Dean wearily returns home to find Nora in tears. She has a USB stick and is all “How could you do this to me?†and “I know what you did.†In theory, this means we’re spending the whole episode waiting to find out what Dean has done — or what she thinks he’s done. But honestly, I’m not all that invested in their relationship so I can’t say I’m too pressed to find out what’s on the mystery USB. Are you?
One week ago, Nora and Dean went to visit Karen and Darren to demand answers. Personally, I’m surprised these beige yuppies didn’t bring a lawyer to this meeting. (Wouldn’t they at least know a lawyer, socially, given the circles they’re likely to run in?) On the one hand, Westfield is the most charming little small town in all the land where everybody knows everybody else and all their doors used to be unlocked forever. On the other hand, Darren has literally never met or even heard of any person who has ever lived there, including anyone who has lived in the house he just sold the Brannocks. How convenient for Darren! Lawsuits are threatened, reputations are exaggerated, LLCs are conspicuously mentioned, and the best line of the scene is Dean’s response to Darren asking Karen to show the Brannocks out: “She doesn’t have to see us out. It’s not that big an office.†Why do we think Karen is so desperate for the Brannocks to list the house? Her commission? Or something more nefarious?
In thrilling news for our protagonist whose behavior is inching into antihero territory, Dean decides to use Google for, as far as we can tell, the very first time in his life. In all these days it would appear he has never even Googled the address of the house he is living in. As he searches extremely useful things like “John Graff murder,†he gets a package at his office: the 1995 Westfield High School yearbook, which includes Pat Graff’s school picture. He blows off work again presumably because he will be fired soon just to really ramp up those money troubles.
I am confused about the box of evidence Dean got from Theodora. She made it sound like some under-the-table deal, but he openly describes it as a gift from Detective Chamberland. I also did not realize the last time we saw it, but the murder wall is in the Brannocks’ attic or basement or something. Does this mean that Theodora has been coming to his house to talk? And Nora either knew about it and didn’t participate or she didn’t know or care? Seems like some important information we could have used instead of spending quite so much time listening to dogs bark distantly, but what do I know, I’m just the recapper. Nora pitches “sexy time†and Dean is too distraught to even hear her, so she wraps herself in an enormous gray sweater and disappears into the night.
All this stuff with Ellie is so oddly framed to me: Is the show trying to tell us that her dad is an uptight chauvinist who is far too controlling of his perfectly healthy and capable daughter? Or that despite Dean’s craziness he is right about the fact that his precious baby girl is out here doing inappropriate things with her inappropriately aged consort? It’s kind of annoying that in the Brannock and Graff story lines, the asshole dads’ hunches about their daughters are sort of validated by the show (see also: Pat’s slow dance with her teacher). Ellie is taking some sultry pics for her “alarm teen†and Dean is mad at her, yet again, for locking the door. Obviously a dad should not be able to just barge into the bedroom of his 16-year-old daughter though?! Am I insane? Also they definitely described her as “not even 16†in the premiere, but now the fact that she is allegedly actually 16 is mission critical … did Ellie have an offscreen birthday or something?
Dean later sees Ellie and Dakota (alarm teen’s Christian name) laughing in the yard. Laughter is gross and is only for sluts. Dean demands Ellie wash off that eyeliner because eyeliner is for whores and tells the alarm teen to finish his work and get gone.
Now we find out that Dean waited weeks to tell his wife about John Graff. Nora is displeased with his secrecy, but again, it’s not clear to us what about this is news to her: his ongoing work with Theodora? The suspect wall slowly taking over an entire floor of their house? Just these latest discoveries and developments? Dean wants to sell the house, but Nora rejects it: “Whatever happened to staying strong for the kids?†says the woman we have not seen communicate with her son for more than two minutes in this entire miniseries.
Theodora’s take is that there’s “no connection†with John Graff, whose life’s outlines have such on-the-nose parallels to Dean’s it is almost insulting to me as a viewer, but okay. Theodora doesn’t even think that fake building inspector was the real John! Instead, she wants to zero in on the alarm teen, whose business only thrives when people feel unsafe and in need of security systems. She suggests some tech crime where they sniff his data or whatever, I’m not going to find out if that’s a real thing because it doesn’t really matter, it’s obviously not kosher but it allows them, with improbable speed, to see exactly what Dakota is doing on his computer when he’s playing video games: His screen name is “The Watcher.â€
Dean and Nora retire to the kitchen for joyless cooking and I write in my notes, “Ahem, I thought I was PROMISED a Bobby Cannavale special pasta night??†Dean hasn’t told her that he didn’t make partner, naturally. She somehow thinks this means they don’t have to worry about money; his “yeah, babe†is wholly unconvincing, as is his follow-up: “It’s not even about money anymore.â€
Dean is distracted because he believes that Ellie and Dakota are dating. To this, I say, “If you guys are so obsessed with being good parents who do right by your kids, why don’t you just … try to have a normal conversation with your daughter about this?†But no, he decides to go full give-her-trust-issues and tricks her into leaving her phone in her room so they can break into it and go through her photos. Again, instead of approaching her like a not-psychopath, he just up and screams at her at the dinner table. Ellie responds, quite rationally in my opinion, “You took me away from all of my friends … You did this.†More screaming, she hates him, etc. Absolutely horrendous parenting, you simply love to see it. Also how does humiliating and punishing his daughter for having a boyfriend further Dean’s efforts to catch out Dakota as the Watcher?? I mean, not to suggest you use your own kid as bait, but wouldn’t it be easier to get close to Dakota and catch him out if he were invited over to dinner, like, under the guise of “Well, if you like this boy so much, let’s get to know him�
In a twist that really makes me go hmmm, I am to believe that Ellie — a modern teen who grew up in New York City in basically the present day — thinks it is a good idea to call the police on her dad about the altercation happening between Dean (white middle-aged homeowner) and Dakota (Black teen security whiz) in front of their house. Improbably and miraculously, this ends not with police violence but with the officer telling Dean that the age of consent in New Jersey is 16, while Dean continues to violate his daughter’s privacy by just waving the intimate photos on the phone screen at this man she does not know. (Dean, you just learned how to Google! Didn’t it occur to you to check age-of-consent laws before going nuclear on your kid?) Dakota volunteers to cooperate in the Watcher investigation. Pearl and Jasper are also present, mostly so she can shout, “Not very neighborly!†in Dean’s direction.
