As the finale begins, Anna (Kristen Bell) runs from her house as Buell (Cameron Britton) approaches Neil’s house with a hammer in his hand. Douglas (Michael Ealy) hears Anna on the phone as she screams while running through the rain. She drops the phone and crashes to the concrete. She imagines she is in the room with Elizabeth (Appy Pratt) and Massacre Mike (Brendan Jennings). Buell is there as well. Anna begins crawling toward Neil’s house and yells to Emma (Samsara Leela Yett) that she is coming. When she makes it inside, Anna finds Buell laying on the ground with bloody mail in his hand. He tells Anna she got some of their mail by mistake. He tries to say he was just going to return it but stops mid-sentence.

Anna questions who the killer could be if it isn’t Buell. Emma screams, “daddy, no”. Anna runs over and finds Neil (Tom Riley) with his throat slit. She turns around and Emma is standing behind her with a knife. Emma says people always underestimate children and what they’re capable of. She admits she didn’t know she was capable of murder before confessing to killing Lisa. When Anna asks why, we see a flashback of Emma asking Lisa to buy some chocolate bars from her. Lisa wishes she could but won’t. She also reminds Emma that sugar is one of the worst things you can put in your body. Emma grabs a small kitchen knife and approaches Lisa who is crouching down. She argues that sugar isn’t the worst thing you can put in your body. Emma says she thinks this is before driving the knife into Lisa’s neck.

Lisa grabs her neck and rushes away from Emma. At this point, Anna sees her through the window. In the present, Anna asks how she could something like that. Emma says she didn’t, Anna did, and the police have a palette knife with her fingerprints on it. During another flashback, Emma sneaks into Anna’s house when she goes inside to retrieve her checkbook to pay for the chocolate bars. When she leaves with the palette knife, Lisa’s severed foot falls out of her little wagon. Anna asks how Neil didn’t know about her killing Lisa. Emma explains he was upstairs with the water running as a flashback shows him practicing his ventriloquist act. She admits his act sucks and that is why she decided to kill him. When Anna calls her a monster, Emma says no and it was her mother who was the monster. She complains about her mother deciding to have another baby without asking if she wanted a sibling.

She spent all summer working on her undercover project. She dives under the water and uses a saw to cut the wood under the dock. On the last day of their vacation, she lured her mother to the end of the dock causing it to crash. Her mother hung into a light pole while calling Emma for help. Emma walks over and tells her mother she prefers being an only child. She stomps on it. The dock breaks more and her mother drops into the water. Anna tells her she isn’t going to get away with this although Emma suggests otherwise. Emma says she is going to kill her in self-defense since she is the only one who knows the truth. She jokes that the mean drunk lady across the street tried to kill her. After Anna calls her crazy, Emma says that is what her teacher said before she pushed her off the lighthouse.

Anna is stabbed in the side and knocked to the ground before a scuffle begins. They continue fighting as Emma slams Anna’s head into the glass table. Anna punches her in the face. Emma spits her teeth at Anna and says those were baby teeth. Anna tries to find Neil’s gun while Emma goes for the fireplace dustpan. Anna is hit across the face with it and choked with it. Emma finds the gun before shooting Anna in the shoulder. Anna charges her, knocks her to the ground, and the gun is fired. Then, they begin fighting on the ground. Emma smashes the casserole bowl over her head. Douglas tries to get in touch with her while rushing to the scene. Emma calls 911 to tell them about her crazy neighbor who killed her daddy in self-defense. As Anna begins moving around and moaning, Emma abruptly ends the phone call. Emma walks over and tells Anna that she doesn’t know when to die.

When Douglas arrives, he finds Anna’s phone outside in the street. Emma admits it didn’t have to end this way because she tried to warn her. A flashback shows Emma writing the message on the back of Anna’s vehicle at the police station. She says Anna’s casserole tastes like crap as she prepares to stab her with the knife. Anna uses a broken shard from the casserole bowl to stab Emma and kill her. She falls over as Douglas rushes into the room to check on Anna. He comforts her and promises everything is going to be okay. After the intro, Detective Lane (Christina Anthony) visits Anna who is recovering in the hospital. Once Lane says she owes her an apology because she was right about everything, Anna says she has no idea how long she has been waiting to hear that.

