Kiss the Girls

In a North Carolina shopping mall, Casanova reads about the Gentleman Caller and watches an attractive woman, Anna Miller, enter and exit Victoria’s Secret. Another attractive woman appears. She has many packages and bags, and Casanova assists her. The woman is Casanova’s wife.

Needing a break, Cross returns to his family in Washington, DC. Jannie claims they’ve been as “good as gold,” and Damon announces that Nana let them watch basketball. Nana knows Cross is strong, but she worries about him in North Carolina.

In the afternoon, Cross’s friends and family come over. On the back porch, Sampson and Cross discuss the case. Cross says Ruskin occasionally updates him, but the FBI won’t divulge what they know. Cross thinks Casanova wants him to feel frustrated. Sampson jokes that Cross shouldn’t try to be Sherlock Holmes. Sampson also brings up the possibility that Cross won’t solve the case.

Kate wakes up and feels disoriented—like she’s “going mad.” She wonders if Casanova is giving her Klonopin or Marinol. She curses Casanova out loud and calls out to the other kidnapped woman. Naomi says they can help each other. Sometimes, Casanova brings them together, but Kate is on “probation.” Another woman tells Kate to stay strong.

Kate speaks to God again. She says if God helps her escape, she’ll be very grateful. Casanova interrupts her prayers. He has a syringe and wears a “gruesome” mask. He calls Kate a “mistake.” He knows Kate broke the rules. Remembering her karate lessons, Kate focuses on his kidney and tries to use his strength against him. Her kick misses his kidney, but she hits his thigh. In pain, Casanova falls.

Back in North Carolina, Cross learns that the authorities are watching 11 suspects. Cross realizes he must look where others aren’t. He rereads the Gentleman Caller’s diaries in the Los Angeles Times. One entry mentions a captive, Naomi C, and Cross wonders how the Los Angeles killer knows about his niece.

Cross calls Beth Lieberman, but she thinks Cross is going to write about the case, so she views him as a competitor. Beth plans to write a book about the killings. Cross admits he wrote a book about Soneji, but he doesn’t plan to write a book about this case. Beth hangs up on him.

Cross calls Dan Hills, the editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Times. He’s not antagonistic, and he tells Cross that the Gentleman Caller’s “unedited” diaries mention Casanova as if they’re friends.

With Casanova hurt, Kate runs through the open door. Confused and disoriented by the drugs, she can’t figure out how to leave the “strange” house. She crawls up old stairs and winds up outside in the sunny woods. She runs, and when she turns around, she realizes that the house she came from isn’t there.

As Kate runs through the forest, Casanova chases her. He wears his mask, but she sees his long blond hair and stun gun. Laughing, Casanova claims that Kate is doomed. Kate arrives at a canyon with a 100-foot drop. With Casanova approaching, she makes a cannonball jump into the Wykagil River below. Hitting the bottom, Kate feels pain and believes she’ll drown.

Ruskin tells Cross about Kate. Two boys found her in the river, and she’s at North Carolina University Hospital. Ruskin and Cross arrive at the hospital, where there’s a media frenzy. Cross is becoming a “minor celebrity,” and the media spotlights his link to Gary Soneji. Inside the hospital, Cross observes Kate. Though Kate isn’t alert, Cross tells her she’s safe.

Casanova spies on Anna Miller and her future husband Chris Chapin. Chris is already working for a vaunted law firm, while Anna is in her third year of law school. After Anna takes off her clothes and reveals the underwear she bought at Victoria’s Secret, she and Chris have sex. Casanova appears in a mask of red and yellow dragons. He kills Chris and shoots Anna with a stun gun.

Lab results reveal that Casanova gave Marinol to Kate, so her convulsions and hallucinations are the result of Marinol withdrawal. The doctor in charge of Kate, Dr. Maria Ruocco, wonders if Casanova is a doctor or pharmacist.

Kate cusses at Dr. Ruocco, who makes a joke about disrespectful young doctors. To accelerate the withdrawal, Dr. Ruocco gives her Librium. She flirtatiously advises Cross to go back to his hotel. Three FBI agents and two local police guard Kate, but Cross remains worried, so he stays at the hospital.

