As the finale of The Girl Before begins, Jane (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) enters the server room and looks at the makeshift bed before abruptly waking up. She rushes out of bed and throws up in the bathroom sink. While on her knees, Jane looks around and finds a small pearl near the bathtub. After the intro, Jane takes the pearl and necklace to a local jeweler to ask if the pearl could’ve come from the necklace Edward gave her. The man says the pearls are identical, and he is surprised the necklace was broken because the silk thread is very strong. It required a lot of force to break it. Jane calls Simon (Ben Hardy) to ask whether Edward ever gave Emma any jewelry. We jump back as Amanda complains that Leona (Natasha Atherton) just complained to HR about Saul. Emma (Jessica Plummer) learns they’re trying to patch things up so Saul (Mark Stanley) broke it off with Leona.

She suggests it was a good idea for Leona to say something since Saul hits on a lot of the girls. Emma asks whether Amanda would want to be in a relationship with a man who does that to her. Amanda gets mad and ridicules Emma for being unable to keep a relationship going for more than five minutes. Emma offers to take her for a drink, but Amanda refuses and says she just needed her to be a bit more loyal. A question appears on the screen asking whether other people always let them down in the end. Once Amanda leaves, Emma frantically calls Edward (David Oyelowo) and pleads with him to answer his phone, but he doesn’t. Jane meets with Simon who checks the pearl and confirms he saw Emma wearing it at one point. Jane can’t believe Edward gave her a dead woman’s necklace. Simon alleges the necklace was ripped from her neck before saying serial killers follow the same MO each time they kill.

Although it sounds extreme, Simon wonders whether Edward has been using the house to lure female victims. Jane follows up by saying Carol (Amanda Drew) believed Edward might have repetition compulsion meaning he’d do things over and over. Simon tells her about Edward’s wife and child being buried in the house and warns her to be careful because the pattern might not be over. The killings might’ve started with Elizabeth. Emma is thrilled to find Edward in the house, but she gets bad news. He says they’re not good for each other because everything is complicated and cluttered with her. Edward reminds her they agreed to keep doing this until it was no longer perfect. He believes the rules are there to help them do the right thing even when it is hard. Emma is told she’ll have to find another place to live since she broke all the rules of the house. Edward confesses he thought she was someone else, but he was wrong.

Before leaving, he tells her to be out of the house by the end of the week. Later, Emma tries to get the stove to turn on. It doesn’t until she walks away and that scares her. She curses the house. Jane returns to her wall of evidence looks at the picture of Edward’s partner Paul Ellis (Luke Norris). She meets with him moments later and asks about their argument in Edward’s office. He says she looks like someone he used to know. Since he signed a nondisclosure agreement, he can’t tell her about the argument. She promises it won’t go any further and begins mentioning the death of Edward’s wife and child. Paul says she makes it sound like an accident although it wasn’t entirely because he killed them. He explains the three of them were visiting the site one day to check on the progress of the project. He got upset because the wall was a few centimeters out. He knocked it down by reversing a digger into it. Elizabeth and Max were standing on the other side so both were killed.

Paul also reveals Edward found Elizabeth crying on his shoulder a few nights before her death so that could’ve been the motivation Edward needed. He suspects Edward thought she was going to leave him. Jane wonders why Edward would bury them there unless he had terrible guilt, but Paul says Edward doesn’t do guilt or remorse. He goes on to say Edward only cares about getting his way and the house is more like a tomb. Emma returns home to find the door slightly ajar so she cautiously tiptoes inside. She finds drips of paint on the ground as she walks through the house. She nearly faints when she sees the word “LEAVE” painted on the wall.

