Summary
The penultimate episode of Fool Me Once turns the entire plot on its head in multiple ways, setting up a finale with a lot to answer for.
The murder of Theo Mora was first teased in the cold open of Episode 1, but it has taken until Episode 7 for Fool Me Once to finally reveal what happened. At this point, it isn’t especially surprising, but it’s nice to have some important context. Christopher Swain explains it to Maya.
In short, Theo was perceived as a threat by Joe, who always hated anyone better than him. So, under the guise of a hazing ritual, the five boys — Joe, Andrew, Christopher, and two others — jumped Theo, took him to the old campus ruins, and Joe force-fed him vodka through a funnel until he died. Christopher and Andrew never got over it, and so on the yacht, Joe took the opportunity to push his brother overboard rather than risk him revealing the secret out of guilt.
You’d think Maya wouldn’t believe this, but she does. She seems perfectly ready to accept it at face value. Perhaps everything she has dug up about Joe and his family during the previous six episodes has convinced her that neither her husband nor her marriage was ever what she thought.
As we saw at the end of Episode 6, Kierce has discovered Corey’s hideout. We see him infiltrating it by torchlight here, but Corey gets the drop on him and flees. Kierce gives chase and, despite his health issues, is able to catch and desperately Mirandize him. Corey, though, is understandably confused about the charges.
A Sobering Realization
Kierce and McGregor interrogate Corey, who lets on about why he was investigating Tommy Dark, and the connections he had to the Burkett family, but he doesn’t reveal much more than that. However, his back is very much against the wall, and he knows that, so he offers to speak to Kierce one-on-one, privately. Corey tells him about the falsified data surrounding the Lambur Pharma drug trials, and that Claire was investigating it when she was murdered. Kierce is shocked to hear this since we see in a flashback that the pills he has been popping all season were supplied by Lambur Pharma. The dangerous products that are out there as a result of these falsifications are in his pocket.
This realization prompts another. Nicole, Kierce’s AA sponsor, has never really been present. The side effects of the drugs caused hallucinations, and he imagined her being present. But Nicole isn’t Kierce’s sponsor — she was his first fiance, the one murdered on the job. In the vast majority of Kierce’s scenes, he has been talking to a hallucination.
What did Maya do overseas?
Shane calls Maya going mad about the police having discovered that he withdrew the bullet that killed Claire at Maya’s request. He confronts Maya about lying to him, and she says she’s heading over to his place to tell him something.
Episode 7 of Fool Me Once finally gives us the full story of what happened to Maya overseas. Her team’s vehicle had been hit by an IED. Her men were wounded and vulnerable and a suspicious vehicle was heading towards them. Maya and Shane were told to stand by until it could be ascertained whether the vehicle contained enemy combatants or civilians. But Maya didn’t want to wait. She shut Shane’s comms off and made a judgment call, pretending she had been given authorization and firing a missile at the approaching vehicle. It contained only civilians.
After unburdening herself to Shane, Maya’s phone buzzes with an alert from the tracker she planted on Luka’s car when she was last at Farnwood. He’s on the move, and she slips off to follow him. She ditches her phone, acquires a burner, and uses it to contact Eddie. She needs to sign him up at the nursery so he can pick Lily up later. She also wants a sneak peek at Lily through the glass, as if she’s seeing her for the final time. The way Maya is carrying on, it’s almost like she’s marching to her death.
What happens to PJ?
Kierce and McGregor get a tip that PJ has turned up for his shift at work — how dumb is this guy? — so they both rush there to arrest him. He flees and they give chase. Kierce is finally able to corner him on a rooftop. PJ, terrified of both falling and being arrested, starts spilling his guts about what happened on the night of Joe’s murder. He was there with another lad; they used to swipe handbags on motorbikes. But the shooting was nothing to do with him. He rode off in such panic that he crashed his bike, hurting himself. That’s why he called Phil for help, and it’s why Phil had blood in the back of his van. It was PJ’s.
PJ told his dad the same thing he’s telling Kierce now, and he said he was better not getting involved. Phil helped him cover up his presence on the night. PJ identifies the other kid as Rambo — short for Ramsbottom — and tells Kierce where he lives, and that his dad has some kind of cleaning company. However, while on the roof, Kierce starts having another episode. When PJ sees he’s in distress, he climbs back up the roof to try and help him, but he ends up slipping and falling from the roof. He’s stretchered into an ambulance, alive but in a bad way.
Kierce is immediately suspended and made to clear out his desk. He seems happy enough to do so, but he withholds what PJ told him about Rambo — even from McGregor. He does, though, tell McGregor about the pills. There’s a chance that if he just stops taking them his brain will repair itself, but it might be too late.
Kierce immediately heads to Rambo’s estate and follows him and his girlfriend into a local pub. Kierce confronts him in the bathroom about the night Joe died. Rambo is adamant that he didn’t kill him — but he knows who did.
How does Fool Me Once Season 1 Episode 7 end?
Maya heads to where Luka’s truck is parked and ambushes him and Izabella at gunpoint. In Izabella’s bag is Joe’s green shirt. Maya breaks Luka’s nose and threatens to kneecap Izabella if she doesn’t talk, so she does — she reveals that the nanny cam video was a deep fake. Luka played Joe, and they superimposed Joe’s face on him using footage from their wedding video. Luka says Judith paid them to do it because she thought Maya was lying about the circumstances of Joe’s death.
Suddenly, Shane appears, claiming Eddie told him where Maya was and asked him to help her. He confronts Maya about what she has learned, particularly why Judith would go to such lengths to do this to Maya. She says it’s because she knew that Joe wasn’t the person everyone pretended he was. Shane brings up the crux of the issue — how could Joe and Claire have been killed by the same gun?
Maya says because she killed Joe herself.
What did you think of Fool Me Once Season 1 Episode 7? Let us know in the comments.
