Take Two – All About Ava

By: Gladys Luna

A woman is driving in the middle of the night while she is followed by another vehicle. She attempts to call Sam Swift, but the call goes to voicemail. The woman keeps speeding but, unfortunately, she is reached by the other car and suddenly all we can see is a bright light covering the screen.

At the office, Sam (Rachel Bilson) and Eddie (Eddie Cibrian) are watching a clip of one of the shows that Sam made back in the 90’s where she worked with Ava (Courtney Richter), who happened to be the woman we saw at the beginning of the episode. She still can´t believe what happened to her as she remembers how close they were back in the day. Suddenly, Berto (Xavier de Guzman) walks in and announces that a man named Galen Eckhart (Paul Campbell) has arrived and wants to talk to Sam. Sam recognizes him as Ava’s husband who explains to them that a while ago he went to Europe for a business trip, but when he came back something in his wife had changed. He also tells Sam that she was the last person Ava called before the accident.

Sam and Eddie show up at the “crash site” to pay their respects to Ava and that is where Sam meets with some of her old cast and crew members, even the actress who replaced Ava when the other woman left the show. Sam recognizes her as Molly Vance (Rebecca Davis), who doesn’t seem to be so happy to see Sam there. Berto calls Eddie and tells him what he had found in the police report created about the accident, but nothing seems to be out of the ordinaire. Monica (Alice Lee) shows up at the office and it doesn’t go unnoticed by her that Berto is hiding something, so when she looks at his laptop screen she sees that he is watching a TV show. It happens to be “All About Ava” and he manages to convince her to watch it with him.

Eddie goes near the place where Ava’s car had fallen and meets with a homeless guy (Bill Nikolai) who explains to Eddie what he saw which brings some clarity to the case. Eddie and Sam inform Galen about the police’s new findings on the crash scenes, including that Ava’s key ring was forced and they believe one of her keys has gone missing but Galen can´t tell which one.

Also, her driver license is gone. Berto manages to find among the woman’s phone records that one of the nights she went out without explanation she had call road assistance. So, he contacted the company and they provided him with an address of where they had picked her up that day.

Sam and Eddie go to the address that Berto told them to and find out that there’s a place called Lemaise that Ava had been on. As they enter the place, which happens to be covered in red light, they hear a woman (Susie Lee) scream. Eddie points his gun at the two men trying to keep her from escaping, but then a doctor (Megan Leitch) comes in and explains to them that they are actually at a sleep clinic where Ava used to go to attend. She had some nightmares about a man with spider webs in his eyes and she shows them some drawings about it and then informs them that one night while she was under hypnotic suggestion she remembered something that really scared her but she didn’t want to talk about it. The doctor recalls that Ava went out of there immediately but before she called a friend to pick her up. Sam recognizes the owner of the car that was described to her as Corey Holman (Ryan Bruce), one of her ex costars.

Sam goes to meet with Corey while Berto tells Eddie that the day that Ava left the sleep clinic in a haste she went to a storage unit that she had and then went to the bank and rented a safe deposit box. So, what they get from that is that Ava moved something from the storage unit to the safe deposit box at the bank which can explain why one of her keys was stolen.

Sam finally meets with Corey and tells him that what happened to Ava was not an accident. He opens up to her and tells her that she called one night just out of the blue and asked him to take her home. Even though he knew something was wrong, he didn’t dare to dig any further.

Eddie and Galen visit the bank and ask for the safety box which it happens to be empty. The bank employee, Jeff (Mizinga Mwinga), informs the two men that Ava had showed up at the bank the day prior but that couldn’t be possible since Ava was already dead by then. Eddie asks for the security footage and he reviews it with the team back at the office. They see a woman that looks exactly like the actress entering the bank and standing in line which makes Sam think that, due to the resemblance, maybe one of the stunt doubles that Ava used back in the day could have killed her. So, the duo pay a visit to the show’s producer Cam Adams (Rob LaBelle) but he dismisses all of the three actresses that helped them back in the day as suspects. He ends up confessing that he was recently in touch with Ava since they were planning on a reboot, but they didn’t ask Sam to come back since her recent scandals didn’t look good on a family TV series. Berto and Monica go check on the actress’ storage unit and although everything in there is plain memorabilia from the show, they find a trunk that contains an old script covered in blood.

