Waking The Dead : What Happened and Why in
Shadowplay

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FIRE. What is fire? Awe inspiring, destructive, natural, deadly, trivial, essential, beautiful. Fire is hot the opposite of cold. Ice is cold. Weird because ice is awe inspiring, destructive, natural, deadly, trivial, essential, beautiful. Mel is ... well, you'll see soon enough.

Natasha Bloom survived a deadly blaze that consumed the lives of her parents, Peter and Hannah, and her younger sister, Claudia. Also spared was the life of Claudia's young son, Joshua. Someone, possibly Natasha, possibly someone else, carried Joshua to safety. Now Natasha is a month away from standing trial for setting that fire and murdering her family. Fortunately for Natasha, and only for Natasha, her psychiatrist, David Carney calls in everyone's favorite Cold Case Squad to assist with her case. Natasha said that prior to starting the fire she had received calls from a man who said that she was in great danger from her family. Of course, Natasha decorates her head in much the same way that I decorate my baked chicken; that is, covered in aluminum foil. I do it to the chicken to help it cook faster and more evenly, Natasha does it to her head to -- you know, I don't even know why. I'm not making any value judgments but keep in mind that we are learning all of this from her psychiatrist.

Natasha's mystery caller quoted Eziekel 34 and told her he was her shepherd. Coincidentally (or not, you can decide for yourself, it is a mystery afterall) Dr. David also has a patient named Fay Harding who murdered the parents of a boy she was "fixated on." Fay later said she was told to do it by a man who claimed to be her shepherd.

It seems if there is a connection between both these cases then neither one of them has been solved and both of them are viable cold cases. Detective Inspector Spencer Jordan and Detective Sergeant Mel Silver travel out to interview the survivor of Fay Harding's wrath. The boy she "was fixated on" is Adam Duke, a wealthy young chap. His fiancee is present and she says that Fay was just some crazy chick with whom Adam shared one drunken kiss. The story goes that before killing his father and stepmother, Fay threw a pot of boiling water into Adam's face, severly burning him. Obviously, he received excellent medical care because he looks exactly as he did before the burning.

The team is not that keen on Adam's father Gary. We get tons of information about Gary's life and career and his spanking brand new wife, Lindsay, but it is all a red herring. It seems a particularly odd editing choice for the US version, I can only imagine what they left out in order to make room for this. Long story short, Gary Duke was a rich bully. Gary was stabbed seven times and nearly decapitated. Lindsay died from a heart attack after running into an electric fence. She was stabbed once.

David Carney arranges for Dr. Grace Foley and Detective Superintendent Peter Boyd to meet Fay at the hospital. She says when she first met Adam in a bar it was mutual lust at first sight. Fay says that she has trouble distinguishing reality from fantasy with respect to her relationship with Adam. Boyd says he just wants to hear "what she believes happened." Apparently, Boyd forgot that she is in a mental health facility because she cannot distinguish reality from fiction. Still, she says that she and Adam had sex in a storage room of the nightclub. Then the next day and the day after that, in every room of his house. Fay says that the sex part was not true. At his house, Adam tells Mel and Spence that Fay was a stalker and they never had sex.

Fay says that she went to confession because she felt so guilty about the sex. Weird thing is that she says that the confessional was dark and the person inside said he knew her and why she was there. God wanted her to be with Adam. She said that the person passed her a crucifix. Frankie tests the crucifix and finds that it is made of the highest quality silver. Nice gift from a killer, pyschopath or figment of Fay's imagination.

Frankie makes nice with one of her friends with access to the recreated crime scene and evidence in the Natasha Bloom case. Earlier, Frankie realized that Natasha was wearing an elaborate crucifix when she was arrested. Frankie teleconferences Boyd in while she examines the cross. (two crosses are alike) They bear the insignia of a town Cauzo Duarte (don't bother with your atlas for this one) it is a fictional town which was wiped out by an earthquake in 1954. The significant part is that such crosses have not been made since 1954, or as Frankie remarks, these crosses are as "rare as rocking horse shit." Okay, what?

