Photo: Apple
In last week’s episode, Edgar’s mother, Isabel, made a bold claim: that she knows who murdered her son (and it wasn’t Grace, who Isabel’s been saying did it for the duration of the show so far). She has also been known to pop mystery pills and chug martinis (as she does in the opening shot of this episode while everyone watches with amazement and disgust), so I had my doubts as to whether she was telling the truth. However, it makes sense to head into the penultimate episode of the season dangling that truth carrot in front of the audience.
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Two wedding-day events cement her distrust in her son: (1) When she goes to give the hair comb to Grace, she spies the Adderall pills and tries to bond with her future daughter-in-law by pointing out that they take the same sleep aid, and when Grace and Zoe tell her what the pills actually are, she realizes that Edgar gave her Adderall and told her they were sleeping pills — that he’s been gaslighting her into thinking she’s been going mad this whole time (the music, the online shopping, all of it!)! I did not see this coming!; (2) Having confronted Edgar about the pills only to have him continue to lie and also bring up her wedding toast, Isabel realizes that he wants her to crash and burn during her toast so she seems crazy in public. She doodles on her speech as a tactic to prove that Edgar will switch it out for a nonsensical one (which he does). Faced with no good options (give the new speech or claim Edgar switched it out publicly; neither is a good look), Isabel gives the speech as written … and it is the lyrics to Hanson’s “MMMBop”! A song that the late Alexander apparently loved (Vivian also loves Hanson, it turns out).