Welcome back to our slow-moving The Fall, we’ve set the table for this season quite well, perhaps now we can have a little meat to go with our bread? Figuratively speaking for all you veggies out there. Rolling S3:E3 The Gates of Light after the break!

The suitcase full of presumed trophies has made it back to the lab where people are examining every inch of the underwear under close magnification. Also under examination are the multiple drawings of woman in various stages of bondage or degradation. (I said OR). Stella (Gillian Anderson) works late into the night while Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan) gets his rest in the hospital.

Hinky Night Nurse Sheridan (Aisling Bea) tends to Spector and I try really, really hard to care about his memory.

Stella’s explaining the notebooks to her team, even though Spector swore he didn’t kill anyone between strangling Rose and killing Fiona Gallagher, evidence in the books is pointing to otherwise. They need to find out if these are “projects” as he dubbed the women he stalked, raped then killed; or something else.

The notes are very clearly stalking notes, did they become murders or stay fantasies? That’s what Stella and gang must find out.

Spector’s getting more attention in the hospital, going through a reality check with a different staff member who doesn’t look like anyone in IMDb. We get all the backstory as to the orphaning of Spector, who was born Peter Baldwin, a name he still uses as an alias. He changed his name right before he met Sally Ann (Bronagh Waugh); unnamed medical worker asks if that new life has worked for him? Er

They’ve found a huge amount of items at Paul’s rental place; suggesting he’d been doing fetish burglaries for quite some time. That reminds me of Russell Williams, the Canadian colonel who successfully terrorized every area he lived in with break and enters and underwear theft until he escalated to murder and was caught. These people DO exist, which is the worst part of these shows.

Paul also took several pictures of himself wearing the clothing he stole, which, along with the auto-erotic asphyxiation has opened up his sexuality for more scrutiny. They need to investigate outstanding sexually-motivated murders with an eye to matching them to the initials recorded in Paul’s journal.

We’ve moved on to testing Paul’s knowledge of social media, I mean. He remembers Olivia as 2 years old and again: I WANT to care about what Paul remembers.

DC Turner (Richard Clements) has tracked down the addresses of the homes Spector was sent to following the death of his mother, and also the students he may have attended school with. That has to be a MASSIVE list, doesn’t it?

McNally (Bronagh Taggart) has the update on Katie (Aisling Franciosi); Paul’s young lover is in the wind after her attack on Daisy Drake with the lemon juice.

Sally Ann’s looking through old letters while Paul describes what his lost memory feels like. Lightning flashes in the dark, very poetic for a serial killer. Although they do say the line between madness and genius is paper thin. So he can remember things and relearn what he doesn’t know…just

Is it odd that I want to gif every second Stella is on the screen? The way she moves her mouth!

Dr. Spencer (Barry Ward) gives Stella the update on Spector’s prognosis; how do you prosecute someone who doesn’t remember what they did? Can he be made to remember? Can I be made to care about his memory? I just want him locked up.

Stella and Jim (John Lynch) are being called to explain Spector’s prognosis to the higher ups, the real problem is this:

There is a greater than usual burden of evidenciary proof in this case as well, what with all the irregularities. Let’s call being shot by a minor gang member with a feudal lord’s sense of ownership over his wife’s vagina an irregularity! Paul will most likely be treated at the Foil Clinic and be assessed by August Larson (Krister Henriksson) who is used to giving such testimony.

Wallace (Ruth Turner) and Sean Healy (Aidan McArdle) are at the hospital to meet their new client, it’s interesting to me how much power Hinky Nurse Sheridan has over Paul’s interactions with people from outside the care team. She’s present when anything happens with him, and since she’s firmly #TeamSpector, I can only assume this will not be good for Stella et.al.

Stella advocates for dropping the charges against Sally Ann Spector, she doesn’t think it’s in the public’s best interest to prosecute Sally Ann for perverting the course of justice. DPP George Lowden (Barry Barnes – another Barry! We’re lousy with twin-names on this show) disagrees, they need to appear tough! I agree with Stella, who will care for Olivia and her brother Liam if both parents are in jail? Stella brings up Sally Ann’s miscarriage in custody and her record as a NICU nurse; surely she’s paid enough for her naivete?

Jim Burns floors Stella and I when he brushes that off; she can’t be suggesting they treat Sally Ann paternalistically, is she? You can be empathetic without being her dad, Jim!

Healy takes Paul through the list of charges he’ll have to defend against; Paul’s affect is so flat that it’s impossible to tell if anything is registering. When told he is under arrest for murder, he doesn’t seem shocked at all, just slightly confused. “What type of murders?” is a really odd response.

