Monday, 15 July

On Monday morning, Josie wakes in Alix’s house to the sounds of Alix’s family preparing for school. The domestic scene briefly comforts Josie and makes her long for the early years with her own children, though she questions whether those years were ever truly happy. Downstairs, Josie joins Alix, Nathan, Leon, and the children; Nathan is visibly reluctant but makes Josie coffee, and Josie talks with Leon about how her daughters are already adults because Josie became a mother younger than Alix did.

After Alix takes the children to school and Nathan leaves for work, Josie is alone in the house. Josie studies the children’s artwork, comparing its cheerful images to the darker drawings Erin and Roxy once made, then steals a small sketch labeled “Teeny” and hides the gap. Josie also checks the family calendar, confirming that Alix’s sister Zoe and Petal are indeed arriving on Saturday, and then discovers a sofa-bed in Alix’s study, which makes Josie realize there is another place for guests and decide she is not ready to leave.

A Netflix documentary segment shows three gaming-platform subscribers, Ari, Juno, and Dan, describing a disturbing event involving a quiet player known as Erased. During a gaming session, Erased suddenly left her chair, screams and banging were heard, and then the feed went dead with her chair empty. The gamers tried to alert authorities and the platform, but they knew almost nothing about Erased beyond an approximate North London location; the incident went viral in their community before the wider story broke.

When Alix returns at 9:30 a.m., she notices Josie has covered her bruises with make-up, though Alix doubts such make-up was available in the guest bathroom. As Alix does household chores, Alix feels increasingly uneasy because Josie seems oddly content rather than traumatized. In the recording studio, Josie resumes telling her story for the podcast, focusing on Brooke, Roxy’s only close school friend, who became part of the family and encouraged Roxy to study.

Josie explains that Brooke and Roxy’s friendship ended suddenly when Roxy beat Brooke at school and then disappeared for three days during her exams. When Roxy returned, Roxy told Josie that Walter had groomed Brooke in the same way he had groomed Josie: Walter bought Brooke a necklace, took Brooke to the pub, gave Brooke alcohol, and slept with Brooke on Brooke’s sixteenth birthday in Josie and Walter’s bed. Erin had overheard and seen Brooke leaving, told Roxy, and Roxy then attacked Brooke; soon after returning from a homeless shelter, Roxy left home permanently.

At 11 a.m., Alix is horrified by Josie’s account. Josie says she did not confront Walter at the time and claims that Friday night, after dinner with Alix and Nathan, was the first time she confronted Walter about Brooke, causing Walter’s assault on Josie. Over lunch, Josie frames meeting Alix as a fated turning point that made Josie ready to leave Walter, discusses the gradual escalation of Walter’s violence, and asks whether Nathan has ever hurt Alix or the children. Alix says no, but Josie pointedly refers to Nathan’s drinking problem, leaving Alix unsettled by the sense that Josie wants Nathan to fail too.