Boyd and Grace meet with Natasha Bloom. It turns out Natasha won her crucifix in a contest. She is a self described competition fiend. Grace says her mother was as well. A meaningless tidbit unless of course Grace was some sort of competition prize. Grace speaks of her mother in the past tense but Natasha behaves as if both her parents are alive. I am not sure how much she can assist with her own defense if she thinks the victims are still alive. In America, she would be insane. They do not get much solid information from Natasha.

Spence realizes that there are no phone jacks in Natasha's room at her parents' house and wonders how she was receiving calls from the Shepherd. He takes his concerns one step further and asks whether anyone other than David Carney has said that Natasha was getting calls from the Shepherd. Mel volunteers to speak with David about the case.

The only opportunity for Mel to speak with David is at his brother's Ph.D ceremony. He says he reviewed his notes and Natasha only referred to calls and not phone calls. There's lots of flirting going on during this session and honestly it's creeping me out. Mel, times are not that tough.

Anyway, we need some exposition about the episode title. David leans forward and asks if she has ever heard of shadow aspect. He says we keep a part of our brain locked up because its urges and ideas are completely unacceptable. It is the part of the brain that cries out for vengence when we are wronged. It is the part of my brain that is crying out for someone to drop a building on this guy.

All things being equal, Frankie is having a much better evening with her expert. She is back at the recreated Natasha crime scene. She finds a previously undetected shoe print on the door. It means that someone kicked the door in. No one has come forward to claim credit for being the hero. When Frankie tells Boyd about it, they speculate that perhaps this person did not want to explain how they arrived at the fire so quickly.

David's brother shows up with his date and Mel invites herself along for drinks with them. Well to be fair it is somewhat ambiguous but since she is supposed to be working, maybe it is not so ambiguous. With a few drinks in them, the Carney brothers reveal their ongoing sibling rivalry. Mel is not bothered by it and indeed it must be something of a turn on because at the end of the evening she and David end up kissing.

Grace and Spence do not trust Carney and I agree with them. The one most remarkable thing about this episode, besides the obvious, is that Spence and Grace have more scenes alone than they have since the show premiered. But back to Carnery, I don't like him because he's swarmy, Grace doesn't trust him because she read more of the Eziekiel quote and it mentions a David as being the Shepherd.

The next morning, David follows through with his promise to meet with Natasha. Grace is furious that they have called him in. This is usually Boyd's reaction to psychiatrists but not this time. He tries to console Grace but let's face it, he's wrong. Grace points out that if Natasha were not imaging the Shepherd's voice then it belonged to someone who knew many details about her condition. Hey, David Carney knows details about Natasha's condition. It might not be such a good idea to also let him in on the details of the investigation.

Frankie figures out that someone had planted receivers in Natasha's room so they could speak to her. They hid a device in a painting of horses, she likes horses, which she won in one of her nifty competitions. Winning can be deadly. It also means that the Shepherd was within 200 meters of Natasha and somewhere where he could see her bedroom. They find the house, some French cigarette stubs and binocular lens covers.

Grace is in the office watching file footage of Judy Walsh. She walked into a electricity showroom (I have no idea what that is) with a rather large gun, waved it around to scare people and then shot herself in the head. Gross. If you are playing six degrees, she is one degree from our buddy David Carney. Her husband grew weary of Judy complaining about the evil electrical currents coming up through the floors and sent her to a psychiatrist. You and Mel guessed it, David Carney was her psychiatrist.

We see someone with too much time on his hands watch a young woman through a pair of binoculars. It is likely the Shepherd. The woman can see an electricity worker from her window. The caller says the worker is part of some evil plot. What is with people harassing mentally unstable people? The woman is quite distraught.

Boyd wants to talk with David again. Mel retrieves him because David no longer has a driver's license. Boyd wants to know why David never linked Natasha, Fay and Judy given all of the similarities. David says something to the effect that all of his patients are ill. The guy begins and ends in smug but Mel is still intrigued.