They take him through the charges one by one, which is handy for anyone who missed the first two series, but essentially just a rehash for the rest of us. The only victim he remembers, of course, is Rose Stagg, who he knew as Rose McGill.

Rose (Valene Kane) has come to see Stella at the office, who would like PC Ferrington (Niamh McGrady) to sit in. Rose takes the detectives through what happened the night Paul abducted her. We get a creepy overlay of Paul stretching in his hospital room, lurking in the background like Trump during a presidential debate.

Rose was mostly worried about her daughter, of course, and she was numb until he started to take her into the abandoned building. She thought she wouldn’t make it out of there alive. He took videos of her while she was in a chair bolted to the floor, but did not sexually assault her. Thank the lords and the wee baby goats. She has a series of marks on her arm that she can’t quite make out, it looked like “I love you” to Stella.

Rose is floating, she’s in a freefall and can’t find her way to safety. She admires Stella’s strong sense of purpose, but she can’t sort herself out. Stella reminds her; she survived. She got through it. She’s alive and it’s in the past.

Here’s the thing that got me; as much as Stella was obsessed with Spector and she totally WAS / IS, her obsession pales in comparison to how he feels about her. We see her watching the news in her pale silk robe, just like one of the women he stalked in his youth. With pale skin and a short, purposeful stride, just like another one of the women in his past. He was in Stella’s room once even, when Burns came a calling, he is absolutely enraptured with our Stella and that never ends well for the women he fixates on. We saw all the muscles he was displaying earlier while stretching, he’s very much a danger to everyone still, but especially Stella.

Spector will not be in court with everyone else, he’ll be communicating via TeeVee with the judge from a special room at the hospital. The Judge (Andrea Irvine) wants to know why Spector is answering in such a halted manner? Sean Healy is only too happy to provide that information. Healy raises the issue of competence, if Spector can’t participate in his own defense, how is it a fair trial?

Spector’s looking more and more weak, almost about to lose consciousness, as he’s advised of his path forward at trial. He’ll be sent to a psychiatric hospital and eventually to a crown court.

Sally Ann finds out via the television news that she herself will be tried the following Monday, that’s just poor communication on the part of the police, isn’t it?

Late that night, Stella gets a call from Dr. Larson who has me creeped out from the first syllable. DUDE. Just get Anthony Hopkins and be done with it! ANYWAY, he wants to know what the risk are in housing Paul Spector and she assures him that he will need no more security than for your average sexual sadist and murderer. Come ON, Dr. Larson! And why call so late?!

Spector can’t figure out why Hinky Nurse Sheridan is so nice to him (me either!), it was because he had tears in the corner of his eyes during surgery. She thought he was crying and she feels protective, I guess. Rose, he was worried about Rose.

Creepy Dr. Larson would like to consult with Stella closely about Spector, so she can give him a pre-morbid assessment and wouldn’t that taint the well? That doesn’t seem like a very good idea for EITHER of them. Hinky.

Ah, Paul’s telling Nurse Sheridan about the tunnel with the light at one end, his daughter brought him back. He didn’t want to come back but he couldn’t leave her either.

OH SHIT

Sally Ann’s warming milk, is she planning to feed the kids that medication next to coffee mugs in the warmed milk???? Stella mentioned before: Sally Ann has lost everything but I hope the implication is wrong.

Oh

Oh and she feeds Olivia the milk, did she put the drugs innit?? Oh Sally Ann, tell me you aren’t your husband.

DS Anderson (Colin Morgan) has found a likely looking past murder, just a couple of hiccups. One is that her initials don’t match Spector’s journals and the other is that someone else is currently doing time for Susan Harper’s murder. The person who was convicted of the murder is a David Alvarez, who roomed with Spector back in a children’s home. It seems like a solid conviction, DNA evidence and confession, but they’ll need to check it out regardless.

Sally Ann is out for a drive in the middle of the night, she has her two sleeping children in the truck with her and what is she doing at the beach?? Oh Sally. Not Olivia and Liam.

We’re out to a sinister Spector staring at us; he is looking VERY strong these days and I’m just glad Rose is out of the hospital and hopefully safe. What a load of shite, though, amirite? I hope Sally Ann doesn’t go through with it, she’s a nurse, sworn to care for others and honestly: the angels of the medical care world. Except for hinky Nurse Sheridan who swore to pray for sexual sadist and murderer Paul Spector, that one has clearly lost the plot.

Is anyone else wondering if any of those old crimes fall within a time period that Spector DOES remember?

Until next time, lovelies, I’ve only just realised that they are releasing these on Sundays instead of Thursdays now, so I’ll be back up to speed on Monday. Cheers!