It’s another summer, and we have another British thriller with the most English-sounding name in the title. Jokes aside, episode 1 of Who Is Erin Carter? seems to show some potential thrills and looks to be a decent thriller in this saturated genre. Evin Ahmad does a great job at playing the leading lady—a desperate mother and a badass. Ahmad keeps our attention through the 50-something-minute episode, and the first episode is action-packed. Although the show doesn’t seem to bring anything new to the table, it definitely doesn’t seem like a waste of time, and we’re hoping it gets better as it progresses. Let’s get straight into Who Is Erin Carter? episode 1.
Spoilers Ahead
What Happens In The Episode?
A woman rests with her young daughter in an inn somewhere in England. It looks like she’s fleeing someone, and she tells her young daughter that they’re going away to a new place where it’s always hot and she can have ice cream every day. Five years later, they’re in Barcelona, and Erin, the woman, is a teacher at an international school there. She’s married a man named Jordi, whom Harper, her daughter, doesn’t quite call dad yet. They seem to be getting along well until Harper, who is part of a musical, gets insulted by one of the boys and throws a mean punch at him. She gets thrown out of the musical for it, and Erin decides to take her back home immediately. On the way, Harper needs to pee, so she stops over at a supermarket. Erin explains to Harper that violence and cuss words are not the right answers. The store is supposed to be shutting down in 2 minutes, but when mother and daughter step out of the washroom, it looks like something is amiss. Quickly, Erin notices some blood on the floor and realizes that there are some robbers in the supermarket holding everyone hostage.
She hides Harper behind some oranges, but one of the robbers notices when an orange falls down. Suddenly, Erin is fighting the robber and is able to hold her own, making it clear this isn’t her first time. She tackles the large man for his gun, and while they’re fighting for it, it goes off. The man’s been shot in the stomach, and Harper watched everything go down. The other robber runs away at the sound of sirens. At the hospital, Jordi shows deep concern for Erin and Harper, but somehow, they seem rather fine despite everything they went through. Erin has a look at the robber who got shot. He had recognized her in the supermarket before going unconscious. Now, he looks at her in the hospital and calls her Kate. Talking to her makes him very anxious, and he dies from a heart attack.
The next morning, Erin heads out for a run and then stops by the house of the kid who triggered Harper into beating him up. Erin wants to speak to his mother because she wants to apologize for Harper and make sure there’s no bad blood between them. She ends up seeing the woman in a compromising position with her tennis instructor, and so she runs back without talking to her. At home, Jordi tells her that she should take a break from work, but she says there’s an evaluation real soon to make her a permanent teacher, so she can’t mess that up. Erin’s neighbor Emilio is seen sleeping in his car, and Erin sends him to Jordi for a cup of coffee. They happen to be best friends and neighbors, so Emilio warns the wife of his friend that she should take care after what happened in the supermarket.
Erin finds out that Penelope, the other kid’s mother, has asked for Harper to be expelled, but because of what happened in the supermarket, Erin is being praised everywhere. Emilio tells Erin in school that she has an interview with an inspector the next day, and she should be really careful with what she says. He shows her the surveillance camera footage from the supermarket and informs her that the other robber is still on the loose. Erin takes his advice and gets back to work. In the night, the family heads to Penelope’s house for her birthday party, and Erin tries to talk her out of her complaint against Harper, but she refuses to listen. When they head home, they notice the lights on, and Erin fears the worst because she made sure to shut them before leaving. Fortunately, it’s all safe in the house, and they just go to sleep.
In the interview, the inspector instigates the idea that Erin killed the robber in the hospital because he believes she shot him on purpose. Erin jumps into convulsions and cusses at the inspector, only to find out that there’s no CCTV evidence from the supermarket. Emilio made sure of that, but Erin didn’t know why. While driving back home, Erin feels like someone is chasing them and drives Harper to the beach. It seems Harper is going to go blind eventually due to a medical condition, so she always needs to wear glasses, specifically glasses to protect her eyes from the sun. Harper admits that she likes school and doesn’t want to be expelled. She also doesn’t want to leave Spain. Erin meets Penelope after and tells her that she filmed her having sex with her tennis coach, so she should retract her complaint. Penelope concedes because of the threat, but she tells Erin she’s making a mistake.
Why Is Emilio Helping Erin?
In the school musical, Erin spots a familiar face in the audience. She walks out, and Erin follows, thinking she’s lost. Erin points her in the direction of the washroom, but the woman turns back and says she knows her as Kate. The woman tells Erin that she’s robbing supermarkets all because of what Erin did in the past. She believes Erin is in possession of something important, and if she gives it to her, she will leave Erin alone. She then tells Erin that she’s going to take Harper away to prove that Kate is still around, and that’s when things get super violent, ending with the woman dead. Emilio finds Erin again in this predicament and offers his help.
They bury the woman in a forest somewhere, and Erin asks Emilio why he’s helping her. Emilio tells her that she’s the wife of his best friend first, but then he admits it’s because he’s gotten mixed up with some bad people. Emilio thinks Erin can help him, but she retorts that she’s just a school teacher. Emilio is very sure that Erin is not just a school teacher, and even though she threatens him with the thought that she won’t help him, he knows that she has to oblige because of everything he’s seen. At the end of the episode, Erin returns home and finds Harper’s sketchbook. At first, she’s all smiles at the happy drawings of rainbows and Harper until she finds some really morbid drawings of death and what looks like a human with a dog mask killing people.
It seems that Harper may be the answer to all of Erin’s problems, and she may not even be her daughter. There’s something seriously strange happening here. In a flashback, the woman from before looks well acquainted with Erin. She tells her that she has a bad feeling about something, and usually, in such a situation, she would just walk away. The next day, Erin is anxious, so she heads to a secret spot and pulls out a gun. Harper sees her there with the gun, and that’s where Who Is Erin Carter? episode 1 ends.
