Like the killer himself, the action and suspense that fueled last week’s intense and engaging episode of “The Alienist” slinked back into the shadows this time around. But what this week’s episode lacks in adrenaline it makes up for in oratory. Written by the screenwriter, director and novelist John Sayles, the episode features meaty near-monologues from a variety of characters, all of whom offer insight into the evil that people do.

The first to climb the soapbox is Chief Byrnes, who is livid after learning that his dogsbody Captain Connor — excuse me, ex-Captain Connor — murdered Willem Van Bergen, the filthy-rich predator he had been assigned to protect. “Let me tell you how this city is run, you stupid mick,” Byrnes growls (in an Irish accent). “We serve the rich, and in return they raise us above the primordial filth. And God help us if we don’t keep up our end of the bargain.”

As he delivers the rest of the speech, the Chief’s face looks as if it were hewed from stone, while his eyes burn with anger and fear. It’s a marvelous moment for the actor Ted Levine, and a clarifying jolt for Connor.

Next up is Byrnes’s occasional ally of convenience, the Italian-American gangster Paul Kelly (nee Paolo Vaccarelli). Having rescued Dr. Laszlo Kreizler and John Moore from a near riot over the killing they failed to prevent — a riot he himself engineered — Kelly warns Kreizler and Moore that they have more to worry about than the murderer, or his own organization for that matter.

“You are fighting a monster,” he says, “one that reaches from Millionaire’s Mile all the way down to Mulberry Street. And if you’re not careful, it will devour you long before you find your child killer.” Kelly paints the entire city as haunted by malevolent force, like a small Maine town in a Stephen King novel.

I reviewed tonight’s episode of The Alienist for the New York Times. I’m kinda proud of this one, because I wrote all that praise of the writing first and only then did I look up who the writer was and discover it was Sayles. I was not blinded by that Lone Star star wattage.