You Promised – As the finale of Black Bird begins, Jimmy Keene (Taron Egerton) has a nightmare that puts him in Larry’s shoes as he stops Jessica Roach (Laney Stiebing) and says she promised to stay. He imagines he is choking her until Larry Hall (Paul Walter Hauser) gives him a belt to finish the job. Then, he sees himself choking Lauren McCauley (Sepideh Moafi) until Larry wakes him up at the prison. Larry tells him he was having a dream. Although he didn’t say anything, it made him think his stories yesterday might’ve given him nightmares. Larry claims they’re just stories and he sometimes does that with his friends. Jimmy asks if he lies to his friends. He says Larry is either lying to his friends or lies to people who aren’t his friends. Either way, it tells him where he stands. Jimmy says he isn’t surprised. If he’d given it more thought, he would’ve realized that he was lying.

Larry says it isn’t lying because it is storytelling. Jim says his details are off and God’s in the details. When Larry asks which details, Jim says he claims he grew up digging graves yet didn’t dig one for Jessica Roach. Jimmy says that is how he knows he is full of crap. Larry thinks he should know that you have to dig a grave in the right kind of soil. He goes on to say it is hard to find in the dark and a man pulled up on the road across from his van. He meant to go back but didn’t have the time to do it. Jimmy says it is fine because everyone in here tells stories causing Larry to get mad while claiming it is not. He insists he is telling the truth and what he just said was the actual lie. Despite Larry saying he isn’t a killer, Jimmy doesn’t believe it since he has looked into the eyes of a few killers. He tells Larry that he doesn’t have those eyes so Larry asks what eyes he has.

Jimmy says a wannabe’s. Larry tells him to meet him in the woodshop later so he can show him what kind of eyes he has. In the cafeteria, Vincent Gigante (Tony Amendola) and other inmates glance over at Jimmy who looks at Larry and others. Jimmy returns to his cell where he paces, does pushups, and shadow boxes. CO Carter (Joe Williamson) comes over to tell him that he could request PC before asking him to open the door. Once Jimmy comes out of his cell, Carter asks if Larry or his girlfriend is the one he is supposed to rat on. He would support that and have Jimmy’s back because Larry is a kid killer. He says some things are bigger than them and Larry has to get got. He won’t even charge Jimmy for his support. Carter wants to know who they’d be working for since it could be like an audition and he could get a job with the Marshals. Jimmy wants him to call off his dogs for a week before he tells him who he is working for.

He doesn’t think Carter can call anyone off though. Jimmy says he messed with his phone calls and put a snitch jacket on him. When Jimmy asks what else he is going to do, Carter insists he doesn’t want to find out. Jimmy says he does. Carter tells him to enjoy and savor his day before leaving. Big Jim (Ray Liotta) complains to Sammy (Robyn Malcolm) about being on the phone for three hours trying to find out what is going on with Jimmy. He was told to call back tomorrow so he can talk to the one guy who can let him know why Jimmy’s funds were frozen. Big Jim has difficulty saying cheeseburger. He messes it up again when the waitress tries to take their order. Sammy tells the waitress to call 911 because he is having a stroke. He gets sick and vomits. Vincent visits Jimmy to tell him his friend got pancreatic cancer. Doctors said he’d be dead in months. A week later, he slipped while walking up some icy steps to a church.

He hit his head and died in front of his wife and one of his kids. His last words were, “you just never fuc#king know”. We see Larry with a map and a bunch of wooden bird carvings. James enters moments later and asks what he is working on. Larry tells him he finished them. Jimmy tries to figure out why he created 21 birds, but Larry won’t say. Instead, he says he’ll leave the painting to Gary who will paint them black. Larry admits he is shipping them home before saying the birds watch over the dead and guard their spirits. Larry reveals it made him sick to his stomach for James to think he was a liar because he might believe he doesn’t take what he does seriously.

Larry says care should be taken and it shouldn’t be casual like the 80 women James has been with. He suggests James doesn’t remember their names and their body parts start to blur. Jimmy insists it was only sex, but Larry says every interaction you have with someone means something. Jimmy says they’d go insane if every interaction had the same weight. Larry denies that before telling him to shut the heck up and listen to him. He argues that they’re part of something and he is part of something. When he folded those clothes, it was an act of kindness from a deity. After Jimmy asks whose clothes he is talking about, Larry says Tricia Reitler. Jimmy asks if she got into his van too. Larry confesses she was a handful. She punched like a man, but Larry didn’t want to stab her. Even though he did stab her, she kept trying to hurt him so he had to choke her. He calls her a nasty girl. He must’ve passed out because when he woke up he found her lying there naked. He did dig her a grave and has dug hundreds of graves since he was a child.

