The Sinner Season 4 Episode 4 Review- Is The Bazegw Legend Real?

Percy is dead, but Harry can’t stop investigating her death. When the dead speak, he listens even when it puts him in danger. A revelatory The Sinner Season 4 Episode 4 explains so much and so little as the mystery of who or what killed Percy deepens. The more we know, the less we understand. The patient storytelling of The Sinner sucks you right in and keeps the ground shifting under your feet.

The Sinner has always been about the all too human failings that caused the shocking crimes across the four seasons. The mystery of it all keeps us engaged, while the character studies of broken people keep us coming back. It’s as much about the people Harry is investigating as it is Harry himself. That is the magic of the series. It isn’t just a procedural or a semi-supernatural chiller. It’s many things at once, and all of them are compelling. The Sinner Season 4 Episode 4 is no different. Harry is uniquely qualified to uncover the truth because he is tenacious and potentially more damaged than those he is investigating. It is the brilliance of his character made even better by the subtly of Bill Pullman’s approach. He is a deeply flawed man who is still the guy you would want in your corner, always.

Percy is dead. There is no question anymore. Harry really did see her jump off the cliff. For Harry, that doesn’t close the investigation, though. He needs to know why she was so afraid and who she was scared of. Harry finds a Celtic Northstar in her jacket pocket with the name Valerie etched on it. Who is Valerie, and why was it so important to her? That emblem leads him directly to Colin and terrible possibilities.

Despite Percy whispering in Harry’s ear constantly, the ghost that most haunts him is his own. It’s what drives him to keep searching for answers, and it’s the beast that almost kills him. Ultimately his obsession drives Sonya away when someone breaks into their house wearing a red raincoat. She is scared for herself and for what the investigation is doing to Harry. Her concern is not enough to stop Harry, though, and she leaves him on the island with his demons. She tells him the persistence that makes him compelled to find answers for the victims is also a monster that makes him obsessed. She isn’t wrong. As much as there is beauty in his desire to speak for the dead, there is an ugliness that sullies everyone who touches it.

One of those people maybe Colin, who seemed to have too close a relationship with his niece. The Celtic Northstar came from his boat, and rumors around town smacked of abuse. They spent a lot of time together on his boat. They also shared an addiction problem. Meg denies Colin could ever have done anything to Percy regardless of the gossip and the questionable picture of the two of them sitting together. Sean told Harry sometimes choosing to look the other way is as dangerous as actually doing the deed. Meg also vehemently denies Colin having any contact with Percy when she was in Portland. She is in denial about who and what he may be.

Meg is also in denial about Percy. She asked Harry to keep looking for answers because she says Percy was a devout Catholic who would never take her own life. However, she seems not to know very much about Percy’s life. She saw what she wanted to see and nothing else. Percy was a troubled young woman, and no amount of pretending will fix that now. Whether Colin gave her inappropriate attention is still unclear, but Sean thinks the Muldoons have hidden the truth for too long.

The best scene of the evening is shared by Bill Pullman’s Harry and Michael Mosley’s Colin. After Harry hears Colin talking about the break-in at his house, he searches Colin’s boat. Unfortunately, Colin followed him there and locked him below while he drove them out of the harbor. He lets him out once they leave the dock and the two men square off. However, Harry is not deterred by Colin’s aggression. He asks him about Valerie and confronts him about his relationship with Percy. Colin denies both and explains he was helping her reconnect with God each time they went out on the boat together. He also shows Harry pictures Percy drew. One is of the Abenaki word Bazegw which means “one”. This correlates with the Bazegw legend Sonya read to Harry on the way to the island in the first episode.

Colin says someone poisoned Percy’s mind. The tense scene culminates in Harry accusing Colin of being jealous. He says Percy was being influenced by someone else, and Colin couldn’t stand that. In a fit of rage, Colin shoved Harry into the freezing waters of the ocean. He manages to swim to shore and is armed with another clue to Percy’s death. After solving the hint, he hikes out to Bazegw Point and finds more shrines and totems, including an elaborate wooden structure by the beach. Inside he finds one of Percy’s drawings of a dark creature with red eyes. Who or what was chasing Percy, and was it real?

One of the things The Sinner has always done so well is balance the weird with the mundane. No matter what supernatural misdirects it throws at us, the reveal is always somehow more horrific and weirder than any of the strange superpowered cults or haunting ghosts. The Sinner Season 4 Episode 4 was a turning point in the series.

It marked the beginning of the end for Harry. The potential end of his relationship with Sonya and a chance for happiness away from death and violence. It marked the end of hope that Percy somehow wasn’t dead, and it marked the end of the Muldoons stranglehold on the community. The Lams were full of optimism when they first opened their restaurant. The Muldoons crushed that. For too long, they have been bullies. That changed when Percy died, and Harry came to town even if they don’t know it yet. Find all our The Sinner coverage here.

Stray Kettle Of Fish:

• Celtic Northstar– The Celts believed the spiralling design was sacred. It symbolized the continuous turning of seasons and subsequently the renewal of nature and life. They further believed places like shores were deeply powerful places as they were “in-between” places that were not one single thing. As the shore is both dry land and sea it is special. Celtic knots are common symbols for fisherman particularly those of Irish descent.
• Bazegw Legend- An Irish settler De Paor, sacrificed his daughter to the sea gods in hopes of making the cod fishing good again. Most of the fisherman had left and those that remained were starving. His sacrifice brought the fish back to the island but unfortunately he could not catch any. The vengeful Gods punished him instead of rewarding his sacrifice. Since Percy thought she was cursed it is likely she turned to something else to protect herself. While this legend is not real, there are several similar stories shared by fishermen and sailors.
• A sea deity in Celtic mythology, Manannán mac Lir is seen in Irish, Scottish, and Manx literature. He is named in ballads as the first ruler of the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea, and he is seen giving offerings of bundles of reeds and yellow flowers in a ritual on the summer solstice. The debt paid, Manannán is said to scare off sea-bound invaders and keep the islanders safe. We don’t know who Percy and the women dancing in the water were worshipping but Manannán mac Lir might be a contender.
• Is Valerie a she, or is it possible she is a what? Could Valerie be a boat?