In the narrative of the girl whose murder starts getting unravelled there’s always the same suspects and key players. Let’s see how they rank up in Freeform's latest teen drama "Guilt":
The close friend
I had a weird dream I stepped in a puddle of my flatmate's blood. Wait did that actually happen?Grace Atwood is your typical 20 something American gal who’s living in London. We don’t know exactly what she's studying but there’s no time to worry about such things when you open the door of your laundry room to find your flatmate brutally slashed to death.
The pilot opens up with Grace’s interrogation and flashes back to 12 hours before the murder when she’s partying with Molly (dead flatmate) at a club. In my experience clubs in the UK tend to always play the same thing but instead of blasting Stormzy this is some cool underground rave party.
After inviting some people over to the flat, Grace passed out on the roof with French dude. I made a note to mention how cool and swift the flashback montage of the actual murder was: Molly drops a glass of wine that shatters on the floor as someone picks up a steel knife and pins her to the wall.
Grace is understandably catatonic after these events and calls her sister Natalie, who ironically is an assistant D.A. involved in a murder case of her own. After her (thwarted) attempt to run out of the country and take the Eurostar train to Paris, Natalie takes her to a hotel paid by their filthy rich step-father (Who has been known to have a liking for younger girls).
Do we think Grace had anything to do with the murder of Molly the Irish girl? Not as of now. She may have stepped in her blood accidentally when she was wasted but she had no real motive since she doesn't appear to have known about Molly and her boyfriend (see below).
After she goes in for questioning and gets herself a lawyer, Grace is attacked by a vicious mob of reporters who corner her on the street. If there’s one thing I would like to change right now it would be to have Grace be more in control: I want to see her get smarter and try to solve the murder herself in order to clear her name.
I would like to add that I really enjoy having the media as part of the main narrative (which is the case for most shows centering around a murder) but it would have been nice to do that in a more original way. Maybe by including the reaction of the Twitter-verse or Facebook or something. Maybe sparking a conversation about assault and violence against women or how Grace being the main suspect is an issue in itself?
The episode ends with Grace re-watching a video she took of Molly at the club as she smiles and bites her lip. Gay, murderer or both? I give this character a 4/5 rating and I give her brilliant attorney sister a 4/5 as well, for that ingenious coffee stain stunt, the jury really fell for that one.
The boyfriend
Merde.From the first second we see this guy, we have to assume he had something to do with the murder. Splattering red paint on a canvas doesn’t really make you any less sketchy than you already are, Luc.
Your sultry french accent fools no one. It turns out Molly was also hooking up with Grace's boyfriend and of course when confronted about it by the police Luc denied it. You can’t deny a pregnancy test though, can you? Following the tropes of popular murder "Whodunnits", Molly was revealed to be pregnant in the autopsy. #Whoisthefater.
I know we aren’t supposed to trust him but maybe this should be our hint telling us he’s not really the killer. I will rate this character 1/5 because he looked really cool in the ending scene when he was smoking his pipe.
The detective
Oh, I have a medical condition all right. It's called caring too much. And it's incurable.“You wanna play the odds and collect your pension? That’s fine but I’m gonna chase down every lead no matter how inconvenient until I know who killed Molly Ryan”. The detective is a handsome hero cop who’s really invested in helping Grace and getting to the bottom of what happened to Molly.
There’s not much to him apart from his keen detective eye that realises the sock monkey Molly had on her bed disappeared. His theory is that Molly was being watched by someone like Grace said and that the stalker had been collecting various items of hers as mementos. I will bet 10£ that he'll be hooking up with Natalie by the end of the season.
Bruno doesn’t believe Grace did it, even if the DA tells him not to be naive because you should "never underestimate a jealous girl". I give him a 2/5 and I remain apprehensive because I have learnt not to trust the white male cops on murder shows.
The lawyer
That's what I do, I drink and I know things.Described as an “ethically questionable lawyer” Stan is a peculiar man who enjoys feeding acorns to squirrels and telling his neighbours off for having sex too loudly. As an audience we are meant to be really shocked with his rude and unfiltered remarks.
He’s portrayed as someone who doesn’t give a damn about the rules and knows how to manipulate evidence and help his clients whether or not they’re guilty. He’s essentially the Annalise Keating of the Guilt universe... only less badass and less interesting.
