I am the Night episode 5 recap: A rat in Jay’s soup

On the most recent episode of I am the Night Jay and Fauna go to Hawaii for the worst vacation ever and learn some shocking truths.

There’s only one episode of I am the Night left and things aren’t even close to winding down. In what’s probably the best episode yet, Jay and Fauna find themselves in the grip of George Hodel’s blood-stained pedophile hands with no way out. It’s not looking good.

The episode goes back in time to the infamous trial featuring Dr. George Hodel and his daughter Tamar that supposedly ruined their family’s reputation. Opening in 1949, Tamar sits in court on the prosecutor’s side listening to her father’s lawyer speak of her promiscuous sexual behavior in a demeaning manner. The subject of the trial is not said but true crime fans know exactly what is going on and even if they didn’t, it’s not hard to figure out what they’re talking about.

Corinna Hodel sits in the front row, stiff as a rod and dressed as if she’s attending a funeral. Dr. Hodel sits on the defendant’s side, calm and collect, as opposed to Tamar who is trying not to reveal how upset she is.

This single scene allows us to see how the public viewed Tamar, a little girl in court for being a victim of rape, and how they disregarded her as nothing but a silly child.

Jay and Fauna take a vacation

Back in current time, Jay is practically jumping for joy over his recent discovery. He runs to the usually uncooperative Sullivan and shares the news about Tamar Hodel’s daughter, a piece of news that finally gets the editor’s attention. He agrees to send Jay and Fauna to Hawaii to speak to Tamar and write an A-bomb of a story.

After some crazy drama at Big Mama’s house involving Jimmy Lee wielding a knife around, the duo takes off to Hawaii only to immediately run into a dead-end. Tamar appears to be hiding and no one on the island’s heard of her.

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They wander around the island for a bit, stopping at a local restaurant where they share a minor heart to heart. Jay’s feelings on the war are greatly explored in this episode as is his guilt with being a killer. In the previous episode, we saw Jay kill Sepp with a wrench and through a former soldier we know Jay had a particular skill for brutally murdering Koreans in the war.

Jay is consumed by a tremendous amount of self-hate for his actions but only because he enjoyed them.

When Fauna tries comforting Jay in what she thinks is guilt over killing Sepp, he reveals that he enjoyed killing people in Korea and that it’s not something he knows how to deal with. “Good never wins,” he says and even though it was said in the context of war, he’s talking about everything. Good can’t win the fight because once they defeat the bad, they’re no longer pure. They’ve experienced pain first-hand, seen the suffering offered up by the world, and can’t ever forget it.

This is where the series draws a line between Jay and George Hodel, two killers but two very different men. Hodel probably enjoys the predatory trill he gets from murder, as did Jay, but while Hodel is unaffected by his actions, Jay tries ripping himself open just to let a fraction of the guilt out. A study of two killers.

Reunited and it doesn’t feel so good

Fauna has become intimately familiar with the saying “be careful what you wish for” now that she’s found her birth mother. Fauna’s search for Tamar has finally come to an end but it’s not the reunion she expected. They find Tamar in a remote jungle area by the beach where she lives in a little hut with her children, Fauna’s half-siblings, one of which is a girl also named Fauna.

Mother and daughter take a walk on the beach and this is where Fauna learns the HORRIBLE truth. Tamar initially comes off as a very unusual woman. A new age hippie who can’t bare confrontation or unpleasant conversation which is probably a result of the abuse she suffered as a child.

First Tamar explains that she lied about the race of Fauna’s father because she didn’t trust white people and wanted Fauna to grow up in a black community. At this point, Fauna is already on the defense, but it only gets worse from there.

Next, Tamar reveals the sexual relationship she had with her father just months before Fauna was born and that the infamous trial Jay keeps hiding had been a morals trial. Instead of calling it what it was, Tamar says her father “made love” to her, which just creeped me the heck out. The fact that she referred to it as making love shows how he thoroughly manipulated her for years and continues to do so.

Shocked to her core, and probably sick to her stomach, Fauna decides she wants to go home. She calls out Jay for lying and not telling her what was going on when he clearly knew the whole time, seemingly ending the nice friendship they’d been developing. She asks Jay if Dr. Hodel really is her biological father, but Jay gives a vague response that could go either way.

The many crimes of George Hodel

While Fauna is off somewhere recovering, Jay takes a moment to talk to Tamar. They sit beside a fire as they do, the flames casting an appropriate amount of red hellfire across their faces.

Jay introduces himself as the man who covered her trial and a firm believer in her story, no matter what the public or the court said he forever remained on her side. This doesn’t seem to give her any comfort though. In Tamar’s mind, her father already won and there’s nothing she, or Jay, can do about it.

During their conversation Jay brings up Elizabeth Short, asking Tamar if she honestly knows whether Hodel killed the Black Dahlia or not. However, Tamar shocks him by admitting “everyone knew.” Everyone knew Dr. Hodel killed Short, but because of his power, they kept silent.

When she says “everyone” does she mean the press and the police? Or just anyone of prominent status?

Tamar fetches a box of portraits painted by her father as proof of his guilt. Each portrait is of a missing woman painted and signed by Dr. Hodel. One of them is Elizabeth Short and another is Janice Brewing, the woman in the morgue, implying that Hodel has killed at least six other women.

A filthy rat working for the devil

Back in Los Angeles, Jay makes a brief call to his editor and they plan on meeting at a restaurant. During the call, Sullivan is very insistent on Fauna being there, but Fauna refuses to leave the car and Jay walks in alone…mistake.

Surprise! Sullivan is working for Hodel and the meetup is a trap. To his credit, poor Sullivan looks like he’d rathered be anywhere else, and he did warn Jay about staying away from the Hodels. Too late for that now because here’s Jay blubbering on about proof of murders and Tamar Hodel and then a bunch of shady policemen comes barging out of the back, including the one with the facial scar.

As Jay is put in the back of the police car, he locks eyes with a hidden Fauna, silently informing her of his bad luck. His eyes say it all, “we’re screwed.” The first thing Fauna does is call Jimmy Lee, apologizing for leaving home and not listening to her, recognizing Jimmy as her real mother. They tearfully profess their love for one another, when suddenly Jimmy changes direction and tells Fauna she’s a stupid girl who can’t ever come home.

Turns out Dr. Hodel broke into Jimmy’s house and she said all that hoping he’d think Fauna was still in Hawaii. It’s clear he wasn’t fooled but either way, he came there for a reason and it’s wasn’t to make pleasant conversation.

He stabs Jimmy four times in the back and leaves her for dead but just as he’s running out of the house, a neighbor finds her. The last scene is Hodel driving back to Los Angeles, ready to see Fauna.

It’s unknown where the finale will go from here. This show doesn’t follow the exact true story, lots of things have been changed, so I have no idea how it will end. They could pull a “Man in the Iron Mask” twist and find a look-alike to replace Dr. Hodel after they dispose of him, no one will know.

The season finale of I am the Night airs Monday night at 9:00 p.m. ET on TNT.