Anna Pigeon Season 1 Episode 8 ended on a major cliffhanger after Jesse was hunted and shot while testing the toxic river water.

The penultimate episode, Anna Pigeon Season 1 Episode 9, wasted no time addressing the shooting, though it didn’t pan out the way I expected it to.

I assumed Jesse’s shooting would tie into the nefarious moves of Jeremiah Paulson, who’s been teased as this season’s villain and Anna’s nemesis, though not much has come of it aside from the whole Bethany thing, which has been pushed to the back burner for now! 

When the episode confirmed that he’s been polluting the water for his developments, it naturally made sense to connect Jesse’s shooting to Jeremiah; however, the series took a different route. 

Instead, the person responsible for shooting Jesse was connected to his past—a past we were learning about in real time alongside Anna. 

Jesse’s shooting made it abundantly clear that Anna doesn’t know much about him, which makes her decision to not move in with him pretty logical. How can you move in with someone you don’t know anything about? 

It also proves that you don’t really have to know someone well to develop feelings for them, though Anna’s affection for Jesse remains very surface-level, which doesn’t bode well for them in the future. Jesse’s the guy who is helping Anna get over her husband before committing to someone she sees a future with—but I don’t think he’s the future. 

Digging into his past had potential, but it mostly fell pretty flat, as we ended up right back at square one. 

Upon getting shot, Jesse made his way to Anna’s place to get stitched up because going to the hospital wasn’t an option. He claimed it was because he didn’t have health insurance, but once his health began to decline and his wound became infected, we learned it was because there was a warrant out for his arrest. 

A bad boy?! Sort of, kind of. 

It explains why Jesse chose to abandon his geological degree and took up bartending—choosing to live under the radar. He also changed his name, a revelation that took Anna by surprise, along with the fact that he has a whole ex-girlfriend that she’s never heard about before.

Meeting “the other woman” forced Anna to put her defenses up—and the jealousy began to peek through—proving that yeah, despite her efforts to brush off the relationship, Anna does care about him.

She then made it her mission to get to the bottom of what happened to Jesse—who shot him?

Her sister, Molly, just so happened to be in town, so she got wrapped up in the case, against her will, as Anna turned over every leaf to find out the truth. Part of it had to do with her affection for Jesse, but mostly, she just can’t resist a good case. 

Again, instead of the trail leading back to Jeremiah, it led to a man who worked at the same company as Jesse’s ex. When he submitted the river samples for testing, he put a target on his back with a man who wanted revenge, blaming Jesse for his father’s death. 

In short, the man and his brother thought that Jesse was responsible for shutting off valves that led to an explosion that killed his father, though, as Jesse later revealed, he would never do such a thing, and it was actually his corrupt boss who did it on purpose to collect the insurance money. 

I’ll be honest, the storyline didn’t really change anything about Jesse, nor did it give us much to work with. He’s still just Jesse.

And despite how much he clearly cares for her, I still don’t think he’s good for Anna. They make sense as friends with benefits, but that’s kind of the extent of their dynamic.

He doesn’t challenge her or add anything meaningful to her life, aside from pushing her to the realization that she needs to let someone in eventually.

The fact that he was simply eager to go back to how things were before he asked her to move in proves to me that he’s not the man she needs right now, as he’ll let her dictate their relationship in a way that feels comfortable for her simply so he can be with her. 

Again, Jesse’s shooting would’ve been more impactful if it connected to the shady dealings of Jeremiah, because it makes sense that he’d want to stop someone from investigating the toxic runoff that his development is responsible for. 

However, I did find it interesting that Jeremiah and Molly connected on a romantic level because, honestly, that’s probably the worst possible outcome for Anna. It seems as though Jeremiah had no idea he was flirting it up with Anna’s sister, though you never know with that man—he could’ve been playing that to his advantage, as Molly did open up about her fractured relationship with Anna. 

Anna’s frustrations upon finding out about Molly’s chat with Jeremiah were valid, but it wasn’t fair to hold it against Molly, who had absolutely no idea that Anna despised that man or that he had it out for her. Anna hasn’t communicated any of that to Molly, so she wasn’t the wiser.  That’s solely Anna’s fault for not giving her a heads-up. 

Molly and Anna are proof that siblings fight hard and love even harder, and it was nice to see the two of them finally share a screen. She may not have had good parents growing up, but at least someone cares about what’s going on with Anna in this national park, other than the people she’s met while working here. 

It would be great for Molly to stay a while, especially as it’s clear that while Anna can take care of herself and has people who look out for her, the park presents plenty of dangers, too.

