The Woman in the Wall Season 1 Episode 2 Review: Show Thyself

Lorna’s search to unveil the identity of the woman hidden in her wall is taken to a new level on The Woman in the Wall Season 1 Episode 2, “Show Thyself.”

The episode focuses on the debilitating loss Lorna is trying to bring closure to, but that means getting her hands dirtier than she already has. When the mystery woman’s phone starts blowing up, Lorna takes it as an opportunity to learn more, uncovering the name of the woman in the process, Aoife.

After luring Aoife’s partner to a nearby bar, she does her own detective work in an attempt to figure out Aoife’s intended message and intent for coming back to town. To which she figures out Clemence was the one she came to speak with, not her.

Their conversation is cut short, though, as Colman and Detective Massey barge in to arrest Dara. This revelation is almost like a knife to the stomach for Lorna, altering her objectives and how she plans to move forward.

Through her self-reflection tactics after learning the truth, we’re taken back in time to Lorna and Clemence’s time in the convent. She and Clemence had formed a plan to steal their babies back and make a run for it, but in her most dire moments of need, Clemence is betrayed by Lorna.

Instead of being a loyal friend, Lorna informs the nuns of their plan, failing to mention her involvement in the matter in hopes of being reunited with her own baby. This action, in turn, allows Lorna to realize she’s been duped and that all of them women are equal in the eyes of the nuns.

While the majority of “Show Thyself” fixates on Lorna’s journey for the truth, some of the more interesting moments of the episode are centered on Colman. During his pursuit to figure out who the hooded figure meeting with Dara is, we get a deeper inflection of who he is and why it’s so important for him to solve the case.

He and Massey make their way to an old church where the convent used to be in their efforts to find Aoife after interrogating Dara. This is when things start to get a bit messy as Colman begins grilling the nun without any remorse in an attempt to get any information he can.

Massey is clearly disgusted with Colman’s attitude within the church and the fact that he won’t stop pressuring the sister to speak about Father Percy. Through this series of events and his questioning of Massey’s motives, while riding back to town, we learn that Colman is invested because he was born in a mother-and-baby home and partially raised by father Percy.

Detective Colman Akande: You keep on about this tight-knit community of yours. The dependability of your network of chatter and gossip, where everyone knows everything about everyone. Someone farts in church on Sunday morning and the entire town’s laughing about it before lunch. And yet, in the fuckin’ building back there, I’m hearing girls were locked up and children were stolen, and you’re trying to tell me no one knew anything about it? How does something like that escape your network?

It explains why he’s so adamant about figuring out the truth, and why nothing will stand in his way from figuring out what happened to Father Percy.

As we see in the last moments of the episode, Colman receives an email with CCTV footage of Lorna setting Father Percy’s car ablaze in her sleepwalking state, which means he’s one step closer to connecting her to Aoife’s murder.

The question now is: did she really do it?

Other Thoughts:

• It would make sense if Detective Massey was in on the entire operation because Colman makes an extremely valid point. If the town is so small to the point where everyone knows one another’s business, then there’s no way people didn’t know about what was happening at the convent, especially the authorities.
• Part of me believes Clemence’s death feels too abrupt to be an intentional overdose, but another part recognizes that she had been living the past few days with the newfound knowledge of what happened to not only her child, but to every baby at the convent, and that had to be overwhelming. Her brother staring out the living room window as he awakens on the couch, though, also leads me to believe there’s more to her death than a simple overdose.

What did you think of this episode of The Woman in the Wall? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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The Woman in the Wall is available to stream at midnight on Fridays and airs Sundays at 9/8c on Showtime.

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