Lady in the Lake – Episode 7 Recap, Ending Explained & Review

My Story

Episode 7 of Lady in the Lake begins where we left off with more musical numbers. Thankfully, not an entire episode of flashbacks like we had last week though. The story itself picks up in 1952, with Cleo practicing her harmonies outside.

In the club, the girls are brought to Shell after being snuck in through the backdoor. He recognizes Cleo as Al Sherwood’s daughter, and gives her a job taking on the role as his accountant. While Cleo sits this one out, Dora continues singing. Her star obviously rises too high and she ends up overdosing on drugs.

This cuts us in to the night with Reggie and Cleo. Now, it turns out Cleo actually switched places with Dora, deciding to make it look like she died when in reality, it was Dora. The real Cleo though shows up in Maddie’s room. It turns out it wasn’t a vision after all!

Maddie is groggy but before Cleo leaves, she urges her to stop writing her story otherwise she really will kill her. She explains the whole story about Shell Gordon wanting her dead and switching the body over, but Maddie isn’t going to let this go. In fact, she sees a better story here. As a result, Cleo offers up the true story around Summer’s assassination attempt, but she needs to meet on Friday at sunset.

In the morning, Maddie heads home and immediately speaks to Platt, trying to rustle up details on the case. However, he’s been fired from his role given being spotted leaving Maddie’s place. She offers to clear the whole thing up but obviously if she does, she could go to prison for cohabitating with a Black man. Platt suggests they run away together to Virginia where they could properly be together but Maddie refuses.

Instead, Maddie continues to progress in her career. She shows up to see Sam at The Star, offering up a new story that she’s going to write herself. She eventually drives a hard bargain and gets a new desk, and also is allowed to work alongside Bob too.

Maddie visits Slappy in prison and apologizes for what’s happened and how he’s behind bars right now. She immediately runs her mouth, pointing out how it’s Dora who’s dead, Cleo is still alive and Reggie is holding her in secret. Maddie wants justice for him, and even reveals the last words Cleo said too.

Reggie arrives to see Teddy, this time with more context around exactly why he’s here. He has a job for him, but Teddy refuses to jump in without knowing the full extent of what’s going on. We don’t see exactly what that conversation entails, but while Teddy heads in to see Shell, Cleo, disguised as a man, sneaks in with Reggie.

Teddy brings up that Reggie is playing him and taking a cut of his money. However, Shell knows something suss is going on here and he doesn’t believe the kid. That is, until he hands over the stack of cash as proof. Shell lets him keep it but they have a problem.

Reggie beats down the guard at the lift before he and Cleo head down to the basement together, where the extent of the Number game is being carried out. Vernon opens the door for Cleo, despite his shock at seeing her, and she burns the books right there on the table.

The fire alarm goes off, and as everyone races out, Reggie sacrifices himself to let Cleo and her boy escape without being spotted. At the bar, he brandishes a gun and forces Shell Gordon to make the call to the station, exonerating Slappy and revealing the truth about the Summer assassination attempt.

News of this reaches Maddie too, who’s shocked when she finds Seth ripping up her diaries. He’s doing so because he doesn’t want this story getting out and Maddie loves tales that hurt others the most. I mean, she is a journalist after all and the only way that could be worse, is if she was a games journalist (a jest, of course!)

Down by the lake, Cleo shows up and sits with Maddie. She hands over a suitcase full of evidence to incriminate Gordon and, in turn, also Reggie too. Maddie admits she was going to publish a better story about Cleo still being alive but Slappy’s loyalty won out that day.

After parting ways, Maddie shows up to see Ferdie. She’s moving to her new place and decides they should remain sex buddies but nothing more. Ferdie is incredulous over her choice, given she wants to have her cake and eat it too, and eventually tells her to leave.

With Shell Gordon behind bars, Cleo, under the name of Dora, heads over to France and begins singing up on stage. At the same time, Maddie ends up becoming a famous author, as we cut to 1976. She releases her book, Lady in the Lake, while the State takes over the Numbers game, given the allure of a bigger prize.

The Episode Review

So Lady in the Lake rounds out with a conclusive chapter that wraps everything up and confirms, once and for all, that Maddie is a horrible protagonist. She’s learned nothing across the season, and despite getting a taste of her own medicine from Ferdie, is still the same opportunistic, self-centered woman she was in episode 1.

Meanwhile, Cleo still being alive is a nice touch but given it comes off the back of an episode chock full of hallucinations and visions, it actually softened the blow until this finale, where we learn that this wasn’t fake and she really is still alive.

The whole story has ponderously moved from one trippy visual to the next dull plot point and definitely didn’t need 7 episodes to tell its story. While there are parts of this finale that improve on the pacing, this has been a poor series and definitely one of Apple’s weakest offerings.