She immediately calls DI James Clarke (Ian Conningham), but he isn’t willing to listen to anything she has to say now. Clarke is facing early retirement and he blames Emma for it. Jane goes back to One Folgate Street and finds the spot where Elizabeth and Max were buried. Both women are shown sitting around with the small, white stone in their hands. Then, we see a question asking whether it is wrong to make decisions based on emotion. Jane returns home one day to find Edward in the house looking at her wall of evidence. He asks what is going on so she explains she is trying to find out what happened to Emma and who killed her. He asks whether she thinks he did it. Jane says one person’s name keeps coming up and she needs to know what he is capable of. Edward claims he is falling in love with her while she is investigating him. Jane reveals she knows he already killed Elizabeth and Max. She can’t imagine the guilt and grief he felt, but she needs to.

She wants to know how it related to herself and Emma. Edward believes she’d know how it feels since she lost a baby. He wants to know why she is doing it and whether he misunderstood her all along. Jane finally tells him she is pregnant although he doesn’t want to believe it. Edward begins pacing while saying she can’t keep changing things like this. He reminds her she said she’d live with integrity in the house and that is why he picked her. She fires back saying he doesn’t have integrity either because he knew all of this and said nothing. However, Edward says he hid it because he knew she’d become obsessed with her like he did before describing it as an illness. He asks how she could do this. Before he leaves, he tells her to call him when she has made a decision. Emma opens the door and thanks Simon for coming. He prepares to clean up the graffiti inside the house while Emma says they broke up and it seems the house has turned on her.

When Simon asks why they broke up, she says it is a long story and she has been all over the place recently. She wants to talk about something else that she should’ve told him ages ago. As they sit down, Mia (Rakhee Thakrar) looks at Jane’s evidence and learns Edward told her to get rid of it. She asks whether her friend might be in danger. Jane says it felt real when Edward told her he was falling in love with her although Mia believes she might’ve been manipulated. She wonders what she should do. Emma begins telling Simon about Saul who she accuses of raping her after the sales thing in Brighton. They got drunk together, doing dares, and flirting. He invites Emma back to his room. Initially, she wasn’t going to go with him until he texted her that he had opened the bottle inviting her again. Like an idiot, she went. Once in the room, Saul suddenly went at her after a while. She never said no because she couldn’t say anything. There was no knife, but Saul was so strong and Emma was terrified. After he had finished, Saul acted like she had agreed to it even though she didn’t.

In the morning, Saul sent her the video and nothing else. She took it as a threat and decided it was best not to tell anyone. She knew she should’ve taken it to the police so she kept the video. She had flirted with Saul in front of everyone. Suffice to say, it didn’t look good and couldn’t hurt her case. When the police thought it was the burglar, Emma jumped on it although she didn’t think it would go anywhere. Simon believes they could’ve gotten through it if she’d only told him. Simon believes her and offers to tear Saul apart, but Emma doesn’t want that. She intends to tell HR and cause Saul to lose his job. Simon says that is fine if it is what she wants. He doesn’t ask to move back in although he promises to come help if she sees anyone suspicious around the house. Emma goes to Carol and admits she keeps asking why she was such an idiot. Carol tells her that is normal because rape survivors usually blame themselves.

However, drinking with someone is not giving consent. Carol continues by saying flirting and fancying someone are not consent. Only consent is consent and it can be withdrawn at any time. She promises Emma has done nothing wrong before calling Saul a rapist. Emma believes she messed everything up, but Carol says she survived. Later that night, someone tries to break into Emma’s house, but Simon is there to stop the man. Emma asks if it was Ray Nelson (Jimmy Walker) while Simon says he was keeping watch just in case. He offers to stay on the couch to ensure she will be safe. She agrees and calls him amazing. In the morning, Emma thanks him for everything before he leaves. As Jane uses her computer, something goes wrong and she sees the camera footage from the house’s cameras. She finds a small hidden camera in the wall. She rushes to Edward’s workplace to confront him. Peter Creed (Ben Addis) is there as she tells him she found the cameras.

