The Sinner
4×07: “Part VII”
Directed by Batán Silva
Written by Mia Chung

* For a recap & review of Part VI, click here.
* For a recap & review of the series finale, click here.
Meg fixes Harry up after his rough night in the woods. If Colin and Sean are involved in everything then the Muldoon house is not the best place for Harry to be right now. The former detective tells Meg there might’ve been “a prostitution ring” or something of the like at the disposal yard. She tells him to look into Don Lanier, the owner of the yard. But Harry’s also not going to stop looking into everybody, particularly Sean and Colin. At the same time he isn’t sure if he can trust Meg, wondering how she knew where he’d be; he’s getting paranoid, though probably for good reason. One good thing: Meg gives Harry a gun. That’s at least worthy of some trust. My gut says that if Colin and Sean are involved in whatever’s been going on, their mother has no idea about it. Once Harry leaves, Sean says he has something to tell his mother. Oh, my.

At the station, Harry tells Chief Lou about his attack. He also asks about Don. He hears about DNA on Brandon’s lobstering gloves tying Mike to the crime. Apparently gloves were found even after Harry searched and found nothing. He’s suspicious now about the Portland cops. Is there a coverup happening? Harry does the smart thing and gets out of there. He goes over to the restaurant to speak with CJ and his mother Stephanie about Brandon’s murder being pinned on Mike. Stephanie says Mike saw Brandon with people on a boat late one night and they were moving a bunch of people from one boat to another. She figures it’s a people smuggling operation, especially since Clark Harbor’s so close to Canada. Always a bad thing for women in particular. Harry mentions the photo setup at the boat, perhaps “for fake IDs.” Stephanie says she knows somebody who does that kind of thing, pointing Harry to a buoy shop off the nearby highway.
It doesn’t take long before Harry goes to the shop. Nobody’s around. So the former detective has a look on the computer behind the shop’s desk, before he hears somebody coming. He pulls his gun and then confronts the man who owns the place. He asks the guy to open a locked folder labeled TRANSPORT. Inside are a bunch of peoples’ photographs. Harry asks more, finding out that Percy came around asking questions about the injured woman who was with Brandon and mentioning the boat yard. The guy knows who picked up the IDs when they were ready, though he’s reluctant to say, worried about retaliation. He says he saw a boat: “Black with a red stripe. And a motor that ran close to silent.” After Harry leaves the shop he gets a call rom Em, who says somebody broke into her place. He asks about the black boat, too. There should be info on the boat at the office.

Em tracks down info on the boat; it belongs to a man called Verne Novak. Harry decides to take off to “private territory” on a nearby island, where Verne lives. He’s going alone, not wanting to drag Em further into danger, and she knows it’s the guilt within that’s driving him to keep pursuing this mystery. He gets to the island and heads into the woods. He pulls out his phone, thinking of calling Sonya, in case it’s “the last time.” His conversation with the Percy inside his head makes him put the phone away. He gets to a house through the trees and sees Meg there, alongside one of the men who shot at him in the woods the night before, Verne. Goddamn, grandma. Meg’s been playing Harry like a fiddle.

After Meg takes off in a boat, Harry heads up to the house and sneaks inside. He sees a familiar jacket hung up, not to mention some serious weaponry in a cabinet. He draws his own gun and sneaks up on Verne, who’s in the kitchen. He keeps it set on the man, listening to him talk, and fires off a shot to make sure Verne knows he isn’t fucking around. Verne wants to pay Harry off. He’s about to grab a gun hidden on the counter when Harry pops a shot in his gut. The former detective questions Verne about Percy while also calling Chief Lou for a medic. After the call, Verne says the night Percy died she’d gone to the cops. Hmm. Now there are cops headed out to the island and Harry gets arrested.
Former Dt. Ambrose is up on charges, though Harry’s trying to force the truth of the investigation into Brandon’s death through to the other cops. He’s sure Verne killed Brandon. He mentions the smuggling, too. But he gets only accusatory tones from the Portland cops, not to mention sarcasm. Then he mentions the “boat operators living here” who are part of it. That gets Chief Lou’s attention, trying to get Harry to shut up. Is Lou part of a coverup? Or is he just too stupid to know it’s been happening under his nose? Harry asks who was on duty the night Percy died, but Lou brushes it off as bullshit. Lord, what a twisty mystery! Harry takes advantage of terrible small town policing to snatch up Verne’s phone from evidence and slip out the station’s back door. He calls a number on it and it belongs to the asshole-ish Officer Josh Moore.
Plus, Josh was on duty the night Percy died.

A flashback shows Percy going to the cop shop, where Josh was alone. She wanted to talk to Chief Lou and make a report about something “too fucked up.” She mentioned people getting trafficked on Hanover Island and bad things happening, like a woman who went missing. She talked a bit more, saying people in Clark Harbor were involved, naming Brandon and Don specifically. The cop went to call Lou, but was that really who he called? Josh claimed the chief wanted them to go to his house.
Except soon Percy realised they weren’t going to Lou’s place and that Josh was taking her someplace else: back to Meg’s house, where Colin and Sean were waiting. Is smuggling people how Sean and Colin were supplementing the struggling family business?

Harry goes up to see Meg at her place. He mentions seeing her at Verne’s place. She claims she didn’t know about Verne until today. Now she’s saying “forget about Percy.” Quite the 180 on her part. It appears as if Meg’s scared now, or shaken, at the very least. Harry can’t give up without knowing the truth. He needs it to be able to move on, plus he knows there’s a whole lot more behind all the secrets and the lies. “Make this right,” he tells Meg. But the old woman advises Harry he isn’t safe if he remains in Clark Harbor. As if he was ever safe, c’mon now.