My pleasure in writing a series of blogs on a serial killer in a serial while grows with every episode. Although I have watched many crime thrillers in which the audience was positioned as an investigator, until this morning I hadn't experienced anything close to the investigatory pleausure that I think I was expected to feel Solving a whodunit is not nearly as much fun as identifying patterns, similarities and themes in a text and seeing your hunches confirmed.

I've reached the penultimate episode of Epitafios and the serial killer continues to remain one step ahead of Renzo and Laura. In contrast to series such as CSI where the investigators methodically uncover the truth of a crime and bring the bad guys to justice, Epitafios explores the impossibility of knowing. When we identify with the investigators, we're at the mercy of an unreliable camera. We watch flashbacks that never took place. Expectations about time and place suggested by editing prove to be false. The identification of clues only leads to dead ends and dead bodies. In spite of their efforts to understand Bruno and prevent more murders, Renzo and Laura continue to fail. An artist, a chessmaster, a mass murderer, Bruno is the only one who seems to understand the importance of connecting with other human beings. In his mind, he thinks (I believe) that he is the only one to understand love.

By the penultimate episode, Bruno lulls Renzo and Laura into thinking his is dead as has been predicted by Marina (a homicide detective who was taken hostage by Bruno and serves as one of his doubles but that's a whole other discussion). Bruno takes Laura hostage and uses her cell phone to call Renzo. Mistaking the killer for the psychologist, Renzo answers, "Love . . " Bruno responds that it's been a while since he has heard that. Eros and Thanatos come together yet again just as Bruno has planned. Bruno then goes on to say (forgive the paraphrasing) that "Human beings are like children. No one believes that a man can fly on his own, but they flock to the theaters to watch it. They need to believe there's something more in their mediocre lives. . . They need to think they know how things will end. They need to imagine they are safe. . . .Men can't fly and you don't know what the slightest idea of horror is."

I can't wait to discover how the series ends after Bruno's pronouncement because I honestly don't know how it will end. Unlike the safety we feel when watching Superman, the experience of watching Epitafios leaves us uncertain and anxious. We care about the investigators, yet we see how flawed they are. We want to believe that men can fly. We want to believe in closure, but the only person who comes close to flying is Bruno. (Moreover, we don't even know if Epitafios is going to return for another season.)

(Margaret, if you didn't end up writing such an interesting post on not knowing C-Franklin was Chris, I would apologize for not letting you know. However, since we live to generate cool readings, I'll refrain! Hope you're surviving the World Cup.)