With just two episodes remaining until the season finale, we've reached a tipping point: any lingering doubts about Nile's potential innocence or even his dormant capacity for love and tenderness have been extinguished. However, with secrets from the past still being revealed, we're on the brink of discovering what the Jarvises, or at least Rick, have on Special Agent Breton. I remain convinced that someone other than Nile is responsible for Madison's disappearance. He may know all about it, but I think it will turn out to have been caused by a third element, an unsuspecting character whose involvement will only make sense once we have all the pieces to the puzzle. Could it be Rick? Martin? Or has Nina finally gone off the deep end? It wouldn't be surprising, given the recent trend.
Nile's "nothing to see here" façade is hanging by a thread. When he checks in on Teddy Fenig in "The Beast and Me," he can't stop cursing. It's unclear exactly what he planned to do with Teddy, but whatever it was, it has been thwarted by the situation with Abbott. Since he moved to Oyster Bay, two people connected to Aggie through Nile have died, disappeared, or both. This doesn't look great for either Nile or Aggie.
Aggie, of course, is not stupid. She knows that shit is about to hit the fan. Unable to reach Abbott, she goes over to his apartment. When he doesn't answer the door, she lies to the super that she is Abbott's cousin who needs to get into his apartment. The super is suspicious, so Aggie schemes to get around him. She asks him to store a fake suitcase and, when he has his back turned, swipes Abbott's spare key from his pegboard. Abbott's apartment is deserted. There is blood and hair all over the bathroom sink. Aggie rifles through his stuff, hoping to find a clue as to where he might be. Taped to the top of the drawer that stores all of his Madison Jarvis documents, she finds...a thumb drive! I'm telling you, it'll always be relevant.
Just as Aggie is about to plug it in Abbott's computer, she hears a knock on the door and the turn of a key. She hides in a closet as Erika comes in looking for Abbott. Aggie tries to sneak out, but Erika catches her red-handed. Aggie says that she's been worried about Abbott, like Erika herself has been. Desperate to make something out of the information she's been carrying around, Aggie tells Erika: "I think I have proof that Nile murdered his wife." She shows her the suicide note and the birding diary, and points Erika to the blood in the bathroom. Finally, she gives her the thumb drive. When they open it, they see that it contains the live feed of Teddy Fenig's location. Aggie catches Erika up on everything that she and Abbott got up to, including taking stuff from Nile's computer. Erika promises to get a warrant to search Nile's property and get forensics in Abbott's apartment. She also instructs Aggie to stay away from Nile, no matter what.
Elsewhere in the city, Olivia Benitez and her chief of staff, Elijah, prepare for a press conference to address the rioting at her Jarvis Yards rally, which is all over the news and social media. Elijah thinks they should just let the cycle play out, but Benitez wants to nip it in the bud before it gets worse. To a crowded press room, she condemns the violence. "But make no mistake," she points out, "this is a crisis manufactured in no small part by real estate speculators like Martin and Nile Jarvis." Martin, who watches.
I suspect that Rick, already skilled in the art of breaking and entering, has a role to play in the scene that unfurls in Aggie's house later on. For now, however, Nile is making his way to the storage unit where he keeps Teddy when he receives a call from Nina, fresh from the doctor's office. Despite believing she was infertile due to endometriosis, Nina is pregnant. The news stuns and terrifies her; she knows that Nile is adamant about not having children. She had resigned herself to the fact that she would never be a mother, but now that the opportunity has presented itself, she wants to seize it. Nile receives the news with indifference. "It's fine, Nina, it's great," he says. Nina is sobbing, but Nile is in a hurry to get her off the phone so he can go about his nefarious, murderous errands. This woman must get out of this marriage.
