Tag: Ritesh Rajan

Stitchers Gets Second Season and New Series Regular: Damon Dayoub

Damon Dayoub and Emma Ishta
Those who are waiting anxiously for the penultimate episode of Stitchers to air on ABC Family will be happy to hear the news that Damon Dayoub has been made a series regular and that the Disney owned network have given the greenlight for a second season of the show. Damon has played Detective Fisher and ever since the show’s “big bad” lured Fisher away for a “special” task, the writing has been on the wall.

In a July 28, 2015 press release it was simultaneously announced that Damon would be a regular feature in the “procedural” drama and that the show would be back in 2016. Exciting stuff for both fans of the show and of Dayoub. The actor has been a recurring presence in the first season of Stitchers from his appearance in the pilot episode, A Stitch in Time where Kirsten, the show’s protagonist, tells Detective Fisher (Dayoub) that she will prove him wrong about how her step-father/guardian died.

Damon Dayoub has been working steadily in the business since 2009, and rather interestingly showed up on The Last Ship in an episode as a Navy SEAL on the same week he appeared in Stitchers as a law enforcement official. Previous to his appearances in the ABC Family series, Damon worked on numerous projects including NCIS as a recurring character.

Dayoub has provided some good onscreen moments with both Emma Ishta and Salli Richardson-Whitfield in terms of personal chemistry. As Detective Fisher, the actor walks the line perfectly as a by-the-book cop who is drafted into a job very much outside the box and far from what he is used to.

Stitchers is essentially a science fiction drama. The series is about a young woman with a temporal disorder who is “stitched” into the minds of the recently deceased in order to harvest their memories. (Hence the tagline, “Memories Never Die.”) Emma Ishta stars as Kirsten Clark; temporal girl, Allison Scagliotti is Camille her roommate and colleague, Kyle Harris is Cameron the project wunderkind, Ritesh Rajan is Linus; wunderkind number two (I heart Linus – watch the show to learn the significance of that little phrase.) and Maggie, department head and the boss with “ulterior motives” is played by Salli Richardson-Whitfield. Another recurring character is “big boss” Les Turner who is portrayed by none other than Oded Fehr (Resident Evil: Extinction, The Mummy).

The series is executive produced by Jeffery Allan “Jeff” Schechter; who is the Stitchers creator. The other executive producers are Jonathan Baruch and Rob Walken. If Jeff’s name sounds familiar he was co-creator on the 2009 “tween” comedy Overruled; that ran till 2011.

The casting on this show has been spot on. The chemistry between all the main characters is perfect, each one have brilliant give and take moments and delightfully natural delivery. Their performances are all impressive and feel almost spontaneous. While this is partly due to the actors themselves, the rest is down to the writers who make this topical and pop culturally “quippy” series crackle.

Even the secondary characters, who are moved to centerstage at appropriate times, have an excellent rapport with the main players and each other. Cameron Britton, as Tim from Engineering, “Tim has never liked me,” says Cameron in one episode, has moved up in the cast ranks and he was the “office savior” in Fire in the Hole.

Stitchers is a cracking series that deserved to have a second season. Great writing, gripping storylines, pop culture references that delight, a cast to die for and some very, very funny moments. All this and set pieces that raise a lump in the throat if not an actual tear…or several. Stitchers airs Tuesdays on ABC Family. Stop on by and see what you have been missing or tune back in to see just why the show has been approved for a second season.

Kudos to all the folks who make Stitchers such great viewing and for getting that second season. Plus, congratulations to Daman Dayoub for his promotion to series regular…Now if they can just get Oded Fehr to become a regular…

Stitchers: The Root of All Evil (recap and review)

Camille and Kirsten in Stitchers
Last week in Finally the series upped its game and things got exciting for Linus, Les Turner stopped by to see his stitcher and by the end of the show, Kirsten found a key left by Ed, in The Root of All Evil, everything comes together in what may be the most perfect blend of mystery and comedy in Stitchers thus far.

At the start of this episode Kirsten is contemplating the found key when Camille enters the room waxing lyrical about a pair of boots. After complaining that they are not paid enough she goes into a detailed description of the footwear finishing with a plaintive “and a kitten spool heel.” Kirsten tells her roommate and work colleague to “stop whining” and to ask for a raise, “like normal people do.” Camille questions Kirsten’s awareness of normal in response.

After a short discussion about the hot water heater and Camille’s overly long showers, Kirsten timed her last one which make Camille say her behavior is “mega” creepy, there is a knock on the door. Camille opens the door to find a good looking Englishman on the other side of it. Kirsten looks up and says, “Hello Liam.” It turns out that this new chap is Ms. Clark’s boyfriend.

