The simmering tension between Ripley and Dickie finally resolves with Ripley choosing murder over the threat of having to go back to America as a "nobody". The frank confrontation between them in the last episode was the climax of whatever semblance of a relationship was possible for the two of them. To Dickie, he was willing to let bygones be bygones because he likes having Ripley as a hanger on that he can feel impressive towards. What he doesn't know is that Ripley, by the end of the last episode, had already lost most of his affection for Dickie.
In this episode, Ripley's hatred of Dickie is given easy confirmation when he sees Dickie painting yet another mediocre painting, using a homophobic slur to refer to the men standing on top of each other in a pyramid, and finally his cowardice in suggesting that Ripley leave even though it is Marge that wants Ripley gone. After vocalizing the wound he has about being dismissed by both Dickie's father and Marge, he brutally kills Dickie with an oar. What is startling is how coldly and pre-meditatively he does so. The murder agonizingly takes four strikes of the oar with Dickie begging for Ripley to "help (him)" by the end.
To Ripley, his ability to human relationships is tenuous because he seems to be able to switch off his empathy on a dime. Perhaps this comes from feeling so spat on and isolated for so long in New York. Feeling empathy or affection for someone is a weakness. It's much easier to be rid of Dickie and then assume his identity than it is to unravel the complicated mixture of attraction, admiration, disdain, and hatred that Ripley felt for him.
The latter half of the episode deals solely with Ripley's fumbling attempts to dispose of the body and escape from Sanremo. Every moment is painstakingly laid out as Ripley coldly takes Dickie's possessions and cleans them of blood in the water. Then Ripley struggles to take the rope off of the cleat and so lights it on fire. This improvisation both shows that Ripley had not thought of this problem before getting in the boat but that he is always willing to learn to get away with something. It demonstrates Ripley's unique mixture of cunning and recklessness.
Ripley's lack of foresight causes him to fall off the boat, get hit by it, and then get clobbered by the weight attached to Dickie's corpse. It feels like a small amount of karmic justice is visited on to Ripley- he hits his Dickie four times in the head and then Ripley sustains two blows to his own skull. After he gets back on to the boat, he has to face the reality of how heavy bodies are when relaxed (in this case, dead) since there is no center of gravity.
This struggle coupled with how difficult he finds it to dispose of the boat feels like the universe trying to punish Ripley for what he did. With how coldly and unceremoniously Ripley boards a train to escape his crime, it seems like he hasn't learned anything at all or even feels much in the way of guilt. When a train employee startles Ripley by putting a mop to the window, we see some of his composed veneer crumble for a second. That fear of being caught and having his life ripped away from him is the most human thing about Ripley. In his eyes, everything is survivable and therefore everything is permissible.
In this episode, Ripley's hatred of Dickie is given easy confirmation when he sees Dickie painting yet another mediocre painting, using a homophobic slur to refer to the men standing on top of each other in a pyramid, and finally his cowardice in suggesting that Ripley leave even though it is Marge that wants Ripley gone. After vocalizing the wound he has about being dismissed by both Dickie's father and Marge, he brutally kills Dickie with an oar. What is startling is how coldly and pre-meditatively he does so. The murder agonizingly takes four strikes of the oar with Dickie begging for Ripley to "help (him)" by the end.
To Ripley, his ability to human relationships is tenuous because he seems to be able to switch off his empathy on a dime. Perhaps this comes from feeling so spat on and isolated for so long in New York. Feeling empathy or affection for someone is a weakness. It's much easier to be rid of Dickie and then assume his identity than it is to unravel the complicated mixture of attraction, admiration, disdain, and hatred that Ripley felt for him.
The latter half of the episode deals solely with Ripley's fumbling attempts to dispose of the body and escape from Sanremo. Every moment is painstakingly laid out as Ripley coldly takes Dickie's possessions and cleans them of blood in the water. Then Ripley struggles to take the rope off of the cleat and so lights it on fire. This improvisation both shows that Ripley had not thought of this problem before getting in the boat but that he is always willing to learn to get away with something. It demonstrates Ripley's unique mixture of cunning and recklessness.
Ripley's lack of foresight causes him to fall off the boat, get hit by it, and then get clobbered by the weight attached to Dickie's corpse. It feels like a small amount of karmic justice is visited on to Ripley- he hits his Dickie four times in the head and then Ripley sustains two blows to his own skull. After he gets back on to the boat, he has to face the reality of how heavy bodies are when relaxed (in this case, dead) since there is no center of gravity.
This struggle coupled with how difficult he finds it to dispose of the boat feels like the universe trying to punish Ripley for what he did. With how coldly and unceremoniously Ripley boards a train to escape his crime, it seems like he hasn't learned anything at all or even feels much in the way of guilt. When a train employee startles Ripley by putting a mop to the window, we see some of his composed veneer crumble for a second. That fear of being caught and having his life ripped away from him is the most human thing about Ripley. In his eyes, everything is survivable and therefore everything is permissible.