On the other end of Jarvis's nefarious activities, Martin calls Benitez, eager to set up a personal meeting. Benitez is short-tempered and more than convinced that Martin is behind the riot, a notion that Martin does nothing to dispel. For him, it's better if Benitez knows he is. In fact, that's what this whole thing boils down to: His ability to bully her into doing what he wants by proving he has enough power and influence to shape her reputation according to his needs. When Martin presents Benitez with a manila folder containing a proposal for the same property-swap deal Nile offered her, she says she's already rejected it. But after Martin points out that she'd be wise to accept it in light of recent events, she relents. She weakly tries to make a point about wanting to make a better world, but it falls flat when she cowers at Martin's intimidation tactics. I look forward to this plotline coming to an end; I'm growing weary of it. It vaguely touches on contemporary issues around housing affordability, environmental concerns, political mischief, etc., but is too brief to be meaningful. Benitez is a one-dimensional caricature of a "young Democrat," giving Aleyse Shannon little to work with. I get it: Martin Jarvis is scary. I'd know just from looking at him!
Besides, I'm more interested in other targets of Jarvis' manipulations. Back in the office from Abbott's apartment, Erika calls Frank from a staircase, instructing him to pick up the kids from school and take them to her parents' house. She tells him she crossed some uncrossable lines when Frank was "in trouble" a few years ago, thinking she was doing the right thing for her family, but now she'll have to tell the Bureau, and there will be consequences. Frank doesn't know what she's talking about, but she hangs up before she can explain. I suspect she took some kind of favor from the Jarvises in exchange for cover in the Bureau, a deal that is about to explode in light of... well, everything. But even that will have to wait, because when Erika comes back in, the whole office is mobilized for another task. They've been tipped about a kidnapping in Oyster Bay, and it's all hands on deck.
Aggie, who is just returning to Oyster Bay, has no idea how bad things are about to get. She's on her way to visit Cooper's grave when she gets a call from Carol, which she sends to voicemail. Driving home, she picks up Carol's second call. The editor is ecstatic about the first four chapters of the book. "It's like In Cold Blood meets The Year of Magical Thinking," she beams. Bob, the publisher.
Aggie's performance in pretending nothing is wrong to Nile is a poor one, a farce of facade. The jogging path returns as predicted, and Nile wants to show Aggie the marked and staked territory where "his guys" have been at work. Aggie hesitates in her car, delaying the inevitable confrontation, as she chats with Nile. It's a delicate scene, where we understand Nile's knowledge of Aggie's knowledge but Aggie's unawareness of his knowledge. As his usual self, Nile delights in tormenting Aggie, like a mischievous child tormenting a helpless hamster. He jokes about the strange new dynamic between them since she saw him dance. Aggie tries to evade him by claiming she's waiting for a call from Carol, but Nile is relentless—he won't let it go that easily. So, Aggie reluctantly follows him to the path, where he replays their previous conversation on the edge of Jarvis Yards. But this time, it's even more ominous. He asks when he'll finally get to read the first hundred pages of the book, as promised, and if Aggie already knows how it will end. "Did I do it?" he asks casually. Just as Carol calls on cue, Aggie informs her that she's in the woods with Nile Jarvis and instructs her to stay on the line until she reaches her desk, then she sprints back to her house like a deer caught in headlights. There, she locks all the doors and tells Carol she'll explain everything later. She frantically tries to reach Erika both on her personal number and at the FBI office, but to no avail. The tension mounts to a boiling point. As she drives home, a string of black SUVs passes by Nina on the road. Aggie enters her office to find her manuscript has been tampered with—it's all marked up in red pen. Someone has changed the title from "The Beast and Me" to "The Beast in Me." Nile calls and asks if Aggie's editor liked the pages. When she directly asks him if he broke into her house, he changes the subject to their supposed friendship, reminding her of the time outside Eleanor's when he could tell she wanted Teddy to get what he "deserved." He claims he didn't think she had it in her to give it to him until he went upstairs. Puzzled, Aggie climbs the stairs to find Teddy, dead and suffocated with a bag, in Cooper's room which is now decked out to match the live feed—a gruesome and chilling revelation that leaves no room for doubt.
