The fourth episode of Showtime’s passion project, the TV series version of the 1987 thriller Fatal Attraction, dropped today, and it’s as interesting and engaging as all three of its previous episodes. So far, we’ve seen DA Dan Gallagher’s affair with Alex Forrest go sour, following which Alex, who’s clearly unhinged, did some rather shocking things to get Dan’s attention. In this episode, we witness a member of Dan’s family almost dying, and if it’s proven that this was Alex’s doing, we’ll know beyond a doubt that not even murder is beneath her to get what she wants.
Spoilers Ahead
The Memories Of The Past
In Fatal Attraction Episode 4, we start seeing things from Beth’s perspective and how she started noticing the weird changes in her husband Dan’s behavior ever since she returned from her weekend trip. She found the house to be smelling of lemon flowers and wondered why Dan had called the cleaning guys even before they moved, and at night she was surprised to find a woman’s earring in their pet dog Quincy’s droppings. Later, we see Beth’s side when Dan calls her to lie about some case he’s had to attend, as she works with Arthur, her best friend and business partner. It’s the same man she’d get married to after the fiasco with Dan happened. We see Beth living her life, taking care of her daughter Ellen, sitting on the edge of their new swimming pool watching Dan swim, and dancing on her own while setting up their new house, and honestly, it feels sad to know the woman is unaware of how her husband is having an affair behind her back. One night, when Arthur and his wife Julia come over for dinner, Beth notices Dan constantly rejecting calls from someone, and even this strikes her as odd. Slowly, the doubts in her mind about her husband keep snowballing.
At the court, Dan mediates a case where he helps a young lawyer named Jorge take on a big case, although this earns the ire of another detective named Earl Brooker, and it’s obvious that he’s not a fan of DA Gallagher. Meanwhile, Beth is hosting an open house where people are coming over to look at their old home and consider buying it, when Alex Forrest turns up. Beth doesn’t know her and strikes up a conversation with the mysterious woman when Dan returns, and Alex says she knows him. Beth connects all the dots and later sits all alone in her new home, wondering if her husband would truly go behind her back and have an affair. She can’t talk about it to anyone, but Arthur picks up on her sadness and shares that his wife is suffering from an advanced stage of cancer, which acts as exposition as to how Arthur could start a life with Beth.
A Murder Attempt?
In his office, Mike is mad at Dan after the attorney came clean to the detective about his affair. Mike also suggests his friend sit tight and not react to Alex destroying his car with nitric acid because that’d tell Alex that she could get to him. One morning, Beth and her dad leave to buy furniture for her new house, leaving her mom to take care of the house, and she entrusts her with closing the door so that Quincy doesn’t escape. When Beth returns, she can’t find Quincy anywhere, and Ellen comes back from school, saying nobody has picked her up. While looking around for her dog, Beth thinks he must’ve drowned in the swimming pool, and she jumps in to save him, only to find it’s her mother. When Dan arrives, Beth shares her suspicion that her mother had gotten drunk and fallen into the water, but he suspects Alex is behind it. Of course, Beth’s mother survives, thanks to her prompt action in dragging her out of the water. Dan calls Mike about his suspicions, and he promises to go talk to her.
The Confession
That night, Mike visits Alex and hints at her needing to stay away from Dan’s family and also asks if she plans to divulge the affair to Dan’s wife. Alex says she doesn’t think she’ll have to say anything, and like clockwork, Dan says he needs to confess something to Beth. Although we don’t see what he says, it’s obvious that he comes clean about his affair because he can’t keep it hidden any longer, with Alex starting to act up so severely.
The Present Times
Ellen is having a hard time focusing on her studies and life because her father’s situation weighs heavily on her. She speaks to her therapist, who suggests some things she can tell her mother, Beth, because Ellen wants to know how her mother felt when she found out about her husband’s infidelity. While speaking to her professor as well, Ellen says her dad has claimed to be innocent of the crime he is behind bars for, though she can’t say for certain what the reality is. Ellen tries sitting down with her mother to ask her about her thoughts after her husband’s affair came to light, but in the end, she fumbles and says she loves Beth.
Dan is preparing for a job interview, and he’s nervous because he’s never had to interview for a position in his life. Even after 15 years, Mike turns out to be the only real friend Dan has had, from letting the former DA live at Mike’s mom’s home to lending him with his favorite tie. Dan goes for an interview with Frank, the prosecutor of Dan’s case 15 years ago, and is utterly humiliated. Frank makes it a point to remind Dan just how much he loathes the former DA, and while he’s walking back, he finds Mike waiting for him. Together, they go to meet Dr. Paul Halliwell, Alex’s neighbor, who is now in prison for dealing in counterfeit drugs.
Halliwell explains that his fingerprints were found in Alex’s apartment because they were friends, but he had to move out because Alex was consuming his entire life. She’d copy his laugh and the way he wrote with his left hand, and it seemed like she was intent on stealing Paul’s personal traits. This made Paul feel claustrophobic as his whole personality was being taken over and he wanted to escape, and while listening to him, Dan realized just how true everything Paul said was and how Alex did the same with him. Outside, Mike and Dan plan their course of action and consider setting up a case where they can show that many shady individuals used to arrive at the building because Halliwell dealt in drugs, and one of them could’ve killed Alex. Later, Dan arrives at an attorney’s office, where he meets Jorge, and the man immediately hires Dan as a paralegal, no questions asked, as a thank you for giving him a chance to lead the case all those years ago.
Why Does Dan Need To Talk To Gabriel Ibarra?
Dan visits Conchita, Victim’s Advocate and his old friend from before, who ultimately sided against Dan during his case. Conchita says she didn’t take Dan’s side because he blamed Alex, the victim, for her death. This was the sign that everyone trying to lay blame would do so naturally, Conchita considered Dan to be guilty. She does share that another person lodged an unofficial complaint against Alex because she was harassing him after they’d had an affair. Dan pleads with Conchita to give him the name of the man who lodged the complaint and chastises her for not giving him this information 15 years ago, but Conchita once again says that she considered him guilty. As it turns out, this man was the courthouse bailiff, Gabriel Ibarra, and Dan’s next course of action would be meeting this man.
Dan realizes that he had never been alone in the way he’d been harassed and stalked by the sociopath Alex, who clearly had a pattern of stalking people whom she’d get close to. If Dan could gather something of value from Gabriel, he could strengthen his case to show that there were many more like him who were constantly facing threats from Alex, and any one of them could’ve killed her. Although his case is still in its infant stages, this is still a big chunk of information he can use to show that he’s not the monster Conchita, Frank, and the DA’s office had paraded him as 15 years ago. Whether Dan is successful in finding Gabriel after all these years or not, we’ll need to wait until next week’s episode of Fatal Attraction to find out.
Episode 4 Review
The makers are doing justice to the characters by presenting Alex as a sociopath who doesn’t even consider murder to be beneath her. We can also see how Dan is still trying to shift blame after all these years and is still not willing to accept that his approach to the whole thing was flawed and he could’ve avoided destroying so many lives had he made better choices. From the amazing usage of makeup to show just how beaten and tired the old Dan is to presenting Alex as the sultry and mysterious woman who draws people’s attention, the makeup team is doing a great job. Even the camera angles differ between the two timelines as we see Dan presented at the center of the events in his prime, while later on, he’s been pushed to the sidelines. To see how the characters develop with episodes, we need to trust the makers, who’ve done a fabulous job so far.