Stan could no longer practice law in the US and so he moved to London and I really like the contrast of the mainly British cast versus him, Grace and Natalie. In general, it’s refreshing to see a murder mystery that’s not set in the USA although in general, the show treats the UK the way an American would see it as opposed to how it actually is.
If only this was shot in Brighton, where I currently live. I rate him 3/5 for giving Grace Xanax in order to shut her up.
The older man
Heard about your flatmate... so sad. We should hook up again?When Grace is walking along her University (Murder Univeristy, London) campus a white-bearded professor with slicked back hair approaches her and gives his condolences for Molly. He tells her grief is a bitch and that she should take it easy. Grace doesn’t take his shit and asks him if he will be grieving Molly’s death too.
While the show hasn’t revealed this yet, it’s safe to assume he was hooking up with Molly too right? This would make him the second man she shared with Grace because, as we later find out by the Detective, Grace had also been having an affair with him. It even caused her to slash his tires, when she found out he was married (or at least that’s what she said).
Grace should really keep an eye on this guy, he might have been the one who was following her at night in the dark streets London. That being said, I am starting to think that perhaps Grace’s step-father should be the main contender for the older guy Molly was seeing. How else do you explain his scarf being left in her room? I give them both a 0/5 for being creepy and hope Molly's Bro can find enough evidence against them and avenge her death.
The royal prince who runs a sex trafficking business in his own bedroom
Glad to see the tax money of the British public is being put to good use.This was by far the most fun twist of the pilot and the whole show so far. We knew someone may have potentially been stalking Molly and eventually we meet this ripped young lad who’s recounting the origins of Squab to a lady tied to his bed. His dirty talk needs some improvement but who cares about that when you’re PRINCE THEO AND YOU LIVE IN BUCKINGHAM EFFING PALACE.
He’s in his limo, on his way to the palace, when he tells his butler (?) that he did not enjoy his latest sex slave because she was not Molly. Molly’s stalker = The Prince of England! I wonder if Elizabeth approves of this. This reveal was done perfectly.
I loved how the smaller subplots of the pilot all tied down together in the end. For example, the third flatmate (the cute and queer DJ) offered her one night stand a job to make crazy money and ended up at Prince Theo’s sex palace.
He gets a 5/5 because he so perfectly embodies and exemplifies the toxic patriarchy. Also, I give Roz a 5/5 for her rainbow hair and taste in women that look like Taylor Swift.
First impressions:
The Pilot, directed by Gary Fleder and Written by Kathryn Price & Nichole Milliard, was a solid if not great beginning to an intense and scandalous murder mystery. It’s hard not to compare it to its predecessors as well as other teen murder mysteries on air but I think it has the potential to be its own unique thing. This may be one of the few murder shows that already gives us a ton of important details about the victim in the very first episode. Let's take a moment to appreciate the stock footage of London.
Notes:
The foreshadowing in this episode was really cool
1) In the flashback, we see Molly looking very displeased when Grace and Luc are making out and then we see someone slice a lime with the murder weapon.
2) Grace says “Molly, get up we’re in trouble” foolishly thinking cleaning up is the only thing she’ll have to worry about
3) The medical examiner says that if Molly was raped the killer had taken precautions and at the same time Luc is wrapping his arms around Grace
4) The older professor appears in the background as Stan is talking to the press. We zoom into his face when Stan says the word “guilty” and later on when he says that “there’s a madman loose in London”
Favourite shot/scene:
Grace wakes up on the roof. Initially, I feel very uneasy as this girl open her eyes and look right into the camera. As her surroundings are revealed, I start to calm down yet there's still a lingering sense of danger in that swanky flat overlooking the London Eye and the Gherkin.
Favourite quote:
-You have to trust the system.
-To get justice for a Northern Irish girl? No offence Lady but my people have been gettin' bent over by your system for centuries.
#justicefortheIrish
Episode Rating: 3/5
Next on Guilt:
#AmericanPsycho airs next and everything is looking soapier and edgier than ever. See you all next week and thank you very much for reading my first ever review. Let me know what you think in the comments: Did you enjoy it? Who’s your main suspect? Were there any clues and hints you found that I missed? How did Guilt get away with showing so much blood on a Freeform Tv series?
