Like the rest of the audience, I was shook by the Jack twist (one of the more exciting primetime reveals in quite some time), as it was revealed that the supposedly dead Hollingsworth brother from Mike’s former marriage isn’t dead at all—a fact his parents have known this entire time.

“Jack” died when he went undercover, they whisper among themselves, informing the audience…but they believed him to be very much alive up until now, despite the narrative they fed their kids. Whew, just wait till they get wind of that lie!

While Jane admits she once convinced herself Jack was dead—knowing she’d never be able to reconnect with him—she now believes, after getting confirmation, that he died in the line of service. Though honestly, it feels like that’s the story they’d tell regardless if he’s meant to still be undercover.

Jane believes whoever is leaving behind his signature mark at the murder sites—a silver paper crane—is someone who knew him well and is trying to send a message.

However, viewers have seen him hiding in plain sight… that is, if it’s really him. I’ve been burned by shows one too many times to know the “twin theory” is always lurking, even if it feels like a cheap plot device for a show of this caliber.

Forming a solid theory is tricky because we only have bits and pieces of Jack’s story for now, as we’re slowly filling in the gaps.

We don’t know why Jack went undercover, which could explain why he chose to kill Clare’s boyfriend, Logan—whom she was equally shocked to discover was an undercover CIA operative. Was any of it real? That’s an answer that might ease the betrayal, though she won’t get clarity until they uncover why she was the assignment.

There are a lot of secrets lurking in the shadows, including Jack’s decision to take a job at a dental office right next to the Homeland Security office where Detective Nia Wallace works.

He seems intent on keeping tabs on her, aware she’s piecing things together that could lead her straight to him. But is there such a thing as being too close? And how has no one in the area recognized Jack? If he grew up in that house, wouldn’t people know what he looks like?

As much as our focus shifts to Jack, we should be paying equal attention to Logan—or whatever his real name is—because ultimately, he’s the one who was targeted by Jack, in his family home, no less, so there must be a good reason. Was he dangerous, and was Jack protecting his sister from the shadows? Was Logan searching for something? Is that why he was so intent on getting close to Clare’s family? And who was his real target in the family? Was it her—or was he using her to get to someone else?

Have we got Jack all wrong simply because we saw him stab Logan? Is it possible that he’s he eliminating anyone who has ever posed a threat to his family without them even knowing it and leaving behind little cranes so that they know he’s got their back? Given their line of work, they’ve likely made their fair share of enemies.

As audiences wait for answers, one thing is clear: Nia is exactly who you want on this case. I love that she and Clare immediately built a relationship on trust. They are both equally as driven and motivated to see this to the end, for their own reasons.

Nia immediately clocked the crane at the Hollingsworth residence and recalled seeing it at the crime scene, which will allow her to connect it to other deaths. It’s almost as if Jack wants them to follow the breadcrumbs, despite his mother tampering with evidence and muddying the picture for Nia.

Character development was front and center this week, diving further into the complicated family dynamic. In a short span of time, they went from competitive to a more nurturing and collaborative nature.

The first two episodes made it clear everyone was vying for control, but the reality is they make more progress when they work together and leverage their positions, even illegally. There’s a lot of cross-contamination between departments that’s been useful for now.

Clare was so determined to secure a win in the grand jury case that she put Russ’s new job on the line, which was a dark move, though she did apologize later. 

And despite being the rule follower of the bunch, he didn’t hold it against her, taking the fall.

Everyone else in the family seems to think that the rules bend in their favor, which could ultimately be their downfall and blind spot. 

There was also a moment that seemed innocuous but could be more meaningful down the line, as Russ mentioned that Jack always craved structure and clarity, which doesn’t exactly align with the rogue figure we’re seeing now. Maybe something happened to him while undercover. Maybe he uncovered something about his family. We still don’t know who Jack’s birth mother is or what happened to her. Could it be connected to that in some way?

Not only did Russ and Clare team up, but Jane joined her kiddos as well, and eventually it became an all-hands-on-deck situation as they raced against the clock to uncover who was intimidating jurors and paying them off to get dismissed.

Because yes, amid the whole Jack and Logan storyline, there was an actual case of the week. 

When the judge ignored their warnings and sent the jury home, prioritizing their safety (rightfully so), Clare took matters into her own hands to catch the suspect.

Russ and his girlfriend, Natasha—whom he sprung on the family, likely just to see their reaction—joined in, along with Jane and Terry’s assistants, Micah (aka “Junior”), and eventually their father, who showed up at Jane’s house unannounced and was surprised to see her boyfriend there.

Some families bond over board games; others sift through case files and solve crimes together. 

