In the previous episode of Happy Face, Hazel had called her grandfather, the serial killer Keith Jesperson, and had a long chat with him. Melissa and Ben had no clue about what she was up to, as she knew that they would approve of her actions. Keith, on the other hand, had told Melissa where he had hidden the wrench he had used to kill Heather. Melissa and Ivy believed that they would easily be able to prove that Elijah was innocent, but that’s when Calloway threw a curveball at them. The DA office made a public statement where they told the media that they were going to treat Elijah and Keith as co-conspirators since they believed that both of them had acted together. Calloway was just trying to save his reputation, and he knew that he would have to win the case anyhow. So, let’s find out if Melissa and Ivy are able to find any evidence to prove Calloway wrong, or if he is able to outplay them.
Spoiler Alert
How did Hazel get ditched by her friends?
Hazel was talking to her grandfather, Keith Jesperson, and nobody, not even her mother, had any clue about it. Keith loved talking to her, and he made her aware that, even being behind bars, he had the power and the resources to do anything for her. Keith had told Hazel about the objects he took from every woman he killed and how, to date, he’d kept them safely. Keith told his granddaughter that the idea behind keeping those belongings was to use them to prove that he was the culprit when the time came. Hazel didn’t understand why Keith would want to confess to his crimes and serve punishment, but she didn’t ask him explicitly about it. Hazel was getting close to Josh, who made her believe that he was really attracted to her. But Hazel didn’t know that Josh only wanted to mock her and prove to her friends that she was a characterless girl. Hazel told Josh about whatever Keith told him, and the latter convinced her to go to Oregon and find out if Keith was speaking the truth or not. Josh told her that he would bring his car and they would go together, but what Hazel didn’t know was that he was going to bring three of his friends too, one of whom happened to be his ex-girlfriend, Summer.
Hazel was a bit taken aback, as she had really expected that they would go alone, but she didn’t say anything at that moment. Hazel and the others reached the dilapidated motel and started looking for those objects. They weren’t able to find anything, and before Hazel could process everything, something unprecedented happened that left the poor girl shaken to her core. Josh got intimate with Hazel, and then I believe he went and told everybody about it. Before Hazel knew it, Josh and the others got into the car and left Oregon, leaving her behind. Before leaving, Summer had written something very offensive about Hazel on the cupboard in one of the rooms. Hazel read the graffiti and then heard the car start. That was enough for her to understand that she had been ditched. She couldn’t understand how somebody could be so mean as to do something like that. Hazel did not have a signal, and so she couldn’t book herself a ride. She gave a call to Keith once again and asked for help. Keith sent one of his men, named Ennis, to pick up Hazel. Ennis was the same man who had written that abortion article tarnishing the reputation of Melissa. At the end of episode 6, Ben got to know that Ennis had gotten in touch with Hazel, and he believed that he was harassing his little girl. But that’s when Ennis told Ben that it was Hazel who had called for him and not the other way around. I believe in the upcoming episodes, Ben and Melissa will have a difficult situation at their hands as they would have to deal with Hazel but be careful about how they approach the matter.
At the end of Happy Face episode 6, Ben went through Hazel’s call log, and he found out that she had been in touch with her grandfather. Ben had suffered a lot because of the entire Keith Jesperson drama, and there was a lot of anger within because of it. Ben didn’t like the fact that Melissa got so obsessed with the entire case that she didn’t care if Ben lost his job or if her actions put the lives of the family members in jeopardy. Ben had been told by his boss that he was not getting promoted for the post of regional manager, and now he found that his daughter had been in touch with a serial killer. Ben called Melissa and told her about it, and I believe in the subsequent episodes they are going to have a huge argument about it where Ben will just burst out and express all his feelings that he had been holding back up until then.
How did Melissa and Ivy confirm Elijah’s alibi?
