I Got Here By Myself
Episode 5 of Tell Me Your Secrets begin with Emma driving toward Minnesota as fragments of the past come crashing through. As she drives, she remembers Esther’s words, as Esther tells her she loves her and claims that deep down she’s a good person. Emma throws her pills out the window and tells (herself? Her pursuers? It’s not initially clear to be honest!) to “bring it.” Meanwhile, murderer Mary meets John in a clothes shop while he’s being fitted for a suit. John now has leverage over her but keeps this card close to his tailored sleeve. Given the footage of her murder, John outright asks exactly what she plans to do upon finding Emma. When she gives a cryptic answer, John continues on his pursuit regardless. John and Peter both show up at Esther’s funeral and find themselves waiting for Emma. Emma doesn’t show, as she instead heads into a storage locker and finds a lock-box with an address kept inside. Mary meanwhile, continues to look over details of the case while struggling to collect her thoughts in the wake of Esther’s death. John rings breaks the bad news to her that Emma didn’t show up at the funeral. However, he does want assurance over exactly what she’s going to do with the girl. Once again she refuses to tell him. John meets Mary in her car as she annoyingly chews gum with her mouth open. Ugh. Mary tells him that failure doesn’t look good on him, as John calls Mary out for her gum chewing. John says what we’re all thinking while watching, grabbing Mary’s mouth and demanding she stop. Instead, she spits it in his face and tells him to get out her car. Wow, it’s almost as if letting an ex-convict into your car all alone and antagonizing him has adverse effects. Who would have known, eh? Anyway, Mary remembers what he said about meditation alley and does some research online, finding a victim called Andrea Black discussing the horrible things John has done. On the back of this, our little murderer heads off to a gun shop and decides to buy a handgun. Emma shows up and speaks to a little girl outside. She removes her contact lenses to reveal her true eyes. The girl smiles and tells her: “Same. I’m making splashes.” The little girl, Freya, mentions how she likes cats. When she calls for her Mum to head over, Emma walks away in shock and back into her car. As we later find out in a flashback, this girl is actually Emma’s child. Only, she doesn’t remember what happened fully. While paying her respects at the grave, Pete shows up and confronts Emma. Emma is spooked and scrambles away, eventually asking outright exactly what she’s done and why he was fired. He pleads with her to turn the truck off and promises to tell her everything. Pete used to be a councilor at Saint Jerome’s. There was a girl there and they had a connection. He was 25 and she was 16 but nothing happened at that time. Pete was banned because of how close the pair were. When she ran away, he made a mistake of letting the girl stay in his cabin. That’s what got him fired. The tally markings were actually his own doing, as Pete chuckles and claims he used to pretend to be a POW when he was a child. That girl in question? She’s now Pete’s wife. Emma reveals the truth about her child to Pete, as he looks her square in the eye and promises to stand by her side. For now, they need to leave and head back home. If she can do that, he promises to do his best to bring Freya back to her. As they cast stones into the lake, John suddenly rocks up and spots them both. John phones Mary and lets her know that Karen Miller hasn’t shown up. Instead, he dances around what she did. When Mary asks him what, he tells her not to play games and hangs up. John heads back to Karen’s car and begins stroking the cat, eventually taking its collar. Rose starts to lose control up at the cabin as she discovers the truth about Emma. She notices the old newspaper clippings and wonders what to do next, as Mary starts practicing with her shiny new handgun.
The Episode Review
Episode 5 rocks round and it seems characters are just sort of doing things now. For example, we’ve got the calm and collected Rose, evolved from a bully in earlier episodes, to suddenly going mental when Emma takes off without her. This relationship has had very little screen-time too and somehow this notion that she and Emma are a tight-knit unit isn’t very believable. Meanwhile you’ve got loud gum-chewing Mary still reeling from murdering Esther. Then she decides to buy a handgun with, presumably, the intent of killing again and going after John. John however, seems to have regressed back to old ways, partly thanks to Mary winding that spring tight and letting it ping back in her face. Pete’s reveal and what’s going on with him is a nice twist though that’s certainly unexpected, humanizing his character and allowing a little more empathy toward what he’s doing. Then again, he’s still controlling and shows some nasty signs of obsession. This backs up that earlier idea that there’s really no-one here that’s very likable. This unfortunately poses one very big question as we hit the halfway point – why she would we care for these characters?
