The Dead Come Back
Episode 10 of Tell Me Your Secrets begins with John tying down Emma and telling her to be quiet. He admits he just wants to talk and promises that it doesn’t have to be bad. John questions exactly what she did in the past, humiliatingly pouring a drink in her face. Emma pleads with John to listen, given Mary has misled him all this time. She tries to reason with John, as he senses how afraid and nervous she is. Eventually he has enough and kicks the girl in the face. With Emma knocked out and everything at the cabin quiet, Mary creeps inside. She tries to free Emma, realizing that John is still lurking around the cabin. Eventually John smashes the glass on the porch and blindsides Mary… until she shoots him in the stomach with her handgun. The two wrestle while Emma manages to break free from her binds. Well, if Emma wasn’t a murderer before, she appears to be one now. She bashes John’s head in repeatedly and leaves him a bloody mess on the ground. With John dead, Mary admits that she needed to hire a monster to track her down. Mary then points a gun at Emma’s face as she chuckles and admits that everything that she thought Emma was is actually Theresa. Emma then breaks the truth about Theresa being in love with Kit, as Mary loses her temper and fires a warning shot at the ceiling. Emma breaks the news to Mary that Theresa tried to kill her, but Mary refuses to believe the truth. In fact, Mary pushing Theresa to do swimming lessons was where this all started. It turns out she was being abused by the coach. Every time Mary pushed her back to swimming, she was really pushing Theresa into the arms of her abuser. Emma pleads with Mary to tell the truth and show some compassion. With a vital clue in “Honey”, Mary finds a lock-box buried in the garden and numerous letters between Theresa and Kit. There’s even another picture of the swim team with the coach too. Now it seems like she knows the truth about her daughter. Emma shows up at Room 313 and finds Tom in the bath. She breaks him free from his binds and takes the man out the bath. While she does, a hooded figure shows up with a dead body of a woman from the swamp. This happens to be Abel, and he points a shaky hand at Bodie, in front of the whole town, and claims that he’s responsible. This prompts Rose to turn on him and walk away, revealing that she killed Jess but blaming her Father for it. Meanwhile, Lisa decides to take a break from Pete. She questions him over his past and the inconsistencies in his story about the bunker. Lisa doesn’t know if she’ll be back and walks away. When she leaves, Bodie rings Pete and tells him he’s never getting out of this. After, he heads into Pete’s cabin but finds John still alive somehow. Murderer Mary holds another press conference where she…selfishly lies. Because of course she does. She claims Karen brutally attacked her after confessing to the killing of Amy Walker and many others. She also tells them all that Karen was a willing participant, enacting a witch hunt as she discloses her alias and exactly where she’s living. Murderer Mary heads home and finally gets some comeuppance. All of her credit card receipts and ties to John are laid out on the table. However, Mary brushes this aside and invites the swim coach in, shutting the door after her. Emma heads off to visit Freya but learns that someone else has already taken her away. After being shown a picture, Emma walks away, shocked. Flashes from the past show Kit promising that her baby will never be safe, as the realization of this hits home. Emma promises to get revenge on those who have ruined her life, and sets out to find Freya no matter what. As the episode closes, Theresa is revealed to still alive and happens to be with Freya. In the back of the car happens to be a hammer, setting up a possible second season.
The Episode Review
Tell Me Your Secrets limps over the finish line with a ham-fisted finale trying to bait for a season 2 that may or may not arrive. There’s little resolution to anything that’s happened this season and worse, no compelling character arcs or meaningful progression for anyone, except perhaps Emma. It seems like Emma is the only innocent (ish) person here but the way she unceremoniously bashed in John’s skull doesn’t make her completely blame free. Speaking of which, how did John survive that? Surely he would have had a concussion or something, not to mention massive blood loss after the bullet to the stomach. Meanwhile, Mary gets no comeuppance for her actions and instead, sets out a witch hunt against Emma, giving away her location and lying about the truth. It seems like she may be about to kill again, especially after she invites in the swim coach to her house, but her character has been one that’s very difficult to warm to. And what of Pete? He doesn’t really get a conclusive end either, which sort of just finishes with Bodie ringing and promising that he’ll never be free from this. That all leads up to that big reveal that Theresa is still alive. How did no one notice that Theresa was showing up and driving around? Her face is plastered everywhere, all over the news, and she hasn’t even adopted a new identity like Emma. And that’s to say nothing of the taxidermy, needles and issues with Abel which have gone completely under the radar until a sudden scene near the end. Who was the hooded figure in the end? How is Abel still alive? And why have we not had any screen-time with Bodie to understand what sort of person he is? Al of this leads to a rather unsatisfying conclusion, baiting for a second season rather than giving a satisfying ending. What a shame.
