Tamal Kundu
Created by Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan (known together as the Kates), Amazon Prime Video’s ‘Deadloch’ revolves around two police officers, senior sergeant Dulcie Collins (Kate Box) and detective Eddie Redcliffe (Madeleine Sami), as they investigate a series of murders in the eponymous sleepy town in Tasmania, Australia. In episode 5, a new body is found on the beach, taking the count now to 5. This one seems to be a special case as religious iconography is present at the scene. With their boss demanding results, Dulcie and Eddie decide to arrest a man with possible connections to the murder, only to be proven wrong later. Here is everything you might want to know about the ending of ‘Deadloch’ episode 5. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Deadloch Episode 5 Recap
Episode 5 begins with Cath (Alicia Gardiner), merrily driving her truck into the town with Dulcie, Eddie, and Abby (Nina Oyama) hiding in the back. Since Eddie pretty much confirmed that there is a serial killer on the loose during the disastrous press conference, the journalists are hounding the police officers. Meanwhile, just as Aleyna Rahme (Susie Youssef) gets out of the water after a swim, she spots something and begins screaming. This draws people in from the nearby fairground.
It turns out that Jimmy Cook, a friend of the Latham brothers and as dubious a character as them, is the latest victim. What is more disturbing is that the killer has left him chained on a cross, underscoring, perhaps, she is still refining her modus operandi. Dulcie and Eddie draw the obvious religious connections and go to speak to the local pastor, but not before James King, the coroner, commits a blunder and lets everyone in the town know that the latest victim is Jimmy.
As requested by Dulcie and Eddie, the pastor sends in a list of his parishioners, comprising most of the women the investigators have spoken to in the last few days, including Vanessa Latham and Skye and Victoria O’Dwyer. He also sends four copies of his erotic screenplay, which Sven spends the day reading. Hastings calls Dulcie and Eddie and chews their heads off for what he perceives as a lack of progression in the investigation. Eddie convinces him to release a suppression order on the media.
After learning that Jimmy called Vanessa about 30 times the previous night and that his walls are filled with Vanessa’s photos, the investigators speak to her before going through other people on the list. While interrogating Michelle Buckley (Lisa Gormley), the local make-up artist, Eddie discovers that Jimmy had a violent run-in with Mike Nugent, a former traffic police officer, after he inappropriately touched himself in front of Mike’s mother, who had been sleeping. They go to question Mike at the Australian football park and stop him from beating up one of the local boys for aggressively behaving toward a girl. Under intense pressure to catch the killer from their boss, Eddie suggests that they should focus on Mike, even though he isn’t a woman, which the initial profiling suggested that the killer is. Dulcie is reluctant, as Mike is a friend.
However, Eddie gets Hastings to arrange a search warrant for Mike’s property and finds a vial of Pentobarbital there. During the interrogation, Mike mistakenly thinks that Dulcie and Eddie are speaking about the dresses they might have seen in his cupboard. When the confusion is cleared, he explains that the drug was part of his mother’s assisted dying kit. They didn’t really use it, and it has since expired. He also has multiple alibis for the night Sam O’Dwyer died, as he was working at the time as a traffic police officer.
Deadloch Episode 5 Ending: Is Skye O’Dwyer the Serial Killer?
With Mike turning out to be innocent, Dulcie and Eddie are back to square one in their investigation, and they have only two hours before Hastings’ deadline for them to find the killer runs out. As the episode nears its end, Dulcie and Eddie separately make huge breakthroughs in the case. Eddie learns that Mike issued Skye O’Dwyer a speeding ticket the night her father died. Meanwhile, Dulcie discovers Skye and her domestic partner are having troubles as the latter had spent all of their IVF money.
Things click in Dulcie’s mind, and she rushes back to the station. With Sven reading the screenplay aloud, Dulcie realizes the pastor has used his parishioners’ confessions in his novel and that Skye knew about her father’s infidelity. Vanessa begins speaking to Megan about how much Skye hates men, and Abby performs a test and concludes that the killer is indeed a chef. Even though, at this point, all evidence seems to point to Skye, three more episodes are still left to go, so we can safely assume that more layers of the central murder mystery are yet to be revealed.
Was the Killer Emulating Jesus’ Crucifixion When They Put Jimmy Cook on the Cross?
The discovery of Jimmy’s body on the cross gives the investigators a new angle of consideration. It helps them realize that the killer comes from a devout Christian background. When they speak to the pastor, he explains that Jimmy’s pose on the cross doesn’t indicate Christ. According to the New Testament, Jesus was placed on the cross along with two criminals. The Gospel of Luke states while one of them taunted him for not saving himself and them, the other begged for mercy.
In apocryphal writings, these thieves were identified as Gestas and Dismas, respectively (also known in tradition as the Impenitent Thief and the Penitent Thief). Unlike Jesus, they were bound to the cross. As Gestas didn’t repent, he died a sinner. By leaving Jimmy’s body in such a pose, the killer likely indicates that he didn’t repent for his sins.
