Dante , the Gothic , the Abject , and the Grotesque in Mathieu Missoffe ’ s Thriller-Crime Drama Black Spot
toward a husband who has used his position to seduce / rape some of the female members of the swim team in a cabin that is surrounded and inhabited by “ a dreadful swarm / of serpents ” ( Inferno , Canto XXIV , ll . 82-83 ), the presence of which constitutes an allusion to the serpent in the Garden of Eden and possibly suggests that Laurene is in a place that is the counterpart to , or a version of , the circle in which Lucifer , named Dis in Dante ’ s work , feasts off those who have most grievously sinned ( See Inferno , Canto XXXIV ). Indeed , the episode certainly reveals the perverse and diabolical character of the swimming coach , an old friend of the Mayor and one who has no hope of redemption . Again , in the last episode of season one , in the company of sheriff ’ s deputy Camille , Laurene ’ s teenage daughter Cora finds the deceased Marion Steiner ’ s flash drive in some contaminated swamp water , near the place where Laurene found Marion ’ s corpse . The flash drive , one of the most important “ lost ” items in the series , contains information that would reveal the Mayor ’ s compromised and duplicitous character . Camille pulls a gun , demands that Cora hand over the device , and suddenly finds herself attacked by hundreds of crows , a distraction that gives Cora the opportunity to run the deputy though with a long , sharp piece of drift wood . Grotesquely rendered , Camille dies impaled on the large piece of wood holding her up in a small body of contaminated water .
Laurene herself provides the series ’ final example of the blending of the grotesque with the abject . After she murders Laurene , Camille discards the sheriff ’ s corpse by tossing the it down a mountainside and into a tangle of bushes , thus reducing Laurene to the level of the abject . In the final scene of the series , the demonic Wendigo fully emerges in the forest , and Lauren , her corpse embraced by roots and branches that the sentient forest has sent forth presumably to heal her , re-
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