'The Beast Must Die' Season 1 Episode 5 Recap

The thing about The Beast Must Die is that you know the beast will eventually die. It took almost the entire season, but there it finally was. The beast is dead. Long live the beast.

But it took a while, and for a long, long moment, it seemed as if the beast might not die. George Rattery is a man not to be trifled with, as they say, and Frances, as much as one wanted to root for her, she was triflin'. As I noted in an earlier recap, Frances was coming up with a real problem. Firearm training, tough talk, sailboat prepping, you do you, girl. But in the end, you must have the stones to go through with the murder. And Frances is not a killer. She's a grieving mother, a woman out of her mind with emotional pain and sorrow, But she's also a sensitive, intelligent person. Honestly, if she didn't even have it in her to do the crime of passion push off the cliff, she was never going to have it.

And that's the brick wall France ran right into this week, standing on that sailboat, thinking she was going to cold-bloodedly confront George with his crime and play judge jury and executioner on that water. There was no cold blood other than in George's veins; there was no winning this fight. The moment she told him the truth, he showed her the beast inside, and he ran her over just as sure as his car ran over her son. She was left a sniveling, sobbing mess, obediently piloting his boat back to shore with him alive as he sneered at her pathetic failures.