Abhiroop Das
Co-developed by Ed Whitmore and Tracey Malone, Fox’s ‘Memory of a Killer’ traces Angelo Doyle’s complicated double life as a copier salesman and cold-blooded hitman at once. While things have been running smoothly for years, things take a sharp turn when he begins exhibiting signs of early-onset Alzheimer’s. One by one, every element of life he once deemed stable begins to crumble right in front of his eyes, and all of this is worsened by the appearance of a mysterious entity simply known as the Ferryman, who seems hell bent on destroying Angelo’s life from the inside out. The previous episode of this psychological thriller series ends with Angelo inching his way towards the antagonist’s identity, but there are simply too many moving parts in the game that he doesn’t know of yet, and this episode, titled ‘Unhappy Ending,’ pulls back the curtain just a bit further. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Angelo’s Hunt For the Ferryman Continues to Ramp up
‘Memory of a Killer’ season 1 episode 4 begins with Angelo deeply engrossed in the hunt for the Ferryman. While most leads turn out to be a dead end, he finds his breakthrough at Belinda’s Bakeshop, a front for a bullet manufacturer who knows a guy who knows Ferryman. When the middleman, named Hurt, shows up at the shop that night, Angelo ambushes him, demanding the name and location of the elusive criminal who ordered a hit on Maria. Surprisingly, Hurt favors death before letting out the Ferryman’s identity, citing how the latter is known to target family members if things go south. Letdown, Angelo shoots Hurt dead, but doesn’t forget to unlock and seize his phone before doing that. Afterwards, the gun manufacturer explains that Hurt worked with a gang at an abandoned Bronx power plant, giving Angelo his next pit stop.
The following morning, chaos slowly unfolds in Maria’s house due to her secret rendezvous at the shooting range. To her husband and father, she is going for her weekly yoga classes, and while Jeff buys into that lie, Angelo remains concerned about his daughter. Pushing those doubts away, Maria rushes her way to the range, where Dave is waiting with a gun, still unsure whether this is the right move. Maria assures him that this is the only way she can let go of her nagging fears and paranoia. However, before the lesson can continue, Dave is called back to the office, presumably due to the discovery of Hurt’s body. Disappointed, Maria tries to tag along with him like the previous murder, but is turned away.
Elsewhere, Angelo notices that Hurt’s phone has one new message from an anonymous sender, asking for his presence at Willow Road, a place the hitman isn’t familiar with. More importantly, he has a new mission at hand: the murder of Cathrine Warton, an old-school arms dealer who is almost always surrounded by a tight line of security. The only opening Angelo has is her spa session, and Joe is tasked with distracting the therapist while his senior finishes the job. Minutes before the plan is supposed to go afoot, Angelo asks Joe more about an abandoned power plant in the Bronx, and learns that there is one on Willow Road. Without skipping a beat, Angelo abandons the assassination plan and rushes away, leaving Joe in utter confusion.
Angelo Wipes Out Three More Assassins Sent After His Family
After setting camp in the power plant ahead of time, Angelo stakes out three assassins stashing a large collection of weapons, seemingly at the Ferryman’s behest. Doing what he does best, Angelo stealthily takes them down one by one, sparing the leader, Leo, just enough seconds to get some information out of him. However, Leo dies before he can say anything meaningful, and worse, his phone is password-locked. As if that is not bad enough, Angelo finds, in Leo’s possession, photos of Maria, Jeff, and even Angelo’s brother, Michael. With his entire family threatened, Angelo doesn’t catch even a wink of sleep that night, earning more of Nicky’s curiosity. While she correctly deduces that he is a man of secrets and intends to stay that way, it appears that Angelo is still far from having his cover blown.
The next day, Angelo’s first stop is the mental health facility where Mike is staying, and there he asks for any visitors who might have aroused suspicion. It appears that Mike is still battling with dementia, which only adds to Angelo’s growing fears about his own lapses in memory. Elsewhere, Maria hikes all the way back to the bridge her parents used to camp at, and there she chances upon the missing shoe from Bloch’s body. The problem is that Bloch was found several miles downstream, which suggests that he possibly fell from the bridge and was swept up by the shore. When she takes these findings to Dave, he is duly impressed, but that enthusiasm is quickly snuffed out when the higher-ups stop Maria, a civilian, from getting involved any further.
Nicky Might be the One to Stab Angelo in the Back
Meanwhile, things are back on track for Angelo and Joe, and they have a new plan to take out Catherine. This involves Angelo neutralizing her potential clients first, then taking their place. However, Catherine doesn’t take to a fresh face nicely, and instead tries to flee the place, but is ultimately taken out by Angelo head-first. With the hit successful, Angelo has one more job for Joe: to decrypt Leo’s phone and get hold of his call history. Back home, Jeff and Maria’s disagreements reach a boiling point when he suggests moving out of Hudson Springs. Even more surprisingly, Angelo agrees with the idea, especially from a perspective neither of the other has. Maria, however, is adamant about staying and protecting their legacy, and the trio effectively reaches a stalemate.
Elsewhere, FBI agent Linda Grant arrives at the power plant to examine the situation and quickly finds evidence that the crime scene has been readjusted to look like a gang exchange gone wrong. In reality, she is inches away from figuring out that Angelo is the master assassin behind it all, and that he will keep going until he’s caught. Meanwhile, the Hudson Springs police station finally confirms that Bloch was murdered at the bridge, and then left for dead, and that the killer is likely still out at large.
That night, Joe arrives at Angelo’s house with the phone decrypted, and the latter soon finds a single number showing up on the call logs repeatedly. When Angelo dials up that number, however, he hears none other than Nicky on the other end, showing that the mystery goes much deeper than he thought. Still, just the fact that she is on his call list alone doesn’t prove that she is one of the Ferryman’s agents. Instead, she, like Earl Hancock, may be an unwitting pawn in a much larger game.
Read More: Is Fox’s Memory of a Killer Based on a True Story?