And while we didn’t get a lot of movement on the Zach murder, Frederick is on the case. Like Anna, I have full confidence in him to figure out the truth.

He may be mixing business and pleasure, but he’s also not forced to look into Zach’s case—he simply wants to give Anna closure. And yes, part of that probably has to do with the fact that without closure, Anna still blames herself, which means she can’t officially move on with him… or anyone. 

It’s not entirely selfish on Frederick’s part—he does want this for her—but there are elements of it that benefit him as well.

Anna may not like Frederick more once he solves the mystery, but at least she’ll have answers that allow her to look forward instead of in the rearview. 

At this point, they’ve pieced together that whoever left behind the red coat likely saw something that could move the case forward, and likely left wearing Zach’s coat that evening. But who was it?

Was Molly lying about Anna’s alibi?

Is there something more going on with Zach’s death than we’ve been led to believe? Will Frederick discover that Anna played a larger role in Zach’s death? What did you think of the episode as we near the season 1 finale?

Anna Pigoen doesn’t have time to get into all the deeply personal stuff that we audiences may want to see from the series because they’re too busy dealing with dead bodies popping up all over the national park.

The personal stuff tends to be pushed off to the back burner as a secondary storyline—much to Anna’s liking, I’m sure—though hopefully, now that we’re more than halfway through the first season and barreling towards the finale, she’ll finally find the time to confront her emotions and be—dare I say it—vulnerable. 

Even if she’s not doing it willingly, it seems circumstances are going to push her in that direction whether she likes it or not. 

I’m talking about the cliffhanger, of course—one that could change everything in her relationship with Jesse, wherever it stands right now.

In the final moments of the episode, Jesse was down by the water getting more samples to test. After seeing a few dead fish–along with his first dead body—the almost-geologist gathered that there may be something in the water killing off the fish. He contacted his ex (he should know better than to open up that line of communication, even if they did end on good terms) to have it tested, which revealed high levels of sulfuric acid… potentially from a chemical plant or solution mining. 

Of course, that raised plenty of red flags on its own, but the shot at the end almost solidified that whoever is responsible for the toxic water that’s killing the fish wants to keep it a secret. And there’s only one person who comes to mind who could be connected to this—Jeremiah.

Otherwise, why would someone go to such great lengths to stop Jesse from investigating it? Why would someone want to silence the results?

Jesse got hit in the arm, but the shot knocked him out, and the last we saw, he was carried, unconscious, by the stream.

Can Anna handle losing another person she has feelings for just years after she lost her husband? After all, that’s the biggest reason she won’t commit to something more serious with Jesse (aside from her feelings for Frederick that she’s repressing)—Anna doesn’t want to be “responsible” for anyone again, as she believes she failed to look out for Zach. 

Jesse isn’t really asking her to be his mother or caretaker, and quite frankly, Anna already seems to feel a sense of responsibility for him, even without labeling their relationship.

It happened the minute she caught feelings. It might be more casual, but Anna cares. Deeply. Otherwise, she wouldn’t keep circling back around. 

You’d think watching Maeve Boone’s romance play out would make Anna think twice, especially since Maeve’s reluctance to commit to Lou ultimately led him to build a secret family she didn’t know about. Is that really how Anna wants things to play out with Jesse? She has a fear of commitment, but she’s also the kind of person who wants something real; she just needs to stop being too scared to make the leap again. 

Ep# 108 -“The Death Grin” – Cooper Levy as Jesse Garland in Anna Pigeon on the USA NETWORK. Photo credit: Michelle Faye/USA Network © VERSANT MEDIA 2025. All Rights Reserved

Instead, she’s found it easier to convince herself that cutting the cord is easier and will somehow spare her feelings. 

But finding out that Jesse’s been shot might throw her for a loop and make her realize how much she truly cares about him. And it will either be the thing that pushes her walls down or pushes him away, thinking that she’s protecting him by getting him as far away from this forest as possible. 

Maybe there’s a little bit of truth to that? There are too many people dropping dead in this forest weekly.

Before he was shot, Jesse had just been offered a job in his field, as his ex had asked him to join her as a field geologist assistant in Arizona. It felt like a turning point for Anna and Jesse.

Jesse told Anna, hoping she’d realize she was about to lose him and ask him to stay. Instead, she did the opposite, encouraging him to go, unwilling to be the reason he held himself back, especially since she’s not ready to commit to something more serious. 

They keep dancing around the truth, but maybe Jesse’s shooting truly will be the wake-up call that Anna needs to stop hiding behind the traumatic thing that happened to her. 