Peter seems bored by it all. When he steps out, Edward says nobody can access the cameras and they use face recognition software so the house can track her movements. She wonders if there is evidence from the night Emma died. Edward reveals there is nothing because the house had an outage that day. When he suggests there was no evidence that the two events were connected, Jane believes that is because everyone wanted it to be an accident. She also finds it odd that the weirdo Peter was his alibi. She tells him about the pearl she found and accuses him of giving her the same necklace. He denies it though while explaining there were two necklaces. Edward gets angry when Jane asks whether he replicates and replaces the women when they do something wrong. He is adamant that he had nothing to do whatsoever with Emma’s death. She responds she wishes she could believe him. At home, Jane calls someone and asks if they have time. Simon shows up a bit later with food and flowers.

Before they sit down, Simon returns and says he disabled one of the inputs that was marked cameras. Jane theorizes that the system had to be tampered with by someone who knew where the service cupboard was so that rules out Ray Nelson. She wonders if it could’ve been Peter Creed since there is something weird about him. She even suspects it could’ve been both. Simon tells her about the Japanese word “hitobashira”. Edward claimed it was a good luck thing, but Simon looked it up and found it is making a sacrifice to a building so it’ll last a thousand years. For Monkford, it is all about the house. Emma is awoken when she gets a text message from Edward saying he misses her. She is happy to hear from him and quickly responds. Jane asks Simon if they can talk about something else. He gets a bottle of wine from the fridge. He pours himself some and Jane water since she is pregnant. Simon asks about Edward and learns they’re not together anymore. Simon reveals he wanted a family with Emma and was going to propose when they got back together.

He tells her about his romantic proposal idea. Since everyone would be watching, Emma wouldn’t be able to say no. We jump back as Emma puts on the pearl necklace and is surprised to find Simon in her house. He explains he told the agent he lost his wristband to get a spare and enter the house. She tells him he can’t stay because she is expecting someone she met randomly online, but Simon knows she is waiting for Edward. He reveals he changed his contact details in Emma’s phone so she has been communicating with him. He did it a few nights ago and has been sleeping in the service cupboard to protect her. Simon asks Jane what type of guy will tick her boxes, but she says she isn’t looking for that type of relationship. He laughs and says he is already seeing someone. They discuss how hard Emma’s death was for Simon and the rape. Emma thought the house would change her although it never did. It did change Simon though.

He believes Jane would be happy to get back with Edward Monkford and wouldn’t give him the brushoff. Emma tells Simon she thought they patched things up and were going to be friends. Simon says he had to test her and all she had to do was ignore Edward. She tells him to piss off in his dreams. He wonders why she had anything to do with Edward and Saul when none of them love her the way he does. He is confident she loves him too, but Emma says she isn’t right for him. Emma says there is nothing to fix before asking Simon to leave. Simon refuses to leave and says he can’t let her be the person who wants Edward but not him. When she threatens to call the police, Simon grabs her and they begin struggling. He says he loved her as he pushes her and she falls down the stairs. In the present, Jane gets a call. Simon quickly stands up and forcibly tells her not to answer it.

When he walks over and sees it is from Edward, Jane runs up the stairs. She locks herself in the service cupboard and tells Simon she wants him to go. He believes they can work this out because they’ve been through worse. He believes he is talking to Emma and accuses her of sleeping with his friend behind his back. Jane threatens to call the police although she doesn’t have a phone. She pretends while Simon says he didn’t threaten anyone besides the graffiti. He was hoping Emma would be scared and come back to him. He calls her a good liar like every woman he has ever met before trying to kick the door down. He says it isn’t going to bother him because he’ll be here all day. He gets a drink and returns. He sits down and tells Jane he fancied her from the moment they met because it was like meeting Emma all over again. He claims women are the ones with all the power. Simon turns on energetic music on the Housekeeper system. He begins throwing dishes and the flowers around so Jane turns off the power and turns it back on to something different.

