This post contains spoilers about last night's Sharp Objects episode, “Falling.”
Congratulations! You've nearly made it through the most uncomfortable, stifling, bleakest seven weeks in the history of the world. No, not because it's summer and the planet is on fire or, I don’t know, the news.
But because you’ve been watching HBO’s Sharp Objects and you survived last night’s penultimate episode of the series. Let’s face it: the riveting HBO gothic drama, based on the Gillian Flynn novel of the same name, is as impossible to look away from as it is difficult to watch. Did I mention it’s also the muggiest show ever on record? (Probably.)
Anyway, your prize: Next week, we’ll find out the true identity of the Wind Gap killer. (I mean, right? It is the finale. C’mon Camille! For the love of Allen Crellin’s surround sound record player system, write down some notes and turn that voice recorder on.)
To recap: our troubled protagonist Camille Preaker, played by Amy Adams, is back in her hometown of Wind Gap, Missouri to investigate the murder of two teen girls, Ann Nash and Natalie Keene. On last night’s episode, “Falling,” everyone is guilty.
Camille is guilty of getting drunk and making a journalistically unethical mistake—sleeping with the investigation’s prime suspect, John Keene. Detective Richard Willis is guilty of being hurt and treating Camille like shit when he discovers them in bed. (“This room fucking stinks of you, believe me I know the smell,” he tells her cruelly before calling her a “drunken slut.”)
John is guilty of murder, according to the police at least. And so is Adora who is apparently guilty of killing Camille’s younger half-sister Marian Crellin, thanks to her Munchhausen by proxy, a mental illness in which a person makes someone else sick so she can care for them. We learn all this thanks to a disgraced nurse who lost her job at the local hospital after reporting her suspicions to the police—and she implies the same thing is happening to Amma.
Amma, by the way, is guilty of seeing through Adora’s bullshit—withholding her affection and acting emotionally hurt when Amma refuses Adora’s homemade medicine—and getting into bed anyway, playing along.
Chief Bill Vickery is guilty of convincing John’s fame-hungry girlfriend Ashley Wheeler to turn on him, saying “in the eyes of the town, you’d be a hero…everyone will know how brave you were to help save the lives of little girls.” He later also admits that the guy who “saw” John dump one of the dead girl’s bikes near the town's big pig farm/slaughter house that Adora owns “is a shit witness.” Cool, cool.
But who really killed those two teen girls? (And WTF is wrong with this town?) Here’s a look at all of the suspects, in no particular order.
Suspect No. 1: John Keene.
Anne Marie Fox/HBO
Everyone in Wind Gap thinks it’s him—which probably means he didn't do it. Let the boy cry in peace, damnit! Up until last night’s episode, the only reason anyone in town had for pointing the finger at him was that he cried over his sister’s murder. He cried! The dude keeps to himself, had a close relationship to his sister, and is in touch with his emotions—somehow that equals MURDERER.
And OK, last night they found blood under his bed and he comes up with his own convincing story of why he’d do it—he wants to rape little girls so he has to destroy the desire—but it’s pretty clear it wasn’t him. “See? I can tell stories too,” he tells Camille who also believes he’s innocent.
Suspect No. 2: Ashley Wheeler.
Anne Marie Fox/HBO
John’s girlfriend is sick of dealing with the petty high school drama stirred up by Amma and her roller-skating girl gang. She’s also sick of her boyfriend not paying enough attention to her. In fact, no one is paying enough attention to her. (Remember how pissed she was when she didn’t make it into Camille’s article?) Nothing like a double-murder to help you nab the spotlight, right? Or maybe just throwing your innocent boyfriend under the bus will do the trick.
Suspect No. 3: Bob Nash.
Ann’s dad is enveloped by rage, which is understandable. But it also makes him a suspect. He stands out, attacking John at Calhoun Day or snapping at his other children, and he’s uncomfortably cagey when Camille interviews him at home. Is his guilt getting to him? Is it?!?! (But what would his motive be? And what about Natalie? He wasn’t even in last night’s episode! Oh, forget it.)
Suspect No. 4: Adora Crellin.
That little kid saw a “woman in white” right before Natalie disappeared. You know who wears a lot of white? Rhymes with Schmadora. She had a relationship with the two murdered girls. The aforementioned bike was found on her property. And she practically begs Camille to quit it with the investigating every chance she gets.
Oh, right, and she killed Marian and is maybe killing Amma too. What’s another two girls? See also: around the 46-minute mark of last night’s episode, in one of Camille’s flashbacks, teen Camille secretly watches Adora holding and cooing over a baby Amma—AND THEN ADORA BITES THE BABY TO MAKE HER CRY. I watched this three times because I literally could not believe my eyes.
Suspect No. 5: Amma Crellin.
She’s weird, right? For one, we never really know which Amma we’re going to get. The drowsy, sweet, innocent babygirl with bows in her hair, or the tipsy, thrill-seeking, wild child on wheels sort of making out with her half-sister to feed her drugs. (Seriously WTF was that. No question mark.) She’s got loyal followers, a distaste for girls who aren’t her friends, and a zero-fucks-given attitude that makes her seem untouchable. Plus, why did she freak out over Camille’s article? OK, maybe she’s really innocent, and just really, really creepy.
There’s also the fan theory that Amma is actually Camille’s daughter—it’s been hinted at that Camille was sexually assaulted in high school by a gang of boys in the woods, making the timing plausible—which doesn’t really prove anything other than this show makes my head explode.
Suspect No. 6: Allen Crellin.
It’s probably not him since he’s busy ignoring all the weird shit around him—and maybe his wife’s affair with the police chief?—by enjoying a perpetual cocktail hour with the aforementioned fancy record player and giant over-the-ear headphones typically reserved for European DJs.
That said, maybe that’s just what he wants you to think?!?! Maybe that pained, powerless act is just that, an act.
Suspect No. 7: Chief Bill Vickery.
He sure does want Chris Messina to eff off, doesn’t he? Hmm, but maybe it’s just because he’s sleeping with Adora Crellin?
Suspect No. 8: Jackie O’Neele.
Jackie is the town gossip—she’s also at the gas station picking up tomato juice for Bloody Marys before noon—which means she knows more than she’s letting on. “We could do what we always do around here, pretend it doesn’t exist,” she tells Vickery during the aforementioned early morning mixer run. She knew, we learned last night, all about Adora’s slow murder of Marian but didn’t (couldn’t?) tell anyone. Did the guilt eat at her until she had to do something horrible?
Suspect No. 9: Detective Richard Willis.
There’s no way it could be him (right?), I just wanted to shout-out this tweet. TY, HBO!
Suspect No. 10: Camille Preaker.
Maybe she was blacked out? Maybe this is all a fever dream and she’s still in that hospital? That would explain the floating ghost words that quietly appear at random throughout episodes and disappear just as quickly. Of course that would make literally nothing else make sense. At the end of “Falling,” we see Camille start to piece together the truth about Marian’s death and head toward Adora’s to confront her. “She’s doing it again and I need to take care of it,” she tells Curry.
In conclusion: It could literally be anyone. (Unless of course you’ve read the book already—I, uh, haven’t—or read the Wikipedia summary, in which case you already know whodunnit.)
See you next week!