The two women are called into work and seconds into the latest case meeting, Camille mentions Liam. Maggie has a private meeting with Kirsten’s roommate and tells her to research the new boyfriend. Camille says she is not comfortable with that and Maggie reminds her that it is for Clark’s safety. She then starts to ask her boss about a raise and gets cut off, as Maggie leaves the room Camille mutters that she is “not comfortable with that either.”

The latest victim that Kirsten will stitch into is a Jane Doe. As the team prepare to set up the stitch, Cameron’s last minute instruction is for Clark to find a name for their unidentified girl and she replies “let’s hit the road already.” Dr. Goodkin then responds with Dr. Emmett Brown’s line from Back to the Future “Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads.” Cameron is quite the pop culture aficionado at these moments.

When Kirsten goes into Jane Doe’s memory, she is in a party and it looks like the deceased is very well off, has a tiny dog that is barking at a chap on the floor of a mansion and toward the end of the stitch she ends up in a bathroom that is clearly in a different residence. In the stitch Jane holds up a magazine cover that has a picture of the mansion on it and they ID the house. Maggie tells Cameron and Kirsten that they will go to the mansion, which belongs to Joe and Suzanne Parks.

Outside the building, Kirsten calls Detective Fisher and tell him that he was wrong about Ed Clark killing himself and Cameron shows that he is more than a little jealous about the existence, and sudden appearance, of Liam. Camille, however, is bowled over by the “perfect” chap with a six pack.

Maggie tells the couple about the death of the girl and they have no idea who it could be. Kirsten almost reveals too much information and outside the mansion boss Baptiste says that Clark is not foolproof and Cameron sticks up for his colleague saying that until foolproof shows up, Kirsten is the next best thing. She looks surprised at his pronouncement.

Back at the lab Linus has identified the young woman via her dog. Linus also puts his name up to adopt the orphaned pet. Cameron and Kirsten go to her home and find a lot of jewelry hidden in the toilet cistern, as seen in the stitch. While putting together all the pieces of information about the dead girl, Maggie reveals that houses near where Miller’s body was found were broken into. Camille suggests that Kirsten be released early for a meal with Liam.

Linus and Cameron go to the spa where Bentley Miller’s friend, spotted in the stitch, works. Kirsten goes home to find Liam has fixed the hot water heater and he is confused at her behavior, not aware that she picks up bits of the deceased’s personality from the stitch; which he also knows nothing about. Camille and Maggie talk Liam Granger and she reveals to her boss that he checks out, she also starts to ask for a raise again only to be cut off by Baptiste. After Camille leaves the office, Maggie looks through pictures of Liam and discovers one that concerns her.

The two men enter the spa and inform the receptionist that they need to speak to Miller’s friend Sadie Morton and Linus pulls a “police” badge that he picked up at Comic Con, which actually has “Imperial Police” stamped on it. They talk to Sadie and it is revealed that the two women held parties in the homes of rich spa clients who were on holiday. She also explains that Bentley stole from the houses and that at the last party held, in the Parks’ home, he came back early.

Liam and Kirsten have some quality together time and Cameron calls her repeatedly to relay the new information gleaned from Sadie. He shows up to see why she is not answering her phone and meets the boyfriend. End result is that Cameron is now more jealous than before. Cameron says that Kirsten acts differently around Granger, “more of a Betty, less of a Veronica.” She asks him who he is (in the Archie verse) Archie or Reggie, he replies “Possibly Jughead.”

As they discuss Liam, the Bentley part of Kirsten comes to the fore and she asks why she cannot have it all. The “sort of” boyfriend then comes out of the kitchen with desert, perfectly stored in swan tinfoil origami, seems this chap really is practically perfect.

A second stitch is taking place and as the team prep Cameron does the sound check, “Talk to me Betty.” “Yes I hear you Jughead,” Kirsten replies. After Maggie questions the conversation, Linus says, “I thought I was Jughead.” Clark goes into the stitch and learns what really happened the night that Bentley was trapped in the house. She filmed someone having sex and blackmailed Parks, this resulted in her murder.

After the stitch the group are discussing Linus’ adoption of Giorgio when Maggie comes out announcing that Mr. Parks is in custody, he apparently sent a text to Bentley a week before she was murdered. Cameron invites the team to his place for a victory dinner and both Camille and Kirsten beg off as Liam is cooking them something. Linus and Cameron opt for a “Bro” night as his adoption of the dog is turned down, the animal does not like men. Goodkin tells the girls to have fun with “Lance.”

