His and Hers Recap Episode 3: Helen

When Helen alluded to five people knowing a secret from 20 years ago, we only knew of four people who could have been involved — Rachel Hopkins, Helen Wang, Zoe Harper, and Anna Andrews. With the flashback on this episode that showed how Rachel was already a mean girl back in high school, and Helen and Zoe pretty much followed her lead, we may have found the fifth person — Catherine Kelly.

The girls were making fun of Catherine when Anna gently suggested that perhaps she was just lonely. Rachel told Anna to invite her to their table, which Anna did. Rachel pretended to accidentally spill Catherine’s drink and gave her own soda in exchange. Catherine said the drink tasted strange, and Rachel announced to the room that Catherine drank her piss. I will never understand bullies. What made Rachel think that letting the whole school know she peed into a cup in the cafeteria made her cool?

Catherine was upset, of course, and much of her hurt was directed at Anna, who persuaded her to join the mean girls’ table. Anna tried to tell her she didn’t know Rachel would do that, to no avail. 

Fast forward to present day, and Anna experienced her own humiliation courtesy of Lexy Jones. Jim made Anna drive all the way from Dahlonega to Atlanta to fill in for Lexy, who could not be reached. Jim ranted against Lexy and dangled Anna’s anchor job back to her. Just moments before they went live, Lexy walked in, already dolled up, fakely apologising for her lateness, giving an excuse that Anna later realised from Richard was completely made up. Lexy recognised Anna’s move when she requested Lexy’s husband as her cameraman, and retaliated in a way she knew would hurt the most, making Anna almost touch her old job back, only to snatch it away at the last minute. At the garage, Anna tossed Alice’s eggs on Lexy’s car in anger. 

Anna was nothing if not resilient, events in Dahlonega seemed to favour her career. A second body dropped, and it was Anna herself who found it and called it in to the police. Helen Wang, Headmistress of St. Hilary’s, was killed at the school. 

And Jack was there at the school at some point that night. 

Let’s put a pin on that, we will come back to this later. It was difficult to say if Jack truly suspected Clyde of murdering Rachel since much of his focus has been on trying to deflect suspicion from himself. His point about Clyde calling Rachel’s phone though he had already been warned of the battery dying was valid. Now that he had seen that Rachel had videos on her phone of Clyde as a sub and of Rachel and Helen as doms, was he even more convinced that this was the secret that Clyde was trying to hide? Perhaps. Or was he trying to convince himself that it was Clyde, because once Rachel’s murder was solved then he could breathe easier again?

For a few moments, Jack thought he had almost convinced Priya to focus on Clyde. As he drove to Helen’s house, Priya called him and told him he was right. Before they’d even left the Duffie home, Clyde had already made two calls, one to Helen, the other to Rachel’s phone. Priya went to where Jack had been trying to lead her, that Clyde didn’t want them to find Rachel’s phone because there was something embarrassing on that phone for a man who owned a chain of pizza parlours. Jack told Priya to focus on Clyde as the main suspect and on Helen as an accessory.

Then Priya dropped the bomb – the shoe print. There was no way the men’s Timberland boot size 10 belonged to Helen. Clyde was a size 11. Because that boot print was very possibly his, Jack tried to brush away their importance and told Priya to go to Clyde’s house and watch him. Priya would not let this go. Earlier in the day, when she dropped off her own swab along with Clyde’s at the morgue, the attendant there asked if her partner had found his wedding ring. Priya asked Jack why he went to the morgue to look for his wedding ring when she had never even seen him wear one.

You could almost see the tightness return to Jack’s chest. He told her he wore his wedding ring sometimes, or kept it in his pocket just to touch it. Priya was not buying any of this. She had a murder board up in her own house, and Jack’s photo was up there, with a small scratch on his cheek and that boot print underneath.

