Clarice – The Silence Is Over

By: Kelly Kearney

It has been one year since the harrowing events took place in Buffalo Bill’s basement of macabre fashion horrors and in the series opener of “Clarice” we find the young agent is having a difficult time moving past it. Agent Starling, now the FBI’s media darling and famed serial killer hunter, has become the pride and joy of the news ratings bonanza. With her newfound power at the bureau, and a never-ending crime log waiting to be solved, Clarice finds herself once again analyzing the minds of the deadly and depraved.

The Aftermath

“I thought it was done,” Clarice (Rebecca Breeds) tells her work appointed psychiatrist (Shawn Doyle), but the trauma she endured during the investigation and capture of Buffalo Bill still dominates her every thought. Now, trying to move on and forget the past, Clarice finds herself unable to do so thanks to the relentless calls from Catherine Martin, Bill’s only survivor. Clarice’s need to be there for the families of the victims falls short when it comes to the living ones desperate for some understanding of what they went through.  Clarice explains to her doctor that when the press turned the killings of the late Buffalo Bill into a circus she hasn’t had the distance from the case to heal. Now, she’s been painted like some serial killer mensch and the face of the FBI’s Behavioral Science department when all she wanted was to give voice to the families of the slain. What Clarice doesn’t seem to understand is the dead do not need her voice any longer, but Catherine Martin does. The two women share this experience of being Bill’s victim, but Clarice is not ready to admit that – not to her doctor and not to Catherine. The conversation segues to the Martins and we learn that in the aftermath of Catherine’s rescue the young woman has tried to reach out to Clarice, but the star agent continues to avoid her and to concentrate on the dead. Her avoidance is something her psychiatrist can’t seem to get a clear answer about, as Clarice deflects from any questions about how she is coping since Bill and Dr. “You Know Who.” Getting frustrated her psychiatrist points out how easily she was able to share parts of herself with the infamous cannibal Doctor (the show is not licensed to use Lector’s name) and yet has no interest in sharing them with him. Clarice snaps back that “he” wasn’t acting as her doctor; he was trading information about Buffalo Bill for glimpses into what made Clarice tick. Quid Pro Quo, she reminds her increasingly rude doctor, and nothing more. With her inability to see things clearly through her obvious PTSD, the psychiatrist suggests she be placed on leave while she attempts to overcome what he diagnoses as “unchecked rage” from her time with Bill. Before Clarice can aim that rage at her doctor, their session gets interrupted by an FBI agent requesting her presence in Washington. As the doctor starts to argue that he hasn’t signed off on his patient to go back to work, the agent shuts him down and says Starling’s orders come from the new Attorney General of the United States, Ruth Martin!

A New Case Ignites the Same Old Traumas

After a brief and somewhat tense reunion, Ruth (Jayne Atkinson) catches Clarice up on why she was ordered back to work. Two bodies were found in a draining ditch along the Anacostia river and both victims were “sliced to ribbons,” Ruth explains. It is believed that this is the work of a serial killer and as Clarice tries to explain that breed of killer isn’t the norm, Ruth cuts her off. The Attorney General was appointed to her position because she promised families would never go through what hers did with Buffalo Bill. If she is going to deliver on that promise she needs the best on this case. Who better than the young agent who caught her daughter’s infamous kidnapper? Clarice argues that the bureau has veteran agents more qualified for this appointment, but Ruth disagrees. Clarice wasn’t prepared to go into Bill’s house and take on a six-time killer, but she did and her instinct and bravery saved Catherine who is alive, although not well. The conversation moves on to Ruth’s daughter who is dealing with her own trauma in extremely self-destructive ways. She is thin, purposefully, no thanks to Buffalo Bill’s taste for larger woman. The pain he caused Catherine has lingered and it has lit a fire under her mother to make sure nobody else suffers the way she has. Just the name Catherine sends Clarice back into the dark corners of Bill’s basement, but her state of mind is not a concern for Ruth. Now that Clarice has a reputation as hunter of killers, Ruth plans to use that fame to its fullest advantage. Not only will Clarice be assigned to the VICAP task force, but she will also be working with a new partner, Paul Krendler. Ruth will not take no for an answer, so Clarice agrees to her demands only if when it’s over she can go back to her people in the Behavioral Science department. Ruth harshly reminds her that she has no people (her fame saw to that) and now she is in a league of her own. All she has left is Ruth, her work and Catherine, who her mother begs Clarice to call. The young woman is suffering and thinks only Clarice can help soothe her pain.

When Agent Starling arrives on scene, Paul Krendler (Michael Cudlitz) unceremoniously greets her. Right away Krendler lets her know that he isn’t impressed with her newfound fame. In fact, he downplays her success and calls her capture of Buffalo Bill “luck.” His displeasure to work with Clarice stems from the fact he was also on the Buffalo Bill case and the young female agent stole his thunder. Paul refers to her as “Ruth Martin’s bit-o-honey,” meaning her sole purpose on this case is to dazzle the press and make the new AG look good. He also expects her to stay out of his way. Paul is tied up in his professional jealousy, but his flaming misogyny is what is sure to make Clarice’s transition to VICAP special agent a difficult one.

