Summary
Three Pines is a little too artsy at times for my liking, with unnecessary dream sequences and poetic motifs throughout, but the mystery case makes for a solid story nonetheless.
The murder investigation continues in Season 1 Episode 2 of Three Pines. Armand (Alfred Molina) and his team start to delve further into the case and find fresh motives for their ever-growing list of suspects. Everything seems to point towards the husband, but there are other individuals with strong motives of their own. It’s another slow and steady installment that builds to an enthralling ending. But who is CC’s killer?
Three Pines Season 1 Episode 2 Recap
“Whiteout Part Two” starts with a flashback. It’s a year earlier and a woman smothers a family member to death with a pillow. It’s quite a darkly lit and purposely vague scene, but it becomes apparent as the episode progresses that we are witnessing CC kill her own mother.
The series then jumps forward to the present day, Armand has brought all the locals together to recreate the curling match. It’s a cruel and awkward affair, but it helps Armand visualize the murder better. Everyone is ordered to stand in their normal places, although Saul suspiciously stands in the wrong place on more than one occasion. The event is replayed, and Armand sees just how easy it would have been to get away with the murder.
All eyes were on the curling match. This was calculated and meticulously planned.
The partner is usually the first culprit in a murder investigation, and the husband, Richard Lyons has many reasons for wanting CC dead. He knew she was having an affair with her photographer and CC had a hefty life insurance policy. Intriguingly, Richard also has a great knowledge of electrics, having made inventions in the past.
Yvette is asked to look into Richard’s financial situation in more detail. In the meantime, they look into CC’s family history, but they can’t seem to find her birth name or anything at all on her parents. Her name doesn’t exist, and her parents’ names are also fakes too.
CC’s coroner’s report reveals that she had a high dosage of niacin in her body, which is a vitamin used in detox that can bring on a hot flush. The killer must have placed the niacin into her drink to make her so hot that she would take off her gloves and become electrocuted in the process. Armand is actually impressed, this is the perfect murder.
Jean-Guy stakes out Saul’s house, another of Armand’s prime suspects. The photographer is seen burning items outside his rental. Jean-Guy closes in on the suspect and stops him from burning a hard drive. On the bonfire are photographs already, but the hard drive is thankfully saved. Saul is brought in for questioning.
He admits to the affair when they find naked photos of CC on the drive. Saul himself is a married man and he says how he didn’t want the scandal getting out. Armand looks through the drive and finds photographs from the curling match. These include a picture of Richard handing CC her coffee, just before her death. Did he spike her drink?
Yvette’s snooping concludes that Richard’s finances weren’t great. School fees had bounced, there were unpaid bills, and they were living beyond their means. Richard made some bad investments and appeared to be very much broke before the payout. Armand and the team pay the husband a visit. He denies any wrongdoing, stating that he loved her, but hated what she had become.
CC was a bully, who even mistreated her own daughter Crie. Richard wishes that he had killed her, but there is no evidence to prove that he actually did anything untoward.
They need hard evidence, and Yvette miraculously finds a clue in CC’s birth certificate. She was born Cecilia Longpre, and her mother is apparently Emily Longpre. Armand knows exactly who this is and goes to question the lady right away. She denies being CC’s mother, she’s in fact her aunt. Emily recounts the history of the family.
CC’s mother Eleanor was depressed and attacked CC before being institutionalized. Eleanor died a year ago, and CC subsequently moved to Three Pines after this death. Emily asks to reconvene tomorrow – it looks like we have a new suspect on our hands.
The Blue Two-Rivers’ case continues to build momentum too. Pierre informs Armand that she was spotted two days ago and may now be involved in the seedy world of drugs. Armand updates the family, but again they will not believe a word he says. Blue’s mother Missy gets rather angry and shouts at Armand for his lazy investigating.
She begins to routinely stand outside the police HQ, silently protesting. Isabelle is sent to take her home, but she refuses to move.
Three Pines Season 1 Episode 2 Ending Explained
Yvette is asked to stake out Emily’s house, but she falls asleep on the job. Armand and his team turn up the next day to find Emily’s house empty. She has left a video paused on her TV though. They play the video and in it, Emily confesses to killing CC. She mentions the washer fluid, the Niacin, and the cables.
Emily argues that she did it for Crie, to save her granddaughter’s life. Armand goes hunting for Emily as a snowstorm intensifies. Bea reveals that Emily will more than likely be found by her own daughter’s grave. Armand finds and rescues Emily before the storm claims her.
