Gracepoint Recap: "Episode 2"

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM...YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK...

When we last left the city of Gracepoint, it was a town left in emotional shambles.  Young Danny Solano was brutally murdered and the investigation was underway and this week as we return to this seaside community, it has become apparent that Danny's murder will in no way be easy to crack, simply because well...everyone is truly a suspect.  

This week Detectives Carver and Miller get into the nit and grit of bringing Danny's killer to light, canvassing homes and expanding their search radius to a ranger station nearby, all in the hopes of getting some idea as to who was in the area where Danny met his untimely end.  As Carver focuses on the station, Miller works to clear the family of any wrongdoing but uncovers uglier secrets along the way.  Chloe had cocaine underneath her bed and Danny was hoarding $500.  

But the mystery truly comes off the rails when two big revelations occur.  One, that Mark Solano was not working on a plumbing job as he originally claimed since Detective Carver finds footage from the ranger station's security camera showing Mark at the station late at night and second, when the police get into the station they discover blood that matches Danny's blood type and while it appears the station was scrubbed clean, there is one section of the place that yields a terrifying clue, Mark's fingerprints.  

That's a quick summary of last night's episode of Gracepoint with good reason, we need to talk about the fact that everyone is a suspect and everyone is making the death of Danny Solano look like an incredible conspiracy. Especially since Jack Reinhold suddenly remembers information regarding a mysterious backpacker talking to Danny and oh yeah, Susan Wright, the lady who helps oversee the ranger station when not in use, happens to have a skateboard hiding in her home, and it so happens Danny disappeared into the night with his skateboard, but it was nowhere to be found at the crime scene. 

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Yet of course the biggest revelation and the one that put me on the edge of my seat is that Mark was in the vicinity of where his son was murdered, that his prints show up in the ranger station and that despite being called out in his lie and his alibi, he refuses to tell the truth.  It's making for compelling television and sadly there are still not enough clues to begin to lead us toward a possible suspect, but holy cow is Mark looking pretty bad right now.  

What also caught my eye last night was how the show continued to strip down Gracepoint as a whole, further destroying that quaint little image portrayed last week as we begin to see the surprising amount of shady things going on in this little berg. The cocaine deals, whatever drug Carver is using to cope, Gracepoint is just another American town that is trying hard to be perfect.  That's what makes this sense of conspiracy so disturbing.  It feels as though some folks in this town will do anything to make the ugliness of Danny's death go away.  

Either way, I'm officially hooked after tonight's revelation.  I'm dying to know what the hell Mark was up to, and as much as I want the answers now, like the rest of you, I have to wait for the mystery to continue to unfold.  Until next week...

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