Guilt recap: Exit Wounds

Hell hath no fury like internet commenters (except EW’s, of course; you rock).

Grace Atwood’s Twitter page — perhaps not coincidentally, the real account shown is a private page that launched in May of this year — has become a sounding board for web bullies, and because she simply can’t ignore them or even turn off the constant bing-bong noise of her notifications, the feedback is driving her a little nuts. But good old Grace knows an opportunity when she sees it, then, doesn’t she?

Meanwhile, Patrick Ryan’s somehow survived the incident at the Lindley house, but the trouble’s far from over for him… or is it? And Roz, well, she’s proving herself to be quite the little master manipulator herself.

Here’s a character-by-character breakdown of who’s guilty of what this week.

Grace Atwood

At this point, it’s getting pretty hard to take this girl at face value, and no one knows that better than Stan Gutterie, her own attorney. Maybe it’s the fact that he doesn’t think apples fall far from the tree — even stepdad trees — or maybe it’s just that he’s been in the legal defense business long enough to read between the lines of what a client’s saying out loud. Whatever it is, though, he feels sure she’s pulling the long con on everyone, up to and including her own earnest sister, and Grace’s behavior this week does nothing but confirm that suspicion for him.

Grace, who’s been pummeled with accusations on social media after being dubbed an #AmericanPsycho for her perceived nonchalance after Molly’s tearful memorial service last week, appears to be taking all the virtual criticism and accusations to heart. She’s not sleeping well, and she’s even steering clear of her boyfriend, Luc, to avoid the media frenzy that would inevitably follow them if they spent any time together again.

Natalie, oh she of endless naiveté when it comes to her baby sister, offers up her own sleeping pills as a solution, but that backfires in a big way when Grace downs almost an entire bottle and winds up in the hospital, having her stomach pumped to avoid joining the growing body count this mess has produced. She swears to her adoring sis that she wasn’t trying to harm herself — she just lost count of how many pills she’d taken — but then her next act, done while sending sister dearest on a miles-away run for a special brand of banana smoothie, confirms there’s definitely more to her than meets the eye.

Instead of slinking into whatever bit of anonymity might be possible for her amidst the chaos, Grace uses her hospital bed as a live-feed platform to declare her innocence — at least where Molly Ryan’s death is concerned. She does admit to a few other unrelated wrongdoings, like bedding her best friend’s boyfriend back in high school and shoplifting some nail polish. But killing her roommate? She swears it didn’t happen. “I’ve made some major mistakes, but there’s one thing I didn’t do; I didn’t kill Molly Ryan. She was my friend. She knew all that crap about me and she still loved me,” she insists, adding a glass-house-ish plea for everyone to stop throwing stones at her, online or otherwise. And it works.

Not only does she exonerate herself in the court of public opinion, but she turns the narrative around altogether, and instead of being perpetually pelleted with insults, her phone’s now blowing up with supportive hashtag concoctions that help her finally (finally!) relax a little bit.

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Is it all just a game for Grace? She certainly plays Beatrice Lindley like a fiddle when she comes to her hospital room to exact her jealous wifely revenge, doesn’t she?

Guilt-O-Meter reading: 7 out of 10. It’s still just circumstantial evidence and hunches surrounding her right now, so no real reason to knock it up again…yet.

NEXT: She proves she’s got lots of tricks up her sleeves…

Luc Pascal

Our French friend’s likability level went up just a smidgen this week during his brief screen time, thanks to appearing genuinely concerned for Grace’s well-being and daring to brave the furious fiasco of paparazzi to be at her side during her time of need, even though she ultimately declined his offer.

Really, Luc’s been off the grid since the pilot, which means he’s either hiding something major, or there’s really nothing to see here. Let’s be cautiously optimistic and assume the latter — for now.

Guilt-O-Meter reading: He drops to a 3, thanks to back-to-back weeks of innocuous activities like painting and being a supportive boyfriend.

Natalie Atwood

Her biggest crime is showing up unexpected to her family’s lawyer’s house and being a little weird about wanting Grace’s passport back. Still, she’s really not guilty of anything aside from having a bleeding heart. Sure, she exhibited some questionable behavior before when she snatched the scarf (potential evidence of her stepfather’s involvement in the Molly Ryan murder) first and asked questions later, but that’s ancient history at this point.

Guilt-O-Meter reading: Apart from delivering nasty (albeit mic-drop-worthy) disses to the rag reporter who seizes an opportunity to gather some goods about Grace, she’s still free and clear of any charges. 2 out of 10 it stays, then.

Roz Walters

Roz is nobody’s fool, that much is clear now.

Stan Gutterie might have been able to have his cake and eat it too when it came to dealing with the first round of blackmail in this case — that is, keeping the evidence and the loot from Stephanie with the bad video — but he learns the hard way that the person holding Molly’s phone (and the damaging picture of James in his dealings with Russia mafiosos) ransom can’t be played quite as easily. It’s Roz, of course, but he doesn’t know that. And she makes sure he doesn’t know that by staging an elaborate bullies-on-a-bus beatdown that secures her access to the money, the return of the phone, and her continued anonymity. Boss behavior, right there. And now she can pay off Finch for whatever Caleigh’s reluctance to join the underground sex party scene before might have cost him.

Guilt-O-Meter reading: 6 out of 10. We still don’t have a lot of ground to stand on in suspecting her of Molly’s murder, but she’s definitely not innocent.