Back at the situation room, Yvette is interested in keeping CC’s boots. This triggers a brainwave from Armand, who instantly figures out who the killer is. He says that Emily can’t be the killer, she didn’t know about the base of the boots. The real killer must have confessed to Emily, revealing the small details, but leaving out the fact about the boots.
Armand races over to Richard’s house, but he isn’t there to arrest the husband, it is the daughter who he needs to speak with.
Yes, Crie, CC’s daughter is the killer. Armand has it all figured out. CC was mentally torturing her own daughter and Crie sought her revenge. Crie then admits to witnessing CC kill her own mother, as recreated in the opening scene. Crie is arrested and the case is closed. It’s a clever twist, but also a sobering one.
Episode 2 ends with Armand returning to base to find Missy standing on the headquarters’ roof. He sprints to the rooftop, but he’s too late, Missy jumps.
Three Pines Season 1 Episode 3 Recap
Three Pines (Credit – Amazon Prime Video)
The new investigation kick starts with a little bit of late-night arson. The locals head to CC’s old home to set the place on fire. They start to pour gasoline into the bushes and enter the building. They soon hear voices and find teens partying in the abandoned home. The locals scare off the teens, and they decide to check all the rooms before starting the fire properly.
Marc Fortier heads into the basement, where a hooded figure kicks him down the stairs. Another day at Three Pines, another death.
Armand and his faithful colleagues are quick on the scene. There are no signs of a struggle and no unique pieces of evidence to over-analyze. But Armand finds the gang a clue almost immediately. He spots fingerprints in the dust and swiftly uncovers a hidden door that leads to a hidden room. CC’s home was an old school for indigenous students, and this particular room was used to lock in and torture students.
Armand finds Marc’s bloodied corpse in another compartment within this room. The victim’s head was bashed in with a rock, which is placed beside the body. As they leave, they sniff the gasoline in the bushes, Armand has two crimes to solve now, both occurring within minutes of each other.
Marc had no relatives, so they go to question his closest friend, Hayden, and his daughter Sophie. Marc and Hayden were friends since college and both helped each other out in their time of need. Both lost their wives and at the time of Marc’s death, he was living with Hayden and Sophie.
Hayden believes Marc had no enemies and was a well-liked individual. The authorities find alcohol in Sophie’s room and a photo album that reveals a link between Marc and the old school – Marc’s father was the caretaker there.
Isabelle investigates Blue’s case further and discovers a piece of key information that all the other officers missed. Blue was photographed at a party, yet this was clearly photo-shopped. She was never at that event, but somebody wanted it to look like she was. Isabelle goes to tell the family the news. She apologizes for their loss, Missy committed suicide at the end of the previous episode. Isabelle is suspicious of Kevin and inspects his house next.
All the locals are interviewed once again. They deny any involvement in the murder or the attempted arson. It is revealed that CC’s house was going to be bought and turned into a hotel, which could be seen as competition for the Bistro owners, thus a possible motive for burning the place down.
The owners talk of the building being haunted and a ghostly caretaker roaming the halls. Armand realizes that Marc’s father was the caretaker.
Jean-Guy and Armand are invited to dinner at the Morrow’s, but the invitation isn’t just a harmless gesture, they have ulterior motives, and they want info on Marc’s death. Ruth blurts out the question as soon as Armand has sat in his chair. They want to know how he died. Armand tries to change the topic of the conversation and asks for details on Marc’s life. He was an amateur painter and a psychotherapist.
The locals bring up the haunting again and an argument erupts. Bea is extremely defensive about the predicament and states that grown men tortured children in that place, it is no laughing matter. Is Bea now a possible suspect?
The series likes to use dream sequences and an odd motif involving a blue jay on numerous occasions. Here the dream sequence works a treat, as Armand has a horrifying nightmare that he is locked in the torture room, but the blue jay sightings are really starting to grate, it feels overly pretentious and for the time being, totally unnecessary.
Three Pines Season 1 Episode 3 Ending Explained
Further digging reveals that the caretaker was the main abuser at the school and his son, Marc, wanted to make amends for all that suffering. He proposed a memorial for the survivors and Bea opposed it. Bea’s tattoo matches the symbols found in the torture chamber.
Armand questions her and she confesses, she was locked in that room for two days straight as a child. There is a lot of bad energy and many disturbing memories intertwined with that place. She hated Marc for two main reasons, firstly his connection to the torture and secondly his misguided publicity stunt.
Jean-Guy thinks Sophie or the Morrow family are more likely suspects than Bea. Then Yvette finds hidden keys that belonged to Marc and a goose key ring connected to the chain. They pay Ruth a visit. She was renting out her cabin to Marc so that he could do his paintings in private. They rush over to the cabin, in the dead of night.
