Bellevue – How Do I Remember?

By: Maggie Stankiewicz

Annie Ryder (Anna Paquin) succumbs to The Riddler’s allure like a moth to a flame as she gives in to his security camera games. He greets his Little Light and she returns the favor. His voice is unnervingly soothing and he knows more about Annie than the others in her life. He knows about the lies she tells to appear normal, balanced. Annie quickly grows uncomfortable with the intimacy of their conversation and instead steers it in the direction of the Sandy Driver and Jesse Sweetland (Sadie O’Neil) murders. The two cases, he insists, are connected – but it’s still up to Annie to determine exactly where the ties that bind are hiding. A noise startles the detective, and The Riddler observes that Annie is frightened by him. This is not something that she hides, but she is also interested in continuing their relationship as long as The Riddler continues to act as a clandestine informant.

Maggie Sweetland (Victoria Sanchez) approaches Danny (Cameron Roberts) to ask how Jesse would want to be remembered at their funeral. Danny replies with a curt, “She”. Maggie nods and walks away, willing to accept her child’s identity.

Annie meets with Jed (Neil Napier) to discuss the drugs that were found in Jesse’s room. The MDMA was branded with the Rainmaker insignia, but Jed insists that his packaging is far more meticulous than the baggies that were closed shut by elastic hair ties. Annie meets with Brady (Billy MacLellan) to discuss the revelation, but it’s hard to trust a drug dealer – even one that claims to have professional integrity. Fortunately for Annie, her passion for the truth is infectious, and Brady follows her on a mission to discover who had stolen and/or planted the Rainmaker MDMA. They take to the streets to get some information, but a drug runner tells them that they’re too late to get conclusive answers. Brady agrees, and phones it in for the rest of the night. As Annie leaves Brady to enjoy the rest of his evening, she bumps into Maggie’s neighbor Cali (Catherine Kidd). Cali is keen on watching Annie and leaves her a small clue as to what Eddie’s been hiding by asking Annie what he’s been up to. If he knows Cali, he’s most likely gotten himself into the wrong crowd.

Confused by the interaction Annie makes her way to Empire Diner to meet Jim (Patrick Abellard), the new police officer whom she tasked with tracking The Riddler’s IP address. He’s been unsuccessful thus far, and unfortunately, the trip to the diner only leaves Annie with more questions. As she fled, she spotted a disgruntled Eddie punch his window repeatedly before peeling out of the parking lot. Annie is nothing if not persistent. On her quest for answers, she stops by Eddie’s (Allen Leech) house – but he’s not alone for long, and he’s completely unwilling to talk to her. He quickly shuffles her out the door, but not before Annie spots a small but familiar elastic hair tie on his bathroom floor. Things are finally adding up about Eddie, but they’re not equating to anything good. Annie meets back up with Cali to ask what she knows about Eddie – and she knows too much for Annie’s comfort.

Detective Ryder returns home in a bout of rage to grill The Riddler on Eddie’s whereabouts. The Riddler directed her right back to her own family, suggesting that Eddie might not be as innocent as he seems. The Riddler refuses to give her a straightforward response, but promises that more will become clear in the future as long as she wears Sandy Driver’s watch to Jesse’s funeral. Annie obeys and shows up to the funeral donning an oversized, retro timepiece. Daisy (Madison Ferguson) is situated on the pews between her parents as Maggie is guided up the aisle of the church. The entire town of Bellevue is feeling this loss, whether they understood Jesse or not, but no one feels it more than Maggie…and Danny. Danny reluctantly enters the church when Maggie begs him to stay. Bethany (Emelia Hellman) and Max (Ryan Doherty) stand to pull him into the safety of their pew. All who loved Jesse are welcome.

Neil Driver (Andreas Apergis) is nothing if not tactless. He pushes himself through the church doors and announces to the room that Maggie deserved the loss of Jesse for what she did to Sandy. Peter (Shawn Doyle) and Brady swiftly remove Neil, but the damage is done. Maggie’s grief and guilt have crippled her, and she’s blaming Annie to instigating. Annie can’t deny this, and finally obeys Maggie’s wishes to leave her alone. When she meets back up with Peter, he criticizes her for her lack of social grace and accuses her of being misguided in her investigation because of The Riddler’s influence. Annie argues that perhaps he is the one who can’t be trusted as she believes he burned down his own garage, but he deflects and promptly walks away. Always one to take care of business, Annie shakes it off and calls Daisy to check on her. The moment she hangs up a stranded Briana (Amber Goldfarb) asks her for a ride.

