An Unexpected Visit
Episode 3 of Good Morning Veronica begins with Veronica speaking to Janete in her house. As Janete sits nervously, her hands shaking, she’s convinced herself that everything is her fault. Telling her side of the story, Janete mentions the box and the forest trips. As she goes into detail about the horrific acts that Claudio conducts, she shows her crossword puzzle. It turns out she’s been using this to fool Claudio and write down important dates and names – including one name labeled “Deusa.” The cycle of abuse has been getting worse, the catalyst of which stemming from Janete’s constant miscarriages. With her unwilling to testify, Veronica pleads with the woman to give her some time to try and gather evidence to put him away. Back at the station, Veronica goes over what she’s learned and tries to figure out the next course of action. Veronica tasks Nelson with trying to track down Claudio’s movements, down to the minute. Elsewhere, Janete receives a surprise visitor when her sister Janice arrives. Claudio is less than enthused but he keeps up the façade and lets her stay for the night. It turns out Janete’s mum has cancer and she’s in line for public health at the hospital. It doesn’t look good for her and worse, treatment is expensive. Claudio throws a bone though and promises to check his bank balance to help. Alone, Janete apologises to her husband but he simply tells her to rest, making a point of calling her little bird again. The next day, Anita has a big break and tries to catch the culprit from the dark web out in the open. Their play is a backpack exchange for the photographs but this guy is smart. Paying off a man to pose in his place, Anita apprehends the wrong suspect and the real guy slips through her fingers. Veronica is not happy – especially given she warned something like this would happen – and gets back to more conventional ways of searching. This involves checking the CCTV footage from that day with Tania’s help. She notices a guy snapping photos but also engaging in a strange neck twitch – this matches the same mannerisms that Felipo allegedly had too. The group deduce they’ve found their guy and turn to a more conventional way of baiting the man out of hiding – and that comes from a dating profile on Ideal Love. It turns out Claudio has a completely clean license and no previous felonies to his name. This means Veronica and the other officers are at a difficult moment in the investigation and unsure where to turn next. After an awkward encounter the previous night with Claudio, Janete is given some breathing room when her husband heads to work. It’s just the opportunity Janice needs too and she tries to bring her sister back to her old fun-loving self. Janice encourages Janete to head out with her while dressed provocatively but she only manages to make it halfway down the drive before she gets cold feet. Sitting at the kitchen table, Janice pleads with her sister to open up. Claudio senses her meddling when he returns too and offers to drive Janice down to the airport. Only…he doesn’t drive her there. Instead, he drops her off in the middle of an alleyway. When Janice tries to scramble out of sight, Claudio stalks the girl and points a gun directly at her head – threatening to shoot. Meanwhile, Veronica is caught in a difficult position. She has little to go on and Janete is obviously too afraid to testify against her husband. Unfortunately Claudio goes one step further when he heads home and starts cutting off Janete’s hair. This is another shocking example of abuse and one that closes out this episode on a pretty grim note.
The Episode Review
With Veronica closing in on Claudio, all of this crescendos into a shocking climax with Janice seemingly being killed. Janete also feels the wrath of her husband too and the shocking abuse is actually pretty hard to watch at times. This series really hammers home the psychological issues Janete is suffering from and leaves the door wide open for the rest of the season. Is Claudio the same man as the abuser that’s been spiking drinks? It seems like he may be but thematically this series has done an excellent job capturing the raw essence of abuse. Quite what will happen next however, remains to be seen.
