Alias Grace part 5 review: All that time is dark to me

Grace Marks finally talks about the murders of Thomas Kinnear and Nancy Montgomery in this episode of Alias Grace. But will we learn what actually happened?

This is it, then: the episode of Alias Grace where Grace Marks finally talks about the murders of housekeeper Nancy Montgomery and her employer, Thomas Kinnear. Well, sort of. As always, Alias Grace keeps us guessing. Though, with the beautiful (if brutal) setting and nuanced performance from Sarah Gadon as Grace, it’s hard to be upset.

The episode begins with the distant voice of Grace herself as she talks at her trial. What we see, however, is the same ghostly shot we’ve seen earlier: the camera swoops through the empty Kinnear home, finally settling on the closed cellar door.

Then we’re back to Jordan at his rented room, reading the “voluntary confession” of Grace, along with the far less kindly account of her via James McDermott. In McDermott’s confession, taken down shortly before his execution, he says that Grace gave him his handkerchief so he could strangle the injured Nancy Montgomery.

We see this happen in bloody, explicit detail, though it’s thankfully short. McDermott holds up one of Nancy’s dismembered legs — still wearing a stocking, and shocking for all that we’ve seen women covered up beneath dresses and petticoats — while Grace blankly stares.

At the prison governor’s mansion, Grace is tasked with serving tea. Another maid doesn’t take kindly to this. She graphically describes how Grace should have died and her body treated.

Clarrie, another maid, isn’t afraid, however. “Afraid of you, for rising up against your master? Miss Grace, where do you think I come from?” Clarrie is black and, though we get no information about her, it’s easy to imagine that she has fled her own horrors in the United States.

Jordan’s reputation

Clarrie also mentions Dr. Jordan’s living situation. That landlady has been looking at Dr. Jordan with a very particular kind of hunger. They even take breakfast together! Grace holds still for just a moment, enough to make you think that she could be jealous or even surprised by her own jealousy.

Jordan is only in the next room, talking about his research to a gathered group of ladies and gentleman, including the Reverend. He confesses that his confidence has been shaken, that he’s unsure of the connections between “dreams and diagnosis”. This elicits applause, though the Reverend says that the lack of a soul in Jordan’s theory is “contentious”. Other attendees urge Dr. Jordan to consider hypnosis or even seances.

Along with the Reverend’s concern about souls, it’s starting to seem as if Dr. Jordan’s scientific theories are being surrounded. He’s already been assaulted by his own doubts and confusion. Now, it appears that spiritual beliefs could muddy the waters.

But enough of all of this soul talk. Jordan is introduced to Dr. Jerome DuPont — no other than Jeremiah the peddler. He’s wearing a fine suit and has gracious manners, but even the gray in his beard can’t hide Jeremiah.

Grace certainly knows it. She carries the tea tray in, sees “Dr. DuPont”, and dramatically faints. When she awakes, DuPont greets her with a cheerful, “Hello, Grace!” But, before she can fully speak his name, he puts a finger to the side of his nose. Their secret, then.

“I could have laughed with glee,” Grace says in a voiceover, “for Jeremiah had done a conjuring trick”.

She agrees to be hypnotized by Dr. DuPont, though Jordan is unsure. Her nerves are “delicate”, you know. Grace — or, rather, Dr. Jordan’s Grace — is a fragile creature.

Grace reflects — or prepares?

Jeremiah isn’t the only one capable of conjuring, however. Later that night, Grace sits in her tiny cells and wonders “what should I tell Dr. Jordan about this day?”

There are many different versions of the truth to pick from. There’s the recorded version of her at the trial, speaking the words her lawyer scripted for her and wearing Nancy Montgomery’s frilly pink dress.

Or did Kinnear chase her through the house at night? Here, she hides from him in the dark like a horror movie victim. “It might have happened,” concedes Grace. Or perhaps Mary spoke to her, voiceless and dead but still powerful. “Open the window. Let me in”.