Prince Theo

The royal wedding is still a go, for now, and when his bride-to-be is around, Prince Theo’s a patron saint of groomly goodness. But whenever the guileless princess-to-be looks the other way, he’s a scoundrel through and through, and even he suspects himself of being the one who impregnated Molly Ryan. He knows how it would look — and the media hubbub that would ensue — if his DNA is linked to the fetus.

Instead of playing this with a paycheck like everyone else, he shows himself into Detective Bruno’s house to try and win him over with his culinary skills and an offer to keep each other’s secrets. Yes, even Bruno has a past he doesn’t want exposed.

Guilt-O-Meter reading: 9 out of 10. It’s starting to feel a little too easy with him, which means he probably didn’t kill Molly Ryan.

Det. Sergeant Alex Bruno

Whatever’s happening with Prince Theo is definitely a space to watch — because whoever this Donovan Tremblay is, it’s not good. Theo taunts him with, “He didn’t bring (out the) best in you, now did he? You can lie to your colleagues, you can lie to your boss, you can even lie to your mum, but you will never lie to me.” And with that, he’s suddenly beholden to a potentially major baddie. Yikes.

Guilt-O-Meter reading: 5 out of 10. Major jump for the new mystery.

Detective Pike

Just a detective doing detective-y things.

Guilt-O-Meter reading: 0. Zip. Nada.

Gwendolyn Hall

Things are starting to get really interesting between Lady Gwen and Sir Patrick. Last week, she and Bruno were shown enjoying each other’s company outside of work, so it’s not like that with Molly Ryan’s big brother (at least not right now). But she does seem to have something of a soft spot for him — either she’s just got really good gut instincts about people, or she’s been on the receiving end of false accusations herself before.

Her family-of-the-victim sympathy status isn’t enough to unnecessarily endanger or potentially incriminate herself, of course; she slyly dials Bruno before patching Patrick up after he sneaks into her house. But after he’s able to prove his innocence in the Jeffrey Lindley attack, she uses her prosecutorial discretion to cut him a break on the assault and B&E charges, provided he immediately leaves London for good and leaves the justice-seeking to her. For the time being, she’s still well above the line here.

Guilt-O-Meter reading: Still nil.

NEXT: This one’s dead and done…

Patrick Ryan

The good news is Pat survived the mini-massacre at the Lindleys. The bad news is Beatrice Lindley has made putty of the police with her story that Patrick broke in and shot Jeffrey. She admits to putting one in Patrick, too, in self-defense, but the cops completely believe her — even Gwen’s convinced at first because he’s made zero secret of his thirst for vengeance against the victim in question — which leaves him injured and on the run.

After a failed attempt at petty convenience-store theft for some remedial necessities, he goes to Gwen and states his case that he didn’t shoot Lindley. She says she believes him, but the sudden arrival of sirens says otherwise. Thanks to Bruno’s eye for distinguishing entry and exit wounds at the station, however, it doesn’t take long for the truth to come to light and for his wrists to be handcuff-free again.

Guilt-O-Meter reading: Eh, let’s kick it up a notch to 4, just because he did try to rob a store and trespass.

James

Dirtbag’s still dirty. We find out he’s in deep with the Russian criminal underbelly, which means it’s more than his clean criminal record that concerns him with Molly’s missing cell. So, it’s hardly surprising he’ll shell out thousands of quid to whoever’s holding it hostage. The guy’s the human version of feces. Fancy human feces, but still.

Guilt-O-Meter reading: Off the charts.

Stan Gutterie

Even though he does try (and fail miserably) to double down on his “get the blackmail evidence and the client’s money back” approach, it’s a no-go this time. He’s smart enough to intuit that the shaggy-haired slouch who shows up at the mobile drop spot isn’t the guy (he’s not thinking far enough outside the box to even conceive that it’s a woman, natch) playing games with James. But he doesn’t see it coming when a gaggle of bullies hops the bus and snatch the loot (and phone) for themselves, and he certainly doesn’t seem to connect two and two back to Roz. He tells James it’s all taken care of, but that’ll come back to bite him in the hind region sooner than later, no doubt about it.

He does have a healthy respect for what Grace has pulled with her “natural spin-doctor” maneuver — so he does deserve points for seeing right through her veil of wide-eyed innocence — but otherwise, he’s suffering a sudden decline in cunningness right now.

Guilt-O-Meter reading: Let’s go with 2 this time.

Professor Jeffrey Lindley Beatrice Lindley

Welp. The problematic professor does indeed succumb to his wounds, and his wife is ultimately pegged as the shooter who becomes both a criminal and a caricature of vengeant cuckolds.

What’s interesting about Bea, though, is that she’s willing to let Grace talk her down from stabbing her with a needle (filled with some kind of lethal death juice, probably), even though she doesn’t really accept her apologies for getting busy with her husband. What does give her enough pause for the police to detain her is Grace’s question of whether killing Jeffrey actually made her feel better. “No,” Bea admits. “I don’t suppose killing you will help either.” The truest WTF moment happens, though, when Grace and Beatrice share an extended smile with one another as she’s carted off by the police. They seem thick as thieves in that moment, although that could just be that they’re both a little off their rockers.

Guilt-O-Meter reading: 10 out of 10 for Bea.