So Dakota goes to the cops with his mom and a lawyer. Finally somebody has a lawyer! The Brannocks generously tell Detective Chamberland that they won’t press charges and the detective is like, “You have nothing to press charges about because no one committed a crime.†(Do the Brannocks not understand how age-of-consent laws work?) What’s very funny to me about this is that the age of consent in New York is actually 17, so we have yet another example of these guys assuming that New Jersey will be some bastion of safety and peace while New York was a cesspool of violence and danger, meanwhile their kid was technically “safer†from the charms of the alarm teen back when they lived in Manhattan than she is here in suburbia.
Back home, Ellie swipes her brother’s iPad to post a teary, straight-to-camera TikTok where she accuses her parents of being racist. (“I’m in love with someone who happens to be African American and because of that now I’m locked up in my room.†Not to nitpick but … wouldn’t she just say “Black�) This is the first we are hearing of Ellie having a TikTok with a following substantial enough to make this clip go viral instantly, and given all the time we’ve spent watching her text we could’ve at least gotten a couple of throwaway lines like “Mom, you can’t take away my phone, I post get-ready-with-me videos every Tuesday and Thursday†or some such thing. Like, how on earth would Dean’s secretary be watching this? Am I really to believe it blew up that quickly when nobody knows who the Brannocks are and we have no reason to believe Ellie is already a popular influencer?
Dean responds to this in his usual, measured fashion (smashing her phone against those new countertops, screaming that Ellie “destroyed this familyâ€). Nora attempts to return to her one sanctuary only to discover that her membership has been suspended. I’m sorry, but it is genuinely hilarious to me that a country club, of all places, is out here ruling people out for being too racist. Nora can still dine there as a guest of Karen, who is taking such a risk by being seen with Nora at all. “Unfortunately the internet is forever. Good luck getting Ellie into a good college.†(I actually feel like this would help Ellie get into college — prime essay material.) But Karen, who sees doom for all the Brannocks, figures that Dean will lose his job and swiftly gets to “Your life as you knew it is over.†Karen’s advice has escalated from “You need to sell the house†to “You also need to divorce your husband.†She already drew up a contract for a pocket listing!
At the office and at home, two envelopes arrive but with a different style from the Watcher letters. We’ve got some classic ransom aesthetic with the magazine cutouts on it. The videos inside show Dean in bed at home with a girl dressed up to look like Pat Graff getting naked and crawling into bed with him. What is very funny to me about this nightmare sequence is that Jack, Dean’s boss, just watches the whole video … like, first of all, wouldn’t you send it to IT to make sure it wasn’t a virus, and then why would you just sit in your office watching the grainy security-cam footage of your employee sleeping and having sex with a random person? Also, the video has these quick cuts and looks so sketchy, but Jack, the apparent video expert, is like, “It doesn’t look doctored to me!†Buddy, how would you know?
Dean stumbles into the street to find Dakota waiting for him. Dakota put a camera in the Brannocks’ bedroom without telling them (what the fuck?) because he thought Dean was the Watcher (???). He sent the footage to Dean’s boss as retaliation for the cop thing, which is interesting because technically it was Ellie who called the police and I’m not sure any of us needed this brief, no-duh reminder that a trip to the police station is different for Dakota than it is for Dean. What’s also weird is that Dakota doesn’t know what Dean is talking about re: the girl in the video (so what did he think was on the tape and why did he think it would be embarrassing or damning for Dean to send the video to Jack?).
When Dean gets home, Nora has seen the same video. (Wait, did Dakota also send it to Nora?) Dean tries to explain that he is being set up, but he sounds deranged and Nora throws him out of the house, the house that she is selling. Oh, and she is filing for divorce.
In the grand tradition of neglected sons of television dramas (we’ll never forget forgetting you, Bobby Draper and Henry Jennings!), Carter emerges from the shadows to have one line — “But what are you protecting us from?†— only to be sent to bed.
Dean is back in the motel but he doesn’t stay long. (He also spots Andrew in a commercial for some drug, but like, dude’s gotta eat, I’m not sure why it’s bad that he is working? Unless, of course, this means Andrew is an actor all the time and never really lived in the house, etc., etc., etc.) As Nora cries herself to sleep, Dean is doing a little stakeout in the street. You either die a hero etc. And just across the way he sees a cab pull up and who gets out but Mitch and Mo, as I live and breath! Probably this is supposed to be an “oh nooooo†moment, but I am so happy to see Margo Martindale that all I can think is, Thank God you’re back from the dead. One more dog (the Watcher?!?!?) barks in the distance before Mo yanks her curtains closed.