The Beast in Me Recap 'Elephant in the Room': Daddy Issues

The Beast in Me Season 1 Episode 3

I understand that I could be in the minority here, but I enjoyed that the third episode title is ‘Elephant in the Room’ and The Beast in Me decided to include an actual elephant in the story. Billionaires gonna billionaire, and Martin Jarvis, Nile’s powerful father, decided to rent an elephant for the safari-themed eighth birthday party of his twin sons with his second wife.

The interviews for Aggie’s book were ongoing, and rather predictably, Nile and his father Martin were not on the best of terms. Martin was a self-made man who worked in a dairy farm and supported himself and his younger brother Rick. The focus of his legacy was on his children. Nile’s mother went through multiple miscarriages before the birth of their first child Marty, then another round of miscarriages before having Nile. She passed away from cancer. After Marty died of an overdose at 31, Martin married a second time and had the twins. 

The scene that introduced Martin Jarvis was also an illustration of where Nile might have gone wrong as a child. A palatial mansion. A father casually watching and even encouraging his eight year old sons fight each other to the point of drawing blood. Two brothers fondly reminiscing of beating and getting beaten up. Rick went to Martin to report on the latest on Nile; before he said a word, Martin already knew Nile did something, again.

Martin’s determination to leave a legacy in blood clashed with Nile’s absolute conviction that he did not want his own children. Aggie calmly asked him if denying his father the grandchildren he wanted was a power move, a good question and brilliant way to show and not just tell of Aggie’s skill as a profile writer. Nile denied that his decision had anything to do with his father, and claimed that he would love the kids too much.

Like a boy who has been handed everything since birth and had to contend with a larger than life overachieving father, Nile wanted to claim and proclaim his integral part in the Jarvis business. He told Aggie that he pulled his father into the future, that the business grew tenfold because of swings he convinced his father to make. He talked of redrawing the New York skyline as his legacy.  

Though he kept his son involved in the family business, Martin saw Nile differently. He was very unhappy with Nile’s decision to speak to Aggie on the record, and pointed out that the whole point of moving him out of Manhattan was to keep him from headlines until Jarvis Yards was finished. An authorised biography was an invitation for more attention, more scrutiny. Nile countered that his exile into the suburbs was backfiring, that he needed to control the narrative. Martin rather sharply asked what made him think he could control Aggie Wiggs.

Another good question. Nile and his wife Nina knew of Aggie even before they became neighbours. She was a major literary celebrity. She was known for her profiles. It was a display of narcissism on Nile’s part to think that he could charm her and manipulate her into writing a book that placed him in a relatively favourable light and would help rehabilitate his public image, especially since he knew from the beginning that she, like most people, thought he killed his wife. But that was the Nile from the very first scene, cocky, sure of himself, wouldn’t take no for an answer. 

So, it was a very dangerous Nile who found out via Rick that Aggie was talking to the FBI, to Brian Abbott, the very agent who was investigating Nile for financial crimes before Madison’s disappearance, and who almost obsessively tried to pin her murder on him. Nile demanded that Aggie meet him at Jarvis Yards and took her up either 24 floors or 100 floors (a minor editing lapse here).

Did the fact that this was episode three, and there was no way the show would kill off Claire Danes’s character this early rob the scene of some of its tension? A little bit, but Ms Danes and Matthew Rhys are both incredible actors, and they sold the scene of an alleged murderer with barely controlled anger, and a smart, terrified woman who played a dangerous game. Aggie did not deny that she talked to the FBI, to Brian Abbott, but she sold it as basic background, just something that a writer of her calibre would do. When Nile tried to back away from the book, Aggie warned that her editor just might push her to continue with it without his cooperation and write an unauthorised version. Aggie offered to allow Nile to read the first one hundred pages, off the record, and if he had notes, she would consider them. He sensed danger, but he still believed in his ability to control the situation. Nile invited Aggie to come to his half brothers’ birthday party and attempt to talk to his father there. The book was still on.

As convinced as Aggie was that Nile disappeared Teddy Fenig the way he disappeared Madison, there was simply no proof. The party gave her and Abbott the opening they needed. Aggie told Abbott about a ring that Nile wore that recorded all his vitals and his geolocation. If he grabbed Teddy off the street, that would certainly have raised his heart rate, and the ring would have recorded it. All that data was in his computer at his home. Aggie had been paying close attention during their interviews; she knew the password to Nile’s computer.

While Nile, Nina, and Rick were at Martin’s massive home, Abbott drugged Nile’s dogs and broke into his house. The files in the computer were still downloading when Aggie called him and warned him that Nile and Nina were on their way back. Some work emergency had forced Nile to cut his appearance at the party short.

Abbott was able to get away, barely, but not before one of the dogs woke up, chased him, and bit him bloody. He crouched behind a large rock outside Nile’s fence, with Nile and Nina just a few feet away wondering what the commotion was about. Perhaps he heard Nina tell Nile that she needed to talk to him about Aggie. Perhaps he was not close enough to hear her soft voice and wonder what further complication there was in their investigation.  

The complication was Shelley, Aggie’s ex-wife. Without telling either Nile or Aggie, Nina sought out Shelley and offered her a place at an exhibition at her gallery. It would have been the biggest opportunity of Shelley’s budding artistic career, and Nina assumed Aggie would be pleased. Aggie was either very concerned about her ex-wife getting entangled in the Jarvis web, or she was dismissive of Shelley’s career which she viewed more as a hobby. It could be a combination of both. What she told Nina was that if her book about Nile were to have any credibility, it could not look like they were trying to influence what she wrote. 

‘Elephant in the Room’ was a gradual expansion of the story, from Nile’s relationship to his father to the determined pursuit of Abbott and Aggie. Abbott, in particular, kept  showing glimpses of deeper pain. We’ve had enough clues to conclude that he once got in so much trouble for his pursuit of Nile Jarvis. After all that, what pushed an FBI agent to conduct an illegal investigation with a civilian, that had him crouching behind a rock bleeding from a dog bite?

Rating: B+ 

Strays

📬According to the councilman in the Jarvis pocket, Phineas Gold, Olivia Benitez has been getting traction on her opposition to Jarvis Yards by exploiting Nile’s ‘situation’. It must have worked, because at the twins’ birthday party, Gold informed father and son that even he was lining with Benitez. It was what pushed Nile to leave  early, so he could deal with it and get opposition research on the committee members.

📬Whilst Rick told Martin about Aggie’s book, he kept from his brother the more  stressful fact that Aggie was talking to the FBI (though he told Nile). Rick was a protective younger brother to Martin. He blamed Martin’s past heart attack on Nile, he warned  Nile that he would do everything to protect Martin.

📬Aggie pointed out that the handwriting on Teddy’s supposed suicide note was wobbly, like someone forced him