Upamanyu Biswas
After several mind-bending twists and turns, the first season of ‘Grotesquerie’ ends with Detective Lois Tryon trying to reconcile her coma dreams with reality. As more and more clues start pointing toward a strange, ethereal connection between fiction and real life, the struggling protagonist finds herself engaging her worst nightmares and trying to piece together everything into one single compartment. Meanwhile, Marshall undergoes challenges of his own as his so-called sex addiction finally lands him in hot water with the authorities. He finds a new lease on life after Eddie emerges out of nowhere, looking like a changed man with a renewed purpose. However, the season’s mystery is still far from over, as the copycat killer has more disturbing aces up his sleeve! SPOILERS AHEAD.
Grotesquerie “I Think I’m Dead” Recap
Although most would expect a fast-paced entry into the season’s conclusion, the final episode begins with Lois returning home to find Marshall and Redd in her kitchen. The encounter seems surreal from the get-go but becomes even weirder when Lois hears from Marshall that he has gone back on his promise to divorce her. Instead, he wants to propose a different arrangement – living as a throuple with her and Redd. She finds it oddly out of character and rejects Marshall without even thinking about it. On the trip back home, Marshall and Redd have a frank discussion about their relationship, where Redd tells him that she had expected Lois to reject him. She also confesses that she hates Marshall, which leaves Marshall dejected as he resumes his life as a professor.
Things in college go badly awry when, after a lecture, Marshall is told by Megan that he is being placed under arrest for sexual assault allegations leveled against him by a student named Mary Colsby. Subsequently, Marshall has to face his inner demons as his whole life crumbles around him. He attempts to kill himself but, luckily, mismanages the dose of medication and survives the incident. At the hospital, he has another conversation with Redd, but the results do not change. His daughter also stops by and informs Marshall that Lois has also been locked up in the psychiatric institute. The struggling detective is convinced that her life is a lie, and she is still stuck in the world of her coma dreams, something she confides in her shrink, Dr. Witticomb.
Grotesquerie Season 1 Ending: Is Lois Still Dreaming?
Ever since Lois woke up from her coma, she has been struggling with what she saw in her dreams and the reality she now has to inhabit. At times, the two seem to merge strangely, leaving Lois questioning whether she is on the brink of a mental collapse or something else is happening around her. It all comes to a head in the final episode when she tells an attentive Dr. Witticomb that she is certain of her death and that everything she is witnessing now is her personal hell. However, Witticomb assures her that her feelings are associated with patients with Cotard’s Syndrome, meaning that she has undergone some hugely stressful scenarios that have led her to this point. She comes clean once he starts questioning her about why she feels everything is just a hoax.
Primarily, Lois’ suspicion stems from the encounter with Marshall at her home. Subsequently, she also found herself slipping out of touch with reality because of what happened at the end of episode 9. After returning to the motel room, Lois found Justin’s body missing and the whole place scrubbed clean. However, the breaking point was undoubtedly the emergence of the copycat killer, whose first murder eerily resembled the family murder Lois came across in her coma. The three separate events play a huge role in convincing her that perhaps not everything is as it seems, and she may still be under the influence of her imaginary mind. Meanwhile, Witticomb insists that it is all a natural reaction to all the previous stresses she has built up as a homicide detective. His explanation seems satisfactory, but there are still doubts.
The final episode reveals that Dr. Witticomb is part of the men’s rights group that Marshall joins with Eddie. It seems an odd place to be as a clinical psychologist and a dream expert. It could be that he is simply broadening the scope of his interest and studying the group for his own purposes. Still, there is something seemingly off about the whole affair. Thus, when he continues to assure Lois it is all a reality, an underlying suspicion is cast over his motives. Additionally, he also points the finger at Lois for the copycat killer’s murders, which seems strangely antagonistic and divisive compared to his support for the detective thus far. Overall, Lois’s life seems overly chaotic and unnatural to be real, and yet, it would seem far too convoluted to showcase that she is still stuck in a dream. The truth may be somewhere in between.
What Happens to Charles and Colsby?
Another key factor discussed in the finale is Lois’ confrontation with her doctor, Charles Mayhew. In her nightmares, she envisioned the doctor as the real person behind Grotesquerie and an overtly sexual fiend who disguised himself as a church father. However, during her coma, Lois purports that she heard Charles having orgies in her hospital room with other women, which is a severe dereliction of duty and unethical behavior. Lois and Charles have an argument on the topic, with the latter asserting that everything she saw or heard was imagined and not real. The detective also adds that she heard a young patient had gotten pregnant while being unconscious at the hospital, accusing Charles of being the perpetrator.
Near the end of the finale, Megan visits Lois while she is recuperating at her psychiatric ward. Apparently, the emergence of multiple new homicides leaves the latter with no option but to help Megan out. She visits the crime scene and finds it to be a recreation of the Last Supper murder from her Grotesquerie encounters. Shockingly, the centerpiece of the crime is Dr. Charles, who has been fitted out in Jesus garb and made to steal the limelight. Alongside him, the victims also include Maria Colsby, the woman who accused Marshall of assaulting her sexually while having a campus fling. It is a strange conclusion to Lois’ many grisly encounters with murders throughout the season and leaves a lot of head-scratching for the detective.
Who is Grotesquerie?
Despite featuring a narrative brimming with numerous twists, turns, revelations, betrayals, and forays into dreams and nightmares, the middle piece of the jigsaw puzzle remains tragically unsolved at the end of season 1. In fact, Lois is no closer to figuring out the identity of the copycat Grotesquerie killer than she was when hunting him down in her dreams. They continue to evade the detective’s best efforts and torment Lois with the use of religious symbols. To make matters worse, Lois is worn down from all her psychological breaks and a lifelong career on the force, where she had to see countless grisly murder scenes. She is no longer the sharpshooter she used to be. However, in the end, the detective seemingly regains some of her poise as she orders the team to carry out her tasks, showcasing intent and purpose.
Understandably, after everything that has happened, Lois is lost in the complex and unending battle between the different aspects of her mind. Taking down the copycat becomes that much harder as she is more often than not tied up with her personal struggles with family, alcoholism, infidelity, and being a mother. At one point, the blame seems to even turn on her as Witicomb accuses her of being the copycat killer. It is not an unlikely possibility, given how most of the victims seem to have a connection to Lois, especially in the Last Supper murder scene. She knows the people involved, which means that the murderer has access not only to her files but also to the documents containing detailed descriptions of her dreams. Uncovering who the serial killer is in future seasons will be interesting.
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