Jean-Guy notices that the place has been inhabited lately, then they hear a noise. A chase ensues and they manage to force the intruder into a dead end, the mysterious figure is revealed to be Peter Morrow – our latest suspect.
Three Pines Season 1 Episode 4 Recap
Three Pines (Credit – Amazon Prime Video)
The old school, St. Anthony’s, is intricately linked to the history of Three Pines, a place where indigenous students were tortured and kept prisoners for years. The episode opens with a flashback, showing the horrors of this awful place. A young Bea watches as her brother and two other young students leave for brighter futures, while the evil caretaker apprehends poor Bea. In the previous chapter, we found out who the caretaker was and how Bea was linked to it all but is she just a distraction, a red herring if you will?
Armand thinks it’s all connected, the murders and the school. He interrogates Peter Morrow, who they arrested in the previous (literal) cliffhanger. The police have uncovered his deleted phone conversations with Marc, it seems they had an intense relationship that verged on a romance.
Peter says they didn’t have an affair though, Marc was just his therapist. He traded painting lessons for therapy sessions. Peter went to the cabin to find Marc’s laptop to delete the therapy notes. Another local with secrets they want to keep hidden.
Isabelle manically checks Tommy and Kevin’s house again and this time she finds some evidence. There are huge chunks missing from the rug and underneath, the floorboards appear to have been tampered with. Later, forensics uncover bleached floorboards and Blue’s blood.
The missing person case continues to build some momentum adjacent to this week’s murder mystery. Meanwhile, Isabelle receives a visit from Youth Protection. A complaint has been made about Isabelle’s parenting and they must follow it up appropriately.
Yvette looks into the teenager’s cell phone that they found at the murder site. She discovers incriminating video footage. Firstly, it shows Sophie at the building, drunk and joining in with the vandalism. Secondly, it shows Bea in attendance on the night of Marc’s death, something she previously lied about. Armand confronts her about this, but Bea is antagonistic as always.
Jean-Guy researches the school and finds out about the story from the opening scene, Bea’s brother ran away from home but drowned. He also points out an intriguing name on the school’s register – Mary Two-Rivers, she is now known as Arisawe. She was a pupil at St. Anthony’s – our first major link between the two stories.
Jean-Guy and Isabelle stake out the building that night and hear strange noises inside. On investigating these spooky sounds, they find a raccoon in the basement, this leads to the uncovering of a secret passageway that takes them to another room in the house. They assume the killer used this hidden crawlspace to escape unseen. In the tunnel, Isabelle finds a mobile phone.
Armand and Isabelle visit the Two-River’s household, to ask about the school’s history. Kara admits to phoning the child helpline, she was the one who set up Isabelle out of anger and for some of her own revenge.
Then Arisawe talks about the night her brother escaped. She believes the caretaker killed him and the other boys. Armand takes a shovel and gets to digging. He soon finds human bones in the torture chamber, she was right all along.
Bea is informed of this bittersweet finding. She can now put her brother to rest. Bea blames herself for his death, she was the one that got caught. All the signs point towards Bea being the killer, but she denies killing Marc again. Bea directs Armand’s attention back to Hayden, who was arguing on the day of Marc’s death.
This inter-cuts with Hayden and Sophie arguing in the present. Hayden knew about Sophie’s teenage rebellion and admits that he lied to the police for her. Sophie just wants her space and storms off.
Three Pines Season 1 Episode 4 Ending Explained
Armand’s team start to deliver on the more pressing evidence. Jean-Guy says that Marc wasn’t broke, but he was deceiving Hayden. Marc bought a plane ticket to New York in Sophie’s name. And then Yvette finds the voice notes between Marc and Sophie. He was trying to help her escape her father’s controlling stranglehold. They race to Hayden’s house, but there’s no one home.
Hayden drives Sophie to an unknown destination. The police tail him and he refuses to pull over. The only thing that stops him is a ridiculous altercation with a bear. Hayden and Sophie’s argument is cut short when he suddenly brakes in front of this deadly animal.
The police coax Sophie and Hayden out of the car and Hayden is arrested. He confesses immediately, stating that he was only protecting his daughter, it was just an accident. But Armand isn’t being fooled.
Hayden is the killer. In the final moments of the episode, Armand is informed that there is an incident at the school, and someone has finally burnt the place down. Bea looks on with a smirk on her face. Did the locals finally get their way?
What did you think of Three Pines Season 1 Episodes 2-4? Comment below.
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