Summary
Kiefer Sutherland brings a paranoid, engaging, and funny take to a character that gets more interesting by the episode.
We recap the Paramount+ series Rabbit Hole Season 1 Episode 2, “At Any Given Moment,” which contains spoilers.
Kiefer Sutherland brings a paranoid, engaging, and even funny take to a character that gets more interesting by the episode. The opening shows a flashback of John as a little boy with his parents at the dinner table.
These scenes give you a good sense of why John is paranoid as an adult. While he and his father share a candy cigarette, John’s mother enters his office.
The phone is driving her crazy because it keeps clicking. His father shows paranoia, taking apart the phone and ripping the phone lines out. There are no more phones, he says.
Rabbit Hole Season 1 Episode 2 Recap
Who tries to kidnap Hailey?
We don’t know who tried to kidnap Hailey outside her hotel, but Johns saves her. John sees two “agents” approach her and ask her to leave the hotel with them.
Hailey asks them who they are working for, and he flashes what appears to be a badge. When they walk up to the car, she feels something is off because it’s a new Mercedes, but the guy who flashed a badge says it’s a personal vehicle.
When Hailey resists, she is struck with a taser. That’s when John runs up, confronting them with a camera phone, encouraging everyone else to do the same. Hailey punches both assailants, and they run away.
When they get to his safe house, he takes a mallet and breaks apart a wall. He pulls out several bags of money and even a laptop computer.
John still thinks she is working for someone. If she’s not, Hailey may be in the wrong place at the wrong time. (If she is in on it, the whole scene at the hotel was most likely set up for John to take her in).
John pulls out the computer, and she shows him the dating website and his profile.
Who created John’s profile on the dating app?
John thinks his coworkers set him up on a dating app because he is lonely, so he uses the same password Cara uses for everything. Hailey then accuses him of being a loser loner or a psycho.
When John tries to argue the point, Edward Homm runs up the stairs from the basement, running blindfolded into a wall. John throws Hailey in a trunk, drives her down the road, and lets her go.
Even if this is only a coincidence, she refuses to leave because people tried to kidnap and kill her. So, she thinks John is her best option to stay alive.
John confronts Xander, Valence’s second in command, about what is happening in the bathroom. Xander says he does not know anything about what Valence is up to.
He also doesn’t know who messaged Valence before he jumped off the building. This conversation reveals that the pictures Weir showed Valence were more than Homm and the woman shaking hands.
READ: Will there be a Rabbit Hole Season 2?
When Weir told Valence to look at the last picture in the pilot, we now see it was a photo of Homm dead with a bullet in his head. This was staged, obviously. But why would Valence ask Weir to kill anyone?
And why did he agree to it, only to keep him alive? Xander refuses to tell Weir who hired the hit on Homm.
What does John steal at the police station?
John steals Valence’s authenticator key from the police station. The crux of this episode is John trying to figure out who messaged Valence and wants to access his data.
This is the only way to do it, and the key is in Valence’s pocket, hence stealing it from a police station. When he leaves, his “intern” locks the doors of the police station behind him.
We initially think he is helping John because a detective and Madi chased John but are now locked in. The intern attacks John and is also after the authenticator in the box.
It’s a hilarious scene, with an older man trying to take on a younger kid who has some spy military training. When he is about to hit John in the head with his skateboard, Hailey hits him with Weir’s car.
He gets in, grabs the authenticator off the ground, and leaves.
Rabbit Hole Season 1 Episode 2 Ending Explained
Who is waiting in the house when John and Hailey return?
When John and Hailey return to the safe house, an older man who happens to be John’s father appears. This is strange since, while driving back, John ruminates repeatedly about his father’s death.
John was there and saw a bird shot from a shotgun go through the wall. (We see the same damage in the house, which means the safehouse is John’s childhood home). As a child, John sees his father’s head, from the back, blown out. Now, he is standing in John’s kitchen and doesn’t look surprised to see him.
