The voiceover this time belongs to Marienne, who will describe her situation in the allegorical fairy tale language she would use to explain something to her very young child. This means we get an incredibly on-the-nose parable about birds who are “just going to fly away” but also sometimes get their wings broken. Also, unfortunately, this episode treats us to a bad You special: watching a woman get tortured and go insane for what feels like forever, for sort of no reason, because we could glean all the information we needed about this in a much more concise and less gratuitous fashion.
With the help of Hallucination Rhys, Joe pieces together what he actually did to Marienne: put a sedative in her coffee when she was about to get on the train, then kidnap her. Apparently, Joe became fixated on Rhys shortly after arriving in London. By the time he has Marienne in some gross-looking flat, he is listening to Rhys’ speeches and such on an endless loop. For clarity purposes, I will be calling THIS Joe “Shadow Joe” because he’s the Joe the other Joe can’t remember. Shadow Joe tells Marienne he wants to give their relationship another chance. Marienne figures out that he’s drugging her through the water and manages to avoid drinking her last glass, only to have to be fully conscious while he drills her into a human-size crate for transport. Personally, I would prefer to be knocked out for this portion of the proceedings! It doesn’t seem like staying awake did her much good. Unless these are breadcrumbs for some future escape re: feigning unconsciousness? A recapper can hope!
In the basement of the condemned building across from the shitty Indian food place where Joe gets all of Marienne’s provisions, Joe has reconstructed his human aquarium. Marienne uses her hard-won consciousness to attempt a last-minute escape, but all she gets for her trouble is a broken arm. Joe explains that this (the guy doing the arm-breaking and kidnapping) “isn’t me” (helpful!). But his obsession with Rhys is so powerful that he cannot hear Marienne’s pleas through the glass. Instead, he bashes his head so hard I guess he swaps personalities?! And, giving Marienne a full-psycho smile, he says, “I’m not Joe.”
Most of this episode is just Marienne being tormented, and I will not linger on it here. Part of Shadow Joe’s torture is that he leaves her painkillers for her arm, knowing she’s an addict. (Or perhaps in this weird/divided state, he forgot?) We can tell Joe is no longer Joe because he won’t let Marienne have a book, his most favorite thing in this garbage world. Shadow Joe tells Marienne that he is only keeping her here until regular Joe “finally comes back to kill you.” (Seems more like something Shadow Joe would do, though?) Marienne paces around a lot, makes origami birds from takeout trash, and loses her ability to imagine that she is speaking to her daughter. Shadow Joe seems to have forgotten all about her, and she’s pretty sure she’s going to starve to death. Again this sequence could’ve been a lot shorter! Seeing as we already know Nadia will find her, what is the point of this torture porn? A weakness of this series from day one.
Back at the country house, Joe buries the real Rhys while Hallucination Rhys explains that Joe has been insane ever since the kidnapping of Marienne, or really ever since Joe murdered Love and abandoned Henry — an interesting choice for the show to not to give us the actual inciting incident of this psychic snap. Hallucination Rhys (who is also Shadow Joe … stay with me everybody) can’t remember the last time he fed Marienne. Joe is in denial that he is Marienne’s captor and has imagined his entire relationship with Rhys, but ultimately the evidence reveals the truth: His hidden camera footage from his latest round with Rhys shows Joe alone in his flat, talking to himself.
“You and the real Rhys Montrose have never met,” Hallucination Rhys/Shadow Joe says. Except for, you know, just now, “When you zip-tied his bollocks and killed him.” Joe is treated to what must be an absolutely mortifying supercut of all the times he found himself deep in conversation with an empty chair. Also, those texts were imaginary too. Hallucination Rhys/Shadow Joe’s assessment: “You are full fat, extra-sugar, deep-fried fucking insane.” Joe is the Eat-the-Rich killer, and he had to invent this elaborate narrative wherein he was protecting people from the Eat-the-Rich killer because of his obsession with redemption. (Joe was obsessed with romantic love!) This is also when they explain why Joe chained himself up in a burning basement, and I’ll be honest with you, this part didn’t make any sense to me (though maybe that’s because it doesn’t make sense at all … feel free to enlighten me in the comments!). Hallucination Rhys/Shadow Joe says that if Joe can admit who he REALLY is, he’ll remember where he put Marienne.
