‘Murder in a Small Town’ Recap: Karl Has His Deadliest Case Yet With Serial Killer’s Return

[Warning: The following post contains MAJOR spoilers for Murder in a Small Town Season 2 Episode 8, “Masterpiece.”]

Tommy Cummins (Noah Reid) returned on a grisly new mission on Tuesday’s (November 18) edition of Murder in a Small Town.

The episode — titled “Masterpiece” as a nod to the serial killer’s artistic, erm, flair — opened by showing one of his murders in action, with him blithely drowning a woman in a barrel while listening to opera music.

In the present day, Tommy got the Seattle assistant district attorney, Lanni Soo (Jamie Chung), to convince Karl Alberg (Rossif Sutherland) to come visit him in prison in return for divulging the whereabouts of his first victims’ bodies. Tommy said he’d need to personally escort the officers to those locations, and though Karl sensed it was all part of a plan, he still went along for the ride.

Indeed, we soon learned that Tommy had previously connected with an admirer named Madeline and convinced her to get a rental van and go to the same location to spring him. He also set a trap in one of his burial sites with grenades that exploded upon being opened, wounding an officer and giving Tommy time to run away to a hideaway.

Karl eventually found Madeline and learned that her sister, Beth, was one of Tommy’s victims, so she was planning an ambush of her own on him. Karl then realized Tommy’s latest art obsession was illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy inferno, and when he walked into Tommy’s lair, it was clear he was creating his own circle of hell — with Soo trapped in a barrel and running out of time.

Tommy gave Karl a choice: Save Soo or capture him. Karl didn’t hesitate to run straight to the barrel, of course, but Tommy didn’t plan for Madeline to sabotage him and have the police waiting in her van.

In the end, Karl got away, but with 16 barrels of bodies with unidentified victims inside, the whole thing was like a Dexter-style fever dream he’ll not soon forget.

Kailey Schwerman / FOX

The upside of the case is that it brought him closer to Cassandra Lee (Kristin Kreuk) again. After fearing the worst might happen in entering Tommy’s warehouse, he called to tell her she is the love of his life, just in case he wouldn’t get another chance. When he returned home safely afterward, if a little worse for the wear, they agreed to never leave things on an angry note again.

Elsewhere in the episode, we learned that Mayor Christie Holman (Marcia Gay Harden) tried to use Cassandra’s mother — who is being treated by her for an apparently serious illness — over the town budget… but Cassandra might suddenly have the upper hand after receiving a packet full of leaked information from an unknown hacker. Would she use it, though?

Plus, Sid (Aaron Douglas) narrowly survived his car wreck, and his daughter seems ready to repair their relationship now, too; and Laila (Bethany Brown) revealed a tragic bit of her past as the reason she’s been so resilient about the officer-involved shooting. However, her new girlfriend Vanessa (Jodelle Ferland) may be ready to call it quits upon learning of her use of force, however justified it was.

Only two more episodes to go until Murder in a Small Town Season 2 comes to an end.

Murder in Small Town, Tuesdays, 8/7c, Fox