This week Annika deals with the fallout from Michael finding out Morgan is his daughter. The Marine Homicide Unit is also called to investigate a case on land because it occurred in a body of water: a tech billionaire was found drowned in his mansion’s aquarium, and it is clear his death was not an accident.
Annika’s monologue references Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde throughout the episode. It’s very convenient that the name of the deceased billionaire is Fabian Hyde. The plot doesn’t appear to be specifically about Halloween, so let’s unpack why the classic gothic horror story is crucial to the episode.
Fabian Hyde’s murder is tied to his dual personality. To many people, he was a genius who revolutionized green technology. He was also seen in the local community as a philanthropist. On the other hand, there were people who knew that facade was a lie: his daughter and granddaughter resented the way he controlled their lives. In addition, Fabian closed one of his companies right before his murder, leading to hundreds of people losing their jobs. His own staff resented working long hours to make him richer. In the end, it turns out his granddaughter Grace killed him by accident; she was angry that Fabian blocked her from seeing her biological father and that he didn’t approve of her boyfriend.
The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, often shortened to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, was published in 1886. The novel follows Gabriel John Utterson, who is investigating the relationship between his old friend Dr. Henry Jekyll and a criminal named Edward Hyde. The part of the novel most people are familiar with is that Dr Jekyll drank a serum that turned him into Mr. Hyde, allowing him to indulge his secret desires. Unfortunately Jekyll over time started transforming involuntarily, and would need more and more serum doses to counter the effect.
As Annika notes, Stevenson was interested in the way human personalities can be both good and evil and how that reflects the overall battle between the two. In one of Stevenson’s earlier published short stories, “Markheim,” the main character believes he’s being visited by the Devil after stabbing an art dealer to death. Some of the scenes in the novel came to Stevenson in a dream one night. Some experts also believe he was inspired by real life events: Stevenson was friends with a French teacher based in Edinburgh named Eugene Chantrelle who was conivicted in 1878 of killing his wife. It’s highly likely that the Eugene Chantrelle Stevenson knew was not the Chantrelle Mrs. Chantrelle knew him to be.
The episode also addresses the fall out to last week’s shock announcement. Michael didn’t quit the Marine Homicide Unit, but he’s giving Annika as much of the silent treatment as possible. However, Tyrone may be leaving the unit as his promotion has been approved. Annika, in the monologue, wonders whether Michael now sees her as Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde. Annika claims that in an alternate universe she would have baked Michael a traditional Norwegian cake and then told him the news. Honestly, she should have done that instead of the terrible standup routine.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is not the only direct reference to Stevenson’s works in this episode. Annika also mentions that Stevenson had 12 rules to live by. One of them is that imaginary worries are harder to bear than real-life worries (you can read the full list here). Annika claims that one of her rules was not to hold postmortems.
Also during the episode, Morgan is planning a birthday party for her friend. Morgan’s girlfriend Erin was of course on the invite list, but Erin decides to bail on the party. Morgan gets an idea to take Annika’s boat out for a spin during the party. Unfortunately, she forgot to drop the anchor, so the boat ends up drifting into a sandbar. Annika and Michael end up having to share piloting a paddleboat to rescue Morgan. During this, Annika turns to the camera and mentions that Stevenson had a boat in Hawaii.
It turns out that in June 1888, Stevenson charted a yacht called the Casco in San Francisco and set sail for Hawaii. In his diaries, he recorded that the sea air was good for his health and spent the next three years traversing the Pacific. He befriended King Kalākaua and his neice Princess Victoria Kaiulani. He also visited the Samoan Islands, New Zealand, Australia, the Gilbert Islands and Tahiti. He wrote about his travels in the book In The South Seas but it wasn’t published until after his death in 1896.
On their boat ride, Annika admits to Michael that she didn’t tell him about the paternity because she had a bad relationship with her mother, and she believed she was protecting Morgan from that trauma. Michael may have wanted to keep on believing Annika was the villain in his story, but it’s clear that she may not be. When they reach Morgan she tells them that Erin dumped her, and Morgan took the boat out of anger. Technically, taking the police boat is a crime, which means Annika and Michael have to figure out an appropriate punishment.
When will Astrid and Morgan find out the truth? We’ll have to watch next week on Annika to find out!
