Accusations fly, guilty consciences are purged, all while the threat of the widow looms over the city..  All this and more on the latest episode of Slasher: Ripper!

Spoilers Ahead – You’ve Been Warned

Tightening the Noose
Following Salomé’s murder at the end of last episode, Detective Rijkers discovers the gruesome crime scene that honestly looks like something out of a Saw trap.  He consults Dr. Israel who is horrified by what she sees.  Not because she hasn’t seen bodily gore in the past.  But because she’s grappling with her own guilt and fear that the Widow is closing in on her.

We learn via flashback that while Dr. Israel didn’t directly kill Margaret, she did dismember the corpse, so as to look like a violent street attack, at the behest of Basil Garvey of course.  This leads to her confession, which gets Basil Garvey and Georges temporarily detained, although it’s also keeping them safe from the Widow.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Simcoe struggles between dabbling in mysticism again with Georges or turning to the church and charity with the local pastor.  In the end, she kind of does both, and ends up hosting another terrifying possession, while also getting the pastor stabbed after getting into a confrontation with a disgruntled day laborer.

Verdi questions what she should do now in Basil’s “possession” and even contemplates leaving while he’s detained by the police.  Thus far, she’s been a tragic character that everything keeps happening to rather than her owning her actions.  But there may be a lot more to her (which we’ll get to).

Following the stabbing of the pastor, Dr. Israel treats him via a blood infusion.  And it’s here that the Widow demonstrates their empathy for the innocent.  Dr. Israel begs the masked killer to allow her to finish to transfusion to save the patient’s life and the masked killer surprisingly nods and pulls back; only completing the kill after the save has been made.

The Truth Shall Set You Free
One of the Widow’s original notes urged the remaining “Friends of Margaret” to confess their sins, and thus far Dr. Israel was the only one to do that.  And to be fair, the Widow does show her a certain level of respect, allowing her to finish treating the patient.

Initially, many thought that “confess” meant that doing so would save that person from death.  Instead, it sort of saves them from their own guilt and allows them to live (or die) freely.  Dr. Israel fully accepted her fate, and was the only one to take responsibility for it.

Whether it’s Verdi showing up to her sisters and being abused, or the violence that Salomé faced turning him into a willing culprit in others’ exploitation, or the very series of killings the Widow has done, Slasher: Ripper has really driven home the point about our sins from the past coming back to bite us.

Look no further than Kashtinsky, who lived a life of anger and anxiety, masked by rampant drug use, and compare that to Rijkers.  The latter faces hardships but he has a clean conscience, and that’s why he’ll prevail in the end.  In a lot of ways, this season has almost been a Victorian version of I Know What You Did Last Summer (albeit 12 summers).

Thus far, it’s been a great murder mystery with three dimensional characters.  Much like a Game of Thrones, no one person here is 100% good or 100% evil.  The writing has been campy at times, but that’s very much intentional, and while the gore has been used sparingly, when it is used, it’s used very well and effectively.

Predictions
So we’re now only two episodes from the end, and with both of them airing on Shudder next week, it’s time to do something we honestly should have been doing all along, predicting and speculating who the Widow killer may be.

For a while Georges was the obvious red herring, although we wouldn’t put it past them to prop him up as a red herring, just so we wouldn’t suspect him at all.  Honestly, the most likely candidate at this point will be a surprising one: Verdi…hear us out!

Initially, the police suspected Georges because the killings began just after he arrived in town.  Well Verdi was new to town right around the same time, making that theory just as plausible for her.  We also know that she faces constant abuse from her sisters, and that she is the product of Mr. Boticelli having an affair, likely with a prostitute.

What if all along, Verdi has been the daughter of Margaret?  We know that Margaret sold herself when she had to, and it’s plausible that maybe she had a daughter from that; one who was just a child when her mother was murdered, but now 12 years later has returned a young adult hellbent on revenge.
Food for thought…

What did you think of the latest episode of Slasher: Ripper?  What did you think will happen next week?  Let us know in the comments!

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