Long Live Jenny Cooper! Coroner Season 1 Episode 7 ended with Dr. Peterson’s death, and for a minute there, it looked like Jenny would follow suit on Coroner Season 1 Episode 8.
We knew she wouldn’t really die. She’s the lead, and this isn’t Game of Thrones. Still, we haven’t seen our favorite coroner in danger like this before. Usually, it’s strangers or, possibly, Ross. This time, Jenny came face-to-face with a serial killer, and she got stabbed in the gut for her trouble.
It was a minor wound, but we didn’t know that at the time. And being trapped in a building with a serial killer while you bleed out is not a recipe for survival.
Jones: Did you get me thank you for getting me out of jail present?
Jenny: Dr. Peterson? I mean that was a pretty fucked up thank you.
Jones: Oh, no no. The newspaper article about your sister’s death. You dig up my ghosts, I dig up your ghosts. I became interested in you after you helped me. I just- I knew that we had something in common.
Jenny’s a fighter, but when a serial killer is attacking you, it is the absolute worst time to have a panic attack. Seemed to work out, though.
Nearly dying did what Dr. Sharma was trying to do with his scary hypnosis trick; it brought back Jenny’s memories.
She was pretty set on that dog, so much so that it was a bit annoying at times. Now that we know, I’m actually pretty satisfied with the pay-off. It was their childhood dog, and her dad shot him right after Jenny accidentally killed her sister. Oops.
I guess her dad thought killing the dog would help her believe it was the dog’s fault? That part is still a little unclear.
Jenny’s memories may have cleared up, but she was still pretty young. The grown-up details of why it occured are trapped in her dad’s head somewhere.
Jenny: What are you doing?
Dr. Sharma: This is EMDR. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy. Follow my fingers.
Jenny: Okay.
Dr. Sharma: Your memories of trauma come up involuntarily, but if we bring them up now.
Jenny: You’re trying to overload my brain.
Dr. Sharma: Yes, disrupt your defenses, reroute your processing. What memories come up around your sister’s death? In any order.
Jenny: I remember … I remember stairs. I remember them being so high. I look down but I don’t remember what I see.
Jenny seemed to harp on what her dad said about Katie the last time she saw him, but when someone’s mind is going like that, how much of what they say can you really trust?
Jenny has lost so much of her family — her sister, her husband, etc. Now her father doesn’t seem to be there anymore. All in all, it’s pretty tragic.
Ross has been coping with his tragic loss in a surprising way. Not surprising in that people don’t do that all the time, but surprising in that they hadn’t hinted at it before.
Ross has been getting stoned.
Alison: I’m the coroner’s officer, not the coroner’s babysitter. I have real work to do.
Jenny: Okay, yeah, it’s just gonna be a tiny bit longer, all right? I have to go somewhere. He’ll be quiet. He’ll be on his phone. He’ll play videogames.
Alison: And I have a baby inside me. I can’t deal with one outside me, especially one who’s stoned out of his gills.
He’s been getting stones off of gummy candies because, apparently, that is a thing. Who knew that was a thing? Seriously, Alison saw those candies, and she knew exactly what they were. So did Jenny.
When did Swedish Fish become a common way to get high?
Recreational marijuana is legal in Canada, but you have to be at least 18 to purchase. Ross is just shy of that. Goodness knows where he got the fish. He seems pretty tech savy, so maybe on the black market?
Wherever he got it, it seemed to really catch up with him during this episode. He was hallucinating his dad, as well as the lady who died in their house.
For a moment, I thought Coroner was going to go a hallucinations-run-in-the-family, mental illness route because Jenny keeps seeing that dog. But no. He was just high.
Jenny: So, how long have you been self-medicating buddy?
Ross: Since dad died.
Jenny: You know that’s no way to cope with life.
Ross: The gummies take the sadness away. I’m just doing what you’re doing. You leave your pills in the cup holder all the time.
Despite Canada allowing recreational pot, the hammer seemed to swing down pretty hard on Ross using. That could be because he’s still a minor. Or maybe it’s because he was using for the wrong reasons.
Drugs are not the best way to cope with grief. Then again, is there a right way to cope with grief?
Ross’s grief is so different than Jenny’s. To Jenny, David was a husband who she used to love, but from whom she was also separating. He also screwed her over.
To Ross, he was his dad. They might not have had the perfect relationship, but what parent and child do, especially during those trying teen years? Regardless, he was his dad, and now he’s just gone.
I just wanted to manage on my own. You know, the morning of my swim meet, he was giving me one of his um “you have to do quadruple as good,” lessons, you know, and, as usual, I just tuned him out and I just, I always thought he would be there, and it’s like what if I keep forgetting. You know, like, the way he slurped his soup, or the goldfish mobile me made for me for Nowruz, or you know his stupid life lessons. What if I keep forgetting?
Ross
Ross is afraid of forgetting, which is totally legitimate. We do start to forget as time passes. Memories slip through our fingers like ghosts.
It was cool seeing Ross’s father for the first time since Coroner Season 1 Episode 1. It gave us a greater sense of his relationship with his son. I wouldn’t mind more flashbacks if they can find a way to squeeze them in.