Cameron and Linus talk about Liam, and his Greek-God-like abs, and Linus googles Granger and reveals that the man is indeed perfect. They decide to have a real bro night versus the faux bro night. Kirsten buys the boots, with the kitten spool heel, for Camille and Clark has a flashback to the stitch and realizes that whoever killed Bentley was a woman and not Mr. Parks as Giorgio did not bark at the attacker.

The two women go to the Parks’ residence and the guys recruit Tim, from engineering, for a real bro night of beer, video games and dodgy snacks. Tim proves that not only is he “the man” on video games but he can crush a beer can on his forehead. Meanwhile Kirsten has hacked the security system on the Parks’ house and they enter to look for the gloves seen in the stitch. Back at bro night, Linus tries to crush a beer can on his forehead and knocks himself off the couch.

As they search for evidence, Mrs. Parks comes in and confronts them. Kirsten spells out just what happened and pulls the phone, containing the video that Bentley made, and Parks pulls a gun. Kirsten instantly hurls the jewelry box at the woman disarming her.

Linus and Cameron swear off women and sex in order to harness their kundalini. Tim, while playing the video game, snarls that neither of the other two are “getting any, anyway.” Cameron throws the engineer out and before he leaves Tim grabs the biggest chunk of cheese. Camille asks for her raise and gets it. Kirsten is contemplating the key when Liam comes in and after a very short preamble asks her to marry him, and being perfect, he is on bended knee while doing so.

The Root of All Evil has some brilliant comic moments and allows one of the periphery characters to share the limelight (delightfully so). Newcomer Jack Turner, who plays “sort of” boyfriend Liam Granger (who may just be the male version of Mary Poppins – practically perfect in every way), is a good match for Emma Ishta who is channeling her inner stitcher brilliantly. Allison Scagliotti, Kyle Harris, Ritesh Rajan and Salli Richardson-Whitfield all vied for the comedic award in this episode, but the winner, by a crushed beer can had to be Cameron Britton at bro night.

The writing, as usual, was clever and full of pop culture references and the scripting of the show is perhaps the main reason it works so well overall. Entertaining, yet full of mystery; with puzzles to solve along the way, and topically relevant (i.e.Comic Con badge) and…Oded Fehr back for another quick cameo as the scary/creepy boss who may make Liam disappear. The only tiny bone of contention was the twist of Mrs. Parks being the murderer as Sadie said that Mr. Parks returned early not her. Regardless of this little glitch, Stitchers is great television that airs Tuesdays on ABC Family, miss this and miss the best TV you will see this year.

Stitchers: Finally (recap and review)

Kirsten in the machine Stitchers
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.

Stitchers: Stitcher in the Rye (recap and review)

Still from Stitcher in the Rye
Last week’s episode of Stitchers, I See You left the subject of Marta’s waking up from her coma in an earlier segment of the show and Stitcher in the Rye centers on the previous stitcher while divulging the darker and more sinister element of the stitcher program. This sudden change in direction of the show was brilliant and anyone watching would have felt a tinge of excitement at this shift in focus.

At the start of the episode Kirsten has returned from her run and collected the mail. Camille picks up a package addressed to her roommate and opens it, revealing that someone sent Kirsten the J.D. Salinger book Catcher in the Rye. Camille asks Kirsten who sent her the book and she responds by asking who told her she could “open my stuff.” “Force of habit,” says Camille, “at least now I don’t have to reseal it and pretend it never happened.”

The two also have a discussion about Camille’s borrowing clothes from Kirsten and not asking. Since Clark has Temporal Dysplasia, Camille argues, she can ask after borrowing the items and it will not matter. Kirsten agrees, much to her roommate’s, and co-worker’s, delight. Later in the episode the matter of borrowed clothing crops up again.

The latest stitch is a mobile health food entrepreneur and conspiracy blogger who used to work for the CIA who has just had a heart attack. The man, Justin, was a major annoyance to, as Maggie puts it, an “Alphabet soup of government agencies,” and his death means that files he was suspected to have in his possession will be difficult to find. Kirsten must go in and learn where the former CIA agent kept his secret files, the latest of which had just been received by the deceased and was to have been publicized.

