Not a good deed

Private showing

Season 1

Episode 2

Editor’s Rating

3 stars

***

Photo: Saeed Adyani/Netflix

Well, we know the big question that arises throughout the season: What happened in the Morgan house the night Jacob died? While Not a good deed As we slowly begin to fill in the details in episode two, I have to assume that the truth will be a little more complicated than the obvious answer the series is pointing us towards. Right?

Until the end of “Private Showing,” let’s talk about what we know about that night. Around the time of Jacob’s death, a burglar broke into homes in the area. The rampage was so frightening that Lydia demanded a gun be brought into the house. We get a little flashback where Paul rejects this idea and also yells at his son for being an asshole. I’m sorry, I have no qualms about speaking ill of the dead. Anyway, we know where this whole gun dispute was going. (And how did the asshole thing go? Too soon? It’s been three years, grow up!)

Later, thanks to an encounter with JD – he doesn’t know how to turn off his security alarm, the man is the saddest of all – Paul learns that this burglar broke into JD and Margo’s house (hence the security alarm). ) and the person, who was never caught, took a bunch of jewelry, including a $50,000 gold watch Rolex Margo bought from JD. Well, wouldn’t you know that Paul is running home, opens a door to a secret room attached to Jacob’s room – Greg the real estate agent will be so mad when he finds out! – and inside lies a pillowcase full of jewelry, including the aforementioned Rolex JD. We see a flashback of Paul picking up that pillowcase outside his house on the night we now know Jacob died. And he kept it the whole time.

Thanks to another fun little meeting with Mikey, the Rolex suddenly turned out to be a gift for Paul. And no, it’s now about how Paul gets the man the first $80,000 he asks for. Paul finds out that Lydia has taken care of this little problem when she informs him about it the morning after Leslie has been snooping around the property. She sold the piano to an antique collector and her piano tuner bought her exactly 80 grand. Which probably means that Paul was somehow asleep when a piano was removed from his house? Someone finds out what sleeping pills they are taking; I need a recommendation! Paul is upset that Lydia sold the only thing they owned that had any real meaning – it belonged to Lydia’s grandmother and it survived the Holocaust – but mostly he’s just freaking out because the gun that SOMEONE is accusing Having done SOMETHING was hidden in that piano.

Paul makes his way to the collector’s house, and even though this guy is kind of crazy, he knows exactly why Paul is there and is smart enough to get some money (not the money he paid the Morgans for the piano). less) to demand to come back and get the gun. (Ray Romano is so good in this scene: “I’ll just break through: Won’t you give me back my gun?”) So when Paul has his meeting with Mikey in a bar restroom, he has to give him an envelope, which is slightly below the extortion price demanded. Mikey is angry and the two argue until Paul points his gun at Mikey and Mikey is the one very annoyed because he didn’t tell Paul to get rid of the thing THAT NIGHT? This whole interaction – the way Paul isn’t exactly afraid to hand over an envelope containing less than $80,000, the way Mikey is dismayed when he learns Lydia sold her piano – still screams to me that there is some kind of personal relationship between these two guys.

Just because this little bathroom escapade ends with Mikey knocking the gun out of Paul’s hand and reminding him that he really has no idea how to handle a gun, doesn’t mean Mikey is ready to move on. On the contrary, Paul finds an envelope under his door with a photo of what looks like a briefcase containing clothing from the night of Jacob’s death, some with blood on it. See, Mikey has kept some evidence too, and he’s not afraid to use it so Paul doesn’t get the idea another $80,000. (He’s not exactly the most creative blackmailer, you know?) Looks like holding on to Rolex wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

While Paul is having a particularly frustrating day, Lydia is at home stewing in her grief. She’s so excited to tell him the news about Jacob in the flickering light and he just laughs at her. Well, first he tries to make an impression of the lady poltergeist screaming “Carole Anne!” and then he laughs at her. He just doesn’t believe in any of this and doesn’t want to feel anything remotely “hopeful” when it comes to his son. No, he torpedoes that hope right out of Lydia.

When Greg, the real estate agent, invites Leslie and Sarah for a private viewing, they of course go straight to the mysterious bedroom that Leslie can’t stop thinking about and find Lydia on Jacob’s bed staring at the light. The three women engage in an awkward banter between sellers and potential buyers, and for a brief moment Lydia acts as if her son is simply in college.

When Sarah later finds Lydia in the living room, Lydia explains her son’s whereabouts. There is a connection between them. Sarah mentioned seeing her grandmother in ladybugs, and this simple gesture gives Lydia the comfort she clearly craves. It doesn’t take much for Sarah to make her own confession: She tells Lydia that she’s secretly undergone another round of IVF, even though Leslie doesn’t want her to. Lydia’s advice? “Don’t keep things away from each other, even if it’s bad.”

It seems like a lot for Sarah to tell a complete stranger, but you know what? Her IVF confession isn’t even the information Lydia will share at the end of the conversation. No, that honor goes to the fact that Leslie, the woman who has been dealing with Lydia these past few days, is a prosecutor for the district attorney’s office. And apparently she is tireless when it comes to finding out the truth of a situation. Lydia becomes even more alarmed and suspicious when nosy neighbor Phyllis sends her security camera footage from the previous evening, which clearly shows Leslie trespassing on the Morgans’ property.

Lydia isn’t wrong to fear that Leslie might start doing some serious digging. Back at home, Sarah tells her wife about the conversation she had with Lydia, and Leslie’s first instinct is to google what happened to Jacob. Surprise! Sarah is pregnant! Oh wait, even though this news really puts Leslie to shame, that wasn’t the surprise I meant; Her online sleuthing uncovers several news articles involving the accidental death of Jacob Morgan in a home robbery gone wrong.

Let’s summarize the information we have here: It was reported in the news that Jacob was shot by the burglar, who was never found. But the Morgans apparently hid the gun that killed Jacob and a pillowcase full of stolen items that Paul was desperate to hide. Plus there’s the Mikey of it all And Let’s not forget that one of Jacob’s parents’ hands are now shaking uncontrollably. It certainly seems that way Not a good deed means that Jacob was actually the one robbing houses, one of his parents shot him because he thought he was breaking in, and they called Mikey to cover up their involvement. It would certainly explain a lot about Paul and Lydia’s behavior.

And yet here we are only in the second episode. I’m preparing for a few twists and turns and would advise you to do the same. So it looks like we’re back to square one: What happened at the Morgan house the night Jacob died?

• Margo is rejected by Gwen in both business and personal life, so she tries to burn Gwen’s life down by following her to a meeting at a bar and carrying out her plan to cheat her two business partners out of some large investments. Margo ends up burning her own life when she accidentally reveals to her husband that she cheated on her. She asks JD for forgiveness while reminding him that he can no longer do it for her. So not the best excuse.

• JD mentions that he stopped taking his medication because it made him hallucinate and was the cause of his problems in the bedroom. We also learn that JD recently had a 5150 episode. What’s wrong with this guy?

• When Lydia thought about texting Paul with the water gun emoji, I laughed.

• In case you missed it, the pillowcase containing the burglar’s loot also contained a bullet casing. Hmm, there’s a lot of evidence just waiting to be found!

• Paul distinguishes between the fact that Lydia can no longer play the piano and the refusal to play, which means he thinks Lydia’s problems are all made up, which means they think their marriage is in a really bad place Constitution seems to be the case, even if it is good at pretending otherwise.