Suspicion Review: Unmasked (Season 1 Episode 8)

Surprisingly, Suspicion Season 1 Episode 8, “Unmasked,” does reveal who kidnapped Leo Newman and the truth Katherine has been pressured to tell all along. I’m actually a little disappointed in myself for not realizing that Leo would be a willing participant. Looking back, it seems obvious.

The reveal of Tara’s involvement and her reasons why is done really well. It’s shocking and unexpected, and it explains her attraction to Sean a bit — she was never as proper as she appeared.

The rest of the hour, however, is a bit of a mess, which is indicative of the season overall.

“Unmasked” tries to get us to believe there’s some bigger purpose behind the kidnapping. The truth has been told… so what? I’m failing to see the significance behind being a part of this scheme that leads Aadesh and Eddie to decide not to tell the truth and instead go along with Tara’s plan to let the world believe they were involved.

Tara’s “are we really going to let this all be for nothing?” line is laughable because she is the only one who gained something positive from this whole experience.

Natalie going along with it makes a bit more sense because she’s done numerous illegal things both pre and post kidnapping. She was never getting out of this without some jail time.

But being framed ruined their lives, especially Aadesh’s. His marriage seems to be over, and yet he goes along with Tara’s plan, which will have him basically living on the run for the rest of his life.

It doesn’t make any sense.

Perhaps the point is that they will never be free of the suspicion that they were involved in the kidnapping, even after Eddie makes his statement, at least in the public eye. But, it would clear Aadesh and Natalie’s names criminally, so they wouldn’t have to fear being caught and arrested for this.

Throughout the entire season, Suspicion never really explained anything clearly enough; it’s all vague hints or insinuations.

Sometimes when a series does this, it works. We’ll be shown enough to have us put the pieces together ourselves, and then we fully understand what it was trying to show us.

Suspicion thinks it has accomplished this, but it never really does.

It only shows us enough to make us more confused, trying to determine if we’ve put the pieces together correctly or not, and then Suspicion does something totally out of left field, and we are all more confused than ever.

Martin Copeland is an excellent example of this with his dubious motivation on Suspicion Season 1 Episode 7, “Questions of Trust.” It’s impossible to get a read on him, which doesn’t create suspense or anything beneficial to the series. It only adds to the confusion.

Suspicion gets closer to achieving this with Sean, but it’s not quite there. We know enough to figure out that he is hired to do sketchy and dangerous things for money, but that’s the most we know about him.

“Unmasked” suggests that he was employed by Katherine Newman to find her son, or at least he gets paid by her. However the text of “double X me he goes for good” is extremely vague. I’m guessing that he’s saying “double-cross me and he (Leo?) will be murdered.”

It really does not need to be this difficult to decipher a text, but that is the way Suspicion operates.

Overall, Suspicion had some promise, but it squandered it away. It’s nothing more than an underwhelming series that will leave you more confused than anything else.

Stray Thoughts

• Leo is so naive if he thought that no one would get hurt over the course of all of this.
• Katherine totally knows that Leo orchestrated all of this… right?

What did you think of the finale of Suspicion? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Suspicion is now streaming on Apple TV+.

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