When teenager Danny Wheeler’s father brings home a stepmom right after his mother’s passing, he has difficulty accepting it. He develops negative thoughts that make him turn against his new stepmom. But what did he do that made him stand trial? “Accused” Episode 3 is another mind-bending case that makes us question who’s right and who isn’t.
Danny Wheeler is being kept in custody at a juvenile detention facility in Nassau County, New York. He is about to meet his attorney, Maria. But why is he being held? Let’s find out.
Spoilers Ahead
Doubt
Danny and his younger brother Matthew are trying to make the most of their time with their mom, who has cancer (last stage). They have brought her home along with a personal nurse, Alison. It is clear that Danny doesn’t like Alison, and it seems neither does Chester, their dog (a Coton de Tulear), who starts barking whenever he sees Alison. However, Bob, the father, comes and reminds Danny that he has to take Matthew bowling. Danny doesn’t want to, but his mother insists. Also, she needs to sleep. As they head to the bowling alley, Danny tells Matthew how he thinks Alison’s show of care is just fake. However, Matthew thinks that Alison is a good person.
At the bowling alley, Danny meets Leanna, who works at the coffee shop there. She lost her parents at a young age, after which she started living with her aunt. Naturally, this establishes a connection between Danny and Leanna, and Danny finds someone with whom he could talk freely. That night, Danny finds his mother writhing in pain. Bob is with her while Alison is adjusting the morphine. Danny isn’t able to bear hearing her mother moan and snaps at Alison for being unable to help his mom, something that she is being paid to do. Bob tells him to wait outside. A few minutes later, Alison asks both Danny and Matthew to come in and speak to their mother. It is time. Before approaching his mom, Danny takes another dig at Alison, telling her how she must be getting a hit out of their misery. Danny’s mom passes away. The next day, as Danny takes Chester out for a walk, he sees his father and Alison kiss inside their car.
Truth
Danny Wheeler meets his attorney, Maria, who has brought along Gary Weiss, a forensic psychiatrist, for a “conversation.” Danny, however, thinks that he doesn’t need a psychiatrist, and when Gary tries to come close to him and make him understand why they need to talk, he pushes Gary away. His action makes the guards grab him and put him back in his cell.
Bob has been called by Danny’s school, and Ms. Epps informs him that Danny is going to fail. Danny also enters and takes a seat beside his father. According to Ms. Epps, there are also issues other than academics that Danny developed before his mother fell ill, like irritability, outbursts, and trouble concentrating. Danny is unable to take the conversation that his teacher and father are having about his trauma and anxiety and leaves the room.
After returning home, his father tells him that Ms. Epps wants him to take the semester off. Bob tries to make Danny understand why he needs it, but he snaps back at his father, questioning his relationship with Alison. Bob decides to talk about it with both his sons and tells them that he and their mother had been talking about trial separation long before she got sick. And now, he is indeed involved with Alison. Soon, Alison moves in.
Drug
One night, as all four are having dinner together, Alison mentions that it means a lot for her to be sitting with them all. She is happy to feel that she is a part of the family too. None of her words work for Danny, who is still convinced that Alison is just evil and has intentions of her own. The next day, Danny talks about it to his new friend Leanna, telling her how it doesn’t make sense to him that she was meant to be his mother’s nurse, and now she is sleeping with his father. Leanna tries to make him understand that he needs to cut both his father and Alison some slack, as grief often messes with people’s minds. That night, at dinner, Danny tries to be nice to Alison, appreciating the food she has cooked. Bob has not yet returned from work. Danny and Matthew ask Alison about her horse-riding days. While having this conversation, Chester starts barking, and Alison decides to take him out for a walk.
As the boys do the dishes, Bob returns from work. Danny has a stomach cramp, and at the very next moment, they all hear Alison screaming for help. They rush out of the kitchen and find Alison on the floor with a bloodied Chester. A car hit him, and she couldn’t do anything. This again brings back all the rage that Danny had buried inside him, and this time he lets it out, claiming that it was Alison who killed Chester as well as his mother. As all this is happening, Danny’s cramp returns. He is ultimately taken to the hospital, where it is found that he probably had a bug. But Danny is convinced that the pain was due to something that Alison put in his food. Bob tries to tell him what he is undergoing mentally might be related to his mother’s brother Julian, who was Schizophrenic. Bob promises to get him the help he needs. Later that night, Danny hears his father and Alison arguing. While his father explains that Danny needs help as soon as possible, Alison tells him to give Danny some time as he is going through a lot.
The next morning, Alison brings Danny some oatmeal. After she leaves his room, Danny smells it and realizes that there’s something wrong with it. He decides to take it to Leanna instead. He meets her and tells her that he thinks that Alison is drugging him. Maybe she got impatient waiting for Danny’s mother to pass away and drugged her to death, and now that she has realized that Danny is onto her, she is trying to drug him too. He asks Leanna to take the oatmeal to a lab in Wesbury where they can get a full analysis done. All this is too much for Leanna, who thinks that Danny isn’t talking sense and runs away, saying she can’t help him.
‘Accused’ Episode 3: Ending Explained – What Crime Did Danny Wheeler Commit?
That night, at dinner, Danny asks his father if they can switch meals. This Alison doesn’t like and mentions how she has been trying to do better and be better, but she can’t accept being questioned all the time. Danny interprets her reaction as her disapproval at letting Bob eat Danny’s food and believes it to be proof that she has indeed mixed something in it. Danny decides to prove to his father that Alison is trying to poison him and pulls a knife at them from the kitchen. Bob and Matthew are both trying to make him understand that Alison doesn’t mean any harm, but Danny is beyond any explanation. He rushes upstairs and into Alison’s room to find the poison.
Alison, meanwhile, has already called the police. Bob follows Danny and tells him that the police are on their way and that if Alison does possess poison, then the police will find it, not him. Danny, who still has the knife in his hand, notices Alison behind his father and, in a fit of rage, rushes toward her and stabs her. At the very next moment, two policemen arrive, and finding Alison in that state with Bob attending her, they pin Danny to the ground and put handcuffs on him. Danny is arrested.
On the day of the trial, Danny’s attorney, Maria, makes him understand that the only way for him to avoid the sentence is to admit that he needs psychiatric evaluation and is thus unfit for trial. If he decides to claim that Alison was trying to poison him, no one will believe him. Then Matthew enters the room and, in tears, tries to make Danny understand that he needs to listen to Maria. Then, at the hearing, with Bob, Alison (who is alive), and Matthew behind him, Danny admits to needing a psychiatric evaluation, and the judge delays the proceedings of the case until after the results of the evaluation come out.
Six months later, Danny is at a psych ward where Alison visits him. She tells him that his father has passed away from a heart attack. When he asks her about his brother Matthew, Alison says that he is sick too. Just having to listen to this woman whose arrival at their home has brought about death and illness in his family, Danny jumps at her in a fit of rage, but before he can do any harm, the guards hold him down. Alison tells the doctor to take care of Danny’s needs. “Accused” Episode 3 ends with Alison looking down at Danny with a sadistic smile and stating that no matter how long it takes, she will never give up on him. These last words of Alison might mean that she will ensure that Danny never gets out of the psych ward.
So, do Alison’s words prove Danny’s theory to be true? Did she really kill his mother, Chester, and perhaps even his father, Bob? And even if she didn’t, did she always intend on becoming the owner of all the property that belonged to Danny’s father? Or is she a real death tourist, someone who gets a kick out of other people’s sorrows, just as Danny claimed her to be? We leave the answer to you.
