Spoilers through “Part VI”
USA Network’s slow-simmering summer murder mystery The Sinner did not answer any important questions in this week’s sixth episode, but it did leave us on the brink of a revelation. Cora (Jessica Biel) visited the scene of whatever crime led her to murder Frankie five years later. The lake house basement of a private club apparently holds many of the answers, and seeing it for the first time in five years has reawakened Cora’s memories. The episode, however, ended before she could relay those memories to Detective Ambrose.
Whatever happened in that basement not only led to the murder of Frankie, but also the murder of J.D. and Maddie. It apparently involved a cult, an orgy, and a lot of strange masks. I suspect it may have also involved hypnosis and/or brainwashing.
There are two storylines this season, however, that are difficult to parse. The first is Ambrose’s obsession with masochism, which nearly got him killed this week when his prostitute friend almost choked him to death while they were having sex. I don’t know how — or if — Ambrose’s crumbling marriage and his sexual kinks play into the murder mystery, but six episodes in, I’m beginning to believe the subplot exists only because a show like this needs a “defective detective trope.” It’s the weak link in an otherwise gripping and tense drama.
The other opaque storyline involves Cora and her sister, Phoebe. Sinner is clearly trying to demonstrate how abusive Cora’s upbringing was. Cora’s mother blames Cora for Phoebe’s life-threatening illness, and Cora was obviously sexually abused by her father, who also frequently stepped out on his marriage. Phoebe herself acted out against their strict religious upbringing by, at first, becoming obsessed with porn, and then later essentially pimping her sister out so that Phoebe could live vicariously through Cora’s sexual exploits.
That particular storyline went from dark to incredibly disturbing this week when an ailing Phoebe — concerned that she was about to die — manipulated Cora into demonstrating on Phoebe what J.D. did with Cora. Cora not only made out with her sister, but did some major heavy petting, illustrating the extent of Cora’s psychological damage. Thanks to the emotional tricks of her mother, Cora felt so responsible for Phoebe’s illness that she was willing to essentially have sex with her bed-ridden sister just so Phoebe would know what sex felt like.
[Aside: In the sex and profanity department, USA Network has been pushing the envelope a lot in the last year. Not only did the network feature a graphic scene of incest here in Sinner, but Mr. Robot dropped several f-bombs last season, and in this season of Suits, it’s dropped two “motherf**kers,” one of which went uncensored. Watch out, FX.]
The question is: Does Cora’s relationship with her sister play directly into the events in the basement of the private club and Frankie’s subsequent murder, or is Sinner merely using Cora’s abusive background to demonstrate Cora’s frame of mind? To illustrate how easily manipulated she is? Or how receptive she might be to brainwashing? That ultimately may be a crucial element to the story, if only to help make a logical leap from the events of the basement orgy to the murder of Frankie five years later.
I am still convinced, however, that Sinner is holding back a huge twist, namely that either Cora’s father — currently in a hospital after being knocked unconscious by J.D. in the present — or Cora’s husband, Mason, were directly involved in the events in that basement. In a lot of good mystery shows, viewers can go back to the pilot episode and find clues that draw a straight line from those events to the final reveal, so it is worth noting that in the pilot episode, the first two characters we met, along with Cora, are Mason and his father.
