The Alienist finale review: A killer confronted, John faces his feelings for Sara
Is Laszlo back on the case?
The last episode had Laszlo in such despair that he removed himself from the case and locked himself away, but he’s finally ready to talk to someone and that someone is Sara. This conversation was really important for these two characters since both have issues opening up and they both felt that it was time to do so with each other. We learned that they both have very troubled relationships with their fathers – it seems that Laszlo’s father is the reason his arm was permanently injured and Sara’s father tried to commit suicide and she’s the one that found him. It was an incredibly important moment between them, not just so we can get Laszlo back working on the case (which is happening), but so that they can have a much better understanding of each other moving forward and maybe their friendship can help both of them open up with other people and even be more honest with themselves.
Where’s Joseph?
When John ends up at the bath-house and sees that the boy who was murdered is not Joseph we had a sigh of relief along with John. The issue is we know that Joseph is being held by Beecham (who is torturing cats as well as Joseph), and John is feeling tremendous guilt over just giving Joseph money and not actually taking him in and giving him safety.
The police commissioner is feeling the pressure now that another murder has taken place even with the knowledge that they know where this killer lives and they know his name (although with the amount of time the team is spending in Beecham’s home we suspect that he won’t be returning there again). They have about a week until the next holy day where they suspect another boy will be murdered and with Joseph no where to be found they worry he might be next.
As the days trudge on they find themselves at the next holy day. They have a few ideas on where this murder might take place, but it’s a big city and with Beecham using both heights and water now in his killings, it’s making the landscape of his murderous plots much harder to track down. Laszlo sends Sara and the rest of team to dummy location after seeing that Beecham did not take the eyes of his latest victim. He has another idea of where he is and he goes there alone with John. Why split up the team Laszlo!? He wanted an opportunity to ask Beecham why he was killing these boys, and get a deeper look inside the mind of this killer – unfortunately, he never had that chance.
Laszlo and John find the right place where Beecham has Joseph and they are hot on his trail. We aren’t going to get too much into the back and forth that Beecham had with John and Laszlo as he stealthily took them each out (this guy could give Spider-Man a serious run for his money), but it was a lot of fun to watch them get the killer and save Joseph.
The part of this whole show that’s been sticking out like a sore thumb for us involves the character of Connor. Yes, we get that he’s pissed off about losing his job, and that the Alienist team was brought in to do his job. We also know he’s a wannabe rapist and murderer himself, but seeing him follow John and Laszlo to catch Beecham made us lose our ability to buy into this storyline any further than we have. We understand that Connor was brought in to take down the murderer and help save the police department some embarrassment, but there’s clearly more to it. Does he want to be the one to bring in Beecham and have all the glory? Does he just want to have a chance to straight up murder Laszlo and John? For us, he’s a character that really should’ve been dropped after he got fired, and definitely doesn’t need to be creeping around here. Seems like his motive is really all of the above: Connor shoots Beecham and then takes this opportunity to try to murder everyone and blame it on Beecham, but Sara shows up in time to shoot him.
John’s confession of love
We’ve seen John dancing around his feelings for Sara all season long and at one point even testing the waters to see if he proposed to her if she would say yes. The finale is bringing us a full confession of his feelings as he tells Sara that he’s in love with her. She doesn’t respond with words, but they do share a small kiss letting us think that she may be considering moving their relationship into something more romantic. She’s incredibly closed off, so we do wonder if there’s a chance that regardless of what she feels, she just won’t be open to any kind of relationship with anyone. Working with this team has opened Sara up a bit as she’s developed some friendships, but we worry that it’s not enough to move forward with John.
Related – Want to know about The Alienist season 2?
CarterMatt Verdict
While there were a few problems for us with the season finale of The Alienist, the thing we liked the most about it was how they developed these friendships. We even saw Laszlo give John the engagement ring that he had for Mary to give to “someone he cares for” (obviously Sara), which is a nice little cliffhanger for a season 2 if i’ts renewed. While the murder mystery has been a lot of fun to watch this season, we found ourselves much more involved in the characters and their interactions with each other and the world around them. While we suspect that a season 2 would have a new case for the group to work on, we are much more invested in the progression of these friendships and relationships.
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