Larry says he has dug more graves than Jimmy has had women as he begins punching his legs over and over. He is adamant that he knows a good grave and Tricia’s is one of the best graves he ever did. No one will ever find that one even though Larry knows where all of them are. He claims everyone wants to be seen in this life. He sees them and gives them that. As long as he continues on, their life has meaning. The guard tells them they have five minutes left. Jimmy argues that Larry could do more since he could give their families peace. He suggests Larry could give them the map so they can sleep and bury their dead. Jimmy thinks that would make everything okay, but Larry says everything is already okay. James keeps trying to convince him to help the families only for Larry to say he isn’t thinking clearly. If he did that, he’d never get out of here. Jimmy suggests someone could send the locations to the authorities anonymously.

That way the families would have that, but Larry doesn’t know why they should have that. When Jimmy says they’re probably hurting really bad, Larry begins laughing because he thinks James is messing with him like usual. Jimmy urges him to give these people some release. Larry says never because he is going to win his appeal. Then, he is going to walk out of those doors and keep living his life. Jimmy yells that there is no frigging way he is going to win his appeal. He tells him he’ll never get out of here because he kills children who cry for their mothers. He calls Larry a monster before he realizes that Jimmy was sent by Beaumont. Jimmy yells for the guard as Larry begins choking him. He continues screaming at Jimmy who is taken away. Jimmy tries to convince the guards to let him talk to Dr. Zicherman. They won’t let him see Aaron or use the phone tonight. In the morning, the inmates are let out of their cells while Jimmy remains locked in.

Larry smiles at him on his way out. Dr. Amelia Hackett (Melanie Nicholls-King) and guards enter to take Jimmy to isolation. While he is carried away, Jimmy yelling tells everyone Aaron’s number. Sammy sits next to Big Jim who is in the hospital. When the guards come back, Jimmy asks for a pencil again. They bring him other items but not a pencil. Jimmy notices something on the wall. He remembers what Larry said about bodily fluids having different functions. He bites his finger and uses the blood to write on the wall. Larry prepares to ship the map from the prison. Once the container is taken out of the prison, we see that Jimmy has tried to draw the map on the wall in his cell. Gary Hall (Jake McLaughlin) gets a visit from Lauren and Brian (Greg Kinnear). Brian finds it odd that they are burning stuff in a barrel, but Gary says they have lots of scrub and dead flowers.

Gary admits he doesn’t live here anymore, but he comes back to help out every now and again. He asks Lauren if she did something different with her hair. Once she says no, Gary tells her she looks good. They want to talk inside, but Gary isn’t going to let them in. He does bring them drinks though. They begin talking about Larry’s appeal as Gary says they never had anything on him except a bunch of conjecture. After Lauren says he’ll be back home and up to his old tricks, Gary thinks he’ll get his old job back and be just fine. Brian suggests he’ll meet a nice girl and settle down before Gary tells him not to make fun of him and his family. Gary suspects they want him to say his brother can’t have a normal life so he kills people. Lauren asks if he does. Gary admits Larry has done some terrible things, but he has never killed anyone. He has always been desperate for someone to see him as a person for once in his life.

Brian says he killed those girls and he thinks Gary knows that. Gary goes inside and comes back out with beers for himself and photos for them to look through. He wants them to see that Larry isn’t some beast. A guard tells Jimmy that they reward being quiet. He asks if he needs anything except a pencil. Jimmy insists he isn’t crazy before he tells the guard that he was sent here to get a confession from Inmate Hall. He needs to get a message to the FBI before he can’t remember where the bodies are and before he can’t help the parents. The guard tells him that he never wants him to say FBI to him again before closing the hole. Lauren and Brian look through the pictures of Gary and Larry when they were younger. Lauren asks where his dad Robert (Charles Green) went. Gary doesn’t know although he could be pinching a watch off a corpse.

Their mom is inside even though she can’t get around much anymore. When asked if she is sick, Gary says fat. Lauren wants to know what terrible things Larry has done. Gary mentions the time they picked up a hitchhiker like 10 or 15 years ago. She got drunk and he wanted her to take Larry’s cherry. Gary fooled around with her for a little before Larry took his turn. Gary stayed in the tent because he was too messed up to leave. Sometimes a girl is saying no, but her body is really saying yes. When she said no to Larry, she really meant it. He was Larry on the other side of the tent with her and he looked like some kind of wolf. It was like he might actually rip her throat out with his teeth. He hit her, choked her, and spit on her. He called her a bunch of names until he came. While she was lying there, Larry gets a look in his eye that you don’t want to see. Gary told him don’t and they all knew what he was saying. Eventually, Larry passed out.

