By: Kelly Kearney

After finally escaping the primordial cesspool of a human that was JP, the Garvey sisters find themselves pulled back into another toxic mess—this time thanks to Grace’s poor choice in second husbands. Not only did she rebound to a man who had become increasingly suspicious, but she also befriended a woman who latched onto her family like a parasite and, who very likely blackmailed her way to Grace’s demise.

Last week, when Bibi offered to help cover up Angelica’s “accident” on the boat, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Ian’s constant presence was concerning. This week confirms her suspicions: once again, a terrible man looms in the Garvey sisters’ rearview mirror, driving them to the brink of insanity and crime.

Cops and Conmen

We open with Eva (Sharon Horgan) out for a run when an incoming text stops her in her tracks. It’s from the Dublin City Bank: “The transfer request from Blanaid Williams’s child saver account has now been completed.” The message is alarming because, in last week’s episode, we saw Eva and Ian (Owen McDonnell) visit the bank after Ian convinced her to add his name to Blanaid’s (Saise Quinn) account. He claimed he wanted to contribute financially now that he was sharing custody with Eva.

Panicked by this unexpected transfer of funds, Eva tries to contact Ian, but he’s not answering her calls. She rushes to Grace’s house only to find it cleared out and all of his belongings gone. Her calls are being rejected, and we see Ian deliberately ignoring them as he walks into a police station to deliver an anonymous envelope. Later, Detective Houlihan (Thaddea Graham) opens the envelope to find a flash drive containing damning evidence from the marina, tying the Garvey sisters and the boat to Angelica’s (Fiona Shaw) disappearance. It becomes clear that Ian got close to Eva to gather evidence against the sisters, steal Grace’s money, and has now turned it all over to the police. If only they had listened to Bibi (Sarah Greene), who warned them she smelled a rat. But Eva, lonely and drawn to Ian’s charms, ignored the warning—leaving them all in the crosshairs of a conman and a determined young detective who is about to solve this case.

Realizing what’s unfolding, Eva calls to check on Blanaid, ensuring the teen made it to practice safely. Blanaid reassures her everything is fine— at least for now, anyway. With her niece safe, Eva gets another crushing blow of a phone call from Ursula (Eva Birthistle) to inform her that all the sisters have been arrested for Angelica’s disappearance..

At the station, Det. Houlihan interrogates Bibi, Ursula, and Becka (Eve Hewson) separately about Angelica and what happened on the boat. Despite the pressure, they stick to their story, feigning ignorance about the woman’s whereabouts. Houlihan grows increasingly frustrated, knowing the missing woman boarded a boat with these sisters—who also have ties to two other dead bodies. The interrogation is interrupted by Detective Loftus (Barry Ward), who reveals Angelica has shockingly been found alive! Loftus reprimands Houlihan for wasting department resources on dead-end theories and declares the investigations into Grace’s and Angelica’s accidents officially closed. On his last day before retirement, the detective is eager to leave the Garveys—and his partner—behind. But from Houlihan’s determined expression, it’s clear she’s not letting this go.

With Angelica alive but badly banged up, the sisters are released from custody. Eva, dodging her sisters’ growing concerns about her strange behavior, rushes to the bank to confirm her worst fear: the €100,000 inheritance in Blanaid’s account has been transferred to Ian. The account is completely empty, and because Eva added Ian’s name to it, the bank is powerless to retrieve the stolen money.

Devastated, Eva calls a meeting with her sisters as she seemed distracted at the station and avoided explaining herself. She’s also been declining their worried calls, but now, faced with their concerned looks, she has no choice but to confess. Embarrassed and ashamed, she admits she was conned by Ian who used her to steal Blanaid’s inheritance. Bibi, furious but feeling slightly vindicated,offers up a few “I told you so,” before they start to piece things together. They speculate that Grace may have discovered Ian’s scheme and that €20,000 bank withdrawal was meant to pay him off—not Angelica. The Garvey women are racked with guilt and believe Angelica is due an apology. Ursula volunteers to visit her in the hospital as she is the favorite or maybe just the least hated of Grace’s sisters. “The Parasite” was innocent all along—and they treated her very poorly.

While Ursula heads to the hospital, Becka agrees to speak with Joe (Peter Claffey) to see if he knows anything about Ian that could help locate him. The two men hit it off, and maybe Ian slipped up and told Joe something useful. Meanwhile, Eva spirals, reaching for a bottle of wine and falling head first off the sober wagon. Bibi tries to intervene, but Eva isn’t interested in her concern, only numbing her pain.

