Summary
An exhilarating ending and a much earlier than anticipated reunion happens in the fourth episode of Shining Girls.
This recap of Apple TV+ series Shining Girls season 1, episode 4, “Attribution,” contains spoilers.
Read the recap of the previous episode.
Shining Girls season 1, episode 4 recap.
The opening minutes of Shining Girls episode four shows a montage of different victims in different years. In the year 1986, after Kirby is found on the beach, Harper goes to the hospital and makes awkward conversation with her mother. After he visits her in the hospital room, Harper gets told to leave. In the main timeline, Dan and his team of reporters discuss the story, with some expressing their doubts.
Kirby goes to Dan and tells him about the Jin-Sook’s missing key, but he doesn’t believe that there is anything to it. Then, after there’s a leak about Dan’s investigation, Marcus and Kirby go to find a tape of Julia’s last phone call before she was murdered. When listening to the tape, not only do they hear an echo (which may be due to water damage), but it appears that Harper is playing a recording of Julia speaking before she has the chance to speak.
Meanwhile, an older man gets attacked in his flat by Harper. Harper wants to know where Sharon is, and Harper seems annoyed/confused that Sharon isn’t there. Kirby tells Marcus that she received similar calls to Julia before being attacked. Dan visits the families of past victims, although, unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to head anywhere. That is until he sees Summer’s “roommate”, aka ex-girlfriend, and she shows a picture of one of Summer’s mirrors. It turns out that mirror was placed inside the body of one of the other victims.
Kirby realizes that one of the other victims, Rosie, had a nurse’s pin left inside her. That pin belonged to Karen, another one of the victims. And so Kirby comes to realize that Harper takes an item of one victim and places it inside of the next. But what she finds strange is the massive time gap between the victims. With the story going to print, Kirby tells Dan to lead the story with her, “I’m the better story, and that’s what I want for this”.
The ending
As Kirby now believes there is a connection to Jin-Sook, she visits her. However, all the time she is with Jin-Sook, Harper is watching. Whilst Jin-Sook says she has never had any weird calls, Kirby still warns her to be safe, carry a knife, and figure out how she lost the key. Kirby goes to Laundryland and finds a matchbox there. Before she can fully absorb that, Harper appears. “She doesn’t look right”, he claims. Kirby quickly realizes who he is and the danger that she is in. Harper wants to know how she found Jin-Sook, and when he attacks Kirby, he says, “I killed you; you shouldn’t be here”. Kirby defends herself, ripping his shift, revealing that Harper has a chest tattoo. He throws her through a glass wall, and when Kirby flees outside, Laundryland is now Bee Happy Bar.
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