"Too close to home."
Camille arrives at the house, flooded with memories of her sister, voices of what she has just learned. She finds Adora, Alan, and Amma sitting at the table. Amma looking consumed in her nightgown and a flower crown is an image straight out of Byan Fuller's Hannibal, she says she's dressed as the Greek goddess Persephone, queen of the underworld. Adora goes on about how her little girl is safe now that John Keene has been arrested but Camille says she doesn't think he's the one who did it, Camille can't take her eyes off of her mother and Adora seems to sense something's up but they say nothing about it.
"All is well at last."
Adora says Camille's editor will be happy to have her back home where she belongs, she can't seem to get rid of her daughter fast enough, but Camille says maybe Amma could stay with her in St. Louis for a while. Adora looks betrayed, she says no and then she drags Amma back to her room saying she feels feverish. Camille, in an attempt to save her taking the attention off of her little sister, pretends to feel suddenly ill herself, and it works. Adora takes her up to bed and feeds her some of her "medicine", happy to have Camille not fight her for once.
"This could be good for both of us."
At the precinct, Willis and Vickery interrogate John, they tell him Ashley gave him up and he says maybe she was upset she wasn't getting what she wanted, that he only stayed with her because he didn't have the energy to face the mess breaking up would certainly be. They tell him they found Natalie's blood at the guest house and the fact that she died there seems to be news to him. Outside, Vickery and Willis talk, Willis says everyone cracks eventually even if they're innocent; maybe he's inclined to believe John now.
"We're looking at the wrong half."
The next morning, Camille wakes up looking horrible and she throws up after the ghost of Marian tells her to "get it out". She tells Amma to go get Richard and if anything happens to her she has to tell them it was Adora but Amma is screwed up way pat the point of no return and she decides to stay home and be a good girl. Adora concentrates her full attention on Camille, letting Amma get a little better and she gives her oldest daughter a bath, she says she's waited for that moment for a long time, that out of her three girls she was always the one who was most like her, but at that moment, Camille says she knows what happened to Marian, that she doesn't want the medicine but Adora just chalks it up to her feverish state.
"Ashes to ashes."
Wilis seems to be suspecting something because he goes to the house to see Camille, Alan sends him away telling him Camille is out with friends, but then Richard comes back with a warrant and Curry. They get to Camille right when it looks like she's letting go, seeing Marian lying next to her, Willis looks at her skin in horror but Curry holds her and she cries in his arms, safe at last. In the meantime, the cops are searching the house and they find the pliers used to take out the girls' teeth in Adora's kitchen so they arrest her. Later, Richard visits Camille at the hospital, he says they are charging Adora and they think Alan might be an accomplice. It seems Vickery was reluctant to believe Adora was guilty of anything but Curry nearly busted the station door down. Camille and Richard apologize to each other but after the way he looked at her with pity, any chance of romance there was dead.
"What a dick."
After a while, we see the life Camille and Amma share in St. Louis, seemingly drama free. Adora is in prison, though Amma doesn't seem to get just how evil her mother is, the term Stockholm Syndrome definitely comes to mind. Here and there we see warning signs, Amma trying to recreate her life from Wind Gap with her new friend, being subtly mean to her, making jealous comments, until one day, the mom says the girls had a fight and Camille finds a piece of the dollhouse in the trash, she goes to put it back and then she realizes the floor of one of the rooms is completely made of teeth, she's in utter shock when Amma walks in and the screen goes black. After the credits we see Amma murdering Natalie and Ann aided by her friends, and just moments before, it appears she was murdering her new friend as well. The very last shot after all the credits have rolled down, we see an image of Amma in a nightgown in the woods.
"Too much death."
Now, I have to say I'm on the fence about this, this ending seems to have gone purely for the shock factor. In the book we get a little more closure, we learn Camille was devastated by her new discovery and the day Amma was arrested she hurt herself again, then Curry and Eileen took her in and she started to learn to be taken care of by people who really meant her no harm, a year after her return to Wind Gap, she was finally on the mend. For some reason, the place where they decided to leave this last episode gave me the suspicion that they might be interested in having a second season, so they left a little leeway in terms of the story's finality; yes, it is a limited series, but it wouldn't be the first one to ignore that label. By the things I have read, I'm not sure there will be support for that to happen, and though I would watch Camille Preaker investigate the death of a dog, I feel they should've wrapped it up properly. Still, for me this was an amazing production, with a brilliant script, gorgeous imagery, and mesmerizing performances, definitely worth recommending.
"Was I good at caring for Amma because of kindness? Or did I like caring for Amma because I have Adora’s sickness? I waver between the two, especially at night, when my skin begins to pulse. Lately, I’ve been leaning toward kindness."
What did you think about the ending? Are you in for another season? Let me know in the comments.
