Television: Gracepoint 1.7

Only three more episodes to go after this one.

Here we have: Jack's funeral, Tom going missing, the missing hiker Pierson returning, and also the return of the psychic guy. Oh, and Carver's daughter turns up, hangs around just long enough to find out her dad has a heart condition, and leaves again.

I don't know if they felt they needed to up the stakes by having another child in [presumed] jeopardy? It's pretty clear Pierson isn't all there; his cabin is filled with anti-psychotic drugs that he doesn't take because he'd rather just "walk." His story is that he met Danny, briefly, and when Danny said he'd like to go far away, Pierson gave Danny his telephone number in case he ever wanted or needed to talk. It's a weird thing to do, but not criminal. And Pierson is weird, even creepy in some ways, but . . . I think the reverend is creepier, really.

Actually, Gracepoint appears to be well stocked with weirdos. The reverend, Pierson, and that psychic guy wandering around. Jack was also pretty strange. And Vince, and Susan. For a small town, it has more than its share of messed-up people.

I suppose we could go into a discussion of what constitutes "messed up," and say that everyone is "messed up" in one way or another, some in several ways. But I'm thinking more along the lines of what is socially acceptable and what isn't. It's socially acceptable to be stressed out, overworked, overscheduled. It is not socially acceptable to threaten people, lurk, or stalk. There's a line. Maybe because those overscheduled people are connected to others while those lurkers are not. We trust people who have friends and family. We don't trust people who are alone in the world. We sense there's a reason they are alone, and our herd instinct shies away from them.

Well, there's your sociology lesson for the day. As for the episode, Joe allows Tom to ride the last three blocks to school alone (though, Joe insists, there were plenty of other people around; it was drop-off time, after all). But Tom never makes it to school. So now we must mount a search. Which is where psychic guy steps in, just in time to feed Beth another nugget of information: Tom is hurt, he's bleeding.

A tip leads the search party out toward the woods, and Tom's bike is found. But where is Tom?

Three more episodes to find out that, and (in case anyone had forgotten) who killed Danny.