Nine Lives

When we see Angelica in the hospital, her head is heavily bandaged, and she’s battered and bruised. Despite Becka risking her life to search for her, it turns out Angelica was only in the water for a few hours before being rescued. When Ursula comes face-to-face with her, the dazed woman is visibly terrified, assuming Ursula is there to finish her off. Roger (Michael Smiley), who is visiting his sister, steps in to diffuse the tension by explaining Angelica is suffering from short-term amnesia. She remembers boarding the boat with the Garvey sisters but has no memory of anything that happened afterward—not even the sail hitting her in the face. Importantly, she doesn’t recall if the Garvey sisters were involved in her accident and that’s why she reacted in fear.

Ursula tells Roger that Becka nearly drowned while searching for Angelica and it was a runaway sail that knocked his sister out, not the Garvey women. However, this raises a critical question: why didn’t the sisters go to the police if they believed Angelica had accidentally drowned? Reluctantly, Ursula admits that Ian convinced them not to involve the authorities, warning that they might be accused of murder. Roger, familiar with the Garvey sisters’ web of lies and misdirections, is skeptical of Ursula’s story and asks her to leave.

On her way out, Ursula crosses paths with Detective Houlihan, who cryptically informs her that the police will be following up on the sisters’ version of events. When Houlihan later questions Angelica, the battered woman reflects on how kind Grace had been kind to her. If the woman were alive and had known Angelica was in the hospital, she would have baked her a cake. The two had bonded over their shared grief, but everything changed when Ian entered the picture.

Speaking of, Detective Houlihan presses Angelica about Ian’s attendance at the support group where he met Grace, and she reveals she never believed his sob story about his deceased sister. She always suspected he was faking his grief, likely as part of a ploy to manipulate vulnerable women. This revelation paints a clearer picture of Ian’s scheme: preying on the grief-stricken to gain access to their bank accounts.

Baby Blues

When Becka tracks down Joe, he’s at a local pub, playing pool and drowning his breakup blues in beer. Their conversation quickly turns heated as they argue about the baby and why Becka never told Joe she was pregnant. He assumes it’s because she planned to abort and he’s not the father. Outraged, she fires back, demanding to know who he thinks the father is. Joe retaliates with a cruel jab, suggesting it could be anyone—even the men in the pub. Insulted, Becka throws a cue ball at his head and storms outside where their argument spills into the streets. That’s when Joe finally realizes Becka hasn’t terminated the pregnancy  but he isn’t any less angry over her lies. He wants to know who she expects to raise his child and that’s when Becka corrects him, “My baby” and she’s keeping it but refuses to engage further. Instead, she swiftly changes the subject to Ian and explains the situation and how Joe could help. He might be the sharpest character on the show when he points out, “You Garveys really know how to pick a prick,” and then storms off, offering no insight into Ian’s whereabouts.

Back at Eva’s house, the sisters gather, only to find her drunk and falling apart. Wracked with guilt over losing Blanaid’s inheritance, Eva also begins to grapple with the uncomfortable truth: Bibi was right, and sleeping with her late sister’s husband doesn’t exactly make her a good person. The sisters rally around her, trying to lift her spirits and convince her to put down the alcohol, but Eva denies being drunk, insisting she’s just broken.

Their intervention is interrupted by Joe’s arrival, startling Bibi, who almost bashes him in the head with a vase when she mistakes him for Ian. Joe came because he is a good man and has remembered something crucial: Ian is a gambler and lucky for them, so is Roger. Bibi and Becka decide to approach Angelica’s brother for help knowing they need to first mend bridges after a history of insults they’ve hurled at him. Practically on bended knee, they apologize profusely, following Ursula’s earlier example with Angelica. Their act of contrition softens Roger, who admits Angelica isn’t a bad person—just a hurting one. “Hurt people hurt,” he says, referencing the pain caused by Grace’s death. Moved, Becka asks Roger to help them find Ian, framing it as a way to honor Grace– the woman he loved. Touched by the appeal, Roger agrees, mentioning he recently saw Ian at the horse races.They all agree to meet there and try to sniff the schemer out.

Meanwhile, Detective Houlihan, despite orders from Loftus to drop the Garvey investigation, delves deeper, scouring the station’s database for anything on Ian Riley. She comes up empty, but puts her pal Reggie on the case. Determined to solve this, she crashes Loftus’s retirement party, confronting him about forcing her to lie to the Garvey sisters about the money. Loftus, reveling in his “freedom party,” brushes off her accusations while admitting he feels no guilt about stealing Grace’s money to fuel his custody battle. He insists what he did was necessary.

