Summary
Episode 6 bamboozles the audience with further revelations regarding the retreat. The story is in a halfway house where it’s unclear whether the retreat is healing the guests.
This recap of the Hulu series Nine Perfect Strangers Season 1 Episode 6, “Motherlode,” contains spoilers.
Read the recap of the previous episode.
As we reach episode 6, it isn’t easy to gauge whether this wellness retreat is having benefits for the characters. You could argue that the place is working, but there’s an underlying darkness that keeps running through the core of the plot.
Nine Perfect Strangers Season 1 Episode 6 Recap
As episode 6 opens, Masha remembers a party and eating a cake. In the present, she starts delving into Zoe’s birthday cake but then retreating — it’s almost like she’s banned from sugary products, and later Delilah raises how she caught her eating the cake. Who knows what the real issue is, but we can assume that future chapters will delve into this.
Vivid dreams keep coming in episode 6; Frances has hallucinations — she sees a man with a top hat singing about money. Lars has dreams where he remembers getting bullied and called homophobic names as a kid. Masha helps wake him up and explains she can see his past trauma, and she has found a way to control his dreams. She asks him to spy on the others and write down every event. It’s almost like Masha has converted the investigative journalist to be on her side. At breakfast, Masha tells all the guests that the dose has been heightened with new rules, and as always, it is optional.
We learn more about Carmel in episode 6; she expresses her worries about the new dosage and tells Masha about it — it’s because she’s usually on psychotropics, so she’s wondering if the doses given to her will have an undesirable effect. And then Masha drops a bombshell — she tells Carmel that she knows why she came to the retreat — it’s because Masha had an affair with her husband and asks Carmel if she’s going to kill her. Carmel denies any intended violence and states she came to the retreat to understand the “why” and study Masha.
Masha explains that she was never attached to Carmel’s husband because she was too busy with work. She insists she wants Carmel to heal. Afterwards, Carmel tells Lars about her situation with Masha. She’s worried she will dream about her ex as Frances did. It’s a bizarre scenario and one that was not easy to see coming — Masha appears to have a lot of enemies.
While talking privately, Frances speaks out loud and thinks Tony is about to kiss her. Tony admits he wanted to kiss her, but he also does not want to hurt her. They kiss each other passionately, and afterward, Tony says this place has given him hope. It’s a breakthrough in the story — two characters have found healing by each other’s presence and understanding.
And then episode 6 turns to the Marconi family. As Zoe walks through the woods, she can sense something — her brother appears. And then her mother Heather finds her, and she’s curious about what Zoe has seen. Napoleon enters the fray, and he starts shouting for his son, then suddenly, he can see him. Heather then sees her son Zach, and she hugs him. She asks Zach why he committed suicide. He tells her it was the asthma treatment that has potential side effects. One of them was “suicide ideation.” He then claims he saw his mother review the side effects herself and underlined the suicide risk.
Heather suddenly freaks out and has a psychotic breakdown, laying on the floor and screaming. Delilah and Yao help pick her up. When Heather recovers, she cries out loudly because she can no longer see her son; Masha and her team have no choice but to sedate her to sleep. Delilah fears they are out of their depth. When the situation calms down, Masha arranges a chat near the fire with Napoleon and Heather after learning that all three family members saw Zach. Heather feels she killed her son, but Masha disputes that and claims she can give them psychedelics so that an alternative reality can exist. She states the family has experienced a rare connection, and Zoe is the dominant one. She’s confident that with her help, the entire family can see Zach together and talk to him at the same time. We have to wonder if this will work out in the way that she intends…
The ending
With each chapter passing, Delilah is getting more irritated with the retreat; she tells Yao that Heather had a psychotic breakdown and the Marconi family is not in a position to make decisions. She also reminds Yao that someone is spying on Masha. Yao brushes her concerns off, but Delilah explains that she does not want either of them to be complicit, and they need to leave. I guess that leaves the question — will Yao side with Delilah or Masha?
As the episode ends, Masha taps into her memories and remembers a young girl that looks like her daughter. Suddenly, her daughter is run over while out on the bike. Masha is struggling to handle the memory.
Additional points
- Jessica’s hallucinations intensify to the point she thinks her nose has fallen off. She screams and her partner Ben calms her down. Masha walks in and tells her that she’s fine.
- Frances tells Carmel that everyone else is getting better, but she believes Carmel is getting worse.
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