The woman who answered the door for Jack told him Helen was still at the school. At St. Hilary’s, Jack rang the doorbell, but Helen, who was inside and must have heard it, did not rush to open the door. It was raining, and Jack went outside to find another way in. He did locate an open door, it looked like a chapel, which he used to access the school halls, only to come up to another locked door, preventing him from going further. This sequence cut to Priya finding Clyde's BDSM implements (more below) so when I first watched this, it looked like an odd cut to Jack suddenly pulling up to a grocery store. But no, Jack went to the school and tried to get in to find Helen, but the doors that would have allowed him to head to her office were locked, so he left.

In any case, at the grocery, where Jack bought, among others, bananas (this is the third episode where we’ve seen him with bananas), he saw Richard buying cleaning materials, a roll of duct tape, a hammer, and a few other things. To my CSI-raised brain, that looked like a murder kit. Jack did not have time for Richard, however; he asked the cashier for a couple of extra plastic bags and used them to cover his boots as he walked the crime scene in the woods and checked those foot prints Priya was now very interested in.

As he examined the footprints, there were quick flashbacks of his night there with Rachel. She taunted Jack and mentioned Anna mid-coitus, and Jack told her to shut up. He got aggressive, which was when she scratched his cheek. Had he given his DNA, the coroner would have found it under Rachel’s fingernails, which would damn him even more.

Jack walked to a nearby cemetery, and it was there that he met a sweet old man he called Coach Willie. They looked like they had known each other for a long time. Coach Willie, who had pulled a shotgun before he recognised Jack, said kids had been vandalising the area, and that his son set up cameras for him. They watched the video of the night Rachel died. There was someone standing in front of Jack’s daughter’s grave. At least now we know what Anna was doing there that night. The camera also caught a vehicle arriving, which could be Jack’s truck. 

Jack’s night only got longer when he received a call that Alice had gone on her naked walk on the road again. Jack took her home, and there Alice questioned him about his feelings for Anna. Jack admitted that he loved her, still loved her, but that they were over. Alice tried to convince him to fight for her daughter. They briefly watched one of Anna’s tapes together from back when she was in high school, which seemed to be a fairly usual activity for Alice. When Jack left, he messaged Anna, and told her they needed to talk. He saw her typing, but whether she replied or not, we did not get to see.

Husband and wife next saw each other the next morning at a crime scene.

The third episode of His and Hers dug deeper into its characters’ pasts, opening up emotional wounds they still carry to this day. Jack was emotionally stripped down twice by two women – by his mother in law whom he affectionately called Ms Alice, and his sister Zoe. Zoe, who was a drunk. Zoe, who was an irresponsible mother. Zoe, who could not keep a job and would have to sell their parents’ things had Jack not been there to pay the bills. For all her faults, Zoe knew her brother; she did not miss the things that had been happening to him lately. She did not miss that he had been happier, that he stayed out late three nights in a row. She did not miss that he returned to his sad self after Rachel died. She did not miss that scent she caught from him, the same scent Rachel had when they ran into each other at a gas station. She knew her brother was Rachel’s lover. What she wanted to know was whether he was her killer too.

Jack denied it. He said they had sex in his truck in the forest, then he left. He was adamant he did not hurt her. He did not tell his cop buddies because he did not want them looking at him the way Zoe looked at him at that moment. For all their complicated sibling relationship, Jack was able to finally voice out his greatest fear, his deepest stress, on Zoe.

Rating: B

Strays

🌳Priya did follow Jack’s instruction and watched Clyde’s house. She followed as Clyde drove off and retrieved the trash bag he tossed in a bin away from his house. It contained BDSM equipment. 

🌳So, Jack was with Rachel at the woods, then she was killed. Now, Jack was in the school looking for Helen, then she was killed. Hmm. 

🌳Jack and Anna’s kid was Charlotte Alice Harper, who died when she was just a baby. Charlotte had been crying that night. Anna told Jack she wanted to stay at home, but Jack said Charlotte was just fussy. They left her in the care of Alice.

🌳Helen called the Sheriff's office in the second episode. What did she tell them?

Episode Writer: William Oldroyd

Episode Director: Anja Marquardt

Original Release Date: January 8, 2026

You can access Recap Lab’s coverage of His and Hers via this link.

Home