The tension between Paul and Clarice continues when the two make their way down to the river to investigate the crime scene. He wants this case closed quickly, but when Clarice notices the wounds on the bodies seems a bit strange and uniquely shallow Paul starts to become frustrated. The evidence seems to lean towards a frenzy killing, one without order or intimacy – two things that stand out in most serial killer crime scenes. “It’s too controlled, too sane,” she says, but Kendler doesn’t want to hear it. He ignores her theories and shoves her in front of the press to confirm their earlier reports about a possible serial killer. After all, this is what she is there for.

Welcome to the FBI, Starling

After finding out that both victims appear to be married, one was a teacher in her twenties, the other in her fifties, Paul orders Clarice to team up with Agent Tomas Esquivel (Lucca De Oliveira) and interview the families. First up is victim Angela Bird’s husband, Frank (Dalmar Abuzeid), a man devastated by loss and struggling to raise an infant and an older son with autism. The two agents do not get much out of Frank and move into the other victim’s next of kin, Casey Laughty (Erica Anderson). Casey is an addict living on the streets, surviving from one drug deal to the next. What the two victims have in common isn’t immediately clear until Casey mentions her special needs son was taken from her and placed into the custody of her mother. Casey mentions that her son, Gunnar, was put in “that learning place. That place for freaky little kids who have to be fed through a tube” and therein lies the link. Both families had children with special needs. And when Clarice goes back to the office to inform Paul, he thanks her by taking her off the streets and placing her on desk duty. There she learns how fame doesn’t mix with the FBI’s finest. The climate in the office is unwelcoming like Ruth predicted and when fellow agents slather lotion on the drawer handles of her desk, Clarice starts to realize she can’t go back to who she was before Buffalo Bill. Thank goodness she has roommate Ardelia (Devyn A. Tyler) to lean on because Starling certainly doesn’t have any friends at work.

Later Clarice gets a message from who she assumes is Ruth, but when she calls back it’s Catherine (Marnee Carpenter) and it immediately launches her back to the traumatic rescue. As she tries to explain why she keeps calling Starling, we hear a dog in the background and realize Catherine kept Precious! Catherine skips over the question about the fluffy pup and asks Starling if the reason she is avoiding her is because she reminds her of Bill? Catherine wants Clarice to talk about what they’ve experienced and goes on to ask if she remembers the mannequins, if she dreams of the moths, and if she can still hear his voice? Choking on her panic, Clarice can hardly catch her breath before Catherine is starts berating her for an answer. Clarice struggles to form any words of comfort. And just as she is about to hang up, Catherine warns her not to trust her mother.

It Always Gets Worse

The following da, Clarice gets a call about a new body. This time the female victim has a child with facial deformities. Another body and another link through their special needs’ children. This prompts Clarice to go back to talk to Frank Bird where she learns his wife was in a clinical trial for migraines and many of her fellow patients in the trial had children who lived with disabilities. As Clarice searches through Angela Bird’s belongings, she finds a note containing when name of a local journalist Rebecca Clark Sherman, along with a Bible verse about children without a voice. She starts to put the pieces of the puzzle together and figures out that Sherman was working on a tell-all piece about the shadier practices of this trial and the victims were whistleblowers she had contacted. With this new discovery Clarice and Tomas head to Sherman’s house and immediately they notice a van lacking plates, parked out front and a cigarette butt with the tip peeled off on the ground. Esquivel saw this tactic when he worked in counterintelligence with assassins. Clarice realizes the killer must be inside the house. The two agents draw their guns, turn on their flashlights and kick in the door where they find a wall of victims mapped out, as well as Rebecca (Caitlin Stryker) unconscious in the bathtub and bleeding from her slit wrists. It is an attempt to disguise her murder as a suicide! As Esquivel calls out for Clarice to help he is attacked from behind. Tomas grabs a shard of glass from a broken mirror and tries to stab the assailant, but the would-be killer manages to break away and run off. Clarice follows the killer as he jumps out of the shadows and grabs her in a chokehold her. Gasping for air, Clarice reaches for her gun and shoots him three times. The sound of gunfire flashes her back to when she took down Buffalo Bill. With backup on their way, the assailant pleads with Clarice to cut him a deal since Rebecca is alive. When Kendler shows up on the scene Clarice tells him the killer was a hired hitman to keep the whistleblowers quiet. Paul doesn’t care what he is as she was brought in to catch a serial killer and that’s exactly what she is going to tell the press. The truth doesn’t matter here – just the illusion of it.

Shoved into the spotlight Clarice offers the hungry media a morsel, but it is not what they were starving for. She offers them no details about the killer and instead she names the victims and defies Paul Krendler’s orders about ruling this a serial killing. The women were murdered because they had a voice and chose to use them, not because they crossed paths with a human boogeyman. With the cameras flashing, the press asks the famous Agent if this is her final case on the VICAP task force. Clarice responds by saying she plans on sticking around for a while. Serial killer or not, she is here for the victims and her work is not done.