‘The Fall’ season 3, episode 1 review: Did Paul Spector die or did Stella arrest him?

We left “The Fall” season 2 with a pretty major cliffhanger as police were lead out into the woods by Paul Spector towards Rose Stagg’s location and shots were fired hitting Paul and Anderson. It has been a very long with for “The Fall” season 3 to find out what happened and with actor Jamie Dornan now cast as Christian Grey in the “Fifty Shades of Grey” film series we don’t know how much time he is going to have available to continue his role on this show. With all of the speculation that has been floating around about the fate of Paul, it’s finally time to see what’s going to happen to him.

We pick up in season 3 with Paul being rushed to the hospital (in police custody) with his gun shot wound – there is no time lapse and we are thankful to be thrown right back in the action… or at least that’s what we thought was happening. We spent pretty much the whole episode in the hospital with Paul being touch and go and while we know that it was intended to build tension for the viewer, we found it dragging. Sally is told that Paul has been shot, and she decides to tell her children that he’s been in a car accident instead of the truth since they are a little young, but when she’s away from the computer, Sally’s daughter sees pictures of Paul’s arrest.

Rose Stagg is also being treated at the same hospital for her wounds and detectives are taking any forensic evidence they can find on her to link Paul to her. She is stable and reunited with her husband, Tom, but it looks like they have a long road ahead of them towards healing.

The higher ups think that Gibson handled this situation quite badly, but are happy that Rose was found alive. They want to keep Stella away from the media and making statements, and she still has her job for now. Unfortunately, she’s under Jim’s watchful eye from now on. After a media announcement is made about Paul, Katie freaks out and tries to get to the hospital to see him. Her mother stops her by reminding her that because of her bail conditions she can’t be with Paul.

Anderson confronts Stella about her actions at the scene, saying that he was shocked that she ran to Paul even though he had also been shot. He also tells her that she sounded “anguished” that she was going to lose Paul, and she explains that it was about Paul not serving justice and the anguish the families were going to feel if he just died and didn’t pay for his crimes.

We spent the first 30 minutes watching doctors take care of Paul Spector at the hospital spinning medical terms that very few understand and while we saw that they are trying to build tension with whether or not Paul was going to live, we actually found the first part of the episode to drag. Paul is still alive (in ICU), and with him still being in bad shape, he’s not in handcuffs just yet. Episode grade: B-

What did you think of the premiere of “The Fall” season 3? leave us a comment in the box below.