Sam feels hurt that she wasn’t called to reprise her role, but Eddie tries to calm her down. Berto is able to identify the woman that impersonated Ava and went to the bank as Pam Joyner (Courtney Richter) who had been arrested for impersonating Ava and sneaking on the lot while the show was taping. Eddie and Sam pay a visit to her and when she sees them she tries to escape but is skillfully tackled down by Sam and handcuffed to a bike nearby. Pam confesses that the day after Ava died, she was delivered an envelope with the woman’s ID and a key along with two thousand dollars. She was then asked to visit the bank and empty the safety deposit box. The content of said box were glasses which seemed to have dry blood on them and were smashed making it look like they had spider webs on it.

Sam and Eddie go back to the office and Berto informs them about the results of the DNA test they ran on the blood stains found on the old script. It turns out that whoever’s blood was in there, it might be related to a man called Raymond Lew who has a criminal background. The duo visits the place where Raymond was supposed to be working at and they meet Florence (Tasha Simms), the owner of the place, who tells them that Ava had been there regularly for the lasts two weeks and also confirms that Ray was her brother-in-law. However, he left to work to go somewhere else more than a year ago. Sam spots a pic of a young man wearing glasses set at the diner’s wall and asks Florence about it.

The woman explains that it was a picture of her son who had died on August 7th, twenty years ago, as a victim of a hit and run. Sam seems to be startled by the news and leaves the places followed by Eddie. She confesses that the night Florence mentioned was the wrap party day for the show and as she recalls Ava had gotten very drunk so maybe she was the one that killed the guy.

Back at the office, Berto shows them some pictures of that night that he managed to collect and they see how Ava had left the place with Molly (the woman that had later replaced her on the show) and said woman happened to be the driver. As far as they are told, Molly was a guest star on the show long before she was cast as the new “Ava.”

Eddie and Sam believe that maybe the accident was so traumatic for Ava that she repressed the memory of that day and when she went to the clinic she managed to remember what her nightmares meant. So, she went to her storage unit and found the glasses that belong to the guy that had died in the accident and put them on a safety box. Sam plans to meet with Molly and get as much information as she can from that night.

Sam talks to Molly and asks her about the wrap party night. The woman tells her that she and Ava went to a party of a friend of Corey’s, but she was too drunk to drive so she doesn’t remember who she left the party with. Molly is upset at Sam when she finds out that instead of hanging out with her, she has just been interrogated. Sam apologizes and asks her to tell her if she remembers someone getting their car fixed or changed after that night and Molly confesses that after that the only one who acquired a new car was Corey.

Eddie and Sam visit Corey. Eddie confirms that Corey just junked his old car even though it was expensive. When they arrive at his apartment they find him lying on the floor along with a bunch of pills spread all over. Corey is taken to the hospital and he explains Sam what happened that night. He also confesses that he and Ava weren´t alone in the car and that someone else was driving since they were pretty wasted. It turns out that Cam, the producer, was the one responsible for the accident and he had asked Corey and Ava to keep their mouth shut. Sam and Eddie visit him and arrest him. The duo updates Galen on the case and he thanks them for their help.

Sam is called by Molly and they meet at the studio where she is asked to join them on the reboot. Later that day, Sam is watching an episode of the show then suddenly Eddie enters the office and Sam informs him about the invitation she had received. Even though Eddie seems to be kind of sad with the news, he congratulates her, but she confesses that she has turned it down since she feels that it would be like going backwards. As much as she liked her old family, she also likes her new family.

Another adventure that goes by, be sure to come back next Thursday at 10/9c on ABC. ¡Hasta la próxima!