Back at the human aquarium, Marienne tells Nadia that she can’t call the police for some stupid reason. I mean, she is right to think that Joe is like this Whac-A-Mole crazy guy who will come back from the dead and keep hunting her, but again if it were me, I would prioritize getting out of the human aquarium?? And sort out the details later! But Marienne insists there has to be some way to get her back to Juliette safely, and that way does not involve Nadia calling 999. Why doesn’t Nadia at least, I don’t know, take phone pictures as proof of what is going on?? Unclear. Nadia reports that she stole Joe’s house key and made copies of everything. Marienne tells Nadia that she cannot let Joe find out that Nadia knows about Marienne because then she will be in danger, girl.
In real life, Rhys’s disappearance has made national news. Joe gets a call from Kate which he answers with a classic, “Hello, you.” Kate is distressed about Adam and Phoebe’s engagement party, as Phoebe obviously needs psychiatric care. (In a very funny moment, Kate complains that their engagement party is “British invasion themed. What are we invading, ourselves?”). Joe is obviously unwell, but Kate doesn’t notice, presumably because she is preoccupied with her friend flinging herself into a marriage that will almost certainly destroy her life. Hallucination Rhys/Shadow Joe tells Joe to clean up his mess so he can have Kate … or don’t and lose her forever.
Nadia tries to play it cool in class but fails. Hallucination Rhys/Shadow Joe can tell that she’s trouble. However, Joe seems to believe Nadia’s explanation for her distracted demeanor is that she is anxious about Edward and his unexpressed feelings for her.
Kate, on Joe’s counsel, finds Phoebe shopping. The engagement party is, what do you know, actually their wedding. Adam intercepts Kate’s messages and isolates Phoebe from all her friends; he interrupts Kate’s efforts to get Phoebe to talk to a lawyer about a prenup. This Adam/Phoebe situation has taken quite a dark turn, and I’m not really sure how many abusive relationships in a sort-of-campy kinda-horror show this series can stomach. Are we trying to make Adam bad enough for Joe to kill?
Joe trashes his own flat looking for the hidden key that Nadia found after half a second of searching. Even though he literally referred to himself as “Mr. Hyde” earlier in this episode, it does not occur to him to crack his copy of that classic. Kate calls to lure Joe away to a cabin in the woods, but not before he accompanies her to Phoebe’s disaster-wedding as “the one sane person” in Kate’s life, lmao. Joe finally finds his hidden key and also the copy of Rhys’ book he had before he even met Nadia, the one he devoured and colored in to reveal all its secret messages that spell out “Rhys <3s Joe” “Joe + Rhys 4ever” “ur the only one who can do the murders that we need to do” and other such normal things. He also finds his box of souvenirs (“There’s always a box,” Hallucination Rhys/Shadow Joe says wisely), including Rhys’ sweaty gym towel (ew) and a map with all his favorite spots in London, featuring that terrible Indian restaurant. On top of everything, I feel so badly for Marienne for being stuck eating the worst Indian food in the city just because of a lousy video Rhys Montrose made while trying to seem relatable.
Nadia is back at the aquarium. I write in my notes, Please, for the love of God, tell me you told literally ANYONE about this cage. You could have your boyfriend, the newspaper magnate’s son, pitching a front-page story about this RIGHT NOW. But it appears she is alone, armed only with what she describes as “a plan so insane it’ll never work,” as Joe approaches this very condemned building. After he maybe already spotted Nadia on the street??
Two other notes I had nowhere to put: If you haven’t already read it, I do recommend the short story that this episode is named for. And: I maintain that splitting this season into two halves was a mistake! This reveal would’ve been better for so many reasons if it came earlier in the season. What if we knew before Joe did? What do you all think?