Admittedly, there was a lot going on with the case of the week, and with every department involved, it became a bit hard to track. I found myself hitting the rewind button more than once just to keep up, as the pacing was fast and packed. My head was spinning. 

One flaw of the show is that the cases feel somewhat disposable. While Clare celebrated her win and got a much-needed confidence boost, and Russ proved he could handle a high-profile case, shaking his probation, the resolution didn’t significantly impact the larger narrative. This might be one of the shows that benefits from more multi-episode arcs.

It turns out Jane was skirting around her boyfriend, Senator Terry, to get intel. While he ultimately helped her present the case to the judge, he wasn’t happy about how she handled things and decided to hit pause on their relationship. And honestly, that might be for the best, as Jane is juggling a lot, including the possible return of her supposedly dead son and her complicated relationship with Mike, whom she’s been sleeping while also romancing Terry. This family clearly thrives on secrets.

Mike and Micah also clashed in a “let the best Secret Service agent win” dynamic. After seeing how hard Micah took his suspension, Mike realized he had been too harsh, trying to prove he was still the best man for the job. Meanwhile, Micah is capable, but he’s constantly trying to live up to his father’s legacy, which makes earning approval difficult. Sometimes, people lose sight of how far a “good job” can go.

We’ve seen how helpful it can be to work alongside your family, but there’s no denying the difficulties when they aren’t playing ball—or when they’re all trying to come out on top.

Micah’s loyalty was pulled in two directions, as he first warned his dad about everyone trying to get him fired, before siding with his team that his old and rigid methods were outdated.

And I loved his reminder about being not being an example but leading by one. Seems like they can both learn from each other! 

Micah has made questionable choices, too, however. Yep, I’m talking about his secret relationship with the President’s daughter. As the head of detail, it’s a huge conflict of interest and bad judgment (though it’s hard to blame him because we know the heart wants what it wants).

I’m curious to see how that impacts both Micah and Mike’s careers. His father may be a legend, but this could tarnish them both.

Though it’s a little surprising that no one has caught on just yet. Aren’t the agents supposed to notice everything? Maybe Mike was onto something with his old-school training. 

What did you think of the episode? Are you enjoying the series so far?

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 Pigeon Season 1 Episode 5 delivers its most high-stakes episode when Anna wakes up trapped in a cave with no memory of what happened.

The episode shifts from an episodic format to something it hasn’t done before—well, in its first handful of episodes, at least—while breaking it up into a two-parter, leaving audiences on the edge of their seats as they try to piece together what happened to Anna and how she ended up in such a dire situation. 

The audience is purposefully kept in the dark alongside Anna, locked into her perspective and feeling the same disorientation and confusion that she feels.

Experiencing the story in real time with the character means that we’re finding everything out at the same time she is, through her flashbacks, which only amplifies the suspense.

Initially, Anna thinks that falling into the cave was an accident, especially as she experiences memory loss from a concussion. 

However, when someone appears at the top of the cave and throws her a sandwich, it’s evident that this wasn’t an accident—she was intentionally pushed.  

But why?

Anna bends and breaks her mind to find an answer to that question, while also trying to piece together who could have it out for her. 

And from the little we’ve seen on this show, she’s extremely good at making enemies, with one particular one coming to mind—the show’s established villain, Jeremiah. 

We know he’s crossed paths with Anna and even had a tense confrontation, but the rest of what we’ve seen from him and his motivations has been limited. 

And as Anna begins to get flashbacks cluing her into the events that transpired before her fall, it isn’t immediately clear how or why Jeremiah would be involved. 

It actually feels like misdirection on purpose, though it becomes increasingly more probable that whoever was involved had access to Anna’s personal life. 

As bits and pieces unravel, we learn that she was pushed in after witnessing a man climbing out of the cave using a ladder. And before that, she had an encounter with a woman who twisted her ankle, whom she later finds buried in the cave.

It seems as though Anna crossed the wrong person, with the suspect believing that she’d witnessed the murder.

However, Anna’s account of events is also hard to trust, as she’s going in and out of lucidity after drinking water that was drugged in a canteen left behind by the suspect. Not to mention she’s wrestling with her own subconscious, as she sees Zach in the cave, who goes from being a helpful hallucination—telling her it’s okay to remember the bad things—to eventually becoming a dangerous one that blames her for his death. In flashbacks, we see that Anna was so drunk the night of his murder she didn’t even realize he was dead next to her when she went to bed.

Obviously, these are emotions that Anna hasn’t worked through before, but she does get a moment of clarity here too. After Zach’s death, all she wanted to do was “disappear,” hence her decision to move into the woods and become a park ranger, but coming this close to death—without knowing whether anyone was even looking for her as she pushed them all away—made her realize that’s far from the truth. She doesn’t want to disappear; she wants to live. 

