Summary
“Inside the Box” gets grim very quickly, but brings two women together as their stories begin to intertwine.
Things get very weird very quickly in Good Morning, Verônica Season 1 Episode 2, as we learn almost immediately that the titular box is what goes on Janete’s head while her husband rapes and tortures and presumably murders young women in some decrepit sex dungeon.
I was eating my cereal during this scene, which I enjoyed considerably less once a poor young girl was hoisted into the air on hooks to be forcibly eaten out by some creepy nutcase. I suppose that’s a comparatively minor problem, though.
Good Morning, Verônica Season 1 Episode 2 Recap
Anyway, another woman from Ideal Love, Tania, comes forward; she has the same ulcers as Marta, and has been scammed in much the same way, though by a guy named Felipo. Anita and Wilson conduct the interview and the former is bizarrely accusatory. Veronica, typing everything up, hits on the similarities between the names Felipo and Pietro.
Veronica coaches Tania through assembling a composite sketch of Felipo, who predictably looks like the kind of handsome young man who would be able to easily manipulate women through a dating app.
Once again Veronica’s empathy shines through and encourages Tania’s trust — she hands over a nude photo, taken while she was drugged and left on the mirror as a threat. This is his modus operandi, as posited by Veronica, but despite her insistence on being involved in the case, she’s fobbed off with paperwork by Anita.
In the meantime, she learns that Pietro/Felipo uses a homemade Rohypnol with a strong acid, which is what causes the burning. It could also kill the victims easily if the dosage is wrong.
Her colleague, Nelson, turns up a deep web lead; the perp has been selling the photographs of his victims online. Veronica tracks that lead to a gym, where she discovers a collection of the photos and is jumped by their owner. She’s able to arrest him, but he has an alibi and the vials in his bag are steroids, not Rohypnol. He’s a creep, but he’s not the guy.
“Inside the Box” drip-feeds us some more information about Veronica’s home and family life. Her daughter is being bullied at swimming class, presumably for being chubby, and her precocious son, Rafa, is doing little to defend her. He’s also fascinated by a locked room in the house where he says his grandparents died. There’s more to this still to be discovered, I’m sure, but it’s kept ambiguous for now.
Janete makes a real move in episode 2, too. She finds the cell phone of her husband’s latest victim while cleaning out the trunk of his car, and she hides it for later when she tries to use it to call the number she wrote down in her puzzle book.
The phone has no credit, though, so she’s forced to use the landline. She gets through to Veronica’s desk, but it’s Nelson who answers, and Janete hangs up and erases the call to cover her tracks.
Things at the station get complicated, meanwhile, when Veronica vetoes releasing the composite sketch, which Anita doesn’t take kindly to. She berates Veronica about being a clerk and also goads her about what she apparently did after the death of her father.
This dark family story Veronica shares with Nelson. Her father was being accused of corruption — he shot her mother and then himself. Nelson also gives her Janete’s home number, which he noted down. These two have a good platonic relationship thus far; it’ll be interesting to see where it goes as the season progresses.
How does Good Morning, Verônica Season 1 Episode 2 end?
Of course, Veronica calls Janete at home, which is not ideal. She tries to play it off as a sales call, which her husband thinks is hilarious. Veronica’s suspicions are raised, though, and she gets Nelson to trace the address. She investigates but finds the place empty aside from a room full of religious iconography and some bizarre souvenirs — she also finds the uniform of Janete’s husband, a Colonel Brandao.
But the couple returns home while Veronica is still in the house, and while Janete is very drunk. As she’s brewing a pot of coffee, the hidden phone of the young girl starts ringing in her stash of money (the fact she left it switched on is ridiculous, really, but everyone makes mistakes.)
Janete’s husband makes her eat the SIM card and then smashes the phone to pieces; Veronica witnesses all of this but doesn’t intervene, instead getting away to report what she has learned about military police Colonel Brandao.
But she returns to the house the next day, which is where “Inside the Box” ends. She timed the visit for when Brandao wasn’t home. She wants to hear Janete’s story.
What did you think of Good Morning, Verônica Season 1 Episode 2? Comment below.
