Psychopaths on TV are presented in multiple ways; some are the sadistic kind who enjoy inflicting pain and take pleasure in it, while others are the violent type who break out in fits of rage and go on killing sprees. Take Patrick Bateman from American Psycho. There’s another category of the most accurate psychopath, as agreed by psychiatrists who’d studied 400 movies and declared Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men as the most realistic kind. Alex Forrest from Paramount’s TV series Fatal Attraction is a world apart, however, and she’s the kind who inspires anger in the viewer as they watch her cause unbridled terror, going as far as killing another human being. Paramount’s Fatal Attraction dropped its fifth episode today, and it surely had a lot of you shouting at the screen, cussing out Alex for some of her deeds.
Spoilers Ahead
The Latest Findings
In the present, Dan, who’s now working as a paralegal for Jorge, has to head to the court for a task and decides to talk to the bailiff Gabriel, who’s lodged an unofficial complaint against Alex. Dan really doesn’t have too many friends left because Gabriel all but throws him out of court for asking the bailiff to sign a paper and refuses to help in any way. You may find yourself starting to sympathize with the man but jolt yourself awake because it was the same person who’d cheated on his wife four times. However, Dan finds a little help from the court recorder, Benny, who agrees to help the former DA out, and while enjoying the lunch Dan bought him, he mentions having seen some guy named Biff fighting with Alex 15 years ago. This could be a big break for Dan to help in the case, but what pushed the matter so far in the first place? Let’s go back in time and see.
A Deranged Psychopath
In Fatal Attraction Episode 5, Alex really comes into her own as the maniac who needs to be put down—not behind bars, but down and out—because being left to her devices, even harming a child isn’t beyond her. We finally know for sure that it was indeed Alex who snuck into Dan and Beth’s new home when Beth’s mother, Sophie, was all alone and pretended to help their dog Quincy in before striking up a conversation. Midway, Alex became really irritated at how this suburban family was, and when Sophie fell into the pool, the psychopath proceeded to draw the shed over her, effectively killing Sophie. For last week’s recap of the article, I had gotten this very thing wrong because I couldn’t believe that Alex would murder an innocent woman who’d had nothing to do with her affair. However, not only did the freak watch as an elderly woman drown, but she also wiped down all the fingerprints from the house and then opened the door to let Quincy out.
Escalating Tension
Dan’s marriage is over because he confessed to Beth about his affair, because honestly, it still doesn’t excuse cheating on your spouse, who gives everything to make the marriage work. His troubles are just beginning, though, because his boss, Conchita, informs him of an investigation starting against him, but Alex clears his name. No, it’s not out of the kindness of her heart, but in her twisted mind, she doesn’t want to indict her baby’s dad—let me rephrase, her non-existent baby’s dad. Alex quickly goes full psycho when the pregnancy test returns negative, and she sets fire to a house Beth and her best friend and business partner Arthur are conducting business in. Dan is trying his best to fix his marriage, even if it means imposing on Beth, who’s hospitalized after narrowly escaping being burned alive inside the house when he gets a call that their daughter Ellen hasn’t reached home yet.
The Ultimatum
The panic of parents when their child doesn’t come home doesn’t need to be described through words, but the terror’s a little extra for Dan, who’s convinced Alex nabbed the little girl. Even after Mike brings her back and warns Dan not to go to the FBI, Dan can’t control his rage. He barges into Alex’s apartment and almost strangles her to death, but stops at the last moment and lets her know that he’s getting the FBI involved, even if it destroys him. He leaves the twisted woman groveling on the floor with the ultimatum that if she wants to end her miserable existence, she better do it quickly, but only she can take her own life. Fatal Attraction Episode 5 ends with a complete view of Alex’s apartment, with the camera focusing on a lot of blood on the floor, leaving us questioning, whose blood could it be?Â
Whose Blood Do We See In The End?
With all certainty, it’s Alex’s blood, as the post-episode interview with the showrunners and the cast confirmed. We know now for a fact that Dan didn’t kill Alex, although had she harmed Ellen too, it’d have made sense on Dan’s part to strangle her to death. It’d be illegal and immoral, sure, but if Ellen had been harmed, it’d make sense if Dan couldn’t control his rage. However, Dan leaves Alex wheezing for air, and she devises something diabolical yet again, as the crooked smile on her lips betrays her. Based on the prints that Mike retrieved 15 years later, there’d been two more people who’d shown up at Alex’s apartment, so the killer could be among a lot of people, and we know that Alex had enemies. Conchita threw Dan in jail because he tried explaining what a freakshow Alex was, but we’ve seen Alex firsthand, drowning a woman and setting fire to a house with people in it. Alex needed to be put in a straitjacket and thrown inside a padded cell for 40 years, but she ended up dead, and Dan was wrongly accused of her murder for 15 years. Although we’ve been told he’s innocent of her murder, we need to know how Alex really died and who was the real killer—or if it was a murder at all. Given how much of a freak Alex was, it’s possible that she took her own life and orchestrated it in such a way that Dan would have his life ruined afterward. However, these are just theories, and to learn the truth, we need to stay tuned until the very end.