And thankfully, Anna is resourceful. She may have been a stage manager at one point, but honestly, her line about embracing new hobbies following a husband’s murder was hilarious. 

And those stage manager instincts actually came in handy, as she, in her delusional, dehydrated and concussed state, set a trap for the person who trapped her. 

She knew that the killer would come down if he didn’t see her, thinking that she’d passed out somewhere, which allowed her to ambush him from the shadows, knock him out, and use the ladder to climb to freedom—trapping him in the process. 

It worked, too!

The episode’s strength was fully tapping into Anna, as audiences got to know her on a primal level—stripped of any external factors as she was forced to rely solely on herself and her instincts to survive.

However, that’s also the show’s biggest flaw. Anna is the only compelling draw, but a good lead only goes so far without an engaging supporting cast.

We’re rooting for Anna, but it’s hard to root for or really care about anyone else in her circle. 

Part of that is because she’s pushed them all away as a lone wolf—which she deeply regrets now that she’s in this predicament, as she thinks no one is coming to look for her—but the other half is that they are all largely forgettable. 

There’s no chemistry between her and Jesse, and I can’t even get invested in their romance because I see the writing on the wall for her and Frederick.

Zoey is quirky and funny, but she doesn’t add much to the series, while Geoff and Manny are just there. 

We barely scratched the surface of these characters’ backstories across five episodes, which also means that if Anna has somehow stumbled into a larger conspiracy, it could be any of them, yet we wouldn’t know because we don’t know what their motivations would even be.

At the very least, Jesse and Zoey both knew Anna enough to know that while she keeps a wall up, she wouldn’t just leave and move back to New York without saying goodbye. 

So, they pressed for a search party, realizing that someone staged her disappearance to look intentional, which makes it more personal and targeted than Ana simply seeing someone doing something bad in the woods and getting caught in the crosshairs.

Anna and Geoff got into a big fight, but someone knew that she’d be out of work for a week, so no one would question why she wasn’t showing up to work.

Clearly, Anna learned nothing from last week’s episode (where she found herself stuck with another murderer without any backup). Like, girl, please check in and give people your location.

And while Anna’s good at making enemies and putting a target on her back, who would go out of their way to make Anna disappear? As I said, we don’t know any of the rangers or even Jesse well enough to establish a motive, and if it was one of them, it wouldn’t even be that surprising.

Manny’s wife looked extremely shady and uncomfortable, almost guilty, in a handful of scenes when talking about Anna. Manny mentioned Bethany got a new job, too, so could she have had something to do with it? From the little we know, she’s someone who wants money to have a child, so maybe she took the job for a payout. Is it possible Bethany’s new job is with Jeremiah, and he got his claws into what happened? 

See how shady she looks?! Photo Credit: Michelle Faye/USA Network © VERSANT MEDIA 2025. All Rights Reserved

Or is it someone connected to Zach’s murder coming to finish the job? Anna seems convinced she left her old life behind, but maybe that’s not entirely true. 

Anna’s mind remembered the group of guys whom she wrote up for littering on the beach (and refusing to apologize for smashing the guy’s radio), but while they may be the suspects responsible for the woman’s death, it seems too far-fetched that they’d cover their tracks and know the ins and outs of Anna’s life. 

The episode is based on Nevada Barr’s prequel titled The Rope, which follows a similar plot, though in the novel, Anna witnesses a rape before she’s dropped into a vertical rock shaft where the attacker is nearby, watching and psychologically tormenting her. 

It serves largely as her origin story, as she emerges as a fighter, but it also intertwines the obvious suspects with other shady characters in the park, leaning into unexpected twists.

In this case, I don’t know if leaving this storyline vague works well for TV, as fans are looking for answers and a payoff for their investment. 

At the end of the episode, Anna makes it back to the search party looking for her, falling into Jesse’s arms, but it never reveals the person she left behind trapped in the cave.

And without knowing everyone all too well, paired with Anna’s memory gaps, it’s hard to know who to trust. 

Will she be able to guide them back to where she trapped the suspect? And if he was part of a group, did they help him escape before Anna leads anyone back to the scene of the crime?

Anna may be safe and sound, but there are plenty more questions surrounding the incident—and justice needs to be served. 

Will it be? And how will the survival and trauma change Anna moving forward? She’s obviously endured plenty with her husband’s death and needs answers, and it’s made her a tough cookie, but now she’s been reminded that leaning on others is necessary too. 

What did you think of the episode? Do you have any theories?