The Beast in Me Recap ‘Just Don’t Want to be Lonely’: What if a murderer just wants to be friends?

The Beast in Me Season 1 Episode 2

A brick through a window served as the second episode’s connecting tissue, one of the major reasons that pushed Aggie toward her new project, an authorised biography on accused murderer Nile Jarvis. One of, because the disappearance of Teddy Fenig was not the sole reason for Aggie’s interest. Aggie told her long suffering agent Carol that Nile liked her. What she didn’t tell her was that, though he frightened her, he fascinated her as well. Moth to a flame it is.

It was not that Aggie went to Nile with the proposal blindly. She was a brilliant woman who pieced together a plan that would persuade her equally brilliant mind fencing opposition. She first called FBI Agent Brian Abbott and told him about her suspicion, that Nile killed Teddy Fenig for her. To please her. As a favour to her. As a neighbourly gesture by someone who understood her, as he called it, bloodlust. Nile understood that a large part of Aggie’s current lifestyle of mostly staying at home was an effort to avoid seeing Teddy in their very small town and having her fury get triggered again (along with violating the restraining order). If he killed Teddy as he supposedly killed Madison ('Maddie'), in his twisted mind, he was freeing Aggie from the yoke of oppressive anger. ‘At least you don’t have to worry about seeing him around town anymore’, he told her. 

Abbott, of course, told her none of what she told him was proof. Aggie walked past a protest rally headlined by a rising councilwoman, Olivia Benitez, and found a good point to use to support her proposal. But first, she needed to come clean with her agent. 

I can’t even imagine the sheer stress of a writer who has already received, and spent, an advance from the publisher, but who, years into the work of a book, realises that it was simply not working. Aggie was a successful writer, it probably never occurred to her that she would become this badly blocked, but it happened. The one project that excited her was the one a suspected murderer practically proposed himself, a book about him. 

Carol was a saint of an agent and a friend, and she was concerned about Aggie’s safety as she, necessarily, would have to spend much time with a man who could very well have successfully disappeared his wife. She also recognised the look in Aggie’s eyes, a look she has not seen in a very long time. Aggie was on a hunt. Bloodlust. 

When Aggie came to Nile’s house to tell him of her proposal, she found him rather ravenously eating chicken with his fingers in his kitchen. I reckon most viewers were introduced to Matthew Rhys because of The Americans, but my introduction to him was as Mr. Darcy in Death Comes to Pemberley. He is a brilliant actor, and his natural charm adds a layer of danger when playing an alleged murderer. The casual consumption of meat, the tearing with his teeth, allowing Aggie to walk in on him like that — the scene was giving walking into a lion’s den vibes. 

Aggie shrewdly played to Nile’s vanity. She mentioned how Benitez seemed to be gaining traction, that Nile was not really putting up much of a fight. Nile of course pointed out that his exile in the suburbs was because everyone thought he killed his wife. Aggie asked him point blank if he did it. He denied it. 

Did she believe him? It did not seem so, but what mattered was, she successfully convinced him to consider her proposal, though he has never in the past talked to any other writer or journalist. Aggie told him that even if Jarvis Yards was successful, everything he attached his name to in the future would always be tarnished, unless he countered the scandal that turned him into a cartoon villain. Nile was suspicious of her motives, and Aggie owned to at least one of them – she admitted to being stuck, she needed a new subject, she was really curious about him. There was a look in her eyes as she walked away from Nile’s house that night. It was probably the most alive she has felt in a very long time.

Then, she saw Teddy’s friends throw a brick to a window of her house, a retaliation from what she previously did, when she threw a brick through the window of the pizza place where Teddy had worked. Aggie dialed 911, but she ended up hanging up and simply patching up the broken window with a cardboard and some tape. It was like her anger unleashed on young Teddy; she could never put his life back together again.

Nile’s new wife Nina came to Aggie’s house the next day with pie and an invitation to walk with her through the woods. Was this a pretence to get Aggie out of the house so Rick could search it? Was Nina a willing participant? I had to wonder, because Aggie's dog Steve did not like Nina, and dogs had excellent character senses. Nina told Aggie that Nile protected his first wife Maddie’s memory, that she was quite unwell and they all tried to keep it out of the press. Nina was Maddie’s executive assistant, though she insisted that nothing happened between her and Nile whilst Maddie was alive.

The walk was cut short because Aggie twisted her ankle; when she returned to her house, Rick was still inside. He managed to slip out without her noticing, but the short time he was there yielded the piece of paper where Aggie wrote down Brian Abbott’s name. Remember that Abbott was the lead investigator on the Jarvis business; Rick would have recognised his name.

Nile later called Aggie and asked about her ankle; Aggie correctly surmised that Nile sent his wife (at least in part) as a kind of job interview. Though Nile had his reservations, he decided to agree to the book. Nina was there standing by her husband as he made the call, partners in this decision.

Aggie called Abbott, who just found out that his lover Erika was splitting with her husband Frank. Later, Erika was picked up by Rick.

Aggie may have convinced Nile to take a chance with her in reframing his story, his legacy, but the reality of their burgeoning partnership was murkier – Nile also got to her. He saw her more clearly than she probably has seen herself in a long time, perhaps ever. Darkness recognised darkness; that one of them aimed for the light just made this a chase on who would devour who first.

Rating: B+

Strays

📬Teddy Fenig’s supposed suicide note was found in his car. Aggie drove up to the beach and when Teddy’s mother saw her, the inevitable happened. Of course his mother blamed her for what happened to her son. Aggie’s anger over Teddy’s role in her son Cooper’s death was well known, well voiced, even well aimed. But, as Mrs. Fenig talked to the cops, she also mentioned that Teddy had been making plans with his girlfriend; not the behaviour of someone who had already decided to end his life. 

📬The episodes are called chapters which is on the nose for a story about a writer but all right.

📬Nile, about Teddy: ‘Karma’s a motherf-er’. He truly bought into Aggie’s version of events about Teddy.

📬Abbott was hiding his conversations with Aggie from his lover/ supervisor. He had also been tailing Nile on his own time. He strongly advised Aggie to keep her distance from Nile but, once he was back in his office, Abbott ran a search on Teddy Fenig.

📬Whilst inside the house, Nina noticed Shelley's art work and was so taken by it that she asked if she had representation. I could not decide if Aggie was being dismissive of Shelley's painting or if she wanted to protect her ex-wife from the Jarvis orbit.

Episode Title: Just Don’t Want to be Lonely

Episode Writer: Gabe Rotter

Episode Director: Antonio Campos

Original Air Date: November 13, 2025

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