Lily's crime scene / The old man no as sick as initially suggested
The room looks like some crazy ritual murder happened there. All literally "played by the book" except that Snow(Lily)'s head came off when she was in the bed, as evidenced by all the blood, when she was resting like in the fairy tale, then her body was dragged out. How f*cking sickening!
Then we find a picture of Crane glancing over her as she's asleep (or pretending), like if he was her very Prince Charming, about to wake her with a kiss... Omg, how disgusting... but wait, who took the picture? Did he set a camera to take pictures before he murdered her? But not after? Then he left the photos there? Just lying around so the first person to come in would find them? ...
Well, we know that he called Vivian, who manages the prostitutes, to make an appointment. Why not directly Lily if he intended to kill her? Or, if he wanted a random prostitute, didn't care who (he seemed surprised when the glamour wore off and she was a troll), wouldn't Vivian know if she then turned up dead? Doesn't that make it stupid? ... Well, we know that Vivian smokes, unlike Crane or Lily, and we found cigars in the crime scene, which suggests that she was there, and my guess is that she's who took the pictures. But why? Maybe because Crane asked her...
Ok. My theory is that Crane paid Vivian to have one of her prostitutes to recreate the scene in Snow(his guilty crush)'s book, and specifically asked her to take pictures for him to have. I'm thinking that he didn't go as far as having a prostitute glamoured as Snow to fuck her. Come on, just think about it. The prostitutes would have known it... and that's something far too pathetic to let other people know, even if the "lips are sealed" spell would guarantee his sick secret would be safe. I think that it would be acceptable (creepy but understandable) if he just wanted to play the scene as the "prince charming" that, in ep3, he says himself to Snow he's sorry he isn't just after confessing his impossible/pathetic "love"...
Other evidence to this is that he had the witch make a special glamour. One. Crane probably got her himself Snow's personal items (her hair and whatever else) for this, again, One glamour to be used, you guessed it, Once.
Far too much trouble for what it's worth, specially after all this shit... but Crane probably fantasized so much about Snow, over all the years working with her... knowing he never stood a chance... makes me sorry for him... doesn't justify what a pain in the ass he is to her (and everyone), and he not taking a real attitude to move the fuck on already makes it really pathetic, but whatever... maybe after all he's just a sorry ass man, but not a killer or such a sexually deranged old man.
Comments
I cant remember what cigars you can find in Woody's place and at the Trip Trap, but if they are the same, Woodsman is definetly involved. Maybe Crooked Man or Bloody Mary sent him to kill her and he didnt want , then he/she stole his axe and kill her. Or another theory is that at the beginning when you look at the mirror for the first time serching for the Woodsman he didnt have his axe so Mary/one of the Tweedles stole it. Or maybe Jack stole it because Woodsman was going to the Pawn Shop ( im not 100% sure ) where Jack works ( he will tell you that if you go first to Crane's apartment ).
So my complete theory is that Crane payed Vivian to take pictures of Lily and him ( agree with you on that ) then Lily fell in a "deep sleep" like in a book then Crane tried to woke her up with kiss like Prince Crarming but it didnt work and he left her. After that someone ( BM/Woody/Jack/Dee/Dum ) came there and killed thinking its Snow. Yet again I dont know why Crane was taking pictures.
BTW change your tittle so you dont spoil for someone who didnt played episode 2 ( for example just Lily's crime scene ).
PS Sorry for the bad gramar.
Wouldn't Beauty have noticed Vivian? I guess obviously this depends on when the photos were taken.
But it obviously does seem like someone took the photos, and who do we know that can teleport? Bloody Mary.
Edit: And yeah, you find cigarettes of the same brand as Bigby is smoking.
But Vivian work with the girls, so she probably comes around often and was nothing out of ordinary/ worth mentioning. There's even a machine where she can buy cigars...
I also thought about Bloody Mary teleporting in (I want to see the scene again to check if there are any mirrors in the room)... maybe she did it after Vivian and Crane were done with their little play (Crane could or not have already departed).
My guess is that however killed Lily meant to instead kill Faith, and then had to go after Faith in a hurry, leaving the room the complete mess we found and leading to Faith somehow getting to know about it and going after Bigby for help...
Also, I don't think the girl we first met is really dead, and I'm not sure if she was really Faith. I think that there will be some twist like Vivian and her being the same person -- some shit like the Faith we first met was in reality Vivian, or the Vivian we later met is in reality Faith. But that's too wild a guess to affirm.
Another thing about Mary that I would like to know is if she needs to be "summoned" to teleport through a mirror or if she can just do it through any mirror at any time... If she does need to be summoned then that suggests that someone, maybe whoever took the photos, had to summon her to "deal" with the prostitute.
Lastly, if Mary was summoned maybe whoever called her didn't know she was gonna kill the prostitute, leading that person to warn the Faith we met. But that's going too far with the suppositions... I just can't wait for the next episode. Episodic games by Telltale are turning out more interesting than tv series, because multiple choices and outcomes lead to more evidence to be thought out... great stuff for a mystery solving story. :-)
It seems slightly weird that Beauty doesn't mention Vivian when you, as Bigby, actually ask her about it all. It's obvious these are serious questions when you "interrogate" her at the Open Arms.
What's interesting is the fact that I never actually considered that Vivian smokes, which is definitely interesting. She's very likely to be involved somehow. Her "goodbye" card to Lily was sort of weirdly written.
I feel like someone is blackmailing Crane or Lily, if Crane knew about the picture he wouldn't have forgotten to take it with him. Or maybe Nerrisa has something to do with it, she looks scared and/or nervous (and how she constantly looks around her) in the beginning when she asks something along the lines "find anything?" To Bigby about the case. Also the teaser trailer for Ep4 shows Nerrisa in Bigby's Office, talking about something, the picture it isn't exactly work so her lips aren't sealed...
She also didn't mention Crane, and he obviously was there... she probably never saw them coming in, or decided to hide it from Bigby.
Also, in support of my theory that Crane didn't use to "live up" the "Snow fantasy" with prostitutes, if Crane was a regular Beauty would have known. I mean... how new was she to this job? I don't remember if she had just taken it or if it was going on for months... or did Beast just suspicious after a few nights out... I need to have a second run of this game while I wait for episode 4.
I don't buy the "or decided to hide it from Bigby", why would she do that, especially after seeing the crimescene? She doesn't seem to be under the spell the prostitutes are (no ribbon either).
And you can't go upstairs without her calling to you, so it seems reasonable that she would do that with other people as well, atleast until they show her that they have a key.
I do actually think she's fairly new to the job. A couple of weeks, or something?