Directed by Agnieszka Holland
Written by Kim Newton & Stacy Kravetz
Tropes for the episode:
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Professor Roy Minard. He insists on his innocence in Holly's murder, and wants justice for being unfairly accused of and persecuted for her death. But then it turns out he really did kill her, and even set up another guy to take the fall so he could get his reputation back.
- Convicted by Public Opinion: Even though Roy was not arrested for Holly's murder at the time, his life was essentially ruined because everyone thought he did it. His desire to clear his name is what sparkled the new investigation. At the end, however, it turned out the public was right and he was the murderer.
- A Deadly Affair: Roy killed Holly when she decided to break off their adulterous relationship, having finally realized that it was wrong.
- Detective Patsy: Roy sets Barry up as the Fall Guy and asked the detectives to solve the murder, thinking Barry would get convicted. He didn't count on the detectives being so good at their jobs, or a hooker wearing a piece of jewelry worth pawning.
- Disposable Sex Worker: Roy hired Jesus to kill the sex worker Barry was obsessed with, in order to frame him. And at the end of the episode, her ghost appears to no one.
- Dogged Nice Guy: Barry Tepler. He was hopelessly in love with Holly, writing poems referring to her as the Ophelia to his Hamlet. Sadly, Holly was more interested in her (married) college professor than him. Even when Holly realized she had to end her affair with Roy, and Barry comforted her and offered his love, she stated that she could never love him.
- Fall Guy: When Roy saw the chance to set up Barry for Holly's murder and make himself look innocent, he took it.
- Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: Roy teaches English as a second language after being fired from his arts & sciences professorship.
- Foreshadowing: When Roy approaches the cops about reinvestigating Holly's murder, he declares that "I played the unfortunate role of the suspect." Lilly very pointedly asks, "And who played the even more unfortunate role of the victim?" This is a significant hint at Roy's self-centered nature, all of which is confirmed throughout the flashbacks and the present day scenes that reveal he is the killer after all.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Roy sets up Barry for Holly's murder so he can finally get everyone off his case, and get his life and family back. However, he didn't pay the murderer, Jesus, enough promised money, so the latter took a piece of jewellery from the victim's body and pawned it, which was traced back to him. The detectives prove it was Roy all along, and he finally gets convicted and imprisoned after all these years.
- If I Can't Have You…: Holly finally realized that her affair with Roy was wrong and wanted to end it. But Roy the Control Freak wouldn't accept getting dumped. The affair’s only over when he says it's over.
- It's All About Me: During his first conversation with Lilly and her team, Roy makes it a point to frame himself as a victim who "played the unfortunate role of the suspect". It's Lilly who has to point out that whether he's innocent or not, Holly had it worse for (to paraphrase) "play the even more unfortunate role of the victim".
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Holly was the latest in a string of affairs Roy had. At the time of the reinvestigation, he seems genuinely remorseful for cheating on his wife and how it led to Holly's death, and wants his name cleared once and for all. But in the end, it turns out everyone was right–Roy was the killer. And it was because he wouldn't let Holly dump him instead of the other way around.
- Laser-Guided Karma:
- Even though the police never proved Roy was the killer back in 1995, the general public and the media all still thought he was guilty, and smeared him in every newspaper possible. And since the affair was discovered during the investigation, Roy lost his job at the university, and his wife left him and took their son with her. So even though he technically got away with killing Holly, he still suffered for her death.
- Roy's attempt to trick the general public by hiring someone to kill a second victim in a similar fashion while he got himself an alibi backfires as the detectives find the second killer.
- Only Bad Guys Call Their Lawyers: One of Roy's former lovers is convinced that he's guilty because he hired a lawyer immediately. Lily points out that this trope is a fallacy and hiring a lawyer is the smart thing for a suspect to do whether they're guilty or not.
But then it turns out that Roy really is guilty. - Revealing Cover Up: Roy would have likely gotten away with Holly's murder, at least in the eye of the law, if he didn't hire Jesus to kill another girl in the same manner in an attempt to create an alibi for himself and to throw suspicion on Barry. However the second murder was arranged so sloppily that it very quickly led the detectives right back to him, and since he made sure the murders were so similar it became obvious he was guilty of the first one as well.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Monique believes Roy Minard to be guilty because he quickly hired a lawyer. Innocents hire lawyers as well but Roy turns out to be really guilty.
- Shout-Out: Roy describes the second victim's killer as his "one-armed man" and Lilly compares Roy to Richard Kimble.
- Spotting the Thread: When the detectives talk with Roy in his English language class, there is a phrase on the blackboard saying "Chickens lay, people lie". Later, Jesus, who was busted for murdering a sex worker, makes a grammatical mistake about "laying" which he quickly corrects, allowing the detectives to deduce that he attended Roy's ESL class.
- Student/Teacher Romance: Holly was in a relationship with her professor, Roy Minard.
- "Wanted!" Poster: Roy is looking at some of these during his first non-flashback scene.
