Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. I started to read the last chapter, but it was a while since the previous one and needed to re-read most of the story to get back on track!
Concerning the final chapter:
- I found it odd that Angela Tyler talked about her daughter in past tense, as if she was already dead
- your little personal details are always appreciated (here: Stillman's boat!)
- cool to "see" Jim Beaver, perfect role for him even if it was too short.
- Brandon Killham, the young Seth, was the young Don Draper in
Mad Men (so he's supposed to grow into Jon Hamm
- the 1990 flashback was so heartbreaking. So much pressure on a kid, I felt a lot for him, like Malick in
It Takes a Village. In a way, it also reminds me of Joe Don in
Flashover: he failed to save a loved one in a fire and he's blamed for it (and how weird is that, they finally had a death by fire in CC when you're done with your fic!)
- when Lilly says:
“I know what that’s like, to lose someone I love.” She continued. “Someone you’d give anything to save, to be strong enough for her. I know how it feels after they're gone. Don’t do that to someone else.”At first, I was puzzled, who is she talking about? Where does that come from? And then it reminds me that I had the exact same reaction in
The Good Death, when Lilly confesses she loves her mother. I remember being very suprised then (since all she does most of the time is ranting over how terrible her mother was) but I love that, here and in CC, when the detectives have this little moment when they suddenly allude to a highly personal truth and they are connecting with the other character.
- the last flashback with all the victims overlaying is a great original idea
- terrific closing song, lyrics are totally fitting. Nice touch to finish on a positive note, that Gabrielle finally believed in herself, out of this traumatic experience.
I wondered why Scotty was the one who saw the ghosts. Because he always want to save everyone?
One thing that I would have liked is rain in the closing montage. First it's always visually nice (like in the pilot) and then like they put Vera under a pouring rain in
Flashover, it's a fitting counter element to the original fires, some kind of metaphor for the fire that has finally been stopped now.
I kept that for the end, my favorite aspect of the chapter (and what makes this fic not only just another serial killer case) is the George Marks-Lilly "relationship". In the penultimate chapter, George says something like he's a part of her, and I LOVE that in the end, it's this "inner George" in Lilly that helps her first find the location of Seth and then connect with him. If I were to put your fic as an episode on my site I would totally put this as the main quote
“I knew someone like you once. Someone who saw people he thought were brave and strong, and hated them for it, who wanted to make them pay, because he wasn’t strong enough when he needed to be. That’s what this is really about, isn’t it?”Anyway, the idea that the "inner George" is helping her being a better detective is awesome and would have been a better way to deal with the aftermath of
The Woods than what they did or rather did not do in Season 3.
[BTW, one typo:
He ran away when I was eighteen]
A total random thing: when you first told me about "Trial by Fire" I didn't know that expression. They used it in this article about... the real case upon which
Flashover is loosely based:
www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grannConcerning the fic as the whole, I think you perfectly nailed the serial killer format. It's weird that since you began this fic CC finally pulled out one last serial killer case (you had a sniper case idea too, right?). The construction is very similar to
It takes a Village: sudden finding of all the bodies, the investigation reveals little by little the serial killer MO, the serial killer had a traumatic experience as a child and then the urgency to save the last potential victim and to prevent the killer to off himself.
I had never noticed the pattern before: what does a desperate serial killer do when end game is near?
His MO becomes messy, he goes back to a defining place (the well in
the Road, the old basement in
It Takes a Village,
the Woods for George...) and tries to kill himself or to get killed.
You also achieved what IMO
The Last Drive-In/Bullet failed regarding the serial killer character:
I felt for Seth, not for Paul Shepard. I think you can either feel something for the serial killers (George in
The Woods, Malick, the guy in
Sabotage) or you can be fascinated by them (George in
Mindhunters, John Smith, the guys in
Creatures of the Night and
One Night). Paul Shepard was neither for me, as traumatic as his father's suicide might have been. One thing that I liked was the connection with Yates and the trigger point in the Drive-in, what pushed him to his first kill.
Anyway, this fic was, as usual, very well done. I only wish I could have read it in one go like the others
"Stay tuned for scenes from our next episode."I'm TUNED, so what's next? :-D
