Apple TV’s newest mystery thriller series, “The Last Thing He Told Me,” premiered its third episode today, and Olivia Newman’s show is starting to put a little more effort into ensuring audience retention. However, unless the show manages to maintain the pace or doesn’t speed up things, it’ll lose out on viewership soon enough. In the last episode, Jennifer Garner’s character Hannah Hall took her stepdaughter Bailey to Austin, Texas, to search for more details regarding Hannah’s husband and Bailey’s dad, Owen Michaels (Nikolaj Coster Waldau), after he went missing. Now, as the two women go from place to place looking for clues that’ll help explain the situation they find themselves in, a call from the lawyer/ ex-boyfriend of Hannah, Jake Davies, reveals something rather shocking. Here’s everything that happens in the latest episode of Apple TV’s “The Last Thing He Told Me.”
Spoilers Ahead
The Plane Ride
On their way to Austin in the plane, Hannah heads to the washroom, where she’s once again hit by flashbacks of the things her husband Owen had said to her, this time inside a movie hall. Hannah had brought two buckets of popcorn for Bailey and her friend Suzie, and the stepdaughter considered the behavior extra, but Owen later told her that he believed Hannah would be the best thing for his daughter, and he knew it. While coming out of the washroom, she finds several passengers reading the articles about The Shop being torn apart for fraudulent activities. When she sits down beside Bailey, she notices the young girl feeling cold and offers her her jacket, and Bailey says thanks but is still not very confident about Hannah. Bailey flatly says this journey will be futile if Hannah hopes to make Bailey remember all the things from her childhood by taking her to the stadium, as she plans to. To make matters worse, when the flight attendant notices Bailey’s snappy attitude and says the attendant also has a teenage daughter, Bailey retorts she’s not Hannah’s daughter. She really isn’t making it easy for Hannah, is she?
The Voice Note From Jake
While heading to the hotel, Bailey gets a voicemail from Bobbby that she ignores and then tells Hannah that Owen hadn’t called either one of them and when they’re getting off the taxi in front of the hotel, Hannah stays back for a little longer upon receiving two voicemails, one from Jules and another from a blocked contact. The blocked contact is Jake, the ex-boyfriend/ lawyer she’d contacted in the previous episode, who strongly advises Hannah to call him back at the earliest because the FBI might’ve something on Owen or they believe they’ve something incriminating about her. Thus, unless she appears before the FBI quickly, they’ll start viewing her as equally hostile as Owen. Hannah is already weirded out listening to this voice note when she notices a man standing near the footpath, looking in her direction but then walking away.
Bailey’s Memories
Hannah checks in using the credit card of someone named Max Parnes while a strange man walks up to the deck in front of her and Owen’s home and clicks a few pictures before walking away. This whole activity was spied on by Grady Bradford, the US Marshal, who had handed Hannah his contact number scribbled on a napkin. Back in Austin, the two women have arrived at the stadium, and Hannah wants to head inside and have a look around and asks Bailey to join. When the teen asks if she has a choice otherwise, Hannah says Bailey will always have a choice to do something else when with her stepmother. Even after sitting at the stadium for a while, Bailey can’t remember anything, and she’s leaving when she spots an orange finger pointer, which triggers some deep memories in her. She remembers going up the stairs holding Owen’s hand and watching the entire stadium erupted in celebration and someone fluttering the orange finger pointer as Owen lifted the little Bailey in the air. She blurts out a horde of information, including remembering Owen was wearing a suit and she wore a dress, and they might’ve come to the game from a wedding, but the details are janky in her mind. Later, Bailey adds that Owen seemed to have loved the game, even though he’s known not to be a fan of football.
Avett’s Threats
Hannah calls Jules and asks her for all the churches near the stadium within a 2-mile radius and a list of every weekend home game during the 2011 season. While Jules gathers the info, Max takes over and informs Hannah that the investigation might now indict every senior staff member, but Han notices a black sedan slowly driving by and hangs up because she can’t find Bailey. She begins running, shouting Bailey’s name until she spots a building named Bass Concert Hall and walks into a hall to find Bailey watching the practice. She suddenly grabs Bailey’s hand, startling her, and says it’s imperative that the two stick together. Bailey regrets that her solo was to happen today, and she’d had so many ideas, but it’s probably futile to worry about such things now. However, Hannah assures her that they’ll be able to resume their lives after all this is over and consoles the teen, saying her father will come back despite her concerns.
