After a season of madness and shenanigans, Murphy finally found Jess.
It’s been a rough season of In the Dark, but In the Dark Season 3 Episode 12 finally delivered on the 11-episode mystery surrounding the status of Jessica, and it was something else. What? You can decide.
Here are the highlights, lowlights, and WTF-lights of the hour.
Murphy Mason P.I., Outpolicing the Police
Begrudging kudos to the series for dragging out this Jennifer Walker situation. By golly, we got invested.
At this rate, can we get Murphy Mason a P.I. license since she’s already running circles around law enforcement when it comes to solving cases? She’s a one-woman show with Pretzel in tow.
Despite the preposterous nature of this case, it wasn’t surprising that Murphy would stumble right into finding out Jennifer’s creepy uncle was an incestuous pedophile who has been keeping his niece in the basement this entire time.
Murphy resorted to using her feminine wiles, manipulating sweet ladies in the grocery store, and the usual Murphy antics to get close to Creepy Uncle, sneak back into his home, and discover Jennifer.
Jennifer was who we saw in that flash. The poor girl is suffering from some serious Stockholm Syndrome and under the impression that sleeping in the locked basement room, not seeing the light of day, and having her uncle deliver her tampons on the regular is synonymous with love.
Murphy is too good of a person to leave Jennifer there despite the deal she struck with Creepy Uncle, so hopefully, a rescue mission is in the works.
Lesley Bell is that B*tch (No, but really, in both ways)
The Millennial Mod Squad got a lead on that little pink gun that belonged to Lesley, and naturally, they used that to muscle their way into her home with a warrant, searching for Murphy.
Is Lesley the worst? Absolutely, but she’s badass when she gets into lawyer mode, and when she let Gene and Josh have it, it was a fist-pump moment. Enough of Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle Dumber running roughshod around multiple states as if the laws and rules don’t matter.
However, Lesley lying and gaslighting her brother about kicking Murphy out was some certified bullcrap. Lesley’s stances don’t make sense no matter how you slice it.
She’s fine harboring Max, a fugitive, as long as he’s slipping her the D. Lesley begrudgingly has decided that she’s the best sister in the world and wants to protect Felix. But she’s put everything under the sun on Murphy as the guilty party.
To refresh your memories, Max laundered money and maybe slung dope for Nia before he met Murphy. Felix and Jess stole Nia’s money and kickstarted a great deal of this. Murphy was … trying to find out who murdered her friend.
It was beyond satisfying when both Felix and Max went off on Lesley. Regardless of how she attempted to clean it up later and resorted to the same emotional manipulation that she accused Murphy of (game recognizes game), her motivations for turning a blind woman away in the middle of the night, during a snowstorm, with only $20 were clear.
She doesn’t like that Max still has feelings for her, and she’s harboring some grudge against Murphy because of the guilt she had as a crappy sister to Felix, but you know, while still being a crappy sister. Make it make sense.
Poor, Pathetic Felix
They’ve doubled down on this narrative that Felix is this poor and pathetic puppy who keeps getting kicked.
It’s uncomfortable, and it’s gotten old, and can we please get off of this ride now?
As if the 1000 other things they’ve done to Felix this season weren’t enough, we got this. He finally shared that he did sleep with Murphy to defend himself against Lesley’s claims that he’s unf*ckable, only to have Max dismiss what happened because Murphy will sleep with anything with a penis.
Felix gets no respect.
But then Lesley shares that Felix is always the poor, pathetic sap who got sucked into saving women if they so much as paid him an ounce of attention.
She credits their mother for screwing Felix up and making him this emasculated man with no scruples, but Lesley also has treated her brother like crap all season, so, I mean, she’s not exempt?
Can Felix ever get a win? It’s not funny, cute, endearing, or anything else. It’s all-around uncomfortable to watch.
And then Felix proved Lesley’s point to her (though I maintain that Murphy is his best friend and that matters for something here) by confessing to murdering Nia so that they could leave Murphy alone.
