AT&T’s Mr. Mercedes
Season 3, Episode 3: “Love Lost”
Directed by Jack Bender
Written by Jonathan Shapiro & David E. Kelley

* For a recap & review of the previous episode, “Madness” – click here
* For a recap & review of the next episode, “Trial and Terror” – click here
Bill Hodges watches an old interview of John Rothstein, who paraphrases Dante’s Inferno from Canto I: “Midway upon this journey of our life, I found myself in a forest dark … savage, rough, stern, which in the very thought renews fear. So bitter is it, that death is little more…” Rothstein certainly saw the dark forest, more than once. And Bill knows those same woods.

Love that this season’s title sequence is set to “Series of Dreams” by Bob Dylan.

Bill talks with Roland about poor Lou. The lawyer makes him aware their mutual friend has been talking to Brady Hartsfield. She keeps seeing him, even in the middle of the night. Holly knows what it’s like to be in “one of those places,” so she’s going to go visit Lou before the psychological exam.
Danielle and Morris are having relationship troubles. She wonders why a thirty-year-old dude doesn’t want to have sex. That’d make sense, seeing as how he’s been laying it to Alma on the side while they’ve been plotting how to get rich quick. Morris denies everything. Only a matter of time before his world comes crashing down around him.
Like young Pete Saubers. He has that stolen cash at home and deals with bullies at school. They try to take his new sneakers, so Pete pulls the stolen gun out. They run off, he pukes.

Bill and Antonio are looking at the crime scene left behind in the wake of Morris. At the Ohio State University Library, Jerome uses his Harvard student ID to get access to Rothstein’s archived papers. Maybe there are clues.
What’s the deal with Morris and Alma? How’d they come to meet each other originally? She keeps using him for inspiration— a.k.a they fuck. A strange relationship. “And we‘re doing it for literature,” she tells him before they pump one out. Danielle catches them in the middle of it. Now Morris is all fucked up.

Holly goes to the mental health facility, which is a trigger for her. It’s tough to go back into a place like that after you’ve been inside one already (Father Gore knows from personal experience). Lou admits to seeing Brady “off and on.” She sees and hears him as if he’s right behind Holly. Brady keeps telling Lou not to take her medication. “He‘s the closest thing I ever had to family,” Lou says. Tragically sad. This makes Holly get real serious. When she goes back to Finders Keepers, she tells Bill what Lou said involving him, coming from Brady speaking to Lou like a devil on her shoulder. The former detective takes it deeply to heart.

“There is no fucking safety in this place.”

Soundtrack note: “Brooklyn Bound” by the Black Keys plays before Morris goes home

Morris tries going back to talk to Danielle. He’s known Alma since he was a “choir boy“— not literally, figuratively. He lost his virginity to her at thirteen. Whoa! Horrible. “This is a sickness,” his girlfriend tells him. Alma raped him, if his story’s true. Doesn’t fix anything with Danielle, either way.
At home, Pete listens to his parents talking about more of the local news about the latest murder. Donovan’s “Hurdy Gurdy Man” plays while the kid tries to relax, and into the next day. Bill and Jerome drive past Pete playing with his dog. A near moment of serendipity. No reason for anybody to think of talking to a high school kid playing fetch.

Nobody can talk any sense to Lou. She’s won’t pass her psych exam. Especially if she lets Brady— imagined or supernatural, who knows with this wonderfully weird series! (Father Gore holds onto his theories about Hartsfield)— continue to poison her mind. She accuses Roland of seeking his “15 minutes,” so Holly stands up for the lawyer, giving Finkelstein the idea to ask her out for breakfast to awkward result.

At a book shop, Pete’s poking around about what a first edition by Rothstein might go for, hoping it’ll give him an idea of what the stolen goods are worth. The shop owner, Andrew Halliday, tells him it’d be worth a lot. Authentic letters might be “worth a million.” Halliday knows Morris and calls him once the kid’s gone. Pete smartly didn’t give up any contact info. Close call. They could still manage to track him down somehow.
Lou’s given her psychological exam. “Everything is about Brady,” she rambles. Doesn’t look too great. However, she’s honest. We briefly hear more about the government choosing to study the brain of a serial killer. (This keeps Father Gore’s theory alive for another while!) In the middle of the exam, Lou sees the doc’s eyes bleed, and a tiny ice cream truck rolls through until she crushes it with her foot.

Ole Alma gets home to an angry Danielle in her place. She doesn’t deny statutory rape one bit. She tells the young woman to “break free of chains.” She’s pretty much a nihilist, urging Danielle not to become someone like her after years of broken dreams in a shitty place. The jilted girlfriend suggests she knows a bit more than she should about Rothstein and the car crash and it gets her an axe in the head.
Morris catches up with Andrew. There’s video surveillance at the shop.
Big uh oh for the kid. Andrew mentions someone else came in asking around about Rothstein: our trusty Hodges. The heat is on, in a few ways.

Jerome stumbles upon stashed info in Rothstein’s papers. The author was “a perv” and kept files on all the women he slept with over the years. Bill sees one of them was Ida. Oh, my. He tells her. It was an affair that embarrasses her. She leans on Bill for a bit of fun to keep her mind off it. He takes her out to a bar, where they listen to live fiddling and drink. Bill goes a step further and gets up to sing a song called “Donal Og” and Ida weeps as she listens to him sing right to her.

“We’re all sick”

Brendan Gleeson made Father Gore weep at the end, just as hard as Ida. So sweet. Another stellar chapter. Things are getting wild once more, like usual.
Just how wild’s it all going to get?

“Trial and Terror” is next time.

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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.