This Was The Most Disturbing Part Of The Sinner Season 2

There's no denying that USA Network's The Sinner hooks the audience in with its brutal, grisly murders, but season 2 really took it up a notch. The mystery, which stemmed out of the bizarre killing of Julian Walker's so-called "parents," involved a sinister cult/commune, hallucinations of a hooded figure, and hypnotism. It was always going to be tough following up the first season (which starred Jessica Biel as a woman who savagely butchered a man to death without knowing why), but somehow the writers pulled it off.

The Sinner only shied away from violence when it wanted to preserve part of the mystery for unveiling in a later episode, but there's a particularly disturbing moment early on in season 2 which instantly captured the attention of many audiences. And it all comes down to Elisha Henig's haunting performance as Julian Walker, who comes across as simultaneously vulnerable and terrifying after he confessed to the murder of Bess and Adam, his "parents." Yet, it's the way he planned their deaths that truly put some viewers on edge.

It's eventually revealed over the course of The Sinner season 2 that Bess and Adam weren't Julian's real parents, and they were part of the Mosswood Grove community. After Bess discovered Julian's birth mother, the pair decided to take him on a road trip to reconnect with her. Not that they made that clear to the young boy, though, who thought he was being kidnapped. Yikes. After the trio stopped at a motel for the night, Julian brought Bess and Adam two suspicious looking hot drinks in the morning.

Unfortunately for the couple, he'd laced their drinks with jimson weed, which was growing near the motel. Adam was in the shower when he started to feel the effects, falling onto the floor with a sickening thud. Bess' death is a little more prolonged, as she stumbles around the motel room before vomiting on the floor and crawling toward Julian before convulsing uncontrollably. Julian's horrified reaction makes it even worse as he watches helplessly — but knowing that a child came up with a plan to poison people can be pretty disturbing. Yes, they'd taken him away from the safety net of his adoptive mother, Vera, but actually carrying out the murder of two adults was pretty cold.

That being said, at least he didn't actively engage in a violent act like the way Biel slaughtered the man on the beach in season 1 — that would've definitely been too far. Well, at least we've got The Sinner season 4 on the way, which means there'll be another bloody murder for Bill Pullman's moody Detective Harry Ambrose to unravel.