charlotte a visit and in a predictable turn, the late night visit turns into a late night booty call. I wouldn’t have been so bothered by it if it didn’t feel so unexpected; no hint, nothing. Meanwhile, on the other side of the border, Daniel and Adriana have a late night heart to heart about what helped her get out of the place where she grew up.

Paul, Sonya’s awkward one night stand from last week, makes an appearance at the station in a hilarious and awkward moment in an attempt to get Sonya to go out to dinner with him, and gets rebuffed.

In between shots of light and somewhat humorous we definitely saw the darkness behind this strange murderer especially in the final scene where they find Maria, in a way as the killer streams from her location live from the middle of nowhere in the desert.

At the end of it all, I really want to know what’s up with Steven and if he is at all connected to this killer, what’s going on with that woman that Charlotte approached after the wake, and is she connected by any chance to the horrifying hanging horse she sees in the darkness of the barn?

Guesses, anyone?

A Murderer with a Point to Prove in ‘The Bridge’

From the minute the show opens, my interest is piqued. With a series of strange occurrences at the US/Mexico border, including a power outage and cameras being cut, which we attribute to the man in the car, he drops a body and then drives off. And, then the story takes off running.

That’s where we meet two very different detectives from different sides, literally. Sonia Cross, a tightly wound and socially inept El Paso detective comes to the scene where she meets Chihuahua state police Marco Ruiz and instantly butts heads over who the body belongs to. We later find out that the body, for the most part, belongs to a Texan judge.  We get to see how Cross is at crime scenes, rigid and somewhat tactless not even letting a woman pass with her husband who is having a heart attack.

We then get a glimpse into what we can assume at this point is the killer and his very creepy way of waiting for women in dark alleys, pushing them into his trunk, passing through the border without a problem frustratingly enough, and leaving them stranded in a padlocked trailer in the middle of nowhere.

We also see Ruiz on the other side of the border in Mexico with his family and dealing with the cartels and trying to keep his son away from it all. It’ll be interesting to see if we go any further into his side of the story and spend more time on that side of the bridge.

Sonia Cross instantly reminded me of a mix of the social ineptness of Brennan from Bones and the obsessive mind of Carrie from Homeland. And, for the most part I eventually came to like at least one of those characters so we’ll see how this goes, and if it’s attributed some way to her sister’s death or some other traumatic incident.

The stories are somewhat seamlessly intertwined because of the connection to the initial incident but, after Carl’s death, we kind of lose touch with where Charlotte’s story goes in connection with everyone else’s. Although, I really want to know what her husband was hiding in that basement and I assume that’s where I’ll get my answer because, there is no way anything good can be behind that really sinister door.

By the end of the 90 minute premiere, we meet one of the first suspects according to Cross and El Paso Police, a jerky reporter named Daniel Frye, who finds himself trapped in his car with a bomb and a countdown timer. And in a heart stopping moment, the timer stops at 00:00 and the car unlocks. A phone is found attached and in that message, you learn the murderer is after more than just killing random people. This guy’s motive is some sort of social justice, which is interesting and different from my usual crime drama fare.

I really liked how it was shot and perfectly mirrored the dark and gritty tone of the pilot and I assume the rest of the series. While it set a lot of the story for the series, I still had a few questions and made me look forward to next week.