The international espionage series “Liaison” dropped its third episode on Apple + today, and things are heating up in all the involved countries now. The last time we saw Gabriel Delage, he was heading to Paris with Alison’s phone, and Walid Hamza was dead, while his cousin Samir had found refuge with other Syrians in Dunkirk, France. Now, as Gabriel searches for Samir, Alison heads to Belgium to help the UK enter the cybersecurity deal, but things never go according to plan. With the UK experiencing another cyberattack and Sabine Louseau determined to stop Alison from helping the UK enter the EU Cybersecurity, there’s tension on every shore. With quite a few dangerous secrets being spilled in this episode, here’s a detailed breakdown of “Liaison” Episode 3.
Spoilers Ahead
Another Mission For Gabriel
In the dive bar that Gabriel visits in Paris, his boss Alain Duman chews him out for establishing contact once more with Alison Rowdy, who apparently destroyed Gabriel’s life to secure a healthy one for herself. Apparently, she testified against him and sent him to prison and also blamed him for the death of a woman named Nathalie, but Gabriel insists that he’s moved on and doesn’t find Alison attractive anymore. The next morning, Duman shows Gabriel the location of Samir’s wife, Myriam Hamza, who’s currently in Belgium, and then informs him about Duman’s client, Didier Taraud, the head of the National Security Services in Elysse. Additionally, Duman asks Gabriel to meet with Taraud’s mistress and EU employee Sabine Louseau and try to find out more information about him, if possible. After a brief haggling session over higher pay for a riskier job, Gabriel sets out to meet Sabine. Meanwhile, Alison’s boyfriend Albert proposes marriage.
Gabriel intentionally meets Sabine and chats her up with his devilish French charm, and she’s soon talking about her likes and dislikes with him while Alison and Mark Bolton head to Brussels to sign the deal with the EU. The two are on their way to get the signature done when Sabine meets them and announces that they can be a part of the discussion to see if they can join the European Cybersecurity Initiative, but they can’t meet Vandermeer because he’s in Berlin. Bolton is annoyed and leaves Alison, saying he has a meeting to attend. Gabriel arrives at the refugee detention center in Brussels and is able to fool the authorities and secure an audience with Myriam. He makes her believe that she’ll be granted French citizenship along with her son Hicham, but they have to come with Gabriel immediately. After a bit of contemplation, Myriam agrees and is going to collect her son when two men in hazmat suits try kidnapping her. The commotion alerts Gabriel, who rushes in and takes the men down, and sets the mob on them before fleeing with Myriam and her son. He’s about to start his car when two more men attack him, and even though he fights them off, a third man tasers Gabriel. Although he turns the engine on, he’s barely conscious, so Myriam has to drive the car with one hand while comforting the crying Hicham with the other as the attackers chase them. Gabriel’s car draws to a stop a little way off, and Myriam calls Alison from his phone, and she rushes to his aid.
Elsewhere, Bolton heads to a lavish apartment to meet the man called Bob, whom we last saw in Episode 2 opposite Taraud. When Bolton says he didn’t want to be a part of something that led to the deaths of British citizens, Bob says they’re in the big race: they want everything from civilian contracts to military ones with the UK Government. Bolton understands that the crash was a planned event and storms out, saying he’s done with men like Bob, and if he’s harmed, there’s a file that’ll be sent to the authorities.
Alison gets Myriam and Hicham a room in the hotel she’s staying at and clarifies to Myriam that Gabriel helped her to safety, even if he had to hide his identity. She then helps remove the pins from Gabriel’s back, and they almost kiss yet again, but she steps out of the washroom. When he comes out, Alison tells him that she wants to be done with her past and that her memories with Gabriel aren’t of the happy kind. She thinks she can’t be friends or anything else with Gabriel because she has a boyfriend whom she loves “tremendously” and will be getting married to. She says she hates who she was previously, and it’s too late for anything to happen between her and Gabriel again. Later, she watches Gabriel play with Hicham and smiles to see how good he is with the children.
At night, Alison is woken up by a phone call from Richard Banks, who tells her that yet another hack is underway and that, this time, the entire London power grid is failing. As power constantly fluctuates throughout the city, Banks asks her to get the deal done as soon as possible. The next morning, Bolton and Alison head to the EU and are once again stopped by Sabine, who continues that Vandermeer isn’t back, and as Bolton keeps arguing with her, Alison heads upstairs. She finds him in his office and says that the UK needs to join the European Cybersecurity Systems at the earliest, and Vandermeer says he can sign the papers at 8 p.m. Alison agrees to meet him at the specified time with Bolton. When Sabine informs Taraud that she failed to stop Alison and they’ll be signing the deal anyway, he asks her to stay away and not argue, given the massive amount of money he has deposited for her in the Swiss bank. He insults her for giving birth to a son with physical defects and hangs up on her. Sabine calls Gabriel and asks to meet, and soon, Alison meets Gabriel’s eyes as he’s helping Sabine board the taxi to her apartment.
Death In Brussels
Back in the UK, DI Hobbs visits Albert and shows him security footage of Gabriel heading to Walid’s room dressed as a doctor, soon to be followed by Alison. She also informs him that Gabriel didn’t kill Walid, however, and that he had been given a drug that took 24 hours to work. In the video, the Frenchman is seen leaving the hospital room where Walid was being treated, exactly 45 seconds later, so it’s curious why Alison didn’t say anything about meeting another man later, Albert. The Frenchman in question heads to Sabine’s apartment, and the two make passionate love while Alison spots Bolton walking on the other side of the road. As the appointment time draws near, Bolton is nowhere to be found, and Vandermeer learns that Sabine also can’t be present due to some personal reasons. Frustrated that the man she still has some feelings for is with a woman she has come to candidly dislike, she heads to the washroom to wipe her tears off. In the mirror, she spots two men and is immediately terrified to think they’re here to kill her, but they fix their clothes and leave. She spots a shoe in the last cubicle and creeps to the stall, only to find Bolton hanging by the neck from his tie.
‘Liaison’ Episode 3: Ending Explained – What Does Alison Rowdy Discover In The Washroom?
After trying her very best not to let the deal slip through their fingers, Alison manages to convince Vandermeer to sign the deal to let the UK rejoin the European Union with cybersecurity protection. However, at the very last moment, she found her colleague hanging, and it was obviously not a suicide. Of course, she doesn’t know as of yet what role Bolton had to play in the recent events—the ones that got him killed—but it’s very clear that he was the British link to the recent cyber-attacks and why he didn’t want to act when the initial warnings began. When he tried backing out upon learning that his shady business partners caused the deaths of British people, he was killed to ensure his silence. We also understand the motives men like Bob and Taraud might have behind the whole deal—they want to sign contracts with the UK ministry to provide private cybersecurity, but there’s certainly some bigger interest at play, which shall be revealed in the later episodes.
Each week also reveals a bit more about the backstory of Alison and Gabriel, and this week we find out that she ruined the man’s life by testifying against him and sending him to prison. However, she still has feelings left for Gabriel and obviously cares for him, which is why she rushes to his assistance and helps him with the injuries but establishes boundaries later on. She wants to end things with Gabriel, but he leaves with Sabine when she calls. Watching the man she loved with another woman, who’s trying to stand in the way of the UK’s cybersecurity, frustrates her, and Alison is moved to tears. We’ll learn if she confronts either of the two in the following episodes, but for now, the man she’s about to marry has found something incriminating about her, so there’s trouble brewing for her back at her home.
