Summary
“The Dead Come Back” brings a question to the ending of the first instalment — who is the real monster? And that is answered, bringing a potential Season 2.
This recap of Amazon’s Tell Me Your Secrets season 1, episode 10, “The Dead Come Back” — the ending explained — contains spoilers.
The series has been about “monsters” — who is one? What makes one? Morals and principles are tested — it’s really strung the audience along to review which character is more of a monster. The ending of Tell Me Your Secrets season 1 gives the audience an answer — “The Dead Come Back” brings some home truths.
At the start of “The Dead Come Back”, Emma imagines Parker holding her, but it’s really John who has tied her up. She bites John but she’s too restricted by tape. He takes out her lenses and tells her that she killed Theresa with Parker. Emma explains that she did not help Parker and that he’s been misled, but John doesn’t want to hear it and believes that she will call the police on him if he leaves her.
Another one bites the dust
After spending all series wanting to confront Emma/Karen, Mary finally has found her opportunity.
Mary enters Emma’s home slowly and looks around. She sees Emma tied and taped on the bed. Emma is completely dazed and believes Parker is bringing her baby Freya. Mary starts taking off the tape to help Emma and reassures her, but then she hears John lurking. John attacks Mary, but she uses her gun on him to fight him off. A wounded John strangles Mary, but Emma manages to free herself and she lunges on top of John. She hits him repeatedly with a pole.
Emma tells Mary that her daughter is the monster
But with John now out of the picture, the series focuses on the issue at hand — the truth for Mary; that’s all she has wanted since Episode 1.
The next morning, Mary and Emma drag John’s body into the kitchen. Emma is disgusted that Mary sent a rapist to find her, but Mary states she needed a “monster to find a monster.” Emma locks John in a cupboard and then Mary pulls a gun on her and asks the truth — Emma laughs and says she is a hairstylist, and that you can love someone and not know the truth about them. Emma tells her that everything she thinks about her is actually her daughter, and that Theresa and Parker were in love before she met him. She’s dropping the truth bomb on Mary, and she does not like it.
Not my daughter!
And like a true parent, holding your children to the highest standard is not out of the ordinary. Mary is outraged and starts screaming; Emma tells her that her daughter became someone else. She tells her that Theresa killed Amy Walker, but Mary refuses to believe it. She believes her daughter is still out there. Emma states how Mary lost her daughter a long time ago, way before she disappeared. She wants Mary to use her foundation to tell the truth.
Mary looks at old notes and scribes by Parker; he talks about how much he loves Theresa. He had photos of her when she was part of the swim team. The truth hits her; Theresa was the monster, not Emma/Karen.
Saving Tom
Tell Me Your Secrets season 1, episode 10 almost forgets about Tom, but Emma remembers that she needs to find him after a frantic start.
Emma finds a motel key in John’s suitcase so heads to the room. She finds Tom in a bathtub and gets him out. Meanwhile, in the town, there’s a carnival happening, and a man brings Jess’s dead body from the river, points at Bodie Lord, and says, “You did this”. Later on, Rose tells her father that she did it for him. Rose killed Jess. Rose and her mother are disgusted at the father and walk away from him due to the lies.
This side plot hasn’t really landed as well as it would have liked.
Mary throws Emma under the bus
Mary gives a conference for her foundation. She tells the audience and news channels that she finally has her answer — she tells them that Karen Miller/Emma brutally attacked her and that she was completely complicit with Parker’s actions. Mary gives away Emma’s location and demands justice. Emma listens to the conference with Tom and she’s furious that she’s lying. Tom tells her she needs to prove her innocence and doesn’t want her to leave him. He promises to keep her safe. Let’s be honest, Tom hasn’t given himself the best advert for protecting people in this series thus far.
When Mary gets home, Jake has left her a note that says “You are the monster” and she sobs. Later on, she kills the swim coach who molested her daughter from 13 year’s old.
The truth of the matter is — Mary is the main monster in this series; she turned a reformed sexual predator back into his old ways, forming him back into a rapist; she exposed other parents, lied to her family, and when the truth finally arrived for her, she decided to carry on a lie to continue destroying Emma’s life. Mary is the monster.
The ending
Emma heads to Freya’s foster home and asks if she can see her. The foster mother says Freya’s mother is Karen. Emma tells her she is Karen, but the foster mother doesn’t believe her and shows her a photo and claims another woman has already been and explained this would happen. Flashbacks show Emma telling Parker to forget their daughter, and as they embrace, the police show up to arrest them both.
In the present day, Emma vows to be a nightmare to those who have lied about her and states that she will find Freya. The episode ends with Theresa in the car with Freya — Theresa’s hair is now brunette. There’s a body in the back and a hammer.
Tell Me Your Secrets season 1, episode 10 brings a question to the ending of the first installment — who is the real monster? And that is answered, bringing a potential Season 2.
Additional points
- Lisa tells Peter that she wants a break and that Emma isn’t lying about St Jerome’s House.
- Bodie rings Pete and tells him that he did everything he asked. Pete tells him he wants to be out of the situation, but Bodie tells him that it’s too late. Bodie heads to Emma’s house, and John is still alive and confronts him.
