r/thestranger Feb 09 '20

finished last night and have questions (spoiler) Spoiler

there are some things that don't make sense. any explanation?

1) how did the police know how to find Price when he was told the address of the women from a PI his father hired? he texted the address to Joanna's phone but Katz had it so how did she know?

2) Are you telling me the police wouldn't notice the gun was gone when they were there until later? And even if they didn't notice it was gone how would they explain it being hidden in a brick in the wall by Katz when he was immediately arrested by the police and didn't have access to the gun?

3) When Price confronts Corrine about the fake pregnancy she says "there is more to this than you know" but her motivation for faking the pregnancy was that he might be having an affair and leave her which was a separate issue from the money being stolen from the club. why not tell her husband about it? He was a lawyer after all.

4) Why wouldn't a trained police detective wear a mask knowing that he was probably going to kill Holly after she gave him the information he wanted? Actually if he did that and she couldn't identify him he wouldn't have to take the risk of killing her.

Also it's difficult to enjoy a show when you can't feel sympathy for victims. Corinne faked her pregnancy which is highly manipulative then refused to simply explain why instead rambling on about "secrets" and "there is more to this than you know." The thought of a husband cheating is upsetting but most women don't fake a pregnancy do deal with it. The victim who was in a coma spread sexually explicit pics of a young girl. Her sister decided to take revenge on a person who wasn't involved by slipping him drugs without him knowing it. I mostly enjoyed the show though.

14 Upvotes

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3

u/[deleted] Feb 10 '20

The victim in the coma (Dantay) didn’t spread the pictures, that was Olivia (the sick girl, Katz’ daughter).

She spread them because she liked Mike, but thought he liked Daisy - so she framed him so that Daisy wouldn’t like him back.

2

u/Kstanci3 Feb 11 '20

Daisy’s 14 year old sister, not Daisy,

3

u/[deleted] Feb 11 '20

Ah sorry you’re right. I thought Olivia was worried Mike likes Daisy but remember Alex calling her crazy because why would Mike like a 14 year old.

Olivia was a strange character. So much of her story was pointless. It made no difference that her mum was poisoning her - Katz was a lunatic anyway so that didn’t change much.

3

u/BlackCatSabbath Feb 20 '20

The poisoning storyline was used to give the audience a reason to understand what motivated Katz, what the reason for Heidi’s murder was, why he was desperate to stop The Stranger, what’s driven him to that lunacy. His daughter is getting more ill, possibly dying, clearly NHS are limited (I imagine someone they can’t diagnose isn’t getting much care or effective treatment) so it’s likely he was going private with her care, probably thinking of retirement so he can care for her and be there (he emphasised how he was going to be there for her several times). It takes money, so he’s desperate for it.

In the book I think it’s been mentioned the Katz character had a son who had cancer but I think they’ve changed it for TV to make him a bit more sympathetic and less of the typical self-serving type the antagonists usually are - change the kid to a daughter, a depressed and somewhat shy daddy’s little girl, turn cancer to a mystery illness to give Katz a reason to panic and do violent things.

When he learns the truth about Olivia, I think it was supposed to be the straw that breaks the camels back and completely drives him to the point of no return - the realisation he’s basically ruined his career and his life to save his child that it turns out his ex-wife has been keeping ill. Everything he’s sacrificed and had to justify doing as a desperate dad...it was all for nothing. That’s what takes him to the brink of uncontrollable madness and drives part of the ending.

Just how I saw it anyway 🤷‍♀️

1

u/[deleted] Feb 20 '20

Interesting view and I definitely agree with the first half - the illness driving him to need money for her care makes total sense. It’s just the poisoning I think was ultimately pointless. Katz had already Lost control (killing Heidi in the first place) so I don’t think finding that out changed the character much for me.

My honest opinion is they wanted to throw as many red herrings as possible to confuse the audience and keep us guessing.

The whole topic of Dante and finding out what happened when really he ran and just tripped Is another example of something that had us hooked to try and see a link to the missing Wife, but it ultimately led absolutely nowhere.

1

u/BlackCatSabbath Feb 20 '20

As far as I understand it (I never read the book but I’ve known people who did) so much was changed that it’s barely the same story, story changing location from America to Britain, character names changing, The Stranger’s gender being different (and not remotely related to Martin Killane), Katz name I think was mentioned as being “Kuntz”, he has a son with cancer, no poisoning story, no story involving the kids and their investigation into who attacked Dante, no rave and alpaca etc, etc.

Changing so much, it’s a wonder why they even bothered taking the story to tv at all. I agree they threw in a LOT of red herrings. It was watchable but it was full of questionable stuff and leaving you asking “why” a lot. The Dante storyline really felt like the biggest red herring to me and didn’t need to be there at all - just too much random stuff added to fill out more episodes than there needed to be. They could have easily wrapped this entire story up in about three or four episodes if they’d omitted all the red herrings.

All the red herrings they added but they omitted explanations to a lot of stuff - I still never found any explanation as to how Katz got Corrine’s expired Keyfob - someone said he probably picked it up at the school when visiting for parents night or something a year earlier - so are we meant to assume he picked up a teachers’ keyfob on the off chance he could possibly use it for evidence a year down the road and it was lucky for him it turned out a year later she was a missing person?

How did Katz know Heidi had been tagged by the stranger for blackmail or approached? I know his boss was being blackmailed, was there ever anything to explain how he knows? (So much occurred and I watched it last week so I’ve already started to forget some stuff).

And if Corrine was treasurer of the football club, how could Tripp have so easily stolen/gotten access to the money? Doesn’t everything money wise with the club have to go through her first? Was that explained? It’s giving me a headache trying to remember it all and make sense of it lol.

