Summary
Home Before Dark Season 1, Episode 3, “Sting Like a Bee” is a better episode but it’s still slow and laborious, with twists keeping the story alive.
This recap of Apple TV+ Series Home Before Dark season 1, episode 3, “Sting Like a Bee” contains significant spoilers.
Home Before Dark Season 1, Episode 3, “Sting Like a Bee” is a slightly better episode than the previous, establishing what’s really battling internally in Matt’s mind. It opens up with Sam wanting to discuss that tip with Hilde, which means that the entire family has to endure a trip to Rikers Island — this led to Matt walking out of the prison due to PTSD and Sam unable to have the discussion as he was thrown into solitary confinement. The plot is purposefully finding ways to deepen the mystery. Frank is also on Matt’s back, pulling them over for no good reason while returning home.
Episode 3 just shows how far Hilde is willing to go — she rings Sam Gillis via video call with Spoon and Donny by her side in the library. She tells Sam that she doesn’t believe her sister’s death was an accident — Sam says he cannot speak in case “they” monitor the call.
Matt confronts Frank at a bar for spying on his family. Frank says it is suspicious that Matt shows up, and Penny is now dead and that he spent 7 years trying to prove Sam’s innocence. Matt returns home drunk and interrupts family dinner.
Bridget confronts Matt about why he is so drunk — she says she looked up Franks’s past and knows he was there at the night of the abduction. A young Frank testified in the court that Samil Gillis was in the van.
So it looks like Frank is very important to this mystery.
A bossy Hilde enters Izzy and Ethan’s secret love cabin in the woods and makes a deal — she can use the cabin three days a week for her journalism and she will not tell her parents that Izzy has a boyfriend.
Hilde is creating her own office at such a young age — entrepreneur skills right there.
While in her newfound office, Hilde wonders why Sam couldn’t tell her who killed Penny due to call monitoring. She wonders if it was the creepy Corrections Officer Ed Quinlin who was listening in.
And so Hilde goes out to investigate with police officer Trip. She searches Ed Quinlin’s place and finds the same pills that were in Penny’s house. Hilde comes to the smart conclusion regarding Penny to a shocked Trip; “If she didn’t provide the correctional officer with drugs for the prison, then she couldn’t guarantee Sam’s safety” — there’s a probable cause.
Matt finally opens the safe and sees loads of documents that his father kept. One of the notes says “Matt was right” — his father believed in him. I mean, this was such an “on the surface” note that was written into the show poorly but let’s stay with it for now. Bridget tells Matt that she watched the tape and there wasn’t a licence plate on the van — a young Frank said in his testimony that he saw the licence plate. He lied.
Home Before Dark Season 1, Episode 3, “Sting Like a Bee” ends with Hilde believing Penny made a copy of the tape because Matt came back. Matt approaches Frank and calls him a liar, and that his testimony was wrong. Frank tries to dismiss the accusation, claiming he was just a kid. Frank destroys a copy of the tape and punches Matt — they fight.
Again, a slightly better episode, but it could do with some energy at times since it’s very slow-moving.
Additional notes
- Hilde reckons Frank has been parked outside the house every night.
- Hilde asks Izzy if she thinks their parents are going to get divorces.
- A librarian tells Hilda that the death of Ritchie upset a community and next time she writes about it, she must remember that.
- Ethan tells Izzy that he ran away from her in the woods from the wolf because he was bitten by a dog when he was younger.
- Hilde asks her father if he misses journalism. He claims he doesn’t.