Jules calls back with the list of churches, and while Hannah and Bailey are heading towards the first, Han gets a call from a blocked number, and it’s Belle, the wife of The Shop’s CEO, Avett. The CEO takes over the phone and asks Han to get him in touch with her husband, and first, he says his company is being set up and then claims he’s not going to sacrifice everything for an accounting mishap. When Hannah begins asking questions, Avett says it’s best for Owen to get in touch with Avett’s lawyers, given his history. This concerns Hannah, and when she asks what history he means, the CEO avoids the topic and asks her to ensure her husband talks to Avett’s lawyers at the earliest. When Bailey asks what Avett wanted, Hannah begrudgingly lets on that he was probably trying to threaten them and maybe hiding something; additionally, the man was surprised that Owen fled instead of hiding with the CEO. Han also figures out that Avett wanted to give the impression that Owen has something to hide and he’s got some leverage over Bailey’s dad.
The Church
Bradford is sitting near Owen’s home and making note of everyone who visits, including Bailey’s boyfriend Bobby, as Hannah and her visit the third church, and the teen finally remembers something. The sound of a bell tolling takes her back to 2011 when she was in the church attending the wedding and tried grabbing the festoons and confetti that was flying in the air, and Owen had helped her up. However, the records lady refuses to help, more so because Bailey keeps getting impatient. Hannah steps in and appeals to the Churchgoing woman’s sense of decency to get her to help her fellow human in trouble, and she agrees to help. Hannah must take a call from Jake, who says The Shop COO Jordan has been indicted, and things look bad for Owen. He adds that unless Han appears before the FBI, the organization can charge her with multiple cases, which will further complicate things for Owen’s daughter. Hannah informs him that Avett had called with possible knowledge about something damaging regarding her husband, which is why the lawyer asks her to talk to someone at the earliest because she doesn’t know anything about Owen’s past. However, noises coming from inside make Hannah hang up and head in to find the records lady repeatedly saying that the church was closed for the fall of 2011 and reopened in March next year, while Bailey keeps arguing that she was in there for a wedding. When Hannah returns, the woman offers to call them if she remembers anything, and Bailey huffs off in anger.
Hannah’s Memories
After nightfall, the man who was clicking pictures of Owen’s house returns and begins unlocking the front door when Grady shines a flashlight on him. The man introduces himself as Eric Cousins, The Shop’s head of security, and says that Avett is worried about Owen’s safety. The Marshal threatens to have Avett’s bail revoked if he sends anyone else to Owen’s house before shooing off the stranger, and then proceeds to enter Owen’s house himself using a spare key. While searching around the house, Grady finally arrives at Hannah’s bedroom, brings out the hidden bag, and unveils the several wads of cash inside it. Elsewhere, Hannah prepares dinner for Bailey and begins suggesting other places they can look for information to find out about Owen, but the young girl loses her temper and once again leaves the room, reminding Hannah of a time she’d argued with Owen and stormed out of their home. When she’d approached her husband, Owen said that he’d immediately said no when Bailey asked his permission to visit Bobby’s family’s boat, and he argued that she’s barely 16 and they won’t have any supervision. He discusses with her how he’ll have to accept the reality that soon enough, Bailey will be doing what she wants, and her father won’t be able to make her listen to his concerns. In the hotel, Hannah thinks of the time when Owen told her that there’d come a time when he couldn’t protect Bailey any longer. Her reverie is broken by a call from Jules, and Han tells her friend to head to Owen’s place. There’s a piggy bank she wants Jules to look at, which was probably called L. Paul—the same name that Owen’s password-protected file on the laptop had as a hint.
While sitting on the balcony, Bailey gets a text from Bobby, and upon calling him, he tells her that she’s not the talk of the school anymore, and she informs him that she’s at Austin. She adds that her stepmother may not be as horrible as she’d considered her to be. Meanwhile, Jules gathers Bobby’s package from Owen’s front door, enters their home, and finds the piggy bank. She’s barely about to extract a key from the piggy when she hears footsteps upstairs and threatens that she’s called 911, and Jake answers. They’re apparently acquaintances, and Jake tells her that he’s got to speak to Hannah about something, and he needs to tell it to her directly. She asks him to tell her first because she’s the one who knows where Hannah is.
What Does Jake Davies Tell Hannah About Owen?
Hannah, is booking flight tickets back to Austin and fidgeting through the notes she’d made in her diary when she gets a call from Jules. She hands the phone to Jake, who tells Hannah that he’s heard back from the private investigator he’d hired to do some digging about Owen, and what he brought back was shocking. Although there are several Owen Michaels who grew up in Massachusetts, some of whom attended Princeton University, the only Owen Michaels who matches every detail as Hannah’s husband is 78 years old and currently lives in Provincetown with his partner, Theo Silverstein. Additionally, there’s no marriage license for Owen Michaels and Olivia Miller, and there’s no proof that the two ever owned property in Seattle. While Hannah is already bewildered by this stream of information, Jake adds that there’s nothing on Bailey either; the investigator couldn’t find a birth certificate for Bailey Michaels, born in the early 2000s, in any of the hospitals in Seattle, and neither is there a preschool registration. In fact, before Sausalito, the place where the Michaels currently live, there was no record of Owen or Bailey, meaning the two identities technically didn’t exist.
