Echoes – Season 1 Episode 5 “Gina” Recap & Review

Gina

Episode 5 of Echoes starts with Gina driving with Dylan. He’s bleeding out and pleads with her to “Get away from her.” It would seem that Leni is responsible in some way for what happened, but what really went down that night?

Before we find out, we cut back and see a lot more context to the relationship between Leni and Gina. Through Gina’s narration, we see that Leni closed up after their mother died. Gina was also blamed for pushing Claudia, even though it was Leni who caused her to be confined to a wheelchair.

When the girls became teenagers, the pair used to switch all the time just to trade dance partners. They even shared Jack too – for a while anyway. Soon, Leni pulled away from Gina and started to do things on her own, including hogging Jack all to herself.

Gina’s identity has always been in Leni’s shadow and she needed her own life. Part of that came from getting close to Dylan. At the church, things end up hot and heavy between Dylan and Gina… until a fire breaks out. The pair hurry out and run, but unfortunately a man died in the ensuing inferno. Leni tries to blame Dylan, given he skipped town after this.

In the morning, Leni was gone but the truth is, she was the one responsible for the fire. Seeing Leni then marry Jack seemed like the end of them, so Gina fled to the other side of the country and went to college. This coincides with when she had her breakdown. Charlie helped Gina get back to herself and supported her through getting her book published too.

So Leni and Gina end up in respectable marriages and funnily enough, both fall pregnant at the same time too. Leni wanted her sister to move but Gina is adamant on staying in LA. And then the worst possible outcome occurs – Gina loses her baby.

When Leni gives birth to hers, she ends up experiencing post-partum depression. Gina encourages her to reach out and get some help – namely in the form of a nanny. Refusing, she instead decides they should switch places. It was Leni’s decision to switch after all, with Gina believing it was only going to be a few weeks. Those weeks turned to months. Months eventually led to them switching every year.

Unfortunately, Leni ended up growing more controlling over time. In fact, she started pitching new ideas at work and progressing beyond Gina’s career. She’s clearly crossed the line and Gina is not happy. In fact, she started to make plans to take back control. She needed money; cash that Charlie wouldn’t know was missing. Cracking into the safe, Gina found journals that confirm Charlie knew about the twins. He could “smell their differences” and preferred Leni.

As for Gina (disguised as Leni), she meets Dylan again and begins flirting with him. In fact, she encourages him to give her private swimming lessons. The thing is, along the way she learns that Leni is the one who convinced Dylan to skip town after the church fire. But in revealing this, Leni follows Dylan outside and reveals the truth about who she really is, that she’s actually Gina and in love with him.

After the pair have sex, Gina encourages Dylan to skip town with her. The fall-out with Meg was actually as a result of all this turns out Meg is actually Dylan’s cousin and she expresses concerns over Leni’s (as Gina) affair. As a result, Gina blackmails Meg into submission.

So from here, this is where we see who set everything up. It was Gina. She was the one who planted the book and killed the horse, staging the whole incident at the farm. When Leni shows up, everything goes awry given she takes the passports and money. Gina promises to get everything back and heads to the party.

This then catches us up to the night of Dylan’s attack. It turns out it was Leni responsible. She’s the one who appears to have stabbed Dylan. Gina is forced to watch him bleed out and as a result, decides to frame Leni. She set fire to the truck and walks away.

The Episode Review

Episode 5 finally lifts the curtain and explains a lot of what’s been happening with Gina and Leni. The twists in this show have been pretty good and aside from a good deal of contrivances in episode 2, has actually turned into a pretty enjoyable thriller. I mean, as enjoyable as a disposable airport thriller can be anyway!

This is far from perfect, but this chapter is arguably the best of the entire season, explaining the complicated ties between the two sisters and when everything soured between them.

Echoes has been a little tonally skewed across the run-time, and there’s a danger that this could outstay its welcome after showing its hand so soon. Now that the curtain has been lifted on exactly what’s been going on, it’ll be interesting to see how the show handles that moving into the final 2 episodes.