‘The Last Thing He Told Me’ Season 2, Episode 2 Recap – I Just Don’t Care At All

There’s something weird about The Last Thing He Told Me that is difficult to put a finger on. It has always been there, but it’s especially noticeable in Season 2. The best way of describing it would probably be a feeling of inertia, or glossy emptiness. It all just feels so rote, so artificial, that it’s really quite difficult to care about any of it. I didn’t love the book either, to be fair, but Episode 2 makes some changes to it – tweaks to Grady and Quinn’s arcs, primarily – that make me wonder quite where it’s all going to go.

But wondering isn’t the same thing as caring. Hannah and Bailey are on the run again, as they were for the entirety of Season 1, and it feels like little has changed for them even in the wake of Nicholas’s surprising death. That has flown by with such a lack of ceremony that if it weren’t for Bailey sometimes saying aloud “My grandpa just died!” as justification for being in a bad mood, I’d have forgotten about it entirely.

There’s a fractious feeling to the dynamic between Hannah and Bailey that was gone in the book, more or less. Their once-testy relationship had dissolved into an idealised version of hyper-understanding surrogate parenthood, but here it’s mostly just a continuation of their first season vibe. They still disagree, especially about how best to proceed, and Bailey’s insistence on turning to Quinn as a potential ally feels naive, the kind of thing that, in the book, she had outgrown.

Grady is also weirdly antagonistic. He turns up to explain to Hannah that the Campanos have jumped into bed with an extremely dangerous international drug-running syndicate, and that Owen is working under a fake name in Austin, trying to get proof of the contracts Nicholas drew up for the illicit union. This is all new, or at least new-ish. It’s also not very interesting.

Bailey doesn’t trust Grady. Hannah is a bit more inclined to do so, but with Bailey’s suspicions rattling around in her head, she takes any bit of suspicious activity as proof. Grady’s close to the bone, lashing out at them both, having mysterious phone calls, and getting into violent altercations, so they’re both justified in leaving him behind. But there’s a weird feeling to all this, since we know that Grady and Owen are working together, since we see Owen sneaking pictures of the files and letting him know, and we know that the bikers Grady got into it with were really looking for Hannah and Bailey. It’s like he’s deliberately acting shady enough to justify Hannah and Bailey making the wrong decision.

After a night sleeping in the car for safety, Hannah finally relents and agrees to meet with Quinn at Bailey’s request. This is where The Last Thing He Told Me Season 2, Episode 2 really starts to deviate from the book, or at least pretend to. Quinn’s in that story, but in a nothing role as an uncomplicated antagonist. I get that you don’t just cast Judy Greer for nothing – although The Buccaneers kind of did – but it’s just a bit unclear where all this is going. Here, Quinn apparently has nothing to do with her father’s business, and we even see her calling Teddy and demanding he leave Bailey alone. So, I guess she’s on-side?

Out of options, Hannah and Bailey end “Safe” by heading to the former’s estranged mother’s house, which is again new to me, and I’m not sure it’s warranted. Hannah’s entire character arc hinges on her abandonment at a young age, to be raised by her grandfather. In this version, Hannah’s mother apparently decided she wanted to be a part of her life again, so that’s where we’re going next.

It doesn’t help that any progress we’re making in this new direction is incredibly slow nonetheless, which contributes to that feeling of general disinterest that is plaguing the whole production. I can see people still being engaged – especially if they’re unfamiliar with the book – but I’m not sure that’s going to be sustained across another six (!) episodes. Time will tell.