Kate wakes up and yells at Cross. After he explains who he is, Kate details her surreal experience. She notes the other women and the forbidden communication. She mentions Naomi and the vanishing house in the woods.

Kate’s escape upsets Casanova. His wife tries to comfort him, but he can’t talk to her. He goes downstairs and, though it’s three o’clock in the morning, he calls the Gentleman Caller and tells him about Anna Miller.

Helping Cross with his psychological profile of Casanova, Kate speaks to him for several hours. Kate estimates that there were six other captive women with her. He custom-built the house, installing a sound system and air conditioning. She thinks Casanova is a “control freak” who’s preoccupied with sex and wants romance.

As Kate becomes a “national figure,” she holds a press conference once her bruising and swelling diminish. She handles the media with humor and grace, sending a hopeful message to the families of the other captured women. Cross wonders if Casanova is in the audience.

At four o’clock in the morning, Casanova fills his new Lands’ End backpack up with the supplies he needs for Anna. On his drive to the hideaway, he thinks about a quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald, who links kissing to reptiles. Casanova connects the quip to his own phrase, “Kiss the girls.”

In the underground location, he admires himself naked in the mirror and puts on a mask from Venice. He plays the Rolling Stones and puts warm milk in a glass. He has another surprise for Anna.

Casanova admires Anna as if she’s his work of art. Except for her jewelry, Anna is naked on the floor. He ties her arms behind her back and her legs to a rope that hangs from the ceiling. Using a rubber hose and nozzle, he fills Anna’s anus with water. He then takes out a black snake. He’s sewn the snake’s mouth shut so it can’t bite her. As Anna cusses at Casanova, the snake slides into her anus. Casanova believes he’s made Anna less “haughty” and “untouchable.”

Using hypnotism, Cross gets Kate to remember more about her traumatic experience. She says Casanova compared himself to Heathcliff—the tormented antihero in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights (1847). She remembers Casanova wearing a death mask, and she recalls kicking him. Thinking about the other women still there, she cries. She feels guilty for leaving them.

Kate leaves the hospital, and Cross walks with her around Wykagil River. Kate has many sisters, and they used to swim in a stream like the one she jumped into. Her father didn’t want them to swim naked, but they did. Cross wonders if her swimming experience helped her survive. Kate says she lived due to “pure stubbornness.”

Cross thinks about the history of the area. Tobacco farms used to be here, and they used enslaved people—Cross’s “ancestors.” Millions of Black people were abducted, and Cross notes their bones and blood.

Hungry, Kate and Cross eat at Spanky’s—a restaurant in Chapel Hill. The people treat Kate like a celebrity, and Kate and Cross discuss many things, including enslavement and the World War II novel The English Patient.

Kate discusses her family. She has four sisters, and three of them died because of breast or ovarian cancer. Her mother kicked out their “domineering” father. Cross brings up the death of his wife. He feels empty, and he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be ready for another romantic relationship.

Casanova’s underground space—“loathsome house”— has two floors. The upper floor has as many as 10 rooms, and the bottom floor only has one room. Casanova gathers the women in the common room. He considers them members of his “harem.” The young women wear makeup and “beautiful” clothes.

Acting like the amiable host of a costume party, Casanova speaks to the women and touches them. He lights a woman’s cigarette. Sometimes he has the women sing or recite poetry. Tonight, Naomi plays the violin. Casanova applauds her performance and compliments her beauty. He tells her that she’ll stay with him tonight.

Kyle tells Cross that the Gentleman Caller killed Beth Liebermann, cutting off her fingers and burning her apartment. He was trying to extinguish a clue, but the clue was on Beth’s computer, which the FBI possesses. Beth left a computerized note indicating that she felt the Gentleman Caller is a “creepy” doctor, William Rudolph. The FBI has two theories: The Gentleman Caller and Casanova are the same person, or they’re two different people competing with one another.