These personal developments also took up a whopping less than 5 minutes of the episode, which largely focused on the death of Maeve’s son, Buck, who collapsed in the same river where the fish were dying.

As far as whodunnit mysteries go, this one was entertaining. 

When he was found, Buck had this extremely eerie smile plastered on his face, which we later learn is a hemlock death grin caused by a muscle spasm that freezes a victim’s corpse into a chilling, unnatural smile.

Buck’s case allowed us to get more insight into Frieda’s character, as she had a close connection to him through her writing class, which helped Anna piece together that this wasn’t a suicide, despite the blunt note left behind suggesting that it was. 

With Frieda’s help, Anna jumped to her next suspect—Buck’s sister—who pointed the finger at her mother’s lover, Lou, who she claimed had the most to gain by eliminating Buck and taking over his shares of the will. 

And honestly, Lou did look guilty, particularly after he stole Buck’s work, which we later learned was his memoir, and then admitted to having a secret family while still having a romantic relationship with Maeve. 

Initially, it didn’t seem like Buck’s memoir would’ve exposed anything, so it was odd that Lou went to such lengths to get his hands on it, but tucked in between the pages was an ancestry DNA test that revealed something that Maeve would’ve killed to keep hidden—she wasn’t Buck’s birth mother. 

When Anna paid Maeve another visit, this time she was in a strangely honest mood, which should’ve been a red flag almost immediately. 

She told Anna the real story of Buck’s mother, her best friend, who was actually the one sent to a maternity home at 16 to give birth to her son. The conditions there were deplorable, and she died 2 days later. Maeve never intended to steal her best friend’s story and pretend to be Buck’s mother, but when he found her later in life, he was so desperate for a mother, and the press assumed it was her, so she just went with it.

And it wasn’t for pure reasons either, it was mostly selfish, as she claimed it was the only reason anyone was even interested in her work, eventually hinging her entire career—and it’s success—on the story.

She claimed it was “impossible to take it back,” and when Buck found out, he was determined to tell the truth, which would’ve destroyed everything she worked for. 

She felt her life’s work slipping away, which she couldn’t let happen, so she drugged him.

I was actually a little thrown off by the revelation because I was convinced Lou had something to do with it. And well, you never want to think that a mother, or even one that’s pretended to be a mother for all these years, would do such a thing, but in retrospect, the signs were there. She only cared about Buck so much because of the impact he had on her career; her biological daughter made it clear her mother never even gave her an ounce of that love or attention. 

And since she was already dying after a diagnosis of restrictive cardiomyopathy, she told Anna the truth before the drug she’d poisoned her wine with kicked in.

She died with the same creepy grin on her face, bringing the storyline full circle.

Anna’s dealt with her fair share of crazy instances that would send the average person running to a different park, but I don’t think she’s even had much time to process them, self-medicating with her wine. 

Ep# 108 -“The Death Grin” – Cooper Levy as Jesse Garland and Tracy Spiridakos as Anna Pigeon in Anna Pigeon on the USA NETWORK. Photo credit: Michelle Faye/USA Network © VERSANT MEDIA 2025. All Rights Reserved

Will it all change once she nearly loses Jesse? How will Jesse’s near-death experience (because I’m hoping he doesn’t die) change the trajectory of Anna’s story and the remaining two episodes of the season? Will it bring them closer together or push them apart? And will we get any insight into Zach’s murder before the season is up?

Other Moments

• Manny resigned, but will they actually let him leave? I feel like we’re not invested enough in this character to care either way, but I imagine he needs to stick around for his wife Bethany’s trial!
• The loss of Buck pushed Frieda to live boldly, agreeing to go to dinner with Christina. 

Share your thoughts in the comments! 

Anna Pigeon Season 1 Episode 7 broached a very controversial topic on ‘The Three Matt Skweikis’—the existence of aliens. 

Unsurprisingly, Anna is skeptical of extraterrestrials, but Frederick is all in—enthusiastically geeking out when asked about it, even as Anna judges him for his extensive knowledge of sightings. 

So it was only fitting that they had a sighting of their own when a naked man glowing in neon green and blue hues ran out right in front of their car. 

Anna dismissed any possibility that he could be a “visitor” from another galaxy, opting for a more rational reason for his apparent glowing demeanor and apparent amnesia, suggesting a theory that involved bioluminescent algae. I kind of wish they explored this a little further or even got to see it in action, but they went in the daytime, so it wasn’t visible. Instead, the case pivoted from one that could’ve been a little more fun and gotten them out of their heads for a bit to a murder mystery—though this time, there was also a case of mistaken identity layered on top.

