Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead

After she meets with Irina, Finn drives to Julian’s apartment. A young woman opens the door and tells Finn that Julian is in his room. The apartment is full of college students, pizza boxes, and empty beer cans. Finn hesitates before knocking on the partially open door, tempted to just turn around and go home. Julian sees her, however, and calls her in. She can hear Julian’s friends joking about her being there, calling her a “cougar.” Julian tells her to ignore them and shuts his door. Finn feels strongly that she does not belong here. 

Julian tells her that his roommate will be gone next weekend and invites her to stay over. Finn suddenly realizes that his roommate, Parker, is the pretty woman who answered the door. She asks why Julian locked his Instagram account. He tells her that since he will be looking for a job as a lawyer soon, he wanted to be careful about the kinds of photos that his friends were posting in Florida. He assures her that, although he and his roommate dated for a short time about a year ago, they are just friends now. Finn says that she needs to get home to her kids and kisses him goodbye.

When Finn returns home, her mother is in her kitchen, preparing to make a surprise dinner for her and the children. Vero and Finn drink a glass of wine while Susan prepares a pot roast, and Finn feels relaxed for the first time all day. Susan grills Finn about her date with Nick, segueing into her perennial concerns about Finn’s finances. Fortunately, Steven calls, and Finn can get out of the conversation. He says that he wants to spend the next weekend with the children. Finn lies and says that Delia and Zach are already scheduled to stay with their grandparents that weekend. 

Susan grabs the phone and tells Steven that if he is so eager to spend time with the children, he can spend the weekend at her house. He refuses. Susan tells Finn that Steven never deserved her and is just fighting with her to get her attention. Finn asks whether her father has always treated her mother as she deserves, and Susan admits that her husband recently made the mistake of clicking on a link that promised him a view of Jennifer Aniston’s breasts—and ended up downloading a virus onto their computer. Susan had to pay a computer technician to come to their home and fix the problem.

On Sunday night, Finn stays up late writing. She wakes up late on Monday, pleased that she has at least managed to send Sylvia something by her deadline. After her shower, she realizes that all the towels are still in the laundry. She wraps herself as best she can in one of Delia’s small Disney princess towels. She hears a floorboard creak and steps out into the hallway with a raised plunger, ready to strike. 

It is Nick, who tells her that someone reported a suspicious person outside Finn’s house. In rapid succession, Joey, Vero, Zach, and Georgia rush inside. Joey hands Finn an envelope that he found on her porch. She snatches it, claiming that it is copyedits for her new novel. 

Nick tells her that he was especially worried when he heard the call because there was a suspicious gas leak at Steven’s that morning. Steven is fine and downplaying this incident like all the others. Nick also mentions that Joey’s investigator, Cam, has disappeared. After Nick leaves to return to Theresa’s, where he and Joey are investigating her flight from house arrest, Vero and Finn open the mysterious envelope. It contains a long, dark wig; one of Kat’s business cards; and a note in Irina’s handwriting, giving information about visiting hours at Feliks’s jail.

Tuesday night, Vero helps Finn disguise herself as Kat and gives her a new cell phone to replace her lost one. Finn worries about not having an ID to sign into the jail with and is aware that even with her disguise, she does not look much like Kat. When she arrives at the jail, she calls Julian to ask what the protocol is for a lawyer visiting a client in jail, pretending that it is book research. His step-by-step explanation is helpful, but it also confirms her fear that she will be asked for identification. When he describes what happens during the actual client meeting, she suddenly realizes that she will be left alone in a room with Feliks and feels a frisson of fear.

When Finn is asked for an ID to get inside the jail, she affects irritation and bluffs her way inside. She still worries about being recognized as she is escorted past several guards. When Feliks is brought in, she is struck by how dangerous he looks. 

Once they are alone, he drops any pretense of believing that she is Kat, asking, “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company, Ms. Donovan?” (226). He frightens her by asking about both Nick and Julian, making clear what a close eye he is keeping on her, even from jail. Finn explains about an investigator alerting the police to the forum. When Feliks seems disinclined to take down the forum, she tells him that she knows about Carl Westover and threatens to leave Carl’s torso in front of Feliks’s restaurant. Feliks laughs and asks whether she has any other demands. She tells him to stay away from her home and her family.

In the parking lot after her visit with Feliks, Finn sees Nick. It is dark, and he thinks, from a distance, that she is Kat. When he asks what she is doing at the jail so late at night, Finn does what the real Kat would do: She flips him off without turning around and continues on her way. 

In her van, she calls to give Vero a report. Vero tells Finn that although Carl has been dead for four months, no one has reported him missing. She has also discovered that the third partner in the farm was Ted Fuller, Bree’s father, who is also Carl’s cousin. 