Daisy is sitting along the water’s edge, pondering the meaning of life and Jesse’s death when she is beckoned by Bethany, Max, and Danny. Together they gallivant through the woods and scream their praises of Jesse as she was: loved, beautiful, and complicated. Daisy is able to navigate through the woods with her older friends because her parents are too preoccupied with their own issues to properly watch her. Annie is grilling Briana on Eddie’s extracurricular activities, and Eddie is stalking a local with a crowbar from the driver’s seat of his truck. It’s a good thing he’s away from home though, because Annie is leaving no leaf unturned…and you know what they say, if you go looking for trouble, you’ll find it. This time in the form of a dead, frozen dog. Annie is disgusted by the discovery and demands Eddie come home to explain. Judging by the tone of her voice, he has no choice but to listen.

Annie finds him instead, charging him with accusations. He admits that he got into a shady business when he needed money. He insists that he didn’t put the drug in Jesse’s room, though the drugs were his. Somebody stole the drug from him in attempt to defile his name even further. Hearing the words come out of his own mouth, Eddie falls to the ground in shame. The drugs were his. The dog was killed by his own two hands. He was preparing to cause bodily harm to someone else in order to settle his own debts. It’s time to come clean, and he does. In the blink of an eye, Eddie is sitting across from Peter and admitting his own guilt. The tension between the men is aged and sharpened by their own love for Annie, but they understand each other in their own little way. Peter decides that Eddie is telling the truth, although he will need to testify that the drugs were originally his.

The young detective has had a long day and she chooses to decompress by talking to The Riddler through her security camera. Annie tells him that she might be crazy, but she felt his presence earlier, as she did when she was a child. Annie talks her way through Jesse’s murder and the discovery of her body until she realizes that The Riddler holds no concrete knowledge or truth, only halves of a whole. She quickly grows angry at The Riddler’s misdirection and forces him to admit he does not know who Jesse’s murderer is – but he does know that she’s lonely to the core. Annie snaps and leaves, notifying Jim to begin tracking The Riddler’s signal immediately. One way or another, she’s going to confront him. Jim guides her through the dark and desolate streets until she reaches the center of a cemetery. The signal guides her directly to Sandy Driver’s tombstone, where an illuminated phone screen gives her some simple assurance in the form of a text message: “You’re not crazy”. The manipulation leads Annie to the decision to discard her security camera – severing ties with The Riddler.

Eddie’s conscience has caught up with him. He makes his way to Cali’s place and tells her that he’s done playing by her rules. Cali won’t let him resign that easily, a fact that he had been prepare to face. Cali sends another one of her “employees” to provide Eddie with his severance package; a black eye, a broken arm, and a whole bunch of bruises. As her man gets the whooping of a lifetime, Annie pays another visit to Maggie – who is singing in the dark, obviously under the influence. Maggie tells Annie that her child was killed because of what she did to Sandy Driver, but she falls unconscious before she can provide Annie with any further details. Annie calls the ambulance and reports Maggie’s apparent overdose. As luck would have it, this places Eddie and Annie at the hospital around the same time of night.

They naturally bump into each other, Eddie with a fresh cast, and Annie with a fresh new lead. Eddie tells her that he bought himself and Daisy some time with his “boss”. He took the beating in exchange for peace of mind. Annie counters by letting Eddie know that he is welcome to stay at her house (on the couch), while he recovers and reinsures his safety. It’s an offer he can’t refuse, and it’s a good thing too, because Annie has just a little bit more business to attend to. Neil Driver is Annie’s next pit stop. Neil shows Annie some receipts that suggest he hid some evidence from Annie’s father during the initial investigation. Annie takes the information and exchanges it for Sandy’s watch, telling Neil that sometimes people need a little help seeing the truth.

This was the closure she needed for the night. Annie returns home and finds Eddie and Daisy. Their dysfunctional family unit works for just one night, and it’s enough. Eddie tells Annie that she loves him too much the way he is, but that he wants to change. Briana might be the push in the right direction that he needs. Her history prohibits her from being an enabler. Annie agrees, but the loneliness creeps in and she sneaks outside to leave a message with The Riddler. “I was wrong. You do know things.” And with that, she disconnects once again. Is the loneliness of a product of her own disconnection, or is it those around her who leave her feeling like a little girl lost between the trees?