At the site of the pond, they found clothes and a wallet belonging to a Matt Skewikis, though his license dated back to 2005. Could this be their “visitor?” And if so, where has he been for 20 years?

A quick search turned up a deceased result for Matt Skweikis, with his wife confirming that he was ripped to pieces by wolves during an annual camping trip. His body was too mangled to be identified, but he had his belongings on his person—aside from a wedding ring—so it was enough to go by. 

None of that sat right with Anna, however, especially as she knew that wolves didn’t just attack. Being a widow herself, she aimed to get closure for Matt’s wife, going out to the now-closed camping site to see if she could find the wedding ring. 

And she did, along with another body. And wolves—wolves Frederick was very clearly terrified of (and I don’t blame him). 

The wedding ring turned out to be a big clue in the case, as it was revealed that her husband was actually killed by an escaped prisoner, Josiah, who hid in the park, stole Matt’s clothes and planned on escaping before he froze to death. The body she actually identified belonged to Josiah, explaining why their wedding ring wasn’t on his person. 

It may not have been the outcome Matt’s wife wanted, but at least she knew he never stopped loving her. 

The case of the missing Matt’s kind of overshadowed the case of the unidentified visitor, who kind of started to grow on everyone. He pointed out to Anna that Frederick had a thing for her—and well, he was right because Anna and Frederick hooked up the night before.

The series went there, giving fans exactly what they wanted between Anna and Frederick, though, sadly, it didn’t deliver on the chemistry that we’ve been picking up on.

The setup was perfect—Anna has been taking time apart from Jesse because she needs space to work through her trauma following the cave incident, and quite frankly, because she could feel how strong his feelings were for her, and she knew she couldn’t return them.

She invited Frederick back to her place for a drink, clearly eager to spend more time with him away from the case, and he obliged, despite not being a drinker. 

He then told her that he was looking into Zack’s murder to give her some closure, which she wanted to protest, but he didn’t give her a chance, instead underscoring that he’s always trying to find reasons to be around her… even now. 

“Why do you think I’m still here?” he asked, as she replied, “I don’t know.” “I think you do,” he replied, making the move. 

EP#107 – “The Three Matt Skweikis” – Tracy Spiridakos as Anna Pigeon and Ronnie Rowe as Frederick Stanton in Anna Pigeon on USA Network. Photo Credit: Michelle Faye/USA Network © VERSANT MEDIA 2025. All Rights Reserved

And it wasn’t rejected, but at no point did Anna actually let herself get swept up or lost in the moment—she didn’t even kiss Frederick. 

I’m wondering if it’s because she still felt like she owed it to Jesse since they were “technically” together, or because she knew that if she let him get too close, she wouldn’t be able to put the wall back up?

And Anna loves her wall. She loves to avoid deep feelings—real feelings—because she’s too afraid of getting hurt again. 

She lives in a constant state of avoidance, convincing herself that she likes being alone. It’s denial. 

Frederick is the only person who has been able to cut through that exterior shell, but not fully. And when he tried to talk about what happened the night before, not interested in pretending that it didn’t happen, she used her avoidance as a crutch once again. 

Frederick handled it well, knowing that he needed to just give Anna her space and time to work through whatever it all was so that she could be ready for the next step in their relationship. 

But how she let this perfect man—who pushes her while accepting her—walk out, I’ll never know. 

For someone who is constantly pushing people away, they sure do keep coming back, and this time, professing their love. Moments after Frederick drove away, Jesse was waiting on her doorstep, asking her to move in and telling her that he loved her. 

Where does Anna go from here? She just slept with another man, whom she has real feelings for, and while she definitely has affection for Jesse, staying with him because he’s been good to her isn’t a good reason; it’s an excuse. He deserves better; he deserves the truth. 

Also, he really should’ve listened to Zoey Bear Child’s advice. 

As for the “visitor,” he ended up being Monroe King, a wealthy man involved in cloning bulls. On the day of his accident, he owed a man a lot of money; he was outbid on a bull he was trying to buy, he gambled away his money and missed his grandson’s graduation. He decided that he was done being a disappointment to everyone, including his daughter, driving his car off the road intentionally. 

While he turned out to be far from the man they first met—someone with no memory of his former identity—it ultimately served as a wake-up call. In the midst of his amnesia, he questioned whether he even liked the person he used to be, or if it was better not knowing at all. That moment proved crucial, because once his memory returned, he was given a second chance to make better choices and change the course of his life.

Were you surprised by the turn of events? Share your thoughts!