Remember how in our recap of Episode 5, we spoke about how it was an episode that was just not required? We are bordering on that opinion for “Rabbit Hole” Episode 6 as well, but we are holding ourselves back because we are waiting for the coming episodes to confirm that it was not an exercise in futility. Coming to the episode itself, as expected, John blames Ben for the deaths of John’s team members. There is also a romantic development that we just can’t get behind. It feels forced and unnecessary. We would have preferred that John and Hailey remain friends who flirt instead of actually becoming involved with each other. They only had that energy. Also, what is the point of Hailey in the grand scheme of things? We will admit that the way she is vying for John’s trust is suspicious to us, considering that it should be the other way around, as he is the one who got her into this mess. If, by the end of “Rabbit Hole” Season 1, we haven’t found that Hailey is some sort of double agent, we will be forced to conclude that she was a part of the cast for some sort of gender quota. Now let’s make sense of this week’s episode.
Spoilers Ahead
What Happened In 1983?
In this flashback, we see Ben with another colleague of his working on a mission in Central America. They are disposing of a body that belonged to El Comrade Generalissimo, and the colleague, who we are assuming is Crowley, is angry. They had been manipulating the man for months, but right at the nick of time, he died of a heroin overdose. This meant that they wouldn’t be able to get the president they wanted that year. The assumed Crowley is also angry because he believes that it is only a matter of time before Arana (a man who they have put in a position of power) starts figuring out that he can control way more than anybody is letting him believe. Crowley wonders why they don’t take power for themselves when they are the ones who understand how to manipulate it best. But the current problem is that there is another person in the room with them, and they don’t know what to do with him. The flashback ends here. It is possible that the colleague is Crowley or that he is someone else entirely. Ben calls the colleague Langley, but maybe he becomes Crowley going forward. Maybe the death of El Comrade or something about the other boy in the room starts a chain of events that led things to where they were. These are questions that may get answered in the upcoming episodes.
How Do John And His Team Steal Evidence Against Nora From The Vault?
In the present day, John is angry with his father and has lost any trust in him that he might have had. He blames him for the death of his team, and though it is a little unfair, it cannot be denied that Ben should not have kept his son in the dark for so long. Meanwhile, Senator Nora Evers, who gets funds from Crowley, is a staunch supporter of the Data Act. This is the legislation that would allow the government to keep an eye on everyone’s data. There are riots breaking out across the city, led by youngsters who are staunchly against it. In “Rabbit Hole” Episode 5, we saw Kyle and his girlfriend, Eliza, go to one of these rallies.
Currently, John is on the next part of his plan, which is to get to Crowley. He has reluctantly involved his father, but he makes it clear that their relationship is not what it used to be. Either way, their current plan involves getting Nora Evers in the wrong car. She meets John there, who tells her to lead him to Crowley if she doesn’t want him to expose that her campaign is being funded by corrupt money. But Nora doesn’t take the bait. She lets John know that whatever he is threatening her with doesn’t hold a candle to what Crowley is holding over her, and she would rather follow his instructions than John’s. That is when John offers to get her whatever Crowley has on her, and then she could help him. With the help of Edward Homm, they deduce that the incriminating materials are stored in 1550 Girard, a private depository for the suspicious money of rich people. Nora agrees to the plan, but she wants one of her own team members, Mr. Heston, to be a part of it.
Coming to the plan itself, John wants his father to be in the van with Homm, but he gives Hayley a more prominent role to play. He needs $20 million of her stolen money to act as an excuse to get to the vaults where the evidence against Nora is located. By the way, Homm says they must be Scheiße tapes. When we looked up the word, we found that it is German for “shit.” We were trying to figure out if there was some other meaning to it, but Hailey’s expression of “ewww” made us think we should go with the literal translation and conclude that it was one of Nora Evers’ kinks. When John asks Hailey for the money, the way she responds makes us think she is taking the lessons from “Inception” really seriously. But John helps her break out of it by giving her a legitimate choice, saying she doesn’t have to do it. That is when she comes fully on board.
The plan depends on the security apparatus of the depository. The people have to stick to a specific route, a deviation from which sets off the alarm. John has visited with Mr. Heston before, and he has taken a picture of the master key that the escort holds. He has made his own key with it. A single vault needs two keys to open it: one that the client has and another that the escort carries. John has to pick one lock while using the master on the other. Once in front of the vault, they would have to distract the escort while John switched cases and got the case in Nora’s vault. Additionally, he has another use for Hailey. She is going to act as a customer for the depository, and during the time they are carrying out their plan, she will help with the distraction. She would use an infrared laser pen and flash it on the tiles, not on her route, which would cause the doors to shut down. When that happened, Mr. Heston would fake claustrophobia and distract their escort while John did his job. The plan goes off without a hitch. But before John can get back to his truck, he is ambushed by someone in cahoots with Heston, and the case is stolen. But John was prepared for this. He had walked out with a decoy. The real case is still in the vault, which John and his group safely retrieve. When Nora sees that she has lost, she agrees to John’s terms.
Why Does Crowley Kill Senator Nora Evers?
Before Nora can meet John, she is shot dead at her rally by Eliza Wells, Kyle’s girlfriend. We had previously seen that he took her to a different rally organized by those against the Data Act, where there were calls to “kill the master.” Kyle had acted as if he understood it to mean that they should kill Nora Evers, who was the biggest supporter of the legislation. Eliza had not wanted him to go, but she had been brainwashed by him enough that she agreed to help him as long as he did not leave her alone. She was the one to pull the trigger that killed Nora Evers. Later, Kyle reveals to her that he and the people he worked for had carefully selected her according to a profile they had. They wanted a girl who was lonely and felt passionate about political issues. Add some mental health issues to the mix, and they had someone they could manipulate. Kyle had been switching out Eliza’s medications for six months, making her all the more susceptible to his games. He had played it by dishing out love and abuse as and when he needed to. Now that she had fulfilled her purpose, he strangled her to death.
In the end, John figures out that Nora’s death served the purpose of gaining support for the Data Act. She had become the primary force behind it when the other politicians against it dropped out of the race and the campaign one by one. That was undoubtedly Crowley’s doing. Now that she had become the face of the Data Act, her assassination would undoubtedly be blamed on the people fighting against it. This would set the public’s sentiment against them, and there would be support for the Data Act. Once it was passed, Crowley would have free rein to do whatever he wanted because he would have data on every citizen out there. When Nora was killed, even Mr. Heston was murdered to tie up all loose ends. Once again, John is left with no leads to follow, and he must scramble in the dark. That becomes even more twisted when he receives a message.
‘Rabbit Hole’ Episode 6 Ending: Is Valence Alive?
In Episode 1, we saw that John used to communicate with someone through a gaming app. In Episode 6, we saw that he continued sending messages on it even though he didn’t get a reply anymore. Hailey sees his phone and believes those are messages to Valence. She is concerned since he is sending messages to a dead person. But at the end of “Rabbit Hole” Episode 6, when John receives a message back saying that he had no choice but to do what he did, he is stumped. We cannot assume that Valence is alive, but maybe the person he was talking to was someone else. This remains to be seen.
Final Thoughts
As intriguing as it all is, we would like to see John get the better of Crowley at least once. He has been one step behind Crowley for far too long. Maybe balancing the scales a bit can make this a little more thrilling. And frankly, there is a lot of tension between Ben and John. They need to figure out a more effective way of communicating with each other. Other than this, we believe it is all good, and the episode might give us some more to go by.