He grabs a can of gas and begins pouring it on the bed as Jane escapes the room. He spots her and goes after her. He grabs her at the end of the hallway before she bashes him with the necklace. He grabs the other end and falls back as the necklace breaks. Simon tumbles down the stairs and dies just like Emma did. She calls Edward who arrives a short time later. He says there are two narratives here. He says they can claim that she acted in self-defense which is what really happened. Otherwise, they can pretend Simon came back to kill himself in the same spot as Emma. Jane hid in the service cupboard and they found Simon dead when Edward got there. He warns her that going on trial for manslaughter would be a bad idea so it is best to say he committed suicide. Jane admits she was wrong about Edward who says she was right about Simon. Jane wants to tell everything in court about Saul, Simon, and everything else because she deserves for the world to know the truth.

We see a question on screen asking whether we have to finish something once we’ve started it. Later, Edward meets Jane at the house while Saul Cosby is arrested for Emma’s rape. Edward tells Jane it is time to go. They leave together and go to the pregnancy clinic. Edward sits in the lobby while Jane goes into the room. Emma talks to Carol about knowing what they need to fill the holes in them. She thought moving into the house and getting rid of everything would help. At the end of the day, it won’t matter if you’re still messed up inside. She claims everyone is looking for someone to take care of the mess in their heads. Jane gets a pen and writes a letter while Edward continues waiting. Once she finishes, she puts the letter and bracelet in an envelope and asks the nurse to give them to Edward in 30 minutes or so. Edward receives it moments later and begins reading it. Jane tells him that the child was planned because she knew she could have a child with him and he’d be a good father again one day.

She hopes this will be a wake-up call for him. She gives Edward Carol’s information because she believes Carol can help him. He is shown sitting in Carol’s office talking to her. Jane thinks he is trapped in the past and she can’t get trapped there with him. We jump ahead and see her speaking during a presentation for the stillbirth charity. When she returns home, she finds the nanny with their young baby. She says this is goodbye for now but not because of Emma. Instead, it is because of the girl before who was named Isabel. We see the baby’s footprints framed on her wall with the white stone sitting on Isabel’s frame. We see a question about embracing change. Before the episode ends, Camilla (Francesca Knight) shows the house to another possible tenant.

 

The Girl Before Review

The Girl Before likely could’ve been an interesting, nail-biting drama with plenty of twists and turns, but it didn’t translate well into a four-part miniseries. With 4 50-minute episodes, the drama was far too long and drawn-out with little going on for at least 40 minutes each episode. The finale proved there was no mystery here and most of what happened in the prior three episodes didn’t matter at all. Edward’s questions, the smart home, Elizabeth, Max, Peter, and so many other things were proven pointless once Simon was pinned as Emma’s killer rendering the other episodes of little value.

A lot of things were never covered including whether Edward killed his wife and child and the “help me” written in the service cupboard. Plus, the ending and many things leading up to it were too farfetched and laughable. Jane’s testimony in court would never be enough to bring down Saul. It is questionable whether it would even be allowed during a trial focusing on Simon’s murder. While it is unfortunate, it just doesn’t happen because the information would be considered irrelevant. Unless Saul has more victims with actual evidence, Jane has nothing to put him away. I doubt he’d even be arrested.

Ultimately, there were too many things that were too convenient including Jane finding a pearl after throwing up, Simon being there to stop Ray from breaking into Emma’s house, and Simon’s demise in general. It is really bad to have to dive into politics which are awful to begin with, but The Girl Before had a political agenda that became clear before it was over. The psychiatrist, Carol, preached about rape and consent for a few minutes to educate male viewers. The specific characters whether they were good or bad seemed meticulously selected based on appearances as well. The book was the complete opposite so it might be a way to clear the air. I can handle being propagated a little when the content is interesting enough to hold my attention, but it only made The Girl Before worse.

At the very least, Jane had enough common sense not to stay with Edward who was only a problem because of his past. The Girl Before was a laughable affair that is best avoided for everyone involved including audiences. The finale was at least faster and more eventful than the previous episode so it scores a 4.5 out of 10. All recaps of The Girl Before can be found on Reel Mockery here.