‘Rosewood’s Midseason Premiere Sees the Return of a Serial Killer Artist

Miami’s lively art scene turned deadly in Rosewood’s fall finale when a serial killer entered one of his victims’ painted brains into a chic exhibition. Thank God the city’s best medical examiner, the titular Rosewood “Rosie” Beaumont (Morris Chestnut) and his detective partner, Annalise Villa (Jaina Lee Ortiz), got their man. Or not. In the episode’s cliffhanger, the deranged Da Vinci struck again—writing on the floor of Rosie’s lab in a missing girl’s saliva—which is pretty tough to do from prison. And when the series returns tonight, he turns that same victim into a piece of pier-side installation art.

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“We were shooting the pilot in an art gallery in Miami when I came up with the idea,” creator Todd Harthan says about the show’s first big bad. “I thought it would be an interesting way for a killer to advertise himself—through art. Then one of the writers was doing research and came across an exhibit where the artist had taken a brain and injected it with paint!”

While this creative killer is Rosie’s biggest foe yet, don’t expect their deadly dance to extend past this episode. Nor will the gory plotline overtake the equally messy lovers “square” going on between Rosie, Annalise and their significant others, Kat (Nicole Ari Parker) and Mike (Taye Diggs). “Rosie and Kat have a big storyline in the episode,” Harthan teases. “And there’s something coming between Rosewood and Villa. He’s stuck in the push and pull between these two women. You’ll see him trying to work out what’s going on in his head. It’s really tough.” You know what might help? Art therapy.

Rosewood, Wednesday, March 2, 8/7c, Fox