Summary
The penultimate episode of His & Hers drops a big bombshell, which recontextualises many things, but with another episode to go, that can’t be all there is to learn, can it?
The morning after the night before – or, I suppose, the moments after the moments before, if you’re in a bit of a rush – is always pretty sobering. When you combine that with a penultimate episode, you’re in major trouble. Jack and Anna might be realizing in Episode 5 of His & Hers that replicating the final tryst of a murder victim isn’t the most romantic thing in the world, but they’ve also got bigger concerns, including someone trying to kill them and their loved ones. Marital reconciliation is going to have to wait.
There’s a major reveal here, one that recontextualises everything we’ve seen thus far and is honestly pretty unexpected. There’s also another major death that I didn’t think the show would commit to. It’s a near-perfect setup for the finale because it leaves just enough on the table that you know you’re missing something crucial, that there’s more still to be revealed, but that anything might happen in the meantime. Nobody is safe. Everybody is – still! – lying.
Making Connections
Following the ridiculous efforts of the mayor and Anna to control the narrative, the sheriff’s office is awash with conspiracists and nutters. Jack is still hyper-focused on Clyde Duffie as the prime suspect in the killings, but Priya has other ideas. She pins a picture from the St. Hilary’s school yearbook showing Rachel, Helen, Anna, and Zoe looking pretty cosy together – and wearing the handmade friendship bracelets that were found wrapped around the tongues of Rachel and Helen.
The point is pretty clear. These people are all connected, so it stands to reason the killer is connected to them. Anna has reappeared out of nowhere to restart a floundering career that was damaged by her extended hiatus. She didn’t get the call from Helen, as she stated. She should be the prime suspect, and Zoe can’t be overlooked either. Jack isn’t thrilled about either option, for obvious reasons.
In his panic and irritation, Jack overplays his hand. He goes to see Duffie to confront him more aggressively, showing him the intimate videos he was presumably being blackmailed with, and asking him about calling Helen and Rachel’s phone, despite being told not to. Duffie has some off-kilter sexual proclivities, but he isn’t a stupid man. He realises immediately that the only way Jack could have this information is if he has Rachel’s phone. So, he’s now going to report him to the sheriff. He also says that the “C” whom Rachel and Helen were blackmailing wasn’t him. It was someone else.
Police Brutality
With Duffie more or less exonerated, Jack’s suspicions turn elsewhere, guided by a tip-off call from one of Rachel’s former paramours, who claims that on May 18, someone at the 11 Luxe apartment building slapped her. Jack acquires a list of tenants who were living there at the time, and Richard Jones is among them. This is all Jack needs to give him both barrels.
Before he goes to speak with him, Zoe shows up at his office with pizza and beer, apparently frightened of being targeted. She has picked up on the same connection that Priya has, that she was part of the same friendship group as Rachel and Helen. She might be next. It’s something to do with Anna’s sixteenth birthday, something Anna never told Jack about, but he’s so excited by discovering the Richard connection that he doesn’t give Zoe time to explain.
When Jack confronts Richard, he denies it. Apparently, he wasn’t there. And he defends the assault and battery charge by claiming he was defending Lexy from a stalker. Jack isn’t inclined to hear it, and when Richard makes an uncouth comment about Anna, Jack batters him in front of multiple witnesses, resulting in him being thrown off the case. It’s only down to Anna threatening to tell Lexy about them that Richard doesn’t press charges.
Priya Gets Closer to the Truth
Meanwhile in His & Hers Episode 5, Priya works her own angles. She interviews Anna, who reveals that she was able to jimmy the double doors of the school, which is something she and all of her friends know how to do. They learned it on account of the strict lateness policy when they were there. Priya also asks her if she recognises anyone else from the friend group in the yearbook, and she claims not to, despite Catherine’s picture quite clearly being there. What’s she hiding?
Priya also speaks to Zoe after Jack dashes off, and she does mention that Catherine was part of the group. She also identifies her in the yearbook, so Priya knows that Anna deliberately neglected to mention her. When she researches her, though, the only thing she can find is an obituary for her sister, Andrea, whom nobody has mentioned until this point.
Priya also gets Rachel’s phone records back, which reveal she was called repeatedly by Jack Harper. The pieces are beginning to fit together now.
Lexy’s Real Identity
But there are just a couple more pieces to assemble. When Anna and Richard get back to their hotel, they discover their rooms have been cancelled, so Richard decides to relocate them to a lake house owned by Lexy’s parents. On the way, Anna has flashbacks to her 16th birthday out in the woods, which was gatecrashed by several grown men, invited by Rachel. These men got the girls – though especially Catherine – very drunk, and then it’s strongly implied that one of them forced himself on her while the others watched.
When Anna arrives at the lake house, Richard tells her that Lexy is there and wants to “clear the air”, an idiom he later corrects to “bury the hatchet”. While she waits, Anna has a look around at the family photographs on the wall, which include Catherine, her parents, and her sister, Andrea. But if Andrea is dead, that can only mean one thing. Lexy is Catherine.
With this revelation, we also see Zoe take some weed gummies and get in the bath. When Jack gets home, water is leaking through the ceiling. But when he rushes upstairs to berate Zoe for falling asleep in there, he finds her dead.
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