Rohan Jain
‘The Calling‘ is a crime drama TV show that follows Detective Avraham (Jeff Wilbusch), a gifted police officer who solves the most heinous crimes in New York City but also believes that people at their deepest core are good. His faith in humanity and spirituality is challenged when he comes across shocking cases filled with lies, vengeance, and deceit. Created by David E. Kelley, Peacock’s original show, ‘The Calling,’ combines cop drama with spirituality and possesses subtle hints of supernatural elements.
Although the NYPD handles multiple twisted cases in the series, one of the most peculiar ones is John Wentworth’s death. The man was Detective Avraham’s friend and was also connected with Vincent Conte’s murder. However, he had done nothing wrong and merely spoke to the kid a couple of times. In the final moments of the season, when Avraham and his partner Janine find Wentworth dead inside a house, they wonder how he died. If you’ve been asking the same questions, here’s what we think. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Who Killed John Wentworth?
After Avraham and Janine arrive at the crime scene and find the body, the former instantly recognizes the man – John Wentworth. Wentworth’s forehead has the word “aba” engraved on it, which is the Hebrew word for “father.” The two hear the police radio, which says that according to a new description, the murder suspect was last seen fleeing on foot, eastbound. The officer also describes his physical appearance as 6 feet, with red hair, and possibly homeless. When Janine hears this, she realizes the description is uncannily familiar with Wentworth’s physical appearance. While the murder remains unsolved in the season finale, we have a couple of theories.
John Wentworth Killed Himself
John Wentworth killed himself due to his mental health issues. John first comes into the picture when Avraham questions him about Vincent Conte. John is a homeless man who wanders the streets and often passes by the building where Vincent used to live. Avraham/Avi reaches out to him because he knows that the homeless man notices the tiniest details about people living in those buildings and can give him good information. As it turns out, he was in contact with Vincent and even gave him a book written by Pushkin.
While John seems perfectly fine around Avi, he is jittery and on edge around Detective Earl. Whenever the latter tries to question him, he walks away and avoids eye contact. John claims that the police are making him paranoid and putting thoughts in his mind that they will arrest him just because he is homeless. Earl mentions how John has mental health issues and a history of being sacked from a teaching position due to the propagation of Nazi ideology.
Though these nuggets of information aren’t explored further in the show, they might likely be connected to John Wentworth’s death. After Vincent’s case is solved, John goes out of the picture but reappears in a later episode. He speaks to Avi about giving information on a possible crime in exchange for money so that he can buy some clean clothes for himself and a place to live in. Avi says he’ll try to see what he can do for John after talking to his Captain, but there’s no further development.
We believe that John Wentworth’s mental health worsens after Vincent’s case. Since he is probed a few times by the officers, it instills a sense of paranoia in him, and the thoughts in his mind get too loud to ignore. This leads to him wanting to kill himself, but he hasn’t reached that point yet. So, he decides to contact Avi, the only person he trusts to some extent, and talks about preventing a crime. Here he is referring to his suicide.
After arriving at the house where John was found, Janine finds a gun underneath his body, and after listening to the police radio, she concludes that Wentworth is the killer and the victim. Wentworth knows quite a lot about everyone, including Avi. In one scene, we see John tell Avi that the latter might be suffering from dysthymia, another term for persistent depressive disorder.
It is also possible that John knew about Avi’s father, and being a voracious reader, he might have known the Hebrew language or picked up a book to learn a few essential words like “aba.” Thus, he engraved the words on himself and even shot himself. So, to reiterate, John Wentworth killed himself because he became increasingly paranoid after Vincent’s case, and the voices inside his head became too difficult to handle.
John Wentworth is Killed by Someone Else
While the aforementioned scenario is one theory of how things might have gone down with John Wentworth, we also have an alternate theory. John Wentworth was killed by someone who has some connection with Avi and perhaps his late father. Avi has unresolved emotions about his father’s death in the show because the case remains unsolved. While the police know that Avi’s father was pushed from the 6th floor, they do not know who pushed him or why. In another scene, we see Avi asking his rabbi friend about his father, and the rabbi says that darkness always followed Avi’s father. Though Janine urges Avi to reopen and look into the case, he refuses.
When Avi finds John’s body inside a home, the word “father” is engraved on John’s forehead in Hebrew. An earlier incident might also be related to John’s killing. In one of the episodes, John says that he has some information that can prevent a crime, but he will only hand it over in exchange for money to buy clean clothes and find a place to live in.
In this instance, John might be referring to the killer’s plans. Since John roams the streets and knows a lot about people, he possibly sees some suspicious activity, which leads him to Avi. However, the killer catches a whiff of this and decides to end John’s life with a message for Avi. It is likely that either the person who killed Avi’s father is alive or somebody knows Avi too well and wants to play a cat-and-mouse game with him.
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