Is This The End? Of Course Not!
We begin the season 1 finale of Signs with some answers to the big questions plaguing us all series. In the past, Laura wanders down the train tracks with Michal and Robert. With a train arriving, they play a simple trust exercise that goes horribly wrong. Robert refuses to lower his arm and Michal gets hit by a speeding train. As his arm lowers, a slick edit back to the present ensues as we find out what really happened. Robert never wanted Michal to die. Infact, he just wanted to humiliate his brother and prove to Laura that he was cool. In the wake of this, Laura wanted to tell everyone what happened but she was afraid of her Father. Jan was the only one who actually knew about the incident and Robert blamed Laura. He told the police commissioner that she was the one who didn’t lower her hand. This little white lie is the reason Laura wound up dead, as Jan shot her in a blinded rage. Meanwhile, Nina speaks to Ada about a boy she likes. As she tentatively admits that her Father wouldn’t be happy if he found out, we cut across to show that Sobczyk is actually listening to all of this take place. He snuck into Jan’s house and found the wired laptop, clearly believing Nina is talking about him. Heading out, Nina speaks to Agata who’s starting to become unraveled and scared. Given the familial issues she’s facing, Nina offers up some encouraging words of wisdom and reveals the truth about an incident that took place back in Krakow. Showing her the scarred legs she has, Agata throws her arms around her and they hug it out. Unfortunately Nina misinterprets the signs and tries to kiss her. Only, Agata admits she’s not a lesbian. After phoning Trela and asking for him to pick her up, hands grab her from behind and take her away. Zofia heads up to the quarry and holds a gun at Paszke’s head. She forces him in the car and they drive away from the crime scene. It turns out her grudge with him comes from the quarry site being a sacred burial ground for the remains of concentration camp prisoners. Forcing him to guzzle down Jonasz’s spiked water, he eventually leaves after telling her how ashamed he is and staggers back to the mine. En-route, he sees a strange figure wearing a back and white jumpsuit in the distance. As he heads deeper inside, part of the tunnel collapses on him. At the church, a man arrives and gives confession about his sins. Roman listens to the words and susses out that this man may be the one responsible for killing the women. This is especially evident given the words he remembers from the notebook. Whoever this guy is – he’s definitely the killer and apparently he’s killing “unclean sinners.” Roman pleads with him to admit, in the name of the Lord, what happened but instead he turns and leaves. Trela continues to search for Jan and eventually finds him. As he heads in the house, this happens to be the wrong move as Jan is ready for him. Tying him to a chair, he forces alcohol down Trela’s throat with the intention of telling the police that Trela arrived in a drunken rage; all of this was self defence. As they sit together, Jan admits what happened to Patcyja was a copycat killer and not his handiwork.With Trela figuring this out, Jan suddenly turns the gun on himself and fires. While Ada and Blazej have sex one last time, Trela frees himself from the chair and scrambles out the house. Thankfully he comes across Ada who grabs him and bundles the man into her car. As the episode (and season) closes out, Jonasz allows Dorota to head into the farmhouse alone. There, it’s revealed that she’s captured Nina for reasons unknown. The big cliffhanger leaves things wide open going forward.
The Review Write-Up
Who is the real killer? What does Dorota want with Nina? Is Paszke still alive? What’s going on with the Nazi super-weapon? And will you tune in to find out? Signs has really been a pretty slow-paced, almost miserable, murder mystery in the way it’s slowly unraveled over the 8 episodes. The show tries to throw a last minute wild card into the fold here but to be honest it feels like a ploy to drum up some excitement for a second season rather than a necessary component to this tale. On a side note here, it does feel a bit misleading labeling this a “limited series” given the cliffhanger ending and those expecting conclusive answers at the end (like myself) will almost certainly be left disappointed. Well, I guess we have next season to find out who really killed those girls. Taking a wild stab in the dark, I’d guess it’s Krzysztof Sobczyk. He’s pretty creepy, especially how close he was getting with Nina across the season, and his religious profile fits the killer. This also seems to align with a profile of someone who’s been close enough to the crimes to be able to mirror what happened and hide any evidence. For now though, Signs bows out with an underwhelming finale, leaving things open for a follow-up season. What are your thoughts? Who do you think the killer is? And will you be tuning in to season 2 to find out? Let us know in the comments below!