They call in Judy Walsh's husband to learn more about Judy's illness. She had a thing with electricity coming up through the ground. She met someone with similar views at the library but he thought that it was an imaginary friend. It is a reasonable assumption because what are the odds of going to a library to research your family history and running into another nutter. Those of us trying to solve the mystery will dismiss the coincidence and focus on this person as possibly being the Shepherd. Things become much clearer when Walsh reveals the necklace he has been toying with during the interview is really a crucifix. It looks like Fay and Natasha's he says that he found it under Judy's pillow.

Boyd thinks that maybe someone is trying to ruin Carney's professional reputaion. For his part, Carney says there was nothing to connect Judy to the other women. He says Fay did not become his patient until after the murders and he did not know her or the Dukes before then. The "someone hates David Carney enough to kill half a dozen people just to make him look like a bad psychiatrist" is a little lame.

Boyd must also realize that the theory is lame because he then starts to wonder why Adam Duke would visit his stalker six times after the murders. Despite there being nothing to connect Adam to any of the other murders, to be on the safe side they decide to take another look at Adam's injuries and his story about his parents. To be even safer they compare David's dna from his coffee they so generously gave him to the cigarette butts they found in the Shepherd's room.

Grace gives us another definition of shadow aspect. She says that Jung says that it is a projection of what we least like about ourselves onto other people. Of course Grace's interpretation is an explanation provides motive for David to be the killer. Something about balancing your life by doing the opposite of what you do during the day.

Remember the woman who seems to be the Shepherd's latest target? Well she went to a trash bin on a corner somewhere to find a package. Inside she finds a gun and a crucifix. There is also a map with a house circled in red. Most intriguing of all is a photograph of David's brother with the words, "he is the one."

David's brother, Matt, has a really nice apartment, especially for a guy who just completed his Ph.D. Their relationship is more estranged than we knew, David got the address off of his thesis. David seems perturbed that Matt read Judy Walsh's psychiatric records. David also arranged for him to meet Judy but Matt did not use any of Judy's case in his thesis. David suspects that there might be a more sinister reason for why he wanted to meet Judy. These are two weird dudes. Matt went to court because he wanted the name David. It may have something to do with their father, a famous but dead psychiatrist, also being named David. Matt should have changed his name to Dork and left it at that.

At the Duke estate, Riley, Adam's fiancee tries to give Boyd a megraine mygraine migraine. Spence and Boyd are there armed with all sorts of inconsistencies about the day the Dukes were killed. Adam has to confess that he did have sex with Fay Harding several times. Remarkably Adam's father caught them in a very compromising position the day they were killed. Adam's father went ballistic. But even with this change in his story he insists that Fay is the killer. He got caught in the cross fire when Fay tried to throw the boiling water at his father. It is still unclear to Boyd why Adam let Fay and everyone else believe that she was crazy.

Boyd begins to suspect that maybe Mel has something other than a strictly professional interest in David Carney. She suggests that someone with the Accomodations Committee may be the Shepherd because those files petitioning for care are very detailed. Anything other than poor David being involved.

Matt has been reviewing the files of all the women. He used David in order to gain access. David tricks Matt and locks him in a cell. Mel had asked David to detain Matt but I don't think she meant quite in that manner. Matt confesses that he has been feeding information to an unknown person about his female patients under 30 who have been recommended for accomodations. Matt then beats the crap out of David when he opens the cell door.

Meanwhile, Mel goes to Matt's fab flat to search it. Mel realizes she had left her mobile behind and grabs a police radio. Matt is planning to flee town. However, whben Mel arrives she finds the front door open and in a particularly bad turn of events for Matt he has been murdered. Mel steps past the dead body and casually walks through the apartment. It is a different approach to securing a crime scene.

Seated on the sofa is our friend who picked up the gun and crucifix from the trash. Her name is Emily. Mel sits down beside her. Emily has the gun in her hand which she lets Mel take from her. Emily babbles about something and says that Matt was the one who was supposed to kill her. The radio Mel brought with her goes off and the garbled sound it makes seems to upset Emily even more. Mel goes out to the fabulous balcony to request assistance. She walks out toward the railing. Emily rushes outside and runs straight into Mel's back with full force. Startled, possibly because she thought Emily would just escape through the open front door like a normal murderer, Mel stumbles forward. Emily grabs Mel's legs and forces her over the railing. Poor Mel free falls five stories to her death.