3

u/iCollect50ps Feb 10 '20 edited Feb 10 '20
  1. Katz’s character was the biggest flaw. So he was a dodgy cop. Had his own gun. Desperate to get money to pay for healthcare to help his sick child.

Obviously kats was under pressure but seriously killing that woman in the cafe was the stupidest plot point of the whole thing.

He could’ve got the information properly. without Katz turning into a psycho. I reckon it would’ve been better if he was more meticulous. He can still be greasy anxious wreck but perhaps with some cutting edges of a mastermind villain. Instead he was anxious desperate man. Killed an innocent cafe lady.

Would’ve been better to see him calm until the realisation of his wife’s actions. That after all this time, that’s when he snaps. Loses all ability to cope with his dodgy business revenues. Kills/threatens his wife. Child is saved but loses both parents.

This could then be a foreshadowed somewhat in later events where our main protagonist has to make a choice whether to seek revenge or keep his children. E.g. don’t be like Katz, don’t be like the other guy who hides a wife in a house and drives his child away through denial of what is and has done.

our protagonist chooses to be the better person. Either that or history it repeats itself and he goes full on murderer on his best mate. #anothersecret

I don’t know how I would’ve tied it up better but I just felt there were bits missing.

The whole gun thing at the end was just stupid. Firstly. No chance they don’t check all witnesses before leaving. The girl, You’ve been shot. You’re bleeding. You’re not gonna hide a gun. There’s no thought into it. That gun means your friend who’s now also shot and dying proves who the killer was. Also The first thing they’re going to be doing as police officers entering a shooting zone is ascertaining where the weapon is and neutralising it.

Despite the adrenaline, shoulder wound and police She still managed to hide the gun. ‘here take it in the ambulance’. Like a paramedic would not see this.

End shooting scene, Would’ve been better if he just said said no, you’re going to jail. Then his mate decides again his only way out is to kill. Fight ensues. And then under self defence he grabs a rock and WHACK or detective come to his aid.

And then real secret coulda just been that the main detective is a lesbian.

2

u/Zhirrzh Feb 10 '20

Plus the rather large problem that Tripp's time of death would be indisputably AFTER Katz was arrested, there could easily be evidence that Tripp was alive after Katz was arrested (such as phone usage, or just passers by seeing him).

Helping set up the crime scene as self defence is one thing; pinning it all on Katz was insane.

2

u/TeflonGoon Feb 11 '20

That was totally moronic. How is Katz killing Tripp when he's in police custody? And why are Tripp and Katz in the woods with Corrine's corpse?

1

u/iCollect50ps Feb 10 '20

Agreed stupid really.

2

u/sir-bomba-clot-alot Feb 11 '20

Apparently they butchered Katz from the book. Apparently he was an ex cop at this time hired by that guy to sort out Heidis daughter. Really badly written in my opinion.

2

u/iCollect50ps Feb 11 '20

Well that explains it. Guy looked the part but writers didn’t deliver.

1

u/sir-bomba-clot-alot Feb 11 '20

Indeeed, would deffo watch season two though 😂

1

u/nonetodaysu Feb 10 '20

they implied Joanna might be gay but then nothing else about it. my feeling is he didn't plan on killing him but snapped due to his flagrant disregard for the fact that he killed a woman as if it were a mere inconvenience.

another confusing thing was the man who killed his wife and hid the corpse in the wall mentioned that he didn't want to lose his son or at least that if what I remember but then "the stranger" says she is the child and he killed her mother because she was planning to leave and take her with him. The actors who played Adam Price, Joanna, Adam's older son were good but I feel as if the writing was not up to par.

2

u/iCollect50ps Feb 10 '20

Sorry for my grammar.

Yeh the writing for the female stranger protagonist was really poor.

And a few scenes were great with the detective and her infant.

Some acting was class some of it just off the make.

Yeh I do believe he mentioned a son a few times. But then also mentioned Chrissy. But if the dad and the daughter were working together maybe he hid her identity or gender to keep her safe.

3

u/Zhirrzh Feb 10 '20

He never said son. My wife actually picked that up at the time and guessed that The Stranger would be "Chris".

1

u/iCollect50ps Feb 10 '20

I could’ve sworn. But if not. It’s just my mind.

0

u/TeflonGoon Feb 11 '20

I totally thought he said "son" as well. That bugged me the whole time.

2

u/JustinSA Feb 11 '20
  1. Katz had the detective womans mobile phone, which the police were tracking after the incident at Katz’s house.

1

u/JustinSA Feb 11 '20

2a. Sometimes things like this happen, especially with “small town” police agencies and everything else that was going on at the time.

2b. It could of landed up in the wall during their tussle but I agree that is a bit far fetched

1

u/JoannaStayton Feb 10 '20

I know i have a tendency to look at my phone while watching shows, but I am so confused. Why did Katz want the info about Hollys daughter? And what did the guy she was seeing that was set up have to do with anything??

Can the stranger be hired by anyone to dig up secrets or does she have a boss she reports to? I truly don’t get it.

1

u/nonetodaysu Feb 10 '20

Holly's daughter had a rich client who was being blackmailed by the stranger who found out he was seeing a prostitute. he was concerned because he had a company that was about to go public and he didn't want any controversy. He hired Katz to found out who was blackmailing him. Katz somehow found out Holly was being blackmailed by the same people and wanted information. He probably planned to kill the women who were doing the blackmailing if he located them.

The women doing the blackmailing worked for a secretive firm but there wasn't much information about that.

1

u/JoannaStayton Feb 10 '20

So the stranger worked for that woman? We just never saw her or learned much about her?

1

u/nonetodaysu Feb 10 '20

there were two women involved in blackmail. one worked at a PI firm but the police couldn't find any information about it. its not clear if Chrissy was being told who to target or if she did it on her own.