Sunday, February 22, 2015

Backstrom - Bogeyman


The case of a missing teenage girl hits home with Backstrom (Rainn Wilson) as the Lieutenant is the first to connect to an unsolved kidnapping and presumed homicide that nearly destroyed his sanity and his career seven years ago. The similarities in the two missing girls in both appearance and interest in goth culture leads Backstrom to claim the unit has only three days to find the missing girl before her death.

For a show that has relished in showing off the main character's ability to discern motive and method through a variety of unusual (and semi-legal) methods, "Bogeyman" offers us a look at the case that broke our protagonist and gives him a second chance to get things right. Connecting one of the missing girl's friends (Hannah Levien) with an underground website involving the same themes that enticed the first girl to go missing seven years ago, Backstrom discovers his first solid lead and, eventually, a suspect (Fred Koehler).

The episode's B-story involves the money troubles of Almond's (Dennis Haysbert) ministry which eventually ties in neatly with Backstrom's case offering a last-minute insight without which the man responsible for the missing girls would have gone free. It also provides the Lieutenant with both the time and leverage to break their suspect and make a timely rescue of more than just the psychopath's latest victim.

No comments: