Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead

Finn and Vero drive to Steven’s farm. Vero tries to jimmy the office trailer door with Finn’s credit card and snaps it in two. Finn remembers and locates Steven’s hidden key and opens the door. Inside, a recently installed security system flashes red; Finn tries the code to her own garage door, and the light stops flashing. 

They search for Steven’s accounting books and take pictures of the pages. Finn is puzzled when she finds evidence that Bree’s last day of employment was earlier than Steven claimed. She also finds a photo of Steven, Bree, and two other men, all with their arms around each other’s shoulders. 

The office phone rings. It is the security company, wanting a verbal confirmation that everything is fine. Finn claims to be Bree, but they insist on hearing the password. Vero hisses Finn’s name, trying to get her attention, and the security company thanks her for the password. Finn is stunned to realize that Steven is using her name as his security passcode.

As the two women prepare to leave the office trailer, they hear a car approaching. Realizing that they do not have time to leave without being seen, they freeze in place, hoping that whoever it is will go away. They hear fluid hitting the trailer and a lighter being struck; something shatters a window and flies past them, and the room bursts into flames. Vero drags Finn out to the car, and they flee the scene. On the way home, Finn says that she needs to talk to Bree before the police do so that she can find out why Steven really fired her and if she might be FedUp.

The next morning, Finn heads for Bree’s parents’ house, where Bree is currently living. Finn finds Bree in their barn. Bree is embarrassed to be talking to Steven’s ex-wife and is clearly still in love with him. She tells Finn that her affair with Steven began soon after her father got her the job at Steven’s farm. Steven knew that Theresa was cheating on him, and Bree thought that he would eventually end things with Theresa and that they could be together. However, she realized that Steven was really still in love with Finn.

Finn is shocked and skeptical. Bree explains that after she told him that Finn was seeing Nick, Steven got furious and broke up with her. She also says that Steven installed the security system after harassing phone calls that lasted for months. He would go into his office and shut the door, but Bree could hear him shouting through the door. Bree also offers an alibi for the time of the firebombing: She was at home, watching television with her father.

When Finn returns to her house, she sees an unmarked police car in her driveway. She panics, wondering if they have somehow discovered her and Vero’s presence at Steven’s trailer, but when she goes inside, she sees Nick and Joey. Joey is asleep on her couch, and Nick is playing a game with Delia. Nick tells Finn that Joey has been moonlighting as a mall cop and is exhausted, so Nick decided to let him sleep for a bit. 

Nick came over to check on Finn and the children after hearing about the firebombing. He tells Finn that if she has dinner with him on Saturday, he will tell her what he has learned about the fire. After the two men leave, Finn tells Vero about her visit to Bree. She decides that they need to get into Steven’s phone to try to find out more about the harassing calls that Bree mentioned.

Finn uses her new wrench to loosen a pipe under the kitchen sink and then calls Steven to come over. When he gets there, Steven rudely tells Vero to clean up the water on the floor and then gets to work. 

Finn sneaks Steven’s phone from his jacket pocket. There is an outgoing call to Bree’s house on Thanksgiving and many calls going back and forth from Steven to Bree’s house in October, but nothing else stands out. As Finn returns to the kitchen, she hears a loud, angry shout. Vero has dumped Cheerios on Steven’s crotch, and Zach has gleefully pounced on his favorite treat. Steven tells Finn that Vero is “irresponsible” and a “menace.” 

Finn tells him that, given the fire at his trailer, the children will not be staying with him for a while. He is furious, claiming that the fire was random and that after he meets with the security company that afternoon, he will know who started the fire. After Steven leaves, Vero, who has been looking at their photos of Steven’s accounts, tells Finn that she found a strange entry: He has apparently been paying for a storage unit across state lines, in West Virginia.

On Saturday, Georgia comes over to supervise Aimee’s visit with the children while Finn and Vero drive to West Virginia to check out the storage unit. Finn worries about how they will gain access, but Vero says that she has already handled it. Ramón and his friend Javier meet them there. 

Finn is happy to finally meet Ramón, but Vero discourages conversation. While Javier picks the lock, Ramón tells Vero that someone showed up at her mother’s place, looking for her. Finn notices that Vero is perturbed. Ramón lets it slip that Vero has not talked to her mother in a month. Finn tries to ask about it, but Vero shuts the conversation down.

They are shocked to find that the storage unit contains a chest freezer holding pieces of a human body, wrapped in butcher paper. Finn recognizes the deceased as one of the two men in the photo with Bree and Steven. Finn goes to the office and bribes the attendant for information and learns that Theresa, not Steven, rented the unit. The payments are not current, and the unit will be cleared out soon. Anxious to prevent the police from finding the body and tracing it to Steven and then herself, Finn decides that she and Vero will take care of the situation themselves.

Finn and Vero head for Theresa’s house with the dismembered dead man in garbage bags in Vero’s trunk. Cam calls to say that he has not been able to find any information on FedUp. Finn offers him another $50 to find out what he can about EasyClean’s identity. 

At Theresa’s, Finn opens a garbage bag and shows Theresa the human head inside. Theresa tries to shut the door, and Finn empties the garbage bag onto Theresa’s front stoop. Theresa begs them not to leave the body at her house, as she is on house arrest and cannot leave to dispose of it. 

