This Is Why We Lied

Faith finally arrives at the lodge. A man comes out of a cottage, introducing himself as Frank. He offers to help Faith find Will, but she sends him back to his cottage. She suddenly feels uneasy.

Bitty comes out onto the porch and introduces herself to Faith. She’s more concerned with Dave’s hospitalization than with Mercy’s murder. She tells Faith that they haven’t found Jon. While they’re talking, Sara returns from town on a UTV. Bitty goes back inside.

Faith and Sara talk about the family’s strange reaction to Mercy’s death. Sara tells Faith about Mercy’s pregnancy. She thinks that Nadine saw it too, but she didn’t say anything to Biscuits. From the forensic examination, Sara has determined that they’re looking for a red plastic knife handle.

Sara checks on Monica while Faith goes to the dining hall, looking for Will. In the kitchen, she meets the chef, Alejandro, and his two assistants. Alejandro tells her that Will went down the trail to the creek. Alejandro confesses to Faith that he was having sex with Mercy on a casual basis. He thinks she might have been sleeping with someone else too but doesn’t know who.

Faith goes down the trail to the creek. She hates nature and has a hard time on the muddy trail. At the creek’s edge, she sees Will’s satellite phone, gun, and mobile phone along with an empty water jug. She runs downstream, calling Will’s name, until she hears a faint response. Will and Kevin appear, carrying Chuck.

Will tells her how he went into the river after Chuck, and then Kevin found him pulling Chuck’s body from the creek’s edge. While they talk about who might have killed Chuck, Sara speaks up from across the creek, saying he was poisoned.

Faith and Kevin take the body back up the trail while Will crosses the river and joins Sara on the other side. He’s afraid Sara is mad about his attempt to rescue Chuck, but she says she was just worried. On their way back, she fills Will in on the autopsy findings and tells him that she checked on Monica, who was close to alcohol poisoning. They rejoin Faith and Kevin on the trail. Faith asks if Monica was poisoned like Chuck, but Sara doesn’t think so.

They arrive back at where Chuck and Will went into the water and begin collecting evidence. Will videos the location while Sara narrates. She does a quick external examination of the body and then empties Chuck’s pockets and inventories them but doesn’t find anything unusual. She wants to have the contents of Chuck’s water jug analyzed but knows it will take weeks to get the results. Chuck has a tattoo of a whiskey glass with human skulls instead of ice.

Sara identifies two possible options for poison: One is a local natural source of nightshade, plentiful in the mountains, and the other is eye drops, which contain an ingredient that can poison in high enough doses. They decide to look for eye drops during their searches. Since Chuck always carried the jug, almost anyone could’ve put the drops in.

Will relates the conversation he overheard between Christopher and Chuck, in which Christopher said he was going to leave the family business, and Chuck pressured him to stay. They decide to keep news of Chuck’s death from everyone but the kitchen staff, because they need to use the freezer for the body. They also decide not to tell anyone that Dave has an alibi for Mercy’s death.

Sara goes to call Nadine about Chuck’s death, and Faith goes to the lodge to get permission to use a cottage for interviews. Kevin and Will take the body to the freezer and search the garbage for eye drop containers. They decide that Sara and Faith will interview Drew and Keisha.

On the way back to the lodge, Sara relates a conversation she had with Mercy, in which Mercy mused that perhaps she had married her father. She realizes now that Mercy was telling Sara that Dave abused her just like her father did. Sara also tells Faith about how Mercy’s last words and thoughts were for her son.

When they get to Will and Sara’s cottage, Faith takes a shower, and Sara continues walking down the trail to the farthest cottage, following a hunch. Jon is sitting on the porch of that cottage, crying. The last time he saw Mercy, he was angry: He wanted to leave the lodge and have a life.

Sara says she liked Mercy, and Jon looks uncomfortable. She realizes he’s used to only hearing bad things about his mother. Sara tells him that in Mercy’s final words, she forgave him. She also tells him Dave is in the hospital, and Jon says he’s glad that Dave is hurt. Jon doesn’t want an autopsy on Mercy and gets angry when she says it’s required. He goes into the cottage and slams the door.

Sara goes to Keisha and Drew’s cottage to interview them. Keisha is alone, and Sara tells her that she’s a GBI medical examiner. She asks what Keisha knows about Mercy and the family, considering that it’s their third visit to the lodge. Keisha says that the family has secrets, but Drew doesn’t want them to get involved. Drew is looking for Christopher to fix their toilet, which makes a dripping sound. Sara, whose father was a plumber, offers to look at it. In the bathroom, she looks for eye drops but doesn’t see any. She lifts the toilet tank lid and realizes that the valve is leaking because it is being held open by a red plastic knife handle.

Will gets a warrant to search the lodge. He searches Chuck’s cottage first but finds nothing. Amanda texts him that Chuck’s bank accounts contain $200,000, like Christopher’s. They both got their money at the same time, about a year ago. Will realizes that they must have a side hustle and that Mercy was involved.

Sara finds Will and tells him that she found the knife handle. He immediately secures the cottage and locates Drew. He sends Kevin to find Drew and Christopher, who are sitting by the lake fishing. Will tells him to watch them. He then reveals that Dave didn’t kill Mercy. Keisha is terrified for herself and Dave, thinking that they’ll be framed for the murders. Will tells her that Mercy was pregnant and that the dates coincide with their most recent visit to the lodge. Keisha defends Drew, but Will doesn’t believe her. He brings up a conversation he overheard Drew having with Bitty, in which he told her to forget about the “other business.” Keisha indicates that she knows something about it but won’t say anything until Drew is with her. Will and Sara go to find Christopher and Drew but detour when they see Monica. She says she’s feeling better, but she’s drinking again. Sara takes a sip and is surprised by how it burns.

Sara asks what Will thinks Christopher, Chuck, and Mercy are involved in, but he has only theories. He thinks maybe they’re selling off timber, as he notices that their woodpile has expensive woods in it. Sara connects this fact with the way the alcohol tasted and tells him her theory that they’re bootlegging liquor. Sara wonders if Christopher killed Mercy and Chuck so that he could take all the profits.

Will leaves Sara at their cottage and goes down to the lake to find Drew and Christopher. He sends Kevin back up to the lodge with Drew. Will goes to the nearby equipment shed and begins searching it, although Christopher tries to stop him. Will finds a locked door and orders Christopher to open it. Inside, he finds a still. Will thinks Christopher might talk if his hands are cuffed and opens the drawer where he found the zip-ties earlier. In it, he finds six empty eye drop bottles.