Who is Erin Carter? – Season 1 Episode 3 Recap & Review

Episode 3

Episode 3 of Who is Erin Carter begins with a hiker finding Margot’s body. Police are called to the scene, including Emilio who alerts Erin. She is also informed that Benecio sent her photo to one person; his assistant, Valeria Estrada.

Panicking over what will happen next, Erin leaves Harper with Penelope, inviting her judgmental remarks and chatter. Erin quickly finds Valeria’s address and goes up to her apartment. Valeria is just about to leave and holds a gun toward Erin. She easily disarms Valeria and explains her case.

Daniel’s men come knocking at the door but Erin saves Valeria’s life. They manage to escape the thugs but in the process, Vaaleira loses all the money she laundered from the law firm business. Angry at Erin for spoiling her plan, Valeria asks her for full compensation by the next day. If she does not comply, Valiera will send Erin’s photo to all her contacts.

The blonde woman in England has been released on probation. She has taken up a cleaning job to fulfil her release terms. But things go south quickly as she is informed Margot is dead. The woman goes berserk and assaults the homeowner who tries to get her back to work. This lands her back in jail.

Penelope and Harper bond as she hears Penelope arguing with her husband on the phone. Penelope seems boxed in by her husband’s indifference and regard for her. She brushes Harper’s hair and even gives motherly advice to her. Meanwhile, Benecio’s bosses send Emilio a warning sign to stop his investigation.

Erin is worried about making the whole sum of money she owes to Valeria. Daniel, Dylan’s father, invites Jordi and her to dinner and offers her a private tutoring job. For a moment, Erin seems convinced as she could take an advance from Daniel and pay Valeria off. But she rejects the offer since it is not a permanent job and Daniel could easily dump her.

Erin sends most of her jewellery to raise money as Jordi calls a child specialist for Harper after Olivia raises an alarm while babysitting her. Jordi and Erin have a fight over the specialist coming without them having spoken first.

Harper is cross with Erin for constantly ignoring her. She has been away from home for long stretches of time, not being able to spend time with Harper. In order to make it up to her, Erin agrees to play in a friendly tennis tournament involving the parents at school.

Erin and Jordi come up against Penelope and her husband, Bruce, at the tournament. Although Erin’s pairing is better, she willfully throws the match away as she sees Penelope being repulsed by Bruce. By doing so, Erin gives them a moment of joy where Bruce can appreciate Penelope.

Valeria gets nervous while waiting for Erin, who instantly takes off. Jordi is concerned when he sees her arguing on the phone. In a flashback, Emilio had done a background check on Erin when Jordi began dating her. Before marrying Erin, Emilio had given him an envelope of his findings. But Jordi had never opened it: until now. Jordi is surprised to find that Erin has no trace in any government database. There is no information about her past or family. Erin has not been able to conjure up the money that Valeira had lost during their escape. She accepts the paltry money but reveals to Erin that she had called Benecio’s men with their location.

As they arrive in bunches, Erin once again tries to escape with Valeria. But she is shot dead by one of the men. In an explosive climax to episode 3, we see Erin adeptly fighting Benecio’s men and escaping the motel on foot. When she reaches an overbridge, she jumps on a passing truck to get further away from them. The truck swerves and Erin falls by the roadside, unable to get up. As she falls unconscious, Erin sees the same horned figure that Harper has been seeing. 

The Episode Review

After watching this episode, the series has finally yielded a few patterns that will subsequently temper expectations going forward. While we can expect to get decent, engaging action from the show, these writers are not one for details. A lot of things went astray in episode 3, right from Erin’s bizarre run-in with Valeria and Jordi’s consistent cluelessness about his wife. Nothing until now has been as annoying as the latter.

Why has his portrayal been so dumb until now? There is a line between delusion and trust that the creators have toyed with mercilessly here. I am forced into using Jim Halpert’s iconic line about Stanley Hudson from the TV show The Office. “Is there no limit to what he won’t notice?” Jordi seems to let everything go; literally everything. He does not care where Erin is or who she is with or even how she is.

Another defeating absence from the show until now has been the police. You expect that part of the storytelling to be strongly portrayed in order to make things more intense. But somehow, for whatever reason, they seem as clueless as Jordi about the city they have been hired to protect.

‘Who is Erin Carter’ swings violently between being agonizingly frustrating and surprisingly good.  This is never a healthy mix!