AT&T’s Mr. Mercedes
Season 3, Episode 8: “Mommy Deadest”
Directed by Michael J. Leone
Written by David E. Kelley & Jonathan Shapiro

* For a recap & review of the previous episode, “The End of the Beginning” – click here
* For a recap & review of the next episode, “Crunch Time” – click here
At night, Ida hears someone lurking around her house. It’s Peter. She tells him the police and everyone else are searching for him. She already knows he’s got the “Rothstein books,” and the kid confesses to her he stumbled onto the crashed car in the woods, where he found the manuscripts. He’s scared because Halliday was murdered. Ida finds out about Pete meeting someone— Morris— and all the madness that came of it. The young guy isn’t sure what to do. He doesn’t want to turn himself in, and he doesn’t want to talk to Bill. So Ida convinces him to talk with a lawyer. After the kid’s gone Ida goes to see Bill, asking about Finkelstein. She doesn’t want anything to go wrong, knowing Pete has a gun.

Lou’s going free, albeit under court supervision. She has to do everything by the book, or else they’ll reinstate the sentence. She has to live somewhere, too. And that’s where Holly offers to have Lou live with her, in spite of Roland’s suggestion it might not be the best arrangement. More than that, the lawyer worries about his client. He doesn’t want her out there, without any therapy, and still hearing / seeing Brady. A bit more worrisome that Lou sees it as a positive Brady was there for her. Back at Finders Keepers, Bill has his own doubts about Lou’s mental state and how it’ll play out should she live with Holly. The former detective’s concerned that, without professional help, that violence she displayed once could potentially occur again.
The thing that pisses Morris off about his and Alma’s caper going wrong is he’ll never get to read the Rothstein manuscripts. He doesn’t so much care about the money, he wants to see the author’s unpublished work. He’s just now realising that this is partly why Alma wants to get them, too. She believes there are “snippets” of her in characters Rothstein wrote. Sad, really. She holds out hope that the man she once loved, and went on to loathe, cared about her so much his feelings made their way into his unpublished work. She believes she already shows up as a character called Susan, “Jimmy‘s first love.” A weird new level of Alma and Morris’s relationship begins here, considering Susan was his first big crush. She’s got an eerie psychosexual hold over him.

Finkelstein is talking about media opportunities for Lou that’ll rake in cash. She might be able to build “a career” out of it somehow— possibly a book, a movie deal. The lawyer also goes to see Pete in a church. They talk about the “stolen property” the high school kid found. The whole thing is so much trickier than the young Rothstein fan ever imagined. Ohio law puts Pete in a horrible position, where he may as well have pulled the trigger on Rothstein himself simply for having goods obtained during the murder in his possession. The only thing that might get the kid out of hot water is returning the manuscripts and potentially helping lead the cops to Morris. Meanwhile, Montez has sent Jerome and Bill a security cam picture from Halliday’s place that shows Pete coming into the bookstore. Same picture Morris and Alma have, as they plan on stepping things up a notch by abducting Marjorie.

On TV, Lou goes on above who / who isn’t “above the law” in America. She rambles a bit about Bush, Clinton, Nixon, George Zimmerman, and other people. Ida worries about “that rhetoric” and what it ultimately means for Lou. Everything goes sideways when the show’s host starts to grill Lou a bit. Finkelstein can only do so much. And Lou does have a few good points, except she appears slightly crazy while attempting to make them. Twice as bad, she later tells Roland that it’s Brady who helped her trot out all that knowledge on TV. Regardless, Lou claims the serial killer is “no more.” But the lawyer is beyond unsettled.
A great version of “Mac the Knife” plays while Morris is talked into heading into the Saubers home to abduct Marjorie. He’s like a fiddle being played constantly, not that he was ever making solid decisions for himself— Alma isn’t all to blame, though her rape of Morris as a boy suggests a deep-seated hold that could never truly let go anyway. Morris sneaks inside the house and goes to make his move. He didn’t anticipate such a fight. Marjorie bites him, smashes his head with a picture frame, scratches his face, but he eventually gets the better of her, knocking her unconscious.

Holly’s decided to cut ties with Roland personally. She thinks they won’t “sustain.” This all surprises him, as well as Bill and Jerome. They get nothing out of her when Bill tries asking what happened. Jerome isn’t so sure what’s going on, either. Is this Holly aiming for self preservation? Is she afraid of being hurt? Or is she feeling a divide from Roland when it comes to Lou?

Morris and Alma get Marjorie loaded into their vehicle, snapping a few pictures to send to hubby. Tom’s shocked to see his wife with tape over her mouth, tied at the hands. When Marjorie wakes up she has to face Alma’s “idea of hell.” She’s got to face a pretty sick moment of torture. Alma has one of Halliday’s dead fingers, and does a creepy routine with it before the abducted wife and mother vomits. Truly disturbed.
All leading to Pete, and Tom, finding out Morris has Marjorie.

Later that night, Bill goes to see Holly at home about her personal life. She’s resistant to talk at first. Then she talks about a need for control. So, falling for someone begins to take some of that control away. She heard Roland was dealing with Pete, which made her scared. Because she cares about him, and that makes her feel less in control. She feels she’ll “lose control” if she falls in love with Roland.
So much wild stuff coming together.
It’s about to get seriously heavy soon.

“Crunch Time” is next time.

---

Season 3 of Mr. Mercedes airs Tuesdays at 10pm ET/PT on AT&T AUDIENCE Network. AT&T AUDIENCE Network is available on all AT&T video platforms including DIRECTV Ch. 239, AT&T TV NOW, and U-verse.