IN TREATMENT

Doctor: "So this Rosie Larsen thing, huh? Lots of stress. Lots of people freaking out for no good reason about a TV show. That's gotta do something to your head."
Linden: "And here I thought I was here because of my fictional suicide attempt."
Doctor: "I'm sure you can see the connection. So wait, they found her in the trunk of a car, and you were telling me Adrian was in a closet..."
Linden: "No connection."
Doctor: "Wait, so was it because they're both children? Is this because you're the first of the three victims? Is that the deal? You, then Adrian, then homegirl? What's the actual connection between these Killings, in your head? Why did you go crazy both times? WHAT IS THE ACTUAL POINT OF THIS ENTIRE SHOW?"

...? Maybe? Maybe she will? Maybe we can finally move on to a new kind of show? Maybe we don't have Showtime Syndrome after all and we can actually develop the premise, instead of just giving it a greasy cold handjob that never quite gets us there, after even years?

Ha! No. Of course not.

Linden: "I have been cooperative, Health Professional. I have answered your queries."
Doctor: "Oh, fuck me? How about fuck you? Enjoy the next 72 hours."
Linden: "Well. I see. I will have to act inordinately insane, then."
Doctor: "That's one approach."

Linden acts inordinately insane at this time. Which, so would you -- I mean it makes sense -- but then also? You had one job. All you had to do was not act crazy for like ten minutes. And instead, you acted super crazy after about five minutes.

And ordinarily I would make a joke about how of course she's as bad at acting normal as she is at everything else, but: She is not a well woman! It is not outwith the straining borders of reality that she would be unable to do this. She can't even do the job she was trained to do -- got fired from, in fact, for being simultaneously too good and not very good at all -- so how's she supposed to avoid doing the one thing that life really seems to want her to do? And wasn't part of this show's implicit promise just this?

One day, Sarah Linden is going to go bugshit crazy. It will probably happen before you find out who killed Rosie Larsen. But then, plenty of stuff will probably happen before then. Possibly all the things that will ever happen, infinite events, will happen before that happens. But one of them will definitely be Sarah Linden's brain completely shitting the bed.