Little did Mel know that backup was on the way. Boyd and Grace drove up to Matt's apartment building just as Mel was on her way down. A loud thud startled Boyd and he stopped the car immediately. Stepping out of the car he was dessimated to see Mel's remains on his windshield and the hood and the road.

Boyd hears a shot ring out from the penthouse apartment. It is Emily doing what the justice system cannot. Boyd rushes up to Matt's flat and finds a gaggle of neighbors who have heard gunshots and screams and have come over to see what they can do or to at least call the police, okay I'm lying about the neighbors. Boyd does rush upstairs when he hears the gun shot, steps over dead Matt and finds dead Emily outside on the expansive deck.

At the office, Spence walks somberly into Frankie's lab. One look at his face and she knows the worst has happened to one of their beloved teammates. "Who?" she asks. "Mel." It must be a psychic cold case thing because really Spence wears that expression at least twice an episode. Just then the phone rings shattering the poingnant silence. Boyd tells Frankie he wants her to process the scene. She has to process the scene and let's not kid ourselves, as callous as Boyd may sound, we all know that Frankie believes she is the only one who can process this scene properly. Boyd is thoughtful enough to say that she and Spence should not drive themselves.

Big surprise, Emily is one of David's schizophrenic patients. Her thing was "authority figures, uniforms, police." When Mel's police radio went off it probably sent poor distressed Emily over the edge which caused her to send Mel over the edge.

They find evidence that Matt Carney may have been the Shepherd, at least Spence is willing to believe it, the others think that conclusion may be too simple. Spence wants answers, Boyd says he is just taking it all in. On that board thingee, Mel's name is written in large block letters as if they needed a reminder of why this has instantly become their most urgent case.

Dr. David Carney is testifying at Fay Harding's commitment hearing. He now advocates for Fay's release. Based on David's statements Fay is released. David knows from Matt that he was used but he must also know that Fay is a very dangerous individual, so what gives with him? Fay's elderly dad comes to pick her up. She lies and says she wants to walk home but instead runs straight to a waiting car to lock lips with none other than Adam Duke.

Boyd now believes that Grace was right all along about skeevy David. As soon as Boyd makes this pronouncement, Grace decides that maybe someone else wanted Fay out and is manipulating David.

In a scene that probably should have been left as a Saturday Night Live skit, the team sits around the table looking at that board thingee while we hear their internal thoughts recapping the case so far. You can recap the case so far yourself by scrolling up, voiceovers are optional.

They near the conclusion that Adam Duke threw boiing water on himself to cover patricide. Dad found him with Fay, tried to throw his loser son out of the house and Adam stabbed him in anger. Lindsay saw the murder and tried to run for help. Unfortunately, she runs for help straight into an electric fence. Adam and Fay decide that Fay should take the rap since she's not wrapped too tight. To make it better, they need Fay to fit within a pattern of crazy people told to kill by an unseen manipulator. Adam some how finds disgruntled Matt who can provide him with information and victims. And so Adam arranges for several women to "hear" instructions from a Shepherd who tells them to kill.

Armed with new theories, the Cold Case Squad minus one, show up to search Adam's place. They are looking for something that will link Adam to the box they found in Matt's apartment. They don't find anything with the first pass but just before the gates close to lock them out, Boyd realizes that unless Matt was double fisting his white wine, he had company. Adam was holding his drink but there was another glass on the table. Boyd runs back to search the property for Fay. Adam dashes out to where Fay is hiding. He says that he is in love with her and then pulls her into a kiss. He then stabs her and throws her body into the pool. For good measure he cuts himself and then yells to Boyd that he was supposed to be protecting him from Fay. Boyd fishes Fay's body out of the pool. He looks at Adam with all the disgust that a narcissistic lowlife like Adam Duke deserves.

It's over, there it is, that's it. Mel Silver is dead. If it doesn't make sense then you have it figured out.