Who is Erin Carter? – Season 1 Episode 1 Recap & Review

Episode 1

This is the story of Erin Carter, a runaway mother who left her life in Folkestone, England and settled in Barcelona with her daughter Harper. The series is not based on a true story.

Erin and Harper have been living in Barcelona for five years. The former is in a healthy relationship with Jordi, a nurse at the General Hospital. Erin has kept a low-key profile and works as a substitute teacher at St. Joseph International. She hopes to get a permanent job and has a big interview coming up shortly. 

Harper has a fight with another boy, Antonio, who makes fun of her sensitive eyes. Harper needs to wear special glasses whenever she is outside as protection against the sun.

Antonio happens to be Penelope Reyna’s son, the wife of an affluent businessman. She is kicked out of the musical and Reyna threatens to expel her from school.

On their way back, Erin and Harper stop for a toilet break at the local supermarket. They find themselves caught in a robbery where customers are held at gunpoint by two robbers. As one of them gets wind of Harper, whom Erin hid underneath fruit cargo, Erin confronts him.

She shows remarkable skill and agility to pin him down. But the man starts choking her and Erin shoots him in the chest. The alarm goes off and the other robber absconds. Both Erin and Harper are unhurt. But there is something more intriguing behind this incident as the robber calls Erin “Kate” when she meets him in the ICU. He is so enraged that he suffers a cardiac arrest and dies.

Although Erin has been hailed as a hero at the school, she learns the next day from Emilio, Jordi’s best friend and a cop, that his senior, Inspector Tabarez, has called her to the station for questioning. 

He shows her footage from the sole active CCTV camera in the supermarket which shows her being uncharacteristically brilliant. Erin wants to make amends with Penelope (who turns out to be her neighbour) but catches her in a physical act with her tennis coach at the house.

In her interrogation with Tabarez, Erin learns that Emilio has not handed over the footage from the CCTV to the police. He has buried evidence which makes it look like Erin has something to hide. Tabarez is suspicious of Erin, even more so as he points out that the family whose references Erin gave as prior work experiences do not exist. It is a huge red flag that spurts him to investigate her background.

At Penelope’s party, Erin asks her to withdraw her complaint against Harper. But she remains fixated on getting Harper expelled. The next morning, Erin reveals to Penelope that she made a video. On the back of it, she blackmails Penelope and she is forced to comply with Erin’s demand. Jordi and Erin have a fight over the fact that she did not reveal to him that Harper was kicked out of the musical.

Erin meets up with her friend, Olivia, who is also a teacher at the school, for the musical. But a strange woman gathers her attention and Erin follows her out of the auditorium. It is revealed that the woman knows her and refers to her as Kate. She demands that Erin give “it” back to her but they proceed to engage in a fistfight. The woman has a knife that makes things complicated. They conclude the fight in Erin’s classroom but the woman threatens to take Harper away from her.

In a frenzy, Erin kills the woman with her knife and Emilio witnesses it all. Instead of being repulsed or reporting her (as he should have), he helps her get rid of the body in the woods.

Emilio reveals that he has been caught up with some “bad men” and would need Erin’s help to deal with the situation. The episode ends with Erin rummaging through her stuff the next day in the store room and fetching a gun. Harper walks in on her and Erin looks on nervously, wondering how she will explain it. 

The Episode Review

The new Netflix show has made a promising start with a frenetic opener. Evin Ahmed gave an excellent account of her action credentials in a few well-choreographed scenes. How well her acting credentials will be can only be discovered in a matter of time.

The schematics of the plot seem set to unfold gradually over the course of the seven episodes. It is clear that something shady happened in Erin’s past which forced her to run and start a new life of anonymity. 

The big task for the show’s creators is to ensure that the progression keeps us invested, not just in learning what the story is, but who these characters really are. There is a lot to dig in here with promising performers like Sean Teale and Indica Watson. Viewers will have to contend with some generic world-building, though, as the lack of options in the story is evident.