Steven calls to say that he has heard the security recording from the night of the trailer fire and accuses Finn of setting the fire. He believes that she is behind everything, with the goal of winning their custody battle. He has not told the police about her voice being on the security recording because he doesn’t want her arrested for arson, but he will tell them if there are any more incidents. After he hangs up, Finn starts the van and heads for the exit. It is blocked by police cars, and she is ordered out of the van.

Nick escorts Finn into the police station and advises her to call an attorney. She calls Julian, who tells her that he is not allowed to represent her because he is still a student. He says that he will find someone. 

Nick knows that Finn posed as Kat at the jail because when she flipped him off, she was not wearing Kat’s ring. He did not realize that the imposter was Finn, however, until she was ordered out of her van. He tells her that the officers involved have all agreed to keep the incident quiet. Nick tells Finn to claim that she was doing research for her book and that she cleared it with Nick ahead of time. 

He also reveals that Bree provided an alibi for the night of the fire: a photo taken while she was watching television with her father. Because of the call with the security company, however, they are sure that the arsonist is female. He suspects Theresa and Aimee. When Nick mentions that Aimee has now also disappeared, Finn wonders if Aimee might be FedUp, angry at Steven’s treatment of her best friend. Nick says that he will release Finn but wants her to promise to stay out of the investigation.

An officer knocks and ushers in Parker, Julian’s roommate, who has come to represent Finn. Despite initial awkwardness, Parker offers a thorough defense of Finn. After she learns that Finn is not being charged, she asks to speak to Finn alone. Parker is concerned that Finn will hurt Julian and says that Julian is better off without Finn because she is “a hot mess.” Parker storms out, and Nick drives Finn home.

Nick says that he and Joey will bring Finn’s van back in the morning. Nick has detailed an officer to watch Finn’s house overnight; he is very concerned that she has angered Feliks and will be in danger. He tells her that Julian should have come to the station; she deserves someone who is not going to disappear when things get messy. 

Inside, Finn finds Vero crying, worrying about Finn. Vero gives her a relieved hug and peppers her with questions. Finn gets a message from Julian asking her to call him. She does, but when he suggests that she come over and tell him the whole story, she declines. He gets angry at her for withholding information, and she replies that her life is too messy for someone like him—she is trying to protect him. She points out how different their lives are, suggesting that Julian has too much going for him to be involved with someone like her.

Georgia comes over in the morning. She has taken two days off from work and is taking Zach and Delia to stay at her place for their safety. She also mentions that the forum is now offline and that Nick is furious about the disappearance of this lead. Finn is relieved that Feliks has kept his word. All she has to do now is find Cam, Theresa, and Aimee before Nick does. She wonders whether Cam has gone to his friend at the tech repair place at the mall for help.

Vero and Finn head for the mall. At first, the young man pretends that he has no idea what they are talking about, but they discover Cam hiding in the back of the shop. They agree to hide Cam in a motel room in exchange for the information he was going to give Nick. 

When Vero goes inside the motel office to pay for a room, Finn steps out of the car to take a call from Nick. Nick tells her that someone slashed a tire on Steven’s truck. Steven has been in an accident and is missing. As Finn ends the call with Nick, she hears Vero’s car start up. Cam steals the car and takes off, leaving Finn and Vero stranded at the motel.

Finn and Vero take an Uber home. Vero finds the door unlocked, and they realize that someone is in the garage. Finn finds Steven in the garage and angrily asks what he is doing. He tells her that he believes that she is causing the trouble that has befallen him lately. He tells her that he knows she put a spy app on his phone, but when she tries to get more information from him about this, he launches into a tirade about taking her to the police. 

He takes out his phone and begins dialing, but before he can complete the call, Vero knocks him unconscious with a skillet. She says that while he’s unconscious, they should make it look like they have killed him, send a photo to FedUp, and claim the fee for his death. When FedUp pays them, they will learn her identity and can use this as leverage to cancel the contract on Steven’s life. She grabs a roll of tape and proposes that they stash Steven in the motel room they have already paid for.

Vero pours red syrup onto Steven to simulate blood and snaps the photos. They bind him with tape and put him in Finn’s van. Finn finds the tracking app on his phone but cannot disable it. 

A message flashes across the screen: Steven has a meeting scheduled with Ted and Carl. Finn and Vero are puzzled: The meeting was scheduled that morning by Carl’s assistant. They are sure that if Carl had an assistant, they would have reported him missing. They conclude that the meeting is a trap, possibly set by Aimee to lure Steven somewhere to be killed. 

Finn tells Vero not to send the photos to FedUp yet. They leave Steven in the motel room and head back out to the van to check out this supposed meeting. The van won’t start, but since Carl’s torso is in the back of the van, they can’t call a tow service. They call Ramón and ask him to swing by the motel to fix the van. Then, they call another Uber. Finn gives Vero the wig she wore to impersonate Kat and says that she knows where to find a fast car.