Gilded Cage
Episode 4 of The Alienist Season 2 begins with Sara tasking one of her fellow PI’s, Bitsy Sussman, with infiltrating the Lying-In Hospital. As she heads back to the agency, Libby greets Sara and takes Martha’s case file back. On the way out the door, Sara asks whether Colleen is capable of taking a child. However, we don’t get an answer to the question. The next scene sees us cut across to the hospital where Matron realizes that Libby has hold of Martha’s case. On the back of Libby sneaking in her office, Matron berates Libby and continuously calls her stupid. In the background, Bitsy happens to be listening from afar. On the back of this, our undercover agent feeds back to Sara what she’s learned. All of the women brought in to the hospital have had stillborns…at least that’s what they’ve been told. Sara thanks her colleague and tasks her with getting to know Colleen and becoming her friend. If she can do that, Sara encourages her to find out if Colleen’s child was stillborn as well. On top of all this, Sara asks Bitsy to find the drugs and see if they’ve been stolen from the supplies at the Lying-In Hospital. While snooping, Bitsy is caught in the act by Colleen who suspiciously asks her what she’s doing. Meanwhile, Laszlo and Sara attend John Moore’s ball. Realizing that Markoe will be there, they decide to attend and confront him. When John learns what Sara plans to do, he certainly shows his disdain and encourages her not to embarrass Violet. Well, that embarrassment is certainly cast on John as his Father-in-law presents some “gentle ribbing” about his class and lack of money. This is then incredulously followed by some back-handed comments from Violet herself. Sara watches from afar and clearly isn’t happy. After this encounter, Sara confronts John and tells him Violet is trying to buy him off and seduce him. Laszlo meanwhile finds Osgood and questions him over Colleen and whether she’s the one responsible for the killings. He confirms that Colleen is hot-blooded and when we cut across to the hospital, we see that first-hand. Bitsy asks Colleen about Markoe but midway through talking, she suddenly stands up and walks away. Back at the party, Laszlo finds himself in the company of Professor Karen and together they wind up analyzing the crowd. After handing over her card, she walks away as Laszlo reflects positively on what just happened. Dressed in her best evening gear, Helen waltzes into the room and pleads with Markoe for her baby. Sara arrives on the scene though and tries to convince her to help. However, the woman is not of sane-mind and when Markoe arrives, she decides to walk away with him. That evening, in the aftermath of the events at the party, the group gather to discuss what they know about the case so far. Senora Linares arrives and mentions a face at the ward who wasn’t behaving as they should. With all the photographs gathered from that day, Senora Linares points one out, causing Sara to gasp. The group race up to the hospital where they find Libby – not Colleen – is getting a needle ready. As Libby bolts from the scene after injecting Bitsy, she slips into the shadows while our PI thankfully wakes up. Libby heads over to the Matron’s house and asks for sanctuary. As the Matron asks what she’s done, Libby suddenly turns and calls her stupid repeatedly before stabbing her in the throat, which is where the episode ends.
The Review Write-Up
With the suspect finally revealed as Libby, all the previous signs now make sense. Given the story about Libby’s Dad last episode, it seems likely that this may have been one of the catalysts that have driven her down this slippery path. It’ll be interesting to see what the full story is here though and I’m sure over time we’ll find out. Given we now know who’s responsible at the halfway point, the final four episodes do feel in danger of losing some of that initial mystery. Still, there’s plenty to like with this series though and the cinematography and visual design is just as good here as it was during the first season. For now though, The Alienist bows out with one of its strongest episodes this year but quite how the second half will transpire, remains to be seen.
