'The Sinner' Season 3 Episode 5 sees Jamie Burns and detective Ambrose's relationship become more complicated
Spoilers ahead for 'The Sinner' Season 3 Episode 5
In the dark of the night, Jamie Burns (Matt Bomer) visits his university where he dumps a stone with blood on it, cleans up the blood that he is covered in and then he dumps the clothes and other things that had blood in the lake before he returns home where he picks his baby and soothes as if he did not just murder a man a few hours ago. He continues to lie to his wife Leela (Parisa Henley), and Jaime even tells her that he plans on going in for the follow up with a psychiatrist. Detective Ambrose is called into visit the crime of the same man that Jamie beat to death.
In episode 5 of 'The Sinner' we see how Jamie drove back to the party where he had to meet the strange man who had told him about his friend who is "close to him". This is the same man who turns up dead in the morning and Detective Harry Ambrose (Bill Pullman) has a feeling that it was Jamie who perpetrated the crime. Now, what's interesting about this episode is the fact that instead of tipping the NYPD about Jamie's involvement at the get-go, Detective Ambrose ends up confronting Jamie about the crime. In turn, Jaime tries to convince Ambrose that this killer that he has turned into, is not him and he pleads for understanding.
He asks Ambrose what he would have done if it was his brother who was caught up in this situation. Ambrose tells Jaime that there is one way he can help the professor and that is by ensuring that his arrest is not made public, but that is only if Jamie chooses to surrender. Ambrose's need to get Jamie to surrender instead of having him arrested is not what one would expect of a detective. In fact, when Ambrose meets Sonia to explain that what happened with Jamie and Nick was not targeted but a coincidence, she tries to understand why Ambrose would even try to take the side of a suspect.
Sonia, in fact, asks him what he did with Jamie the entire night and when Ambrose confessed that he was at a bar in Brooklyn keeping an eye out, Sonia is shocked. It is the same bar where a man was murdered. Sonia connects the dots and finds it unbelievable that Ambrose would even continue this facade of normalcy when everything about Jamie screams suspicious. What is Ambrose's reason for supporting Jamie despite the evidence that is piling up against him? He seems to carry a bit of guilt within him for losing track of Jamie. After the understanding that Ambrose and Jamie shared in the last episode, one might think that the two have found some form of common ground but it turns out that is not entirely the case.
This momentary lapse in the current episode is really Ambrose's process of stopping Jamie from killing more people. So when he is called in to give a statement about being at the Brooklyn party, he decides to point the detective interrogating the case in the right direction. He gives her access to CCTV footage that shows Jamie returning to the party. However, the detective says she will stick to get the process. She continues to investigate both Ambrose and Jamie and that leads her to all the calls the detective Ambrose made to Jamie. She begins to suspect that Ambrose is trying to help Jamie out of a bind and get the evidence that he submitted to the detective turned against him.
What Ambrose is trying to do is develop a relationship with Jamie to convince him to surrender before he hurts anybody else. He is manipulating Jamie into believing that he cares, but Jamie is on to the detective's strategy. Their relationship just developed another layer of complication because now Ambrose clearly wants nothing but to put Jamie behind the bars and Jamie wants help. He wants nothing to do with any of the murders. However, neither of them get what they want. In fact, Jamie's life has unraveled because now he has been kicked out of his house by Leela who found out the truth about the accident from Sonia and the University is also trying to let go of him because of continued interference from the NYPD, who are investigating the murder which took place in that bar.
Will Jaime really continue to kill more people or will Detective Ambrose be able to stop Jaime as he had planned?
'The Sinner' Season 3 Episode 6 will air on Thursday at 9 pm ET on the USA Network.