Chicago PD, Our Arse! Can Josh Kick Rocks Now?! I’m BEGGING!
Why do they keep giving Josh all of the authority of a police officer when he is not in law enforcement?!
Josh’s rushing onto scenes first, speaking to witnesses ahead of Gene, and interrogating people as if he’s been on the force for a decade — all of it is absurd.
Did anyone hear Josh shouting out Chicago PD when they barged into Lesley’s home? Sir, you are not! Stop impersonating an officer, you vindictive twat!
Once again, Josh threw hissy fits that he didn’t have Murphy in his clutches, and somehow he’s getting away with seething so much he’s practically frothing at the mouth about wanting Murphy in jail and how he’s going to make sure she gets all the things she has coming to her.
Does due process not matter in this universe?
Josh’s vendetta blinds him (pardon the pun), and it all stems from Murphy breaking his heart. Go to therapy and resolve your issues with women, good sir. Also, is he not going blind anymore?!
Justice for Sarah!
Let’s rewind this a bit. Josh and Gene are responsible for Murphy slipping through their fingers multiple times. They were the ones who let a handcuffed blind woman waltz out of the police station.
Gene is letting some Desk Jockey from the IRS go on a rampage under his control. They haven’t properly investigated all avenues of the case, and Gene drinks after hours and makes moves on subordinates in his office alone.
But Sarah screws up once by not telling them what happened to her, and Dick and Dicker kick her to the curb?! Or maybe Gene is upset that Sarah slept with Darnell, which makes two butthurt men doing the most.
But Sarah standing there and watching them catch her in the act was dumb as hell!
The Hardy Boys’ Utter Failure
All of the above are reasons why Gene and Josh are handling this entire case poorly.
But now we learn that Lesley and Max had to get footage from the Guiding Hope Gang’s hangout (a place that should’ve been in the police files) to get footage of that night.
If it was there all along, then why didn’t Gene get it yet? And upon watching footage and audio of Max and Felix tied up on the floor and Nia, gun in hand, stating she was going to kill Murphy, these two idiots only used that to discredit Felix’s confession.
It’s circumstantial evidence that supports that Nia was the aggressor, and Josh is still foaming at the mouth and claiming that Murphy deserves life in prison for her misdeeds.
Also, Sarah rightly pointed out that they never looked into Jessica’s disappearance nor investigated her supposed death in that fire, even though it was the key to catching Murphy in the first place.
Protect and Serve who and what?!
A Pet Store, Jessica?! How Rude!
The good news is Creepy Uncle didn’t kidnap Murphy and take her out in the woods to kill her and bury her body.
The better news is that he took her to a pet store where apparently Jess has been working since she got out of the hospital.
The WTF news is that Jess has been here all of this time, and she hasn’t told anyone anything!
WTF, Jess?!
Murphy and Jessica’s plan was to be together in Canada. They weren’t the ones that were ever supposed to split up, so there’s no reason for Jessica to enact the “no communication for a year” plan.
And if Jessica wanted a break from Murphy, she more than deserved it.
However, it’s out of character and crappy of her to not once communicate with Murphy.
Someone at the hospital had to tell her before she checked out that Darnell was up there and visited her. She didn’t think to tell him anything?
Josiah kidnapped her because of everything that went on, and she didn’t think to send an emergency text to the burner phones to warn Felix and Murphy on the off chance that Josiah tracked them down, too?
We’ve spent all season under the impression that Jessica could be dead, and she’s in a pet store, stateside rather than Canada, which is risky as hell!
At this point, all of the characters are proving to be awful, so can we really only focus on Murphy’s faults anymore?
Jess will never live this one down.
Over to you, In the Dark Fanatics. We finally got to Jess, but at what cost? Hit the comments.
You can watch In the Dark online here via TV Fanatic.
Jasmine Blu is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow her on Twitter.