Kirsten enters Justin’s head and she has a odd moment where a memory from another stitch intrudes and she finds the deceased man’s hiding place. Going out to his mobile food van, she opens the secret compartment which has files and older computers (pre internet machines that are “totally un-hackable,” says Clark) and Kirsten grabs one file. *Another excellent pop culture moment here where Cameron uses a line from Hot Fuzz, “By the Power of Greyskull,” which in turn is a reference to the 1980s Masters of the Universe.*

Once the file is removed the hiding place begins to spark and smoke; Detective Fisher, Cameron and Kirsten all run from the van and the vehicle explodes in a shower of sparks, flame and smoke. The folder that Kirsten grabbed has an “old fashioned” floppy disc in it that none of the machines at the lab can access. Clark learns about Cameron’s that Maggie refers to Cameron as Dr. Goodkin, when “she’s annoyed.” “She must call you that a lot,” quips Kirsten.

Clark and Cameron talk about the weird thing that she saw in Justin’s stitch. While discussing the issue Cameron tells her that the memory could be one of hers. Kirsten reveals that she cannot remember anything from before Ed, her surrogate father. Talking about the picture she found with the word remember written on the back, she has an epiphany and thanking Cameron, she leaves.

She has remembered a moment where she was using one of Ed’s “old” computers and part of the memory revealed that there were more. She finds one and inserts the floppy disc; printing off the information on it. The print out, which she shows to Cameron first, is of the stitcher’s program algorithm.

Playing detective, Kirsten goes through her list of suspects, beginning with Cameron and after clearing him, moves on to Linus. It is after she hacks his personal computer that Kirsten and Cameron learn that Linus and Camille have “hooked up.” The clue was that Linus is wearing Kirsten’s sweatshirt. The couple are cleared also, which leaves Maggie as the only suspect. All four of the stitcher’s group head to the lab to confront her. As they come across Maggie in the parking garage, the leader of the organization is shot.

After Maggie is treated for her gunshot wound, she clears herself and also gets rather tacky about the members of her little team. Camille points out, “You’re nasty when you get shot, you know that?” Baptiste’s alibi is that she was having breakfast with head of the agency, Les Turner (Oded Fehr). The four team members are tasked to find who leaked the information and who shot Maggie.

Camille is in the middle of trying to ease things off with Linus when Kirsten reveals that the leak did not come from within the lab. Cameron asks Clark to slow down the images from Justin’s stitch and she remembers a butterfly tattoo. Goodkin says he knows exactly who leaked the algorithm, it was Marta. The team learn that right after the former stitcher woke up she checked herself out of the hospital.

Cameron reveals that Marta’s specialty with the NSA was cryptography and Kirsten realizes who sent her the Catcher in the Rye, checking the book she finds the template for a code and matches it to the spam messages she has been getting on her phone. She deciphers the last one which says, “You are in Danger. Trust no one.” She responds, “Can you protect me?”

“Yes,” is Marta’s reply and the two meet. Marta comes across as being paranoid and almost mentally disturbed. Her accident in the stitch seems to have left some lasting damage. She tells Kirsten that the stitcher program is not about helping people. “You really think it’s about solving murders?” she asks. Marta tells Kirsten that the agency is setting the program up bad things and that stitchers are evil. She admits to giving the file to Justin and shooting Maggie.

Marta is bitter and upset. She wants to save Kirsten and as they start to leave Clark’s house, Cameron, Detective Fisher and the police show up. As Goodkin tries to talk Marta down, she pulls a gun. After getting upset and asking Kristen if Cameron asked her to trust him, the police order her to come out of the house. Marta then gets a call on her cell phone.

“How did you get this number,” she asks and then listens to the caller. “I understand” she says, Marta then thanks Cameron for the flowers, and goes outside with the gun in her hand. Rodriguez is shot down by the police. Afterward, Maggie tries to convince Cameron that what happened to Marta was not his fault. He wants to put her body in the lab and do a stitch. Kirsten questions Maggie about what Rodriguez really knew about the program and Baptiste refuses to put Marta’s body in the machine.

It turns out that Maggie lied about her alibi and that Turner had Justin killed rather than have details about the stitcher program released to the public. Baptiste says that Kirsten Clark is too clever, she then asks, “What do I tell her?” Turner says to tell her anything she wants, “as long as it’s not the truth.” It turns out that Maggie is CIA as well and that the program is not what she has been advertising it to be.

In Stitchers the actors are all meshing very well, Alison Scagliotti and Ritesh Rajan get big time brownie points for having an excellent chemistry and a great give-and-take performance. Emma Ishta and Kyle Harris are dancing ever closer to a “will they, won’t they” subplot and their chemistry is also brilliant. The inclusion of Fehr as show baddie is a great touch. This veteran actor will hopefully be making many more appearances on the show.