After Calloway declared, in the previous episode, that Elijah and Keith were co-conspirators in the crime, Ivy and Melissa didn’t know what to do next. Denise, Heather’s mother, agreed to go on camera and say that she believed that Calloway was just trying to save his reputation by making sure that Elijah did not get acquitted by the court. But still, Ivy and Melissa knew that they needed to find some valid evidence that proved that whatever Calloway was claiming was not right. Denise, Melissa, and Ivy were going through old pictures of Heather when the former told them how Heather used to perform at open mic events organized by a cafe called Ziggy’s Basement. Melissa and Ivy thought that they should visit the place and see if the owner could give them any sort of information. It was the best decision that they could have made, since they struck gold in that cafe and got evidence they could use to prove that Elijah was not present in the vicinity of the crime scene at the time of the murder. The owner of the cafe had recorded each and every open mic performance on VHS tapes. As per the time and date stamp on that VHS tape, Melissa was still at Ziggy’s at 9:30 at night on the night of her murder. This meant that Elijah couldn’t have traveled for a couple of hours, as he had a work shift that night that started at 9 pm. There was CCTV footage and testimonies of Elijah’s colleagues that proved that he hadn’t left the premises, where he worked, the entire night. Melissa and Ivy were ecstatic. They realized that they could convince the judge to order a retrial with that kind of solid evidence.
Was Keith Jesperson lying about killing Heather?
Melissa and Ivy came to tell Joyce, Elijah’s sister, all about the good news when Melissa found Gabriela’s lipstick lying in Joyce’s house. In the previous episodes, Gabriela had told Melissa about how she used a particular lip shade, which was available only in one store in Miami. Those details made Melissa remember that lipstick shade, and she went to confront Joyce immediately after that. That’s when Joyce told them that, around 3 months back, Gabriela had paid her a visit and made her talk to Keith Jesperson. Keith had told her that he had murdered Heather, but he also said that he needed all the information she had about the murder and Elijah’s wrongful trial, as he needed to refresh his memory. Then he had also asked Joyce to stick a smiley face at a specific spot. Before doing that, he’d asked her to use certain chemicals to age the paper. It was the same paper that Ivy and Melissa had found at the beginning of their investigation, after which Calloway paid them a visit. Melissa and Ivy knew that if Calloway got a whiff of what had happened, he would use it to prove that Keith Jesperson was lying about killing Heather because he just wanted to be in the spotlight. Melissa told Ivy that she knew that her father was lying from the beginning and that they should have never trusted him. Melissa felt that their case was ruined, but Ivy told her to keep that information a secret. She said that even if Keith was lying about it, it didn’t change the fact that Elijah now had a very strong alibi. Ivy made Melissa understand that they needed to save an innocent man from getting hanged, and that was all that mattered. As for Keith, it was still a mystery what he was up to. I wouldn’t deny that after the revelation that he had actually approached Joyce, it does seem like he had no clue who Heather was and he hadn’t killed her. Or maybe he would have actually forgotten about it, though I don’t think that a man who had such a sharp memory, who took the belongings of his victims, and who was such a schemer could forget about the details of their murder case. There is no denying that Keith was a narcissist, and maybe he got some sort of sadistic pleasure from toying with the system.
Did Elijah get a retrial?
Elijah’s lawyer, after seeing the CCTV camera footage, was pretty sure that they would be able to convince the judge to give them a retrial. Before going to the court, Ivy and Melissa both knew the risks involved in doing that. They knew that Keith had had a chat with Joyce, which meant that probably he was just lying about being the one who murdered Heather. Elijah’s lawyer showed all the footage to the judge and told him that Elijah hadn’t left the premises of the place he worked at until 9 am in the morning, which meant that he was not the one who had killed Heather. Calloway surprisingly didn’t show any resistance, and he supported the defense’s requests for a retrial. But the judge did not give the defense a retrial. The judge went a step further, and he told Elijah that he would want to give him a clean chit immediately and let him walk away from the court as a free man. Elijah couldn’t believe his ears. The judge apologized to Elijah on behalf of the court, but he knew a mere apology wouldn’t suffice for the years of injustice. Elijah walked out of the courtroom with his sister, and Ivy and Melissa just stood there feeling grateful for what they had been able to accomplish. Melissa went and thanked Calloway for cooperating with them, but the latter, being the man that he was, didn’t take any credit and said that he did what needed to be done. Calloway said that he was not going to contest the upcoming DA’s elections as he believed that it was about time to let new blood take over. He said that he wouldn’t go after Keith Jesperson, and he believed that the DA would also not want to get involved in that case. It was because, even after 30 years of Heather being murdered, nobody knew who her killer was. It could be possible that Keith was actually lying, and there could be an altogether different person behind the crime. Calloway knew that Keith’s confession and Elijah being found innocent had made the entire case quite complicated. But I think that Melissa would want to find out if her father was lying to her or not. She would like to get to the root of the matter, and in the subsequent episodes of Happy Face we will get to know if she and Ivy are able to do that.
