Clickbait – Season 1 Episode 4 “The Mistress” Recap & Review

The Mistress

Episode 4 of Clickbait begins with Emma Beesly being interviewed by Amiri. She claims that she and Nick were in love and soulmates. She’s in the dark about Nick’s motives, although Amiri is clearly very suspicious of this woman.

Emma works as a health insurance agent, and even receives numerous gifts on her birthday from “Danny.” The pair get along well, with pictures on the mantlepiece hinting that they’ve even been away on holiday together.

It’s clear now that Nick was leading a double life. It doesn’t take long before she learns that her boyfriend is not who he says he is. Emma actually saw the news reports and noticed Sophie on TV. She head up to Oakland to see Sophie and to help, apparently. According to Emma, they were engaged to get married.

We then see a number of scenes repeated again that we’ve already seen, this time from Emma’s perspective and not really adding anything to the show. On the back of Sophie’s scathing comments though, Audrey rings her friend and expresses her concerns. She thinks Emma should head home but something is keeping the girl there.

Emma eventually heads up to the school where she meets Matt. They’re both in agreement that Nick was “one of the good guys” but there’s definitely something amiss here.

Piia heads in to see Matt not long after and questions him about Nick’s affair. Apparently he had no idea but does direct Pia toward Emma, who races out of the school after breaking into Nick’s office.

When she and Pia finally catch up, Emma reveals how close she and Nick actually were, divulging personal incidents involving Pia and Nick in the past. Although Pia understandably doesn’t trust the woman, she does take her number incase any further questions crop up.

Well, that evening Emma receives a threatening call in her hotel, warning her and telling the girl she needs to leave immediately. Panicked, Emma gets in her car and drives away. Only, in doing so she’s rammed from behind by a car that eventually knocks her off the road.

After this attempt on her life, Pia shows up to exhibit concerns over Emma’s story. Amiri is there too to take Emma’s statement but it soon becomes clear that Nick was a serial cheater, seeing a number of different women at the same time as Sophie and Emma.

While Sophie starts to receive threatening message too, Emma shows up to see another victim – Mandy. Together they reflect on Nick’s shady past and decide to “burn the f*cker”. And by burning, this includes Emma going live on TV and outing Nick as the serial cheater that he is.

The Episode Review

Honestly, the first 20 minutes of this episode were completely pointless. Sure, we see things from Emma’s perspective and learn a little more about Nick’s double-life but some scenes are literal rehashes from the episode before.

Apart from this, the episode does deepen the examination of Nick’s character, showing him to be a serial cheater and well-known to toy with people’s emotions. Given he spoke to Emma every single day, and there are pictures in her apartment of the pair (presumably anyway) on holiday, how did neither of these women suspect anything?

It’s certainly a bit of a far cry and especially someone savvy online would undoubtedly have sensed something amiss. The fact that Nick is using the same photo across numerous dating sites would be a red flag and I’m pretty sure there’s technology that can cross-reference pictures back. Catfish, of all TV shows, actually shows how well this works to root out deceptive people.

Either way though, the ending leaves things wide open as it looks as if we’re about to shift perspectives over to a different character next time out.