The third episode of Hell Motel picks up right where the second left off, with Ruby (Brynn Godenir) finding the mutilated corpse of her partner, Portia (Michelle Nolden), in bed beside her. A shocked Ruby is trying to reinsert Portia’s heart into her body when the rest of the patrons of Coldwater Motel enter the room. Crow (Shaun Benson) is quick to blame Ruby for Portia’s murder and ends up locking her in the room.
Crow is also the subject of this week’s main flashback, as he is seen having a drug-induced vision of the ghost of Caitlyn Ridgely (Lauren Lee Smith). This vision leads Crow to give a tip to Officer Dickson (Patrick Garrow) about who the possible perpetrator of the Coldwater Murders was. As such, a man named David Renee (Salvatore Antonio) is brought in for questioning.
My Thoughts on Hell Motel – Episode 103: “Mirror Moves”
We are already a third of the way through the eight-episode run of Hell Motel, so it’s natural that the body count is starting to ramp up. In what was almost a “Jump the Shark” moment for the series, a tense moment in the basement, where a scared Ruby takes Paige (Paula Brancati) hostage, ends with her being stabbed to death by Crow, Adriana (Genevieve DeGraves), and Blake (Atticus Mitchell), thanks to a little nudging by the legacy Coldwater Murderers, Floyd (Gray Powell) and Shirly (Yanna McIntosh). This shocking moment results in Paige, Andy (Jim Watson), and Kawayan (Emmanuel Kabongo) being the only seemingly innocent characters left on the show, with Paige and Andy still being my pick on who might survive this whole ordeal.
With this misguided revenge murder happening in the first half of the episode, the rest of “Mirror Moves” focuses on delivering the backstory of Crow, who was once a psychic police informant. The episode also confirms that Floyd is most definitely not the new Baphomet masked killer, as he ends up in a confrontation with the killer while trying to get at least one kill in. It will be interesting to see what type of role Floyd and Shirly will have as the series progresses.
Similar to Portia in the last episode, the telling of Crow’s backstory ended up being a prelude to his death by having multiple nails hammered into his head. However, unlike Portia, I was not at all sad to see Crow killed off. If anything, this episode was all about Crow being quick to jump to conclusions. It was his blatant accusations in the first half of the episode that resulted in Ruby being stabbed to death, and the flashback revealed that he was responsible for the interrogation room suicide of a completely innocent David Renee.
As I said, Ruby’s death was almost a “Jump the Shark” moment, since it is all but guaranteed that, like Crow, everyone who participated in the stabbing is probably going to end up dead themselves in the upcoming episodes. While I said earlier that I expect Paige and Andy to make it to the end of the series, I also expect at least one of them to be revealed as the killer. We have only five more episodes to find out if I am right.
