The Fall S3 E3 The Gates of Light

The Fall season 3 episode 3 is titled “The Gates of Light.” Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan) is strong enough to get up and walk around the hospital, although he’s still in ICU. Beware the spoilers.

Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson) and her team think they’ve found 9 more murders that could be Spector’s. This is based on the books and photos found in his storage unit. They start researching it – hoping to match up Spector’s journals with a recorded case. Anderson (Colin Morgan) finds a case from 2002 involving a man now in prison for a murder like Spector’s. The man was at the same school as Paul Spector. The team has another lead.

Rose Stagg (Valene Kane) comes to the precinct to give a statement. Stella interviews her with Dani Ferrington (Niamh McGrady) in the room. After giving all the facts, Rose describes how she feels. Both Stella and Dani look sympathetic. Stella takes Rose’s hands and reminds her that she survived, that’s it’s over.

Two lawyers, Healey (Aidan McArdle) and Wallace (Ruth Bradle) visit Paul in his hospital room. They read him the list of charges against him. He claims to have no memory of any of it. He does admit to recognizing Rose because he knew her before 2006. He’s very convincing with his amnesia, but I’m not at all sure he isn’t faking it.

There’s a preliminary court hearing. Spector is in the hospital in front of a camera. Everyone else is in a court room. He confirms his name and date of birth. When asked to confirm his address, he says, “I’m told that’s where I live.” This gives the lawyer Healey a chance to make the case that he isn’t competent to stand trial because of his amnesia. The judge (Andrea Irvine) orders that Spector be sent for forensic evaluation by a psychiatrist.

That psychiatrist is August Larson (Krister Henriksson). He calls Stella late at night to talk about the case, and strikes me as a bit creepy. It could just be the creepy music and all the significant pauses in the conversation between him and Stella that made him seem creepy. Stella tells him that in her experience, once a person becomes violent they don’t change. Larson hasn’t actually met Spector yet.

After the few moments in front of the camera for the court, Spector is returned to his hospital bed. The nurse Kiera Sheridan (Aisling Bea) asks him all sorts of questions about his near death experience. He tells her exactly what we saw at the beginning of episode 1 of this season with the tunnel and the voices. Near death experiences seem to be a thing with her.

When the Nurse leaves for the night, she tells Spector she’ll pray for him. We get a close up of him looking very satisfied with himself.

Spector’s wife and kids are not quite so pleased with things. Even though Stella argues against it, Sally Ann Spector (Bronagh Waugh) is going to be charged as an accomplice because she originally gave Paul alibis for the nights of his crimes. She’s looking depressed and hopeless. She’s popping little blue pills. She uses the same pills to drug Olivia (Sarah Beattie) and Liam (David Beattie). She packs the kids into the back seat of her car and drives right up to the edge of the ocean like she plans to drive in and drown them all. Yikes!

So far season 3 hasn’t been as breath-holding tense as past seasons. We’re playing a waiting game. Waiting to see if people recover. Waiting to see if this amnesia thing is going to get Paul treated differently by the law. Waiting to see if Stella and her team can put together more evidence against Spector. We even have to wait to see if Sally Ann drives into the ocean. Now that Spector is through the worst of his recovery, I suspect things will heat up.