I also wouldn’t mind more of Agents Malik and Taylor Kim. Their back and forth was great. They’ve had good lines before too, if memory serves. But the episodes seem to focus on Jenny and McAvoy, and then they expand outward.
This show has so many interesting minor characters that would really flourish if we got to know them better. All that stuff Taylor was talking about that McAvoy does and doesn’t know about her and Malik? That’s stuff I’d like to learn about.
Malik: Know where the real money’s at? Cannabis stocks.
Kim: It’s a bubble.
Malik: Please. You know who’s gonna invest in the Malik side hustle?
Kim: Big Mac? Why would he? I’m his favorite.
Malik: Nah.
Kim: When’s the last time he texted you? Never. What’s his nickname for you? None. You are not his favorite, Malik, and I’ll tell you why.
Malik: Why?
Kim: Here’s what he knows about you, you like garbage jewelry, you can’t stop eating at only one hotdog, your mom loves your girlfriend more than you, and your dad displays all your Boy Scout badges in his office.
Malik: So?
Kim: Here’s what he doesn’t know about me. I moved away from home when I was 16. I was an elite rower. I live with my girlfriend and our 3 dogs. I won the Tough Mudder last weekend. Here’s what he does know about me. I’m a kickass detective, ergo, I’m his favorite.
Why did she leave home at 16?
Why does his mother prefer his girlfriend?
Let’s meet their partners, learn their backstories, see their home lives. The same with Alison, who is a cinnamon bun that I can’t get enough of. She was so worried about Jenny when she got stabbed.
Similarly with Dwayne, who we learned a little about. He’s apparently religious. Also, it sounds like he’s an artist.
Maybe I’m forgetting, and we already knew that, but it was interesting information about a character who is pretty significant at this point.
Dr. Allen: I’m very strict about keeping my work-life separate from my personal life. My personal life is full of art and beauty. You know, keep a healthy balance, that’s my motto. But Dr. Peterson is affecting me like a normal person.
McAvoy: It’s okay to have feelings like a normal person sometimes. Even I do occasionally.
I never know how to take it when we see characters praying onscreen. On the one hand, representation of religious individuals is important. People’s religious practices should be respected as opposed to mocked.
However, there’s the other side, where people might feel uncomfortable hearing empathic religious language from a religion that is not theirs.
It was done in a pretty harmless way here, though I was somewhat relieved when McAvoy walked away. He didn’t really dig it. He respected it, though, which is important. It felt kind of weird how Dwayne was trying to draw McAvoy into praying with him.
It was a pretty big episode for Dwayne. He seemed on board when Jenny fired Dr. Peterson and promoted him. He’s seemed to support her each step of the way.
Dr. Allen: It’s full circle.
Jenny: What do you mean?
Dr. Allen: My first case, with Dr. Peterson, was at a dig like this. He gave me my first shot.
Jenny: He was your mentor.
Dr. Allen: He didn’t deserve to die, violently. In disgrace. He wasn’t that good at the end, but before that he was legendary.
Jenny: What do you think happened to him?
Dr. Allen: He saw hundreds and hundreds of dead bodies and it fucked him up! He’s dead because you fired him!
It turns out, he had greater loyalty to Dr. Peterson than we realized. It’s funny how death can bring that out of us.
A show that spends so much screentime in the morgue is going to be about grief, but this episode was particularily grief-heavy.
We grieved Dr. Peterson. We grieved Ross’s father. We grieved the long-dead Katie Cooper (and Arski). Finally, we grieved a homeless man, killed by his son 30 years prior.
Gerald Henry Jones was a disturbed human being. What he was doing was horrible, but it might have been a good thing that he got out of jail.
Jenny: We are going to treat this just like any other case, okay? Dr. Peterson would want that.
Dr. Allen: Yes he would.
Now McAvoy has a trail to find the bodies of his other victims. He can finally give their families peace. Plus, instead of rotting in a cell, Jones will now be rotting in the ground.
His is one dead body that doesn’t need Jenny to tell its story. Anyway, Jenny is starting her own story. She’s ready to move on and finally start something real with Liam.
He really put himself out there for her. It’s nice to know he’s done with other women, though it was a little unclear how she was going to take his declaration. The timing wasn’t great because she was on a job. Still, it all turned out okay.
Not all the ghosts are dead and buried. Ross isn’t ready to part with his father’s ashes yet. That’s okay. It takes time. The good news is, it seems the family is ready to start healing.
Jenny: My dad told me that Katie tripped over the dog and she fell down the stairs but in that article they describe how she was found and she, she had to have gone over the railing.
Dr. Sharma: You can’t know that.
Jenny: I’m a coroner.
So, what did you think, Coroner Fanatics? Are you happy for Liam and Jenny? Would you like to see more of the minor characters? Are you geared up for Coroner Season 2?
Let us know in the comments, and remember, you can watch Coroner online right here via TV Fanatic.
Coroner airs on Wednesdays at 9/8c on The CW.
Leora W is a staff writer for TV Fanatic..