In Episode 9 of “Alaska Daily,” Roz Friendly and Eileen Fitzgerald got their hands on a voice recording of Gloria Nanmac asking her then-boyfriend Toby Crenshaw to come and get her from Skeeter’s. But the number from which the recording was pulled isn’t hers. It is imperative that Roz and Eileen find out who the number belongs to. “Alaska Daily” Episode 10 takes the two on a “ride” as they dig deeper into the case and find appalling facts. The things that come to light are shocking proofs of Alaska’s broken legal system. Can Roz and Eileen get the better of it? Let’s find out.
Spoilers Ahead
More On Plate
Toby Crenshaw, held at the Anchorage Police Department, confirms to Roz and Eileen that the unknown number is from Gloria’s other phone. The police, however, don’t have any record of it. Toby only has a week before his next hearing, and from the looks of it, things won’t turn out well unless there is some concrete proof of his innocence, which there isn’t yet. It is up to Roz and Eileen to get their hands on it.
Back at The Daily Alaskan, Gabriel and Jindahaa [Roz’s boyfriend] are making a Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) database to better enable those interested in looking into the cases and analyzing them as per requirement. It will be a huge thrust for the agency to be able to find out about the women without any trouble. But they need more hands.
Austin and his wife Anna are at their custody mediation meeting, where Anna makes it clear that she wants to take their kid Zach with her to Chicago, where he will be safe [pointing at the “concerned citizen” case] along with having better facilities and a better childhood. But Austin knows that she is just pinning what she wants for Zach on what Zach wants. Alaska is where Zach has his friends with whom he loves to learn and play, and as young as he is, it will be tough for him to adapt to an alien place. If they fail to reach a mutual agreement, they will have to fight it out in a court of law.
Progress
Roz and Eileen visit a tech friend of the former to get Gloria’s voicemail analyzed and see if they can listen to the voices in the background. After amplifying the background noise, they hear a kid who is talking to his father. This reminds Roz that Ezra Fisher [“Alaska Daily” Episode 5] stated in his alibi that on the night Gloria was at Skeeter’s, he left the place before her to get his son. If the voice is that of his son, it means that he was at Skeeter’s with his son when Gloria sent the voicemail. After returning to the office, Eileen gives Bob the unknown number and asks him to reach his contact at Teletrove Cellular [the SIM company that the number belongs to] and see if the call records can be pulled. Meanwhile, Roz visits Taylor [Ezra Fisher’s ex-girlfriend and father of her son Jackson], who confirms that the kid’s voice is Jackson’s. Ezra, too, is back in town laying internet cables (Denali Broadband). On the way to track Ezra down, Roz informs Eileen, who is in the office, about him. Since Ezra has been to different villages to lay cables, they need to find out if there have been any charges against him in these villages. Eileen asks Austin to pull his stories from Denali Broadband. They will certainly reveal the dates on which workers like Ezra were hired to install cables. She then finds out from Bob that his friend at Teletrove Cellular has denied the request for access to the records, stating that they are confidential. Eileen tells Bob to push the guy who is his friend.
Gabriel and Jindahaa have brought together a team of youngsters to help them make a presentable MMIW database by the weekend. Gabriel seems to have finally gotten over the anxiety that he was experiencing after the “concerned citizen” case. In the archives room, Austin tells Yuna about his issue with Anna, and she sympathizes with him, reassuring him that what he is trying to do for his son isn’t wrong. They end up kissing. This seems to be the beginning of the first office romance at The Daily Alaskan.
It is nighttime when Roz finally manages to find Ezra. After playing the voice of the kid and telling him that Taylor has already confirmed that it is their son Jackson, she asks him to tell the truth. Ezra doesn’t answer her, saying that she isn’t a cop. One thing is clear from this: Ezra lied in his alibi.