Disgusted, Houlihan challenges Loftus’s ethics as a cop, suggesting his ego might blind him to what’s truly best for his daughter. Then, in a bold move, she takes the microphone to deliver what starts as a farewell speech but quickly turns into a biting roast of her boss. Midway through, Houlihan hits the brakes when she notices Loftus’s daughter in the crowd. Despite her anger, she chooses not to shatter the girl’s image of her father, sparing him—and his reputation—for the sake of his child.

The Truth Comes Out

After his party, Ursula meets with Loftus, who assumes she’s invited him to dinner for another hookup. He is disappointed when she declines his offer and instead admits she is desperate for his help in tracking down Ian. The newly retired cop declines to help as he claims he’s “out of the business of finding people.” Not only is he retired, but that is also the end of all responsibilities tied to his badge. After a few drinks; however, he lets it slip that he found Grace’s missing money at her house. Ursula, sharp as ever, pieces together what Loftus did with the money—and why. Like Detective Houlihan, she’s left disgusted by his actions and considers him a disgrace.

After failing to locate Ian at the racetrack, the sisters catch a bit of luck when Becka charms a bookie into revealing Ian’s lucky number: five. He is a regular at the horse track but not on this day.

Their frantic search for Ian takes a brief pause when Becka has a heartfelt moment with Matt Claflin (Daryl McCormack) who shows up at Eva’s house looking for her. Matt acknowledges that while he believes she’ll be a wonderful mother, he can’t be part of her life romantically. Matt explains he won’t interfere with her child’s chance at happiness with two loving parents. Despite lingering feelings, both accept that their relationship is over. Becka expresses gratitude for the role Matt played during one of the darkest times in her life, and surprisingly, Matt admits she saved him too. Not every relationship is meant to last forever, but some are meant to light your way out of the darkness, and they are each other’s light. As they say what might be their last goodbyes, Becka shares that she recently learned her baby is a boy. It’s a bittersweet ending to their sweet and possibly final encounter, leaving smiles on both of their faces.

While Becka is outside saying goodbye to Matt, inside the house, Eva is going through photos of Grace. It inspires her to dig out Ian’s phone her sisters found back in Episode 2. They couldn’t crack the password then but with five in mind, Eva repeatedly enters it until she eventually unlocks the device. Once inside, she finds the man’s address and his real name! He is not Ian Reily, his name is Cormac Sweeney! Everything about him was a lie, and both Grace and Eva fell for it.

With an address in-hand, Eva heads north to search Ian/Cormac out. When she knocks on the door a pregnant woman answers who insists no one named Cormac lives there. When Eva shows her a photo of Grace and asks the woman if she recognizes her, the woman’s expression says more than her denial does. She claims she can’t help, but after Eva leaves, the woman goes inside, to a worried Ian—sitting with their two children! The woman, who is presumably his wife, confronts him angrily, reminding him that he promised these women would never find them. It’s clear both are part of Ian/Cormac’s swindling schemes and fear the Garvey sisters could ruin their plans.

Meanwhile, back at the station, Detective Houlihan digs deeper into Ian Riley’s background and discovers shocking details thanks to Reggie. The name Ian Riley belongs to a homeless man who died years ago. Former Sergeant Cormac Sweeney, who investigated the case, never followed up on it before he left the police force in 2019. Sweeney not only stole the man’s identity, but accusations of embezzlement, fraud, and domestic violence—including against the woman who answered the door to Eva, fill the man’s file. Realizing how dangerous Ian truly is, Houlihan intensifies her investigation, enlisting her colleague Reggie for support since she can no longer rely on Loftus.

As the episode nears its end, Eva goes to pick up Blanaid from school, but when her niece doesn’t come out and fails to respond to texts, Eva starts to panic. She stops and questions a few of Blanaid’s friends, only to learn a horrifying truth: Ian already picked her up!

Panicked, Eva rushes to Grace’s house, where Ian/ Cormac—steps outside to greet her with a chilling, “Hello, Eva.” It’s clear he’s got the upperhand here, and the Garvey sisters find themselves cornered, once again, by yet another monstrous man Grace welcomed into their lives. Whatever they’re planning for Ian–and Bibi tells the others she has one in mind, they’ll need to act fast—because this time, the stakes couldn’t be higher. It’s not just their freedoms they are fighting for, it’s also Blanaid’s future.