This shift into the darker side of Stitchers is an brilliant move. It was a stretch for viewers to believe that all that money was being spent to solve the murders of, pretty much, average people. The expense behind this government program is obviously huge and the fact that Camille had been hired to spy on Clark shows that the group are not afraid to play dirty.

This is one of the best shows on television at the moment. Great writing, excellent acting and a plot that keeps getting thicker with twists and turns that keep the interest levels high. If you are not watching Stitchers on ABC right now?

Start.

Stitchers: I See You Recap and Review

Still photo from Stitcher I See You
Last week in Stitchers by the end of the episode Marta opened her eyes and in this week’s episode I See You, Marta is still a thread running through the show. This segment does not address the sudden awakening of the prior stitcher but the show opens with Cameron reliving the stitch where she ended up in a coma.

After waking up from his disturbing dream/nightmare Cameron calls Kirsten full of good cheer and asking about how her medical exam went. While on the phone, he notices that his neighbor, who lives in his old flat, has kept another of Cameron’s magazine. Annoyed, he goes down to his old apartment, where the neighbor Robert has never changed the name on the door, finds it open and goes in. He discovers his missing magazine and his neighbor’s dead body.

Detective Fisher and the police show up, along with Kirsten, to investigate the crime scene. Fisher tells Cameron that it looks like “an execution,” with two shots to the back. Cameron immediately thinks of the mob and as Quincy question him, it turns out that who ever killed Robert may have thought he was Cameron.

Kirsten volunteers to stitch into Robert’s brain and see what got him killed. Camille and Linus meet for the first time since “hooking up” in last week’s episode and he is confused at her attitude. Since he assumed that they were now an item he tried repeatedly to contact her. She says, “Needy lover never looks good on anyone.” After some verbal jousting, Linus attempts to set up another date and Alison blows him off.

The stitch goes ahead, despite an almost overbearing attitude of caution from Cameron, shades of Marta again, and the show takes on a sort of Rear Window aspect when she discovers a telescope aimed at his neighbors windows that is glowing. It looks like Robert was a peeping Tom and it might have been the cause of his death.

As the investigation continues, the stitcher team set up in Cameron’s apartment which is just over Robert’s. Linus hooks up the telescope to a monitor and Kirsten mans the lens trying to find clues about who murdered the former tenant. Cameron reveals the footage of what went wrong with Marta’s stitch. The team learn that Robert was not a voyeur but a good samaritan who saw his neighbors problems and helped them out; buying a struggling artist’s first painting and buying groceries for another.

Someone enters the stitchers lab and Maggie notices that two of the security cameras go offline. She goes to investigate and finds two team members coming out of the elevator with dinner for a late night. As Maggie questions the technicians, a figure crossed over to the lift and gets on. It appears that someone is interested in the secret program and later is seen watching the team at Cameron’s apartment.

Kirsten goes into Robert’s mind once more. This time the deceased man’s brain is about to pass the safe time period where she can access data. With the clock ticking, Kirsten grabs the telescope and forces historical memories to replay and she sees the killer.

She and Cameron go to gather clues while waiting for Fisher to arrive and they spot the murderer in a van, that is being used to traffic young women, and when she sees him Kirsten repeats his earlier sign language message of “I see you.” He attempts to run her down and Kirsten stands immobile with a challenging sneer on her face until Cameron lunges in and moves her away from the speeding van.

Like the previous episode, the title is again used effectively throughout the show. Kirsten “sees” the real Cameron, at the end of the episode, as well as why he feels responsible for Marta’s fate. Linus and Alison “see” each other and Linus is still confused about the state of them as an item. Of course the main “I see you,” moment is two-fold. Kirsten seeing the killer and the shadowy figure seeing her and the rest of the stitcher team.

Ishta still rocks as Kirsten, allowing her character to “grow” with each episode. Each subsequent stitch where she learns more emotions gives her more dimension, and Kyle Harris’ Cameron continues to arc logically. The interaction between Scagliotti and Rajan works well as they have great chemistry.

The humor in this episode is still spot on and the gag about Kirsten being addicted to voyeurism, “I can stop anytime I want,” she answers flippantly, is followed with Fisher denying that all cops love donuts and then getting excited about a chocolate glazed one. Although earlier the rush to arrest the neighbor who “murdered” his girlfriend, spraying “blood” all over the wall, was also quite amusing and pushed the plot along nicely.

Great writing and immersive plots, along with the actor’s performances, continue to make the compulsive viewing. Stitchers airs Tuesdays as part of the ABC Family schedule.

%d bloggers like this: