Tell Me Your Secrets – Season 1 Episode 4 Recap & Review

I Don’t Know You

Episode 4 of Tell Me Your Secrets begins in the past as Pete arrives at the prison to meet Karen while she’s incarcerated. She’s been there barely two weeks and Pete admits that her choices going forward are very limited.

He reminds her that loving a bad person doesn’t make her a bad person, as he reveals that his job is to determine if she’s right for his program. Pete believes she has PTSD and is also suffering from amnesia too.

Unfortunately the other inmates aren’t quite as sympathetic, beating her down so much that Karen decides to do her best to get out and join Pete’s program. We then jump forward briefly as we see Karen excitedly talking to Kit in his van, who’s currently busy tattooing.

In the present, Emma receives a pretty urgent text from Pete, prompting him to meet her. He’s not happy that she’s changed the locks to his cabin, but this time Emma turns on him and heads back to the cabin, alone.

When she shows up this time, things don’t seem right for her. Emma begins questioning everything she knew, as fragments from the past slowly start to bleed through. Making a bold choice, Emma starts searching around the cabin. Within the desk, she finds a picture of Pete and a young girl together.

Emma heads off to visit Tom, trying to gauge what to do with the information she’s just gained. Tom too begins questioning Emma’s story, especially her reluctance to leave the cabin. He knows something is going on and wants to be there for her. Eventually Tom leans forward and kisses her. Things get heated, and as the two look set to make love, Sam pulls away and tells her her wants to take it slow.

Emma heads back to Saint Jerome’s where she notices Rose with a boy outside. Rose immediately locks eyes with Emma and ditches him, hurrying after her and asking if she wants to get high. They do just that, riding bicycles down the road until Emma tells Rose to go back to her parents. Rose asks to stay the night and Emma wisely says no.

Back at the cabin, Emma notices a strange, ominous sign in the shed. She sees scratch marks up the wall too, a tally of sorts, and this reinforces the bad vibes she’s been getting from Pete. Is he hiding a dark past?

Kamara’s recording makes the news, prompting Jake to remind his Mum that this is all on her. She refuses to listen as Jake pleads with her to take a break and stop obsessing.

At the care home, John asks Esther about Karen, trying to find out where she is. As Esther whispers, she mentions how “they’re looking for her.” Anyway, Mary eventually meets John and tells him she’s going to join him in his mission. Given she has no alias, John is certainly taken aback by this but begrudgingly allows her tag along, with the alias “Linda from Florida”

They show up at the care home together, but Esther claims that she doesn’t know them. In fact, Esther continues to call John a wolf while “Linda from Florida” doesn’t have much luck either.

While John comes up short, Mary decides to head off and visit Esther herself later that evening. Mary ditches her cover and tells Esther the truth. The old woman smiles, claiming Emma is too clever and vows she’ll never find her. Mary however, decides to threaten Esther, which leads to her covering the woman’s mouth as she panics.

Later that evening, Emma receives the awful news that her Mother has passed away and begins sobbing. The one who answers the phone however, happens to be John. He asks outright whether this is Karen, as she hurriedly hangs up. Realizing that her cover could be blown, Emma decides to leave without Rose.

John gets closer to finding Karen though, as he takes a hidden camera from inside Esther’s room and watches the events that transpired the previous night. Here, we see the shocking reveal that Mary smothered and killed Esther with a pillow.

The Episode Review

Who are we supposed to be rooting for in this show? We’ve got Emma who’s suffering from amnesia and with a dark history of abusing girls. Mary is an outright murderer now, and clearly unsympathetic and incredibly selfish, turning every conversation about herself. Then you have John and Pete, who both have dark pasts.

This unfortunately makes this thriller a difficult one to recommend and the profound lack of likable characters who aren’t abusers or killers makes it a really difficult show to recommend. That’s before even mentioning the contrived way this has been edited together, with flashbacks chopped in the middle of present-day scenes.

How John managed to get inside Esther’s room and convinced the orderly’s that he’s part of Esther’s family still hasn’t been explained, let alone how Mary showing up unannounced and botching her lines didn’t raise any alarm bells.

Ah well, we’re nearing the halfway point of this show and quite what will happen next, remains to be seen.