This wasn’t a week when “Rabbit Hole” wowed us, unlike the other weeks’ episodes. The progress of the story and the protagonists was too little, but we will stop our complaints because, whatever we think of Episode 4, the series has otherwise established a consistent and intriguing pace, and this is probably just an aberration. This is how “Rabbit Hole” Episode 4 unfolds.
Spoilers Ahead
Tyler
Remember the intern in “Rabbit Hole” Episode 2 who tried to steal the authenticator from John? He is back, and we catch a glimpse of the extent of his involvement with Crowley. Elaborating on an instance from Episode 3, it turns out that Xander did not jump to his death but was pushed off the balcony by Tyler. Once Tyler is back home, he gets a call from Crowley (we assume), who reprimands him for making such a scene. Crowley probably wanted Tyler to kill Xander but in a less conspicuous way. But Tyler replies that making a show of it sends a message to the others working for Crowley so that they don’t mess up their jobs the way Xander did. Crowley sounds exasperated, and he just checks with Tyler regarding the status of their long-term project, and Tyler assures him that everything is on track for that.
Meanwhile, as Tyler says he is tired of working for other people, Officer Madi spots him in the CCTV footage of Arda Analytics and she suspects that he might have something to do with whatever is going on since he looks like he was avoiding the cameras as he was leaving the building.
John, Ben, and Hailey
Ben has not been able to find anything in Valence’s communications data, and all of them are stuck without any leads. But when John takes a look at it, he finds that Valence used to invest in art using crypto. He is surprised because Valence never liked art. However, Ben doesn’t place much weight on it, and he thinks that this is just John trying to clutch at straws due to his trauma of having watched his father commit suicide, but John is adamant about what he knows.
The father-son duo speaks with Edward Homm and asks him to tell them what he knows, but he wants to see his wife first. They help him hack into his house’s CCTV, but to Edward’s dismay, he finds that his wife is not as sad as one should be when their husband passes away. Nevertheless, Edward, who we will be calling Homm from hereon in accordance with the characters of the series, tells them that the NFTs in Valence’s data are from Elliot Gao, who is a money launderer. He is a billionaire who launders money for other billionaires by investing in rare items, specifically art. This is how Crowley moves money, and since Homm knows about it, Crowley wants him dead. Hearing this, John comes up with the plan that if they are able to disrupt the flow of money, Crowley will be forced to show himself. John figures that if Officer Madi somehow communicates to Elliot Gao that she is onto him, he will have to contact Crowley, and they will get to know who he is. He decides to use Hailey in this plan to make it work.
Hailey Goes Undercover
John needs Hailey to play a part; therefore, he decides to give her a bit of training before he puts her on task. John drives Hailey to a gas station and asks her to try shoplifting a magazine while he guides her through an earpiece. When Hailey is at the gas station, a cop enters; therefore, John makes her change tack. He asks her to make small talk with the cop so that she comes across as harmless. Hailey proceeds to do so but takes it a step further by flirting with him. Needless to say, she has successfully completed her training, and now, John dresses her up for an auction so that she may introduce herself to Elliot Gao as Jo Madi.
Hailey introduces herself to Elliot Gao as Jo Madi and reminds him that they have spoken on the phone before. She asks him when he started trading NFTs with Valence, and when Elliot tries to deny it, she points out that his emails are in Valence’s inbox. But Hailey is not able to push further since she spots her old boss, Craig Payne, and is forced to walk away. She tells John that he was the developer she worked for in Chicago, and she had stolen money from him. Basically, the developer was corrupt, and they were trying to get Hailey to cover up the fact that they were evicting poor people from their houses. When Hailey put her foot down, she was fired, and she retaliated by stealing some cryptocurrency from them. This happened a few years ago, and the value of crypto has increased since, reaching an amount of $26 million, which is what we saw Hailey checking on her phone in “Rabbit Hole” Episode 3. Hearing this, John tells Hailey to abort the mission and that they can figure out something else.
Meanwhile, Elliot is contacted by a private number asking him whether he has been speaking with the FBI. Elliot undoubtedly assumes that the message is from Crowley or someone related to him. They send Elliot a picture of him speaking with Hailey and tell him to stay put and that Crowley is coming to meet him. As for John, he notices a blue Mercedes parked outside the building and tells Hailey to go back up because she has definitely been spotted by Crowley.
Next, John calls Homm, who is still despondently looking at the CCTV of his house and at his wife moving on from him with the neighbor. John tells Homm to meet him outside the building with a clipboard. John and Homm need to access the penthouse, where the auction is taking place, and they do so by claiming to be from the Department of Buildings for an inspection. They now have to buy Hailey some extra time. Homm does that by getting into the elevator with Craig Payne’s men and then pressing each and every button on the lift so that the two have an excruciatingly slow ride. He then goes to meet John in the east stairwell.
Meanwhile, Hailey has been caught by Craig Payne and Elliot Gao, and her cover is blown. They are all just waiting for Crowley to come there. But to everyone’s surprise, when Crowley does arrive, he is none other than Ben Weir. The first thing he orders is to have Hailey gagged so that she doesn’t talk. Ben doesn’t waste any time as he starts confronting Elliot regarding whether he spoke to Jo-Madi about how they deal with money. Elliot finds himself a little tongue-tied, but at the same time, his phone is blowing up. When he takes a moment to check it, he finds a message asking for a picture of whoever is pretending to be Crowley. Ben was not Crowley. He was playing his part to get the required information. Elliot sends the picture as asked and hands Ben the phone. The next message is for Ben, saying that he has gotten old. We suspected right when we thought that Ben and Crowley knew each other from before. At this time, John shuts down the power of the building, and Ben and Hailey are able to escape.
‘Rabbit Hole’ Episode 4 Ending Explained: What Is The Purpose Of Intaverse?
At the end of “Rabbit Hole,” Episode 4, as all of them are escaping in the van, they discuss their next steps. With Ben’s cover blown, they have lost their advantage, but John believes that since Crowley doesn’t know about him, they still have a chance. Their next lead is to figure out what the Intaverse is. They had heard the word, along with something about a ledger.
Unlike John and his team, Edward Homm already knew what the Intaverse was. He told them that it was a web media company that owned a website called gettugether.com,” which allowed strangers to have an affair, and a huge chunk of DC had signed up for it. It was in the news because a Congressman was a part of it and was outed by WikiLeaks. The congressman had said that someone was blackmailing him. This leads the father and son to deduce that the website might be a way for Crowley to gather compromising information on politicians. John says that they need more people to tackle this, and he wants his team back, who are, contrary to expectations, alive. “Rabbit Hole” Episode 4 ends with a mob protesting the privatization of the Internet and Tyler and his girlfriend are a part of it.
Final Thoughts
Referencing WikiLeaks made us think back to how the notorious website has often brought powerful people to their knees by exposing their private corruption. Politics is widely regarded as the most corrupt field, yet it is the politicians who get away with some of the worst crimes we have known anyone to commit. But the most hypocritical aspect of it is probably that we judge them most harshly for what they might choose to do in their private space with another consenting adult. It is these very fallacies that Crowley is making use of, and the next few episodes of “Rabbit Hole” will tell us how our team tackles him.
