Everyone wants to know if Paul Spector was faking his amnesia in ‘The Fall’ Series 3.
Though ‘The Fall’ ended in 2016 with season 3, it gained a new following after arriving on Netflix UK. The British serial killer drama is topping the charts of Netflix UK since a couple of months ago. Once again, the viewers are enthralled by the story of the Belfast serial killer. Fans all over the world are loving Spector ( Jamie Dornan) and metropolitan police detective Stella Gibson (played by Gillian Anderson) indulging in a battle of wills. Let’s find out how the cat and mouse game progressed on season 3, and if Paul Spector was faking his amnesia.
Highlights —
- Paul Spector faked his amnesia: The truth explored
- Did Paul Spector love his wife?
- How Paul Spector escaped the punishment
Let’s find out how the cat and mouse game progressed on season three and if Paul Spector was faking his amnesia on ‘The Fall’ Season 3.
Paul Spector faked his amnesia: The truth explored
The third season of ‘The Fall’ started with Spector getting shot after the police found him and the victim Rose Stagg (Valene Kane) in the woods. During his time in the hospital, Paul claimed he’d lost his memory with no recollection of his crimes. He was being treated by Dr August Larson (Krister Henriksson), being held at a secure psychiatric unit. Closely observing him from the outside, no one could make out if Spector was faking his memory loss as he spoke about the crimes he had supposedly committed, in the third person, in a bid to distance himself.
But, if we look at the CT scan reports, there is very little physiological evidence to suggest that he’d sustained any significant brain damage which would account for his memory loss. Just like us, Stella Gibson wasn’t convinced at all and promised that he would face justice for what he’d done. Spector brutally attacked Gibson during their interrogation of him, to further muddy the waters.
What Allan Cubbit says on the memory loss?
This may have been an indication for some viewers that the game was up for Spector. But it wasn’t confirmed. The show’s creator and director Allan Cubitt addressed some of the big, burning questions including those surrounding Spector’s amnesia and whether it was real or not. He addressed these questions while speaking to Yahoo back in 2016, after ‘The Fall’ series finale had aired and the shocking conclusion had been played out.
Even the writer wanted to leave a layer of ambiguity over this plot point and allow viewers to debate it.
He said:
“It seemed to me that if I resolved it either way by revealing that it was completely fake or by suggesting that it was entirely real, it would be a compromise, it would be a cop-out in some kind of way.”
“His symptoms are impossible to fake when he first comes around, so he’s genuinely confused, and there may possibly be some foundation to amnesia that’s real in the first instance. But my feeling is that he builds on that.”
“As people keep saying, ‘If it’s not entirely malingered, then it’s probably exaggerated’, and he’s using it toward his own ends.”
It feels like Spector is simply using the situation to his advantage by pushing the amnesia aspect as far as he can. He has constantly been revealing his dark and devious nature regardless of the extent of his supposed memory loss. He is just manipulating those around him, which he does constantly in ‘The Fall’.
Why Paul assaulted Stella Gibson?
When questioned as to why Spector assaulted Gibson during his grilling, Cubitt addressed the scene saying that he wanted this moment also to be “left open to interpretation”.
He said he wanted to reflect a reality “whereby these things are never clear-cut in the real world either, how far someone is feigning, so again leaving it up to the audience to draw their own conclusions.”
He added further,
“We approached the attack on Gibson on the basis that he wouldn’t stop attacking her unless he was stopped from attacking her”.
Gibson could have been added to the list of Spector’s victims if she had been alone with him.
As it is clear from the violent scene, Cubitt confirms,
“There was no sense in which he was teaching her a lesson or something; he would kill her if he was allowed to”.
He continued beating the detective to a pulp until he was stopped. Spector even started beating Gibson’s lover Tom Anderson (Colin Morgan), as he tried to protect her, by breaking his arm and leaving him incapacitated. Paul Spector has been an intriguing figure since the series began. Though the show is over and Paul Spector is dead, some questions still remain unanswered.
Did Paul Spector love his wife?
It is not revealed in ‘The Fall’ how he met his wife and how their love story progressed. In some scenes, his feelings for her seem genuine. While, in other cases, he is shown to be having an extramarital affair. Paul’s wife was shocked when she got to know about her husband’s doings. However, some fans feel that she was helping her husband. The logic they give to support their argument is that Paul never tried to kill his wife. He was a brutal killer prying on women. Why did he spare his wife? But, this is not a strong argument to claim that his wife was an alibi for him and supported his crimes.
How Paul Spector escaped the punishment?
Stella, in the very start of the finale episode, said that death would be “an easy escape” for Spector. Death would actually allow him to “cheat the system”.
Paul soon realised that the only way out was to kill himself. He planned to cause much death and destruction, before killing himself, by attacking his psychiatrist. Along with the psychiatrist, he killed another patient at the facility he was being held at. Afterwards, he took his own life, just like of his victims’, and evaded justice forever!
Let us know in the comments box below if you have more questions regarding ‘The Fall’ and its intriguing character Paul Spector.