Theresa explains that the dead man is Carl Westover, one of Steven’s silent partners, and that he was killed by Feliks Zhirov, the Russian mobster she was sleeping with when she was engaged to Steven. Feliks forced Theresa to take care of Carl’s body to keep her from going to the police about him. She paid for the storage unit using Steven’s business account, but Steven does not know that Carl was killed. 

As Theresa describes the financial arrangement between Steven and his partners, Finn realizes that Steven lied to her about when he purchased the farm: He actually bought it pre-divorce, meaning that she is legally entitled to a percentage of it. Finn asks how Theresa moved the body to West Virginia; Theresa does not want to say, and Finn realizes that she is protecting Aimee, who helped her. Horrified, Finn thinks of Delia and Zach at home with Aimee. She and Vero rush back to Vero’s car and speed home to make sure that the children are safe.

At the house, Finn is terrified to see a trail of blood and Delia’s bloody handprint on a wall. She can hear Georgia conducting what sounds like a hostage negotiation upstairs, and she and Vero rush toward the upstairs bathroom. 

When they burst in through the door, Finn realizes that Georgia is trying to get Zach to use the toilet, withholding a gummy snack that the toddler wants until he complies. Delia has pulled her own front teeth out, tired of waiting for them to fall out, and is bleeding. 

Georgia tells them that Aimee left abruptly after getting a phone call. When Finn asks Delia why she was so eager to pull her teeth out, the child says that she needs the tooth fairy money to give to Vero. She overheard Vero on the phone telling someone that she has to quickly pay back some money or else she will be in serious trouble. 

Vero rushes inside from the garage, where she has been looking for carpet cleaner. She quietly tells Finn to get rid of Georgia because, in their hurry to get back to the house, they neglected to check the trunk: Carl’s torso is still there. They hurry Georgia out the door; as she is leaving, she reminds Finn that she has agreed to dinner with Nick that night.

Vero says that she will drive back to Theresa’s and get rid of Carl’s torso. Finn throws dinner together for the children and goes to take a quick shower. As she dresses, she realizes that she has no idea where her cell phone is. When she goes back downstairs, Nick has arrived. 

Vero suggests that she check the car for her cell phone, pointedly telling her to be sure to check in the trunk. When she gets out to the car, Finn realizes that her cell phone is not there—it must be at Theresa’s house—and that Carl’s torso is still in the trunk. Back inside the house, Vero lets Finn know that Theresa has slipped out of her ankle monitor and disappeared. Finn just wants to get her date with Nick over with so that she and Vero can figure out how to dispose of Carl.

As they drive, Nick tells Finn that his colleagues investigating the arson at Steven’s farm have found evidence: a broken credit card and some tire tracks. He also knows about the call from the security company and thinks that Steven is protecting someone because he won’t authorize releasing the recording to the police. Finn realizes that all the evidence they’ve found points straight to her and Vero. 

Nick tells her that he needs to stop to talk to one of Joey’s confidential informants who has traced some suspicious online activity to Feliks Zhirov. Finn is alarmed when they arrive at the investigator’s house and she realizes that Cam is Joey’s informant. From the car, she can hear Cam explaining to Nick about the mom’s group forum. He offers to tell Nick everything he knows if Joey will release Cam from their arrangement. Finn rolls down the window, makes eye contact with Cam, and draws her finger across her throat. Cam ends the conversation and goes back inside his house.

Nick takes Finn to an upscale Russian restaurant. He asks how her new book is going and whether the “hotshot cop” character makes a reappearance. Knowing that the conversation is really about herself and Nick, Finn answers with “for now.” Nick probes for more information about her relationship with Julian and makes it clear that he is still very interested in her. 

A tall, dark-haired woman approaches their table, and Nick introduces her as Kat Rybakov. Vero calls for Finn on Nick’s phone, and Finn goes to the bathroom to talk privately. Vero says that EasyClean emailed Finn’s account with a warning to back off. She also didn’t find Finn’s phone at Theresa’s and believes that Theresa took it with her when she fled. 

When Finn returns to the table, Nick is being kicked out of the restaurant. He explains to Finn that Feliks Zhirov owns the place and that Kat is Feliks’s attorney. Once they are outside, Nick slips on some gloves and begins rooting through the restaurant’s trash. Someone approaches, and he drags Finn into the dumpster with him to hide. The unknown person tosses a bag full of receipts into the dumpster. Nick is elated: He can use these to trace the many businesses that Feliks uses to launder money.

When Finn returns home, she finds a note from Julian tucked into her door. He has returned from Florida and wants to talk to her tomorrow. She also has a message on her house phone from Sylvia, reminding her of her Monday deadline for the first 20,000 words of the new book. Finn knows that there is no way she will make the deadline, but she hopes that she can at least get 10,000 words done. 

When she goes upstairs to wash her dumpster-tainted clothing, Finn finds that Vero has turned the washing machine into an improvised freezer, using their frozen food as ice packs to keep Carl’s torso frozen. In the dryer, she finds a casino chip and suspects that this is where Vero went on Thanksgiving. She wonders why Vero has not told her about it. 

Worried about the mounting evidence that Vero is in some kind of gambling trouble, she snoops in Vero’s room. She finds a photo of Vero, her cousin, and their mothers tucked into a drawer and wonders why Vero keeps so much of herself hidden away. She also finds a scholarship letter from a prestigious Maryland business school and is puzzled about why Vero would not have accepted this scholarship. She is even more puzzled when she sees that it is addressed to Veronica Ramirez, not Ruiz.