Grace recalls that Mr. Kinnear was to leave for a few days. After he leaves, Nancy abruptly tells Grace and McDermott that they are to leave in a few days. “I’ll be glad when you’re gone,” she tells Grace. “I can hardly wait”. The pregnant Nancy apparently wants the young, pliable Grace gone before Kinnear can grow sick of his expectant housekeeper.

McDermott says that he’ll kill Kinnear and Montgomery, having had enough of their actions (and a couple glasses of whiskey). Grace thinks he’s bragging. Even if he isn’t, she’s frightened of him.

Nancy later acts friendly, as if nothing has happened. She even asks Grace to share her bed, as she’s frightened of burglars. That’s where Grace says she warned Nancy of McDermott, though Nancy laughs it off. “I should like to kill him, too,” Nancy says.

Mary Whitney

Grace lies back. “Then there’s nothing I can do to save you,” she whispers. She then has a dream or vision of Mary Whitney standing above her, releasing fireflies from a jar. Grace tells her to fly out the window and opens one nearby.

But, when she turns back, Mary is gone. “Mary was lost to me once more, and still I had not let her soul out”. Even now, the specter of Mary Whitney, real or imagined, haunts Grace. Nancy is not Mary, and poor Mary is still gone from Grace.

Grace’s account of the actual deaths is frustratingly vague. “All that time is dark to me,” she says. The series itself is unafraid to show what might have occurred, however. We see McDermott throwing Nancy down the cellar stairs, gasping and bleeding, and Kinnear’s brutal and sudden death by gunshot.

Back in the show’s present time, Jordan is confused. What about Grace’s words in court? “That is what they wanted me to say. The lawyers,” she counters. And what about Jamie Walsh’s testimony, where Grace is alert and wearing Nancy’s fine clothing? “By then he had forgot all of his former loving sentiments towards me and only wished to damage me and have me hanged if possible”.

Grace the friendly maid was worthy to be Jamie’s sweetheart, but Grace the murderess deserved to be executed. “There is nothing I can do about what other people say,” Grace continues. It’s a self-help mantra today, but a cry of resignation for Grace

“Sooner or later, we’ll get to the bottom of it,” Jordan tells her. “It would be a relief to me, sir,” she replies, “to know the whole truth at last”.

Jordan’s growing confusion

Jordan then goes off to do some Byronic staring at Lake Ontario, followed by another meeting with the Reverend. “She could be a true amnesiac,” Jordan says, “or she could be simply guilty”. So much for getting to the whole truth.

Later, he’s awoken by the landlady boldly climbing all over him in bed. Jordan responds enthusiastically until he stops seeing Grace’s face on the woman beneath him. He’s then properly horrified. This leads to more pensive staring out of a train window after he’s left Toronto for a short while.

In her cell, Grace continues planning. “I must prepare what I will tell you when you return.” She thinks of McDermott’s version. There is a callous, even sensual Grace. But how could she have been so calm, even happy, with Mr. Kinnear lying in the cellar beneath them? Oh, and she probably felt bad about Nancy, too.

She remembers waking up next to McDermott in the carriage as they flee the home. It’s here where we get one of the most chilling of Grace’s visions so far.

The black sky

Grace says that she looked up and saw the sky burning away in front of her. It leaves only a blackness, one so pure and empty that she’s frightened into prayer. “But what if there were no God to forgive me?” And does Grace even know what she’s repenting for? There’s so much — it could be murder, or wearing a dead woman’s clothes, or running away with a man who is not her husband.

McDermott — who repeatedly tries to assault her and calls her some particularly choice names — says they will escape to America. There, the two will be married, which apparently does nothing to fill Grace with hope. She still thinks McDermott’s tale is wrong but does not contradict him, “for it is dangerous to contradict mad people”.

Next: Alias Grace part 4 review: It’s an outrage!

They make it to America, but it’s not enough. Grace is awoken by men breaking into her room at night and dragging her down the hall with McDermott. It’s the beginning of her imprisoned life, but it’s hardly the first or last time she will be jostled about without agency.

With only one episode left, where will Grace go? Will she remain a prisoner, or will “Dr. DuPont” or someone else offer her freedom? Could Grace herself make her own fate, finally, and despite the uncertainty of her own memory?