As the third episode begins, Anna (Kristen Bell) is still laying out in the street with rain pouring down on her. Someone picks her up and takes her inside where they lay her down. Moments later, Anna is awoken by police lights shining through her window. She looks outside and sees Neil (Tom Riley) carrying his daughter Emma while talking to a detective. When she steps outside, she is approached by Detective Lane (Christina Anthony) who asks if she is Anna Whitaker. Anna quickly asks if she is dead, but the detective would prefer to speak inside. Inside, Detective Lane introduces herself and Officer Walters to Anna before asking about her 911 call. Anna explains she saw Lisa with her throat slit in the window. Lane notices the alcohol and drugs on the table leading her to believe Anna had a little party there tonight. When Anna asks what happened to Lisa, Lane claims nothing happened to her.

Detective Lane goes on to say the neighbor was surprised to learn there was a report of a murder in his home. The airline she works for makes stewardesses wear red scarves so Anna might’ve mistaken it for blood. Regardless, the detective says Lisa is on an airplane right now. Lane suggests the pills and wine led to Anna’s confusion. Anna is adamant about what she saw though. Lane picks up the book nearby called The Woman Across The Lake and reads the description on the back. The description is very similar to Anna’s claim so Lane suggests she used the book to come up with the story. Lane warns her it is illegal to make a false report although she won’t allow Officer Walters to write her up. Anna agrees that won’t be necessary. Lane recommends sleeping it off and finding out how to apologize to her neighbor.

When they leave, Anna goes to bed. She tries to go to sleep until she hears a loud thud nearby. She hits herself and tells herself to stop doing this. Then, she rolls over and grabs some pills to help her sleep. Once she gets up in the morning and begins washing her face, she is haunted by what she saw across the street. She can’t believe she imagined what she saw. She walks across the street and knocks on the door. Neil comes out and begins asking her about last night. Anna tells him she saw Lisa in her window and someone had slit her throat. Neil explains she fly to Seattle last night, but Anna still sticks by her story. He asks if she was drinking since Carol says she has a drinking problem. Neil pulls out his phone while claiming he was just texting with Lisa. Anna won’t stop until he lets her look at it.

The text messages show Neil telling Lisa about the woman across the street calling 911 because she thought she saw a murder. Neil snatches his phone back and sticks it in his pocket. Anna asks if she can come inside to look around because none of this makes any sense. Neil says he knows what grief can do to a person and make them feel crazy. Anna says she isn’t crazy. Neil knows. Regardless, everything that happened last night frightened Emma. Anna apologizes before Neil pleads with her to just go home. Anna approaches Carol to ask if she heard something last night. Carol says she heard police sirens that woke up her boys and Scott. She believes Anna thinks she saw Lisa get killed. When Anna asks why she told Neil she has a drinking problem, Carol admits she told him because she has a drinking problem. Anna apologizes for losing her temper with her yesterday.

Carol offers to put her in touch with a therapist she knows although Anna already has a therapist. Eventually, Anna curses Carol and walks away. As she does, she tells herself she knows what she saw. Later, Buell (Cameron Britton) works on the mailbox while Anna watches Neil exit his house and leave in his car. Anna talks about the risk of doing nothing. She breaks her exterior light and asks Buell if he’d mind looking at it for her. Once Buell looks at it, he speculates a raccoon fell from the roof, but that doesn’t make sense because there is no body. Anna gets rid of him by convincing him to go to the hardware store to see if he can fix it. After Buell is gone, Anna grabs some of his tools and tries to use them to break into Neil’s house. She has to hide when the mailman arrives. Then, she unlocks the door and rushes in.

She quickly searches the spot where she saw Lisa for blood. Anna picks up an earring and remembers Lisa wearing it when she first met her. She looks out of the window as Carol walks over to talk to the mailman. Anna drops to the ground to make sure Carol and the mailman don’t see her. She gets up and looks at a picture of the family resting on the mantle nearby. Then, she is shocked when Neil and Emma show up behind her. Neil asks Emma to go upstairs before berating Anna for breaking into his house. She insists she needed to see it for herself, but Neil says there is nothing to see. Anna explains Lisa is dead and she isn’t who Neil thinks because there are pictures of her kissing this other guy. When Anna realizes she doesn’t have her phone, she tussles with Neil while trying to grab his. They only stop when Emma enters the room. Neil tells Anna to get the heck out of his house and stay away from his daughter.