Gary stayed up all night just in case Larry woke up with that idea in his head. The girl went out with a biker the next day. Gary always felt like he messed up for introducing Larry to sex in the wrong way. Brian insists that one thing didn’t make him a killer, but Gary reminds them he never said he was a killer. Once Brian walks away, Lauren asks Gary if he is going to be able to stay up all night to watch his brother if he gets out of prison. Dr. Zicherman (Christopher Duncan) finally comes for Jimmy. He doesn’t care that Hackett’s action will be under review. Jimmy tells Lauren he needs a pen. The package is dropped off at his dad’s place. Jimmy tries to draw the map on the desk. He says the dots are bodies, there were 21, and Larry had a map. After he gets upset, Lauren promises that they’ll work the map and it’ll help. Jimmy tells her that he used two belts buckled together to strangle Jessica Roach. He also tells her about Larry folding Tricia’s clothes and placing her earring on top.

Lauren believes they got him then. Robert Hall looks at the map before throwing it into the fire. He begins burning the birds too. Jimmy goes to court where the judge suggests he left his entitlement in the hell that he entered on behalf of this case. His sentence is commuted before he is told he is a free man. Outside, James tells Edmund Beaumont (Robert Wisdom) that he didn’t get the body, but Beaumont tells him he did plenty. Jimmy is introduced to Brian who got the first confession and found Jessica Roach. Brian thanks him for what he did. Although they didn’t find any bodies, Lauren thinks James made sure Larry won’t bury any more bodies.

Larry’s appeal is denied. He attempted suicide but was unsuccessful. Big Jim is happy to see his son return. Gary visits Larry who says he can’t sleep and when he does it is like he didn’t. Gary reminds him that they’re supposed to be treating the apnea. When Larry asks what they’re going to do, Gary says to make them treat it since they called it a contributory factor to his suicide attempt. Gary says he didn’t do it because of that. He doesn’t belong in here and doesn’t deserve this injustice, but Gary says he does. Gary believes he failed his brother and didn’t look after him right. Gary wants to do what is right here for him and not for them. He argues that his brother won’t stop living in agony until he does. Larry pleads with him not to do it too. Jimmy orders a vodka soda on an airplane. Tori and Jimmy chat briefly before she returns to work. Gary eventually convinced his brother to confess to fifteen murders, but he soon recanted all confessions.

None of the burial sites have been unearthed. After his release, Jimmy Keene embarked on a successful business career. He continues aiding law enforcement in the profiling of serial killers. Larry is still in prison and will not be eligible for parole during his lifetime.

 

Black Bird Review

The finale of Black Bird was pretty straightforward and mostly what I expected since it really turned out to be a big nothing burger. The confession and subsequent confrontation were a bit rushed considering the first two episodes could’ve been combined. That would’ve given the creators more time to focus on this vital aspect of the story a bit more. It is hard to ignore Paul Walter Hauser’s performance in the finale and throughout the series as a whole. I sometimes got annoyed by Jimmy’s bravado and over-the-top mannerisms, but this doesn’t seem too far from the truth.

Truthfully, the whole investigation with Brian and Lauren feels a bit pointless after all that since nothing came of it. There was more evidence that could’ve been covered such as the notes found in Larry’s house and van. Those notes sometimes provide a timeline of the actions Larry supposedly took when dealing with his victims and cleaning up the mess. It is hard to believe Jimmy thought a map like the one shown could really point them to the bodies since it wasn’t detailed at all. A dot on a map like that could be anywhere.

In terms of entertainment, Black Bird was great. The finale wasn’t the best episode, but it was necessary for closing the book on the case. On the flip side, the series could’ve been better considering it is based on a true event. Some of the cast members look nothing like the real people, including Brian Miller, Gary Hall, Beaumont, and others. Paul Walter Hauser was spectacular in the role of Larry Hall, but the accent is a bit over the top when compared to Larry’s real interviews.

The real Gary was vastly different from the way he was portrayed as well. It would’ve been even better with a carbon copy of the real body. I also do not remember Black Bird mentioning that Larry Hall had already had two trials before James Keene ever entered the picture. After a successful appeal, he got a second trial on 8/18/1997. He was sentenced to life without release on 12/2/1997. Larry confessed to James Keene sometime in 1998 before he sent an appeal to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals on 9/10/1998. Of course, I could be missing something or the info I am looking at could be incorrect.

It is understandable why the series switched things up slightly because it needed to look like Keene’s information mattered. Despite this, Black Bird was solid entertainment with some intense scenes even though many of them were dialogue heavy. It somewhat lost steam near the end, but Black Bird is well worth the time. I bet nine out of 10 people who watch will be eager to learn more about the case and that alone proves it was a powerfully effective drama. The finale scores a 7 out of 10. Recaps of Black Bird are available on Reel Mockery here. Learn how to support our work at this link.