Digging Deep
The next day, Austin hands over his stories about Denali Broadband from the past 10 years to Roz and Eileen. There are 27 villages where internet cables have been installed. They decide to contact the Village Police Offers (VPOs) of each village and ask them about Ezra Fisher. At one point in the middle of these calls, Eileen gets a call from a guy at New York Times offering her a job and giving her time to think about it. Roz finally gets a hit from a VPO in Tuxecan. They decide to pay them a visit. But they need a plane or something, and it will be tough to get a flight sanctioned by Stanley. It’s time for Eileen to contact his “poet pilot,” Jamie. Roz and Eileen arrive at Tuxecan in Jamie’s seaplane and meet VPO Sadie Quinn. Sadie takes them to Julie, who was beaten by Ezra, after which he was charged, although Eileen and Roz didn’t find any charge sheet. Julie reveals that she had to pretend to be dead to survive the night he was arrested. There was no call from the DA, and the charges were dropped in less than 2 months.
Roz and Eileen go to the local courthouse to look into the records and find out that Ezra’s record is stored on a computer and nowhere else, not even in the state-wide database (CourtView), as a result of a law that states that it doesn’t allow courthouses to publish cases of domestic violence or even sexual assault, if the charges are dropped. It is as if the government is deliberately trying to hide such cases of assault against native women in every way possible. After the two ladies return to The Daily Alaskan, Austin shares with them the intel that he has found out about two more charges of domestic violence against Ezra, which were also dropped or dismissed in some other villages by contacting the courthouses and the local public. This establishes a pattern in Ezra’s behavior that has been removed from the database. Is there a motive behind this? We do not know yet. Roz decides to revisit Taylor.
Austin meets Anna outside the office. She has come to try and make him leave Alaska and join her in Chicago. Austin tells her that he isn’t going to leave Alaska and everything that the place has given him. He will also not let her do the same to their son Zach. In other words, the next time they see each other, it will be in court.
‘Alaska Daily’ Episode 10: Ending Explained – Was Jackson With Ezra At Skeeter’s?
Roz manages to persuade Taylor to let her talk to Jackson, who eventually confirms that his father, Ezra, was with him at Skeeter’s before leaving him at the party and driving Gloria home, or at least that’s what Ezra told his son.
Roz and Eileen meet DA David at the State Office Building and ask him about Ezra and the multiple charges against him as well as Jackson’s statement. However, David remains unconvinced, as he already has Toby’s confession on him, proving that he was the one who killed Gloria. Moreover, Toby is entering a plea of guilty in a week. In no way does it seem possible to save Toby Crenshaw despite there being clear evidence of how the law is prejudiced against indigenous women in the way it tries to put an end to the cases where they are the victim without deploying proper proceedings to find the one guilty of violence/assault. Once back at The Daily Alaskan, Stanley gives Eileen and Roz a go to publish their article addressing the whole issue.
Gabriel, Jindahaa, and their team have completed their database and revealed it to all the others on the screen in the newsroom. It shows that in the last 100 years, thousands of indigenous women have gone missing. As far as Anchorage is considered, one native woman goes missing every week. This is an extraordinary breakthrough for The Daily Alaskan. As they all get back to work after this, Bob hands over to Eileen a file containing the records of the unknown number from which Gloria sent the voicemail. It shows that the last call she made was on November 30 to 911. This is weird, as she went missing on the 28th of the same month. This means she was alive for at least 2 days after disappearing. They need the recording of her call to 911. That is of the utmost importance as it will reveal what happened to her in her own words. That is the truth.
While Eileen and Roz know that they need the recording of Gloria’s call to 911, it is possible that it has already been deleted. However, they need to try to get their hands on it, and we can be pretty sure that the inquiry for the recording will bring more things to light that the ladies may find shocking. Ezra Fisher did something fishy, if not wrong, and he needs to be questioned for it. Maybe a good Samaritan at the police station will help them. Episode 10 doesn’t address the fight of the Pritchards over the land at Hockley Mountains. “Alaska Daily” Episode 11, the Season Finale, will do that as well as bring an end to this long and tiring search for the truth behind the murder of Gloria Nanmac. We will also get to know if Eileen Fitzgerald leaves The Daily Alaskan for The New York Times.