Anna steps outside and shuts the door before saying someone has to believe her. She visits Sloane (Mary Holland) to tell her what happened, but Sloane doesn’t believe her either. Sloane manages to convince Anna she needs help. Anna goes to a group therapy session and tells everyone about drinking and mixing pills before believing she had witnessed a murder. She confesses she is in so much pain because she lost her daughter three years ago and never really faced that. Although she has a shrink, she lies to him since she is afraid she’ll forget her daughter if she gets better. While getting a snack, Eileen (Rachel Ramras) approaches Anna and says their daughters were in the same class. Eileen begins talking about her brother and autoerotic asphyxiation which she claims is difficult to say. She always felt bad that she didn’t reach out to Anna who tells her not to worry because she wasn’t in a place to listen anyway.

When that conversation ends, Anna looks at the billboard and sees a paper for a grief retreat in Miami Beach. She pulls out the earring while telling herself not to go down that road again. Later, she goes to the airport and finds a sign that says they’ll be flying to the West Coast next year. She asks one of the attendants about that. The man admits Olympia Airlines doesn’t fly to the West Coast right now. Since Seattle is on the West Coast, the story about Lisa flying to West Coast with her employer, Olympia Airlines, was likely a lie. Anna decides to take that information to Detective Lane and also show her the earring she found in Neil’s house. Nevertheless, the detective doesn’t seem interested in it. Anna speculates that Rex found out about Lisa being with Neil so he killed her. Lane suggests Anna is a mother whose daughter was murdered in the most horrific way possible so she sees monsters everywhere now.

She reveals she was a junior detective on the Massacre Mike (Brendan Jennings) case and saw monsters after it as well. As she explains they brought him in and put him through a polygraph, we see a flashback of Mike being tested. The polygraph machine goes nuts when Mike denies killing anyone. When Lane was left alone with him, she looked into his eyes and saw pure evil. She put her hand on her gun and was ready to kill him. However, she thought Mike would go to prison and never kill anyone again until he ate and killed Anna’s daughter. She confesses she regrets not killing Mike when she had the chance. Anna is told to go home. When she leaves, she finds that someone has written a note on the back of the vehicle telling her to stop or she’ll be next. Since Lane isn’t going to be the detective, Anna claims she is going to do it. At home, she searches her desk until she finds a telephone directory.

She calls the FBI records department while pretending to be Douglas Whitaker’s assistant. To run a background check on two individuals, she will need Douglas’s ID number. She looks through the paperwork in hopes of finding it. The first number is wrong, but she gets it right the second time. She asks the woman to run a background check on Lisa Maines and Rex Bakke and call the number back when she has the information. Emma knocks on her door seconds later. When Anna checks on her, Emma reveals she got a box of those chocolate almond bars she wanted, but she isn’t supposed to be over here. Anna apologizes and makes sure Emma knows she would never hurt her. Then, she runs back inside to grab her checkbook.

She makes out the check in the same amount as last time because she wants Emma to sell the most. She also gives her a stuffed ducky that once belonged to her daughter. Before Emma goes, Anna shows her a picture of Rex to see if she knows him. Emma claims not to know who he is though. She asks if she heard anything before the police arrived that night. Emma admits her father and Lisa were arguing although she didn’t hear much because her dad made her go to her room and watch television. He gets mad a lot and used to get mad at Emma’s mom too. Anna tells her she can always come to her if she doesn’t feel safe as we see Neil talking on the phone through the window. As Emma leaves, Neil spots Anna and they stare at each other for a few seconds. Anna rushes inside so she can see what she can find about Neil Coleman and his former wife.

She finds out that Meredith Coleman drowned in a tragic accident before Neil was brought in for questioning. He was eventually named a person of interest in his wife’s death.

 

The Woman In The House Across The Street From The Girl In The Window Review

The third episode of The Woman In The House was likely the best episode yet. The story is a bit silly, but the episode was still mysterious enough to hold my interest. We knew the show was going to point the finger at Neil at some point and it finally happened. Kristen Bell and Tom Riley are good in their respective roles although some of the minor characters are a little off sometimes.

The humorous aspects of the show don’t satisfy my personal tastes, but some people may enjoy them. I also don’t understand why the show needed to be a parody of multiple horror movies. Surprisingly, I haven’t noticed anything yet that made me think about an old horror movie. I surely can’t be the only one. Of course, it isn’t like this is a big deal-breaker and it could be a case of a bad memory.

I am interested in seeing what Anna finds out during the course of her investigation and whether someone tries to stop her from uncovering the truth. The episode was good so I’ll give it a 7 out of 10. All recaps of The Woman In The House Across The Street From The Girl In The Window can be found on Reel Mockery here. Find out how to support the Reel Mockery project by following this link.