Overnight

Dan wakes up on the subway and finds glass shards sticking out of his arm. He realizes that he was hit by a car and is in a lot of pain. He gets help from the bartender to get home, where he finds his son Freddie playing videogame. Freddie is nonchalant to his father’s behaviour.

Dan noticed a strange tape in the cassette deck and the seat seemingly adjusted. If that wasn’t enough, the books on his shelf are out of sorts, with half of them lying on their spines. It’s a pretty unnerving sequence, and as the camera tracks past Dan, it zooms outside to show Harper on the other side of the road, sipping a coffee and watching the house.

Kirby learns about Dan’s alcoholism from Abby, who quizzes her on Dan’s health. Specifically, whether he is sober. The man has a clear battle with the bottle, typified by Abby revealing that Dan had to take a leave of absence at one point. ..

Kirby shows her findings to Dan, including numerous newspaper clippings and blurbs. They obviously can’t use the tape and in order to verify the possible connection to our killer though, they need the police records. ..

The detectives are able to identify the woman from the 1984 case file as Willie Rose. They also learn that she was also a victim of Julia. They are able to connect the dots and finally solve the murders of Julia and Willie Rose.

In 1972, eight people were killed in what is now known as the “Kirby murders.” The only survivor was Kirby. ..

Kirby finds her own storage bin and lays out the evidence across the floor. Dan encourages her to put it back (after sneaking away to have a cheeky drink with the boys) as they move their investigative efforts back over to Dan’s place.

While they piece this string of murders together, Harper continues to weasel his way into Dan’s life, finding Freddie in the supermarket picking up groceries. He claims to be a friend from work but we obviously know that he’s not. After mentioning Julia, he drops a candy bar in Freddie’s jacket, “Imagine what else he’s not telling you [about the nature of his work]” And walks away.

In the days leading up to the Harper-led Conservative party’s election victory, the media was left with a mystery: how Harper could have been so successful in running such a controversial and divisive campaign while also stalking and harassing a young woman. Now, we know that Harper followed the woman into the storeroom where she was stealing alcohol, wentading her to take it without paying. However, what Harper actually wanted was for her to take the alcohol with her so that he could follow her and find out where she was going.

Harper unnerves the poor woman, who is trapped in a corner of this room with nowhere to go. He doesn’t want anything from her though, pointing out that he has no use following a woman who couldn’t find a door. It would appear that Harper is driven to chase women whom he believes are intelligent. ..

Dan’s house is home to a journal where Kirby keeps track of every conversation they have. Dan realizes this and decides to read through it in order to better understand her. Kirby admits that she feels lost and needs to journal as a way of navigating through her life, piecing together every constant.

The evidence that the pair have found so far is enough to get this case started, even if it’s not enough to incriminate anyone or bring it to the police. Kirby though, ends up falling asleep on the sofa that night but when she wakes up, finds Freddie there and Dan gone. He left early to speak to Abby, bringing his editor everything he’s found thus far. However, when Abby finds out Kirby is his source, she’s shocked. “A survivor hunting a serial killer, that’s your story!” She says incredulously.

Kirby heads back to see Marcus, explaining what she’s been up to. He warns her that Dan has never finished a story and that he’ll “run right through her.” This unnerves Kirby as she begins questioning what she’s doing.

When Dan returns, he admits to Kirby that he told Abby the truth about her being his source. Kirby isn’t happy and doesn’t want her name leaked by the police. The thing is, if they only use the names of the deceased to try and tie this story together, it’s not anywhere near as effective as it would be if they used Kirby’s name.

Dan agrees to write his story based on the evidence from the seven other cases and emphasizes just how powerful a story this actually is when there’s a real survivor. A survivor is a much more powerful tool of persuasion for readers. ..

Kirby heads back to her desk and finds a photo print requested from Marcus, in an envelope with the words “Love, M” on the front. As she checks out the picture, she notices a keyring from the planetarium. This is where we found that woman, Jin-Soo, in episode 1. ..

Kirby is surprised to find that Jin-Soo is still alive. The key ring is actually for her locker. Jin-Soo is shocked to find out that Kirby is still alive.

Kirby catches up with Jin-Soo that night and asks her what happened to her. It turns out that the employees at the planetarium were given locker keys that year, and she lost hers last week. This means there’s no way they could have ended up in a crime scene from 1972. What the heck is going on? ..

Kirby thinks the same thing and ends up looking in the reflection of the glass at the planetarium, only to find her own hair much longer now. ..

Dan heads out that night and ends up drinking and taking drugs. As he stumbles to the subway station, Harper follows him and follows the veteran reporter. It catches him off-guard too as he stumbles down the escalator. He smashes his glass bottle and cuts his arm open.

It has been revealed that the scenes at the start of the episode, leading up to Harper watching him from outside, are actually out of sync. On the subway station, there is a moment where Harper looks like he is going to push Dan in front of the train but thankfully he thinks twice about doing it. He does, however, learn that Dan’s source is one of his survivors. ..

The Episode Review

The mystery surrounding the AppleTV series “Lisey’s Story” only deepens as the episodes progress. Both Lisey’s Story and Losing Alice explore themes of identity and reality being distorted, which is a trend for AppleTV originals. However, “Lisey’s Story” cleverly edits together the start and end of this episode to reinforce the timelines being out of sync. For now, it remains a mystery what will happen next in this series. ..

The editing and cinematography in general has been really good and it’s interesting to see how even the opening credit crawl is starting to become useful to piece together areas and items that crop up through the story.

Questions abound about Harper’s motivations, what’s going on with the timelines, and how Jin-Sook fits into all of this. It now appears that her murder in Episode 1 was actually out of sequence and not happening in real time. While that clever inclusion eliminates any tension that may have arisen from trying to stop it from happening, one can’t help but feel knowing her fate completely extinguishes any sense of mystery or suspense. ..

The show is still compelling and the ending certainly leaves plenty of questions going into next week’s follow-up.