Obsession – Season 1 Episode 3 Recap & Review

Episode 3

Episode 3 of Obsession begins at a family dinner, as Ingrid mentions the possibility of having an engagement party soon. Anna is a little anxious and Jay comes in for her support. William is not happy about the situation though. His intense desire and lust for Anna have come in the way of his fatherly love. He excuses himself to go to the washroom and Anna follows.

Anna asks him not to repeat his flagrant rule-breaking in Paris. She makes it clear that she cannot keep up with William’s affair without raising alerts, and they have to be careful. William wants her all for himself but that cannot happen either.

William tells her about the threatening texts and Anna thinks it is Peggy. When she confronts her, Peggy says it is not her. This is not the first time Anna has done something scandalous and improper, and it would seem that someone else has got a whiff of their sordid affair.

Jay comes up to the apartment, no longer able to wait in the cab. Anna is reluctant to introduce them properly and he asks her to allow him to be a part of her life.  William seems to think it might be Nadia. Peggy calls Anna and says that she will be there for her when Elizabeth, Anna’s mother, sees Jay for the first time.

William and Anna continue their affair and frequently meet in Peggy’s apartment. It is the night of the engagement party. Anna first inspects William’s suspicion of Nadia but it seems like she does not know anything about it. Elizabeth meets Jay and instantly recognizes the resemblance he shares with her late son, Aston. Things start to get a little weird but Anna is at hand to sort the situation. Peggy takes over and promises to keep an eye on Elizabeth.

William gets another text from the harasser, saying he has until Ingrid’s speech to come clean. Sally has broken up with Kelly, her girlfriend, and is upset about it. Anna comforts her and they bond emotionally. Ingrid’s speech begins but the harasser has yet to act on their claims. At first, Ingrid’s speech gives the impression she is the harasser as she says she suspected William of having an affair. But then the story quickly turns into insight regarding her and William’s enduring love. She advises Jay and Anna to nurture their foundation of love in order for it to last many years.

Anna and William exchange a longing look, something that Elizabeth catches on to. He breaks the glass of champagne in his hands and goes to the washroom. Elizabeth follows, while Anna sees them go in and tries to intervene. It seems like Elizabeth has a sense of what’s going on but uncomfortably assures Anna she believes her. Anna does not want to tell Jay about Aston, even when he brings it up after the party.

Anna meets William outside in secret, where she sends the harasser a text from his phone that they have nothing to hide.

The fact that nothing happened during the speech shows that they were only bluffing. William cannot live with the idea that Anna needs Jay more than him.. and they proceed to have sex on the wet ground.

We learn the next morning that the harasser was actually Sally. She does not know about them but found the torn page from Anna’s diary. Anna makes an amazing lie that captivates Sally. She concedes the writing is hers and that she asked William to look after it at Hartley. Anna feigns being embarrassed that he might have read it and now Sally too, which forces her to turn apologetic.

Anna does not take the violation lightly. She tells William about Sally, as Anna says that she loves William as he is on every page of the diary. Jay meets with Peggy to get a sense of Anna’s past to write his speech but she advises him “not to go looking where she tells him not to.” How about that! Jay listens to Peggy and the affair continues, But it seems he is growing restless. He tries to be sincere in his expression of love but Anna is way past that.

Jay and William have drinks with the former’s friends. The son tries to express his insecurity and bitterness with Anna’s withholding of secrets. William tries to tell Jay that Anna is not ideal for him but cannot say anything clearly. William quotes something from Anna’s diary that Jay immediately catches on to. Does the dumb wit finally know? He follows William that night to be sure, as he needs more evidence.

The Episode Review

Finally, Jay has woken up to the reality that Anna is cheating on him. It is quite extraordinary that someone as brilliant as Jay would have trouble figuring it out. Peggy’s statement is something that normal men would dismiss at the face value and move on. I know that the main focus of the show is the “obsession” between Anna and William, but this is irresponsible filmmaking that shows what they really wanted to achieve with the series.

Episode 3 is another one down and finally, this torturous series can end. One cannot even call it morally ambiguous or complex anymore. In fact, it is flagrantly evil; a breathing nightmare that can have no justification, only the idea of the bottomless depth of human darkness.