Douglas arrives with flowers. Lane tells Anna she is lucky Douglas showed up when he did. Otherwise, she could’ve been charged with murdering Neil and Emma too. Anna says poor Buell only to learn from Douglas that Buell made it. Although he is intensive care, he’ll make it. Before Lane leaves, she tells Anna to call her Becky. Douglas sits down and begins apologizing because he should’ve believed her. After Anna says she barely believed herself, Douglas blames himself because he had her on 50-grams of a class-four psychotropic. Instead, he should’ve given her a prescription for Zoloft or Wellbutrin. She believes she only needs rest now. When she thanks him for always being there, Douglas promises he will always be there. Anna starts to ask him something, but stops when the nurse walks in. Douglas leaves a short time later and Carol (Brenda Koo) enters the hospital room next. For the third time, Anna says she feels like she has been hit by a Mack truck driven by a 9-year-old.

Carol begins apologizing while admitting Anna saw something that night and she didn’t believe her. When Anna gets to return home, she prepares a meal for Buell who has been living in her attic. He admits he should’ve told her he was living up there because he didn’t feel right leaving her all alone at night. She promises it is okay since his heart was in the right place. Then, Buell shows her the stuffed raccoon lamp he is making. Later, Anna joins Sloane (Mary Holland) at the gallery and tells others about the Mack truck driven by a 9-year-old. She learns the painting she did already sold. Sloane says it sold because it is stunning. Sloane tells her she is so proud of her. She receives a call although it seems she wants to hide it from Anna. Sloan eventually admits it was Graham and Prine who made her an offer, but she is going to turn it down. Anna tells her not to do that like she did the first time to take care of her after Elizabeth died. She keeps pushing and pushing until Sloane agrees to call them back for her.

Anna promises to come visit her in New York before she spots Douglas in the distance. She keeps watching as Douglas’s new wife joins him. When she tries to leave, Douglas stops her to say the painting is stunning and likely the best she has ever done. She is introduced to Claire (Nicole Pulliam). Anna learns she was assigned to Douglas because she is one heck of a forensic psychiatrist. Anna says they worked together. Douglas asked what she thought before offering to walk her to her vehicle. Once they walk outside, Douglas reveals he bought the painting and wants her to help figure out where to hang it. It begins raining on them. Anna doesn’t run inside because she is fine now. They begin kissing in the rain. We jump ahead one year and see a JetBlue airplane and an Olympia airplane. Anna is at the airport talking to Douglas on the phone to give him advice about caring for the baby.

He tells her to relax and enjoy her weekend with Sloane. Since she doesn’t like flying, she has a Xanax prescription. On the plane, she is offered wine. Anna tells the man that she doesn’t drink wine anymore so she’ll have vodka instead. She empties the little bottle into a glass with ice and takes a few pills while her book, The Girl On The Cruise, sits nearby. An older woman approaches and tells Anna she is in her seat. When the woman (Glenn Close) sits down, Anna confesses she is a nervous flier. Anna asks what takes her to New York. The woman only says business. Later, Anna wakes up groggy and stumbles to the bathroom. She opens the door and finds the woman dead in there.

She grabs one of the airline workers so they can see what is going on. However, the woman is gone by the time they check the bathroom. She says it was the woman in seat 2A although he says there wasn’t anyone in seat 2A. Anna sits down and finds a small object on the floor that looks like a makeup mirror. She says bingo as the episode ends.

 

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

This is another show that people will either enjoy or hate with little middle ground. Personally, I can sympathize with both groups. On one hand, it wasn’t the worst television show I’ve watched in recent months. On the other, I wasn’t blown away by anything despite a few snickers here and there. The finale was likely the funniest episode of the series thanks to Buell’s raccoon lamp and Anna’s switch from wine to vodka.

The decision to make Emma the killer was over-the-top and silly although that fit the bill since the whole series was ludicrous. I question whether watching the parodied movies first would’ve made any difference. Ultimately, the series might’ve tried too hard to balance its sane with the insane elements. They often got mixed up and didn’t correlate well with one another.

If it had picked one or the other and stuck with it throughout, it might’ve been much better. At the very least, they tried to do something different and it worked a little bit, but not perfectly. The finale will receive a 6 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. The good news is that I hopefully won’t have to write this insanely long title again! Learn how to support the Reel Mockery project by following this link.