Stitchers: Finally (recap and review)

In last week’s episode Stitcher in the Rye, Stitchers revealed that the program was a lie, at least as to its real purpose. Marta died in a hail of police bullets and this week, Finally sees the previous stitcher being buried. Kirsten is still full of questions about what happened.

Stitchers has just shot up in terms of plot cleverness, storyline arc and adding a good amount of tension to the proceedings. Like the title says, the viewer is finally shown just how intricate the world of Kirsten Clark is and how many thread all lead back to her. Answers are given to questions, both asked and unasked, and the results are surprising and exciting. Ms. Clark appears to have been almost manufactured for her work in the stitcher’s program and those flashbacks keep peeling back more layers to the woman’s past.

At the graveside ceremony, Kirsten has another flashback, this time of her mother’s death. She and Ed are standing in front of the grave with flowers. Little Kirsten hands the flowers back to Ed and walks off. Later in the show, this memory will become clearer and its meaning will move her journey forward.

The stitcher is laying in bed listening to the cassette that Ed taped. Camille comes in Kirsten’s room and gets in her roommates bed. Kirsten asks what she’s doing and Camille asks how she is doing dealing with Marta’s death. After deciding to stay in Kirsten’s bed, the stitcher keeps listening to Ed and she discovers a rhythmic beeping on the cassette, it seems Ed left her more than one message on the tape.

At work, the most recent stitch is Dani Fox, a neurological expert who died in a car crash. Kirsten learns that Fox was concerned about her work and Dr. Zuber, her business partner. She also finds out that Dani’s sister, Nicole, did not get on all that well. Kirsten learns that there appeared to be some problem with the neurological machine which was the focus of her work and Zuber’s grant money. She also discovers that Dani did not crash her car. Before the stitch Cameron calls Kirsten “Penny Priddy” which is obviously a nod to Buckeroo Banzai.

Camille plugs into Dani’s car’s “black box” and verifies what Kirsten learned in the stitch, the woman was murdered. Clark decides that she needs to learn more about Dani and Dr. Zuber. Doing online research on the brain trauma machine that Zuber and Dani built, she decides that more personal research is needed. Cameron is visited by the girl from <emI See You, Janice, and gets a couple of slaps as she’s learned he was not the benefactor who bought her groceries.

Camille and Linus turn up and she is impressed that Cameron can “take a hit.” Kirsten and Cameron visit Nicole and talk about Dani, they learn that the dead woman was all about her work. They stop by the institute where the offices are located and bump into both George and Dr. Zuber. Kirsten says that Fox told her that their brain trauma research could help her.

The doctor invites the two up to the office for a quick question and answer session, which George attends. Kirsten talks about the car crash that killed her mother and her condition she uses a story partially based upon reality to “get in.” Back at the stitcher lab, Maggie is not pleased that Kirsten has put herself in “harm’s way.” Camille gets the line of the episode with her statement that “In the history of bad ideas this ranks just above the $2 bill and “Jeggings.”

Maggie insists that Kirsten wear a wire, much to the stitcher’s annoyance, and Linus, Camille and Cameron listen in on her first appointment. During the session she reveals that after the car accident she cannot remember anything before the age of eight. She inadvertently hurts Cameron’s feelings when Zuber asks her about him and Kirsten replies that “he’s nobody.”

During her session in the trans-cranial machine Kirsten has flashbacks to previous stitches and about her childhood, including one vision where she is a child wearing some sort of harness, headgear and is floating in water…almost like she was in a “stitch-tank” prototype. She tells Zuber that her father and mother drank and were abusive to her as a child.

The team in the van are upset by this news and they rush to comfort Kirsten when she comes back after the session. She assures them the stories were untrue and Camille angrily says, “I take back the tears I almost cried for you.” Linus then quips, “Almost?” After the appointment, Kirsten confronts Maggie about Marta and the two women get into an argument with Clark accusing her boss of covering up the real purpose of the program. After she leaves the room Maggie calls Les Turner.

Kirsten breaks into the office building to look for Dani’s laptop, while Cameron, Linus and Camille listen in. A cop makes the trio move their van and as they circle the building, Kirsten is grabbed by George and Zuber. The two men put her in the machine and pump up the waves it produces. Zuber did indeed murder Dani as she wanted to come clean about the lack of progress they were making. The doctor, it turns out, is trying to help his wife.

Turner pays Clark a visit, she comes home to find the department head in her house. The two talk about Marta and he relays that no one knows what the stitchers program is really for and he also confirms what Kirsten already knew; Ed Clark did not kill himself. Turner leaves, but before he does, tells Kirsten that they are trying to keep her safe.

Kirsten asks one final question, how did Ed die? “Saving you,” Turner replies before going out the door.

After Turner goes, Kirsten heads to Camille’s bedroom where her roommate is in bed doing a crossword puzzle. In a mirroring of Camille’s entry to Kirsten’s room earlier, Clark accepts the unspoken invitation to get into bed. Camille looks at her crossword, “Four letter word for inviolable,” she asks. “Safe,” replies Kirsten.

Later Linus calls early in the morning to talk to Kirsten. Camille answers her phone, Linus can’t reach Kirsten, and she tells him that she’s still in bed. He asks about Kirsten and she hands the phone to her roommate. Linus is blown away that they are in bed “together” and Kirsten hangs up as he continues to ask if the two women are really in the same bed. He reveals that the beeping was a coded map reference.

Finally is full of revelatory moments. The characters continue to gel, Cameron and Kirsten are getting that bit closer to becoming an item; “Thank you,” says Clark, “For what,” asks Cameron, “For not being a nobody,” answers Kirsten. Oded Fehr makes a brilliant baddie. In the scene at Kirsten’s house he is smarmy, creepy, unsettling, and threatening. Not like his usual characters at all and very impressive.

This episode has joined two previous ones which leave the viewer with a lump in the throat; it is the little touches that Clark adds to each stitch. This one was delivering the Bakery lease to Nicole Fox, who thought that her dead sister did not care about her life. This is top notch television, a show where a perfect combination of writers and cast grab the viewer and lead them on a brilliant entertainment experience; making one laugh, cry and eagerly anticipate the next episode.

Stitchers equals epic win. Tune in on Tuesdays at ABC Family and see why.