Summary
Another compelling hour has both secrets and premature babies see the light of day, as the looming mysteries remain inscrutable – for now.
This recap of The Nest Season 1 Episode 3 contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.
The Nest Episode 3 proves the BBC’s thriller to be as confident and twisty as ever, with another revelatory hour sure to put people off surrogacy for quite some time. As we return to the show and find Kaya (Mirren Mack) 24 weeks pregnant and in a love-dovey sexual relationship with young Jack (Samuel Paul Small), the key dramatic question of who is going to spill the beans about her background looms large. While shady businessman Dan (Martin Compston) is well-aware that the young girl carrying he and his wife Emily’s (Sophie Rundle) child stabbed a pregnant woman to death when she was just 11 years old, he’s reticent to let the truth out for fear of what it might do to his marriage and the unborn nipper he’s hoping Kaya will part with when the time comes. It’s his sister Hilary (Fiona Bell) who gives the game away in the end, in part to protect her son Jack, who is perfectly willing to throw away his bright academic future for this young girl he barely knows.
But while this bit of business comprises the lion’s share of The Nest Episode 3, it isn’t the only question we’re left with. The matter of who killed Kaya’s junkie neighbor Doddy remains a crucial matter, and everyone’s a suspect in his demise, from Kaya herself, to Dan, to Kaya’s social worker James (James Harkness) and Dan’s enigmatic business associate Souter (David Hayman), who might be up to far more than the local boy-done-good is entirely aware of.
Questions, questions. And then, of course, whether the baby Kaya’s carrying will survive the ordeal. After Jack confronts her at a swanky ball, Kaya disappears; he finds her later the next day, unconscious and unresponsive out by a waterfall, and the baby is born via emergency C-section. Kept alive in an incubator, for now, the baby is still the legal child of Kaya until she decides otherwise, which we’re reminded about here – one assumes not coincidentally.
Keeping all this together is the compelling Mirren Mack, who has the mode-switching ability of a psychopath but the neediness and emotional vulnerability of someone robbed of their childhood by trauma and tragedy. What exactly her endgame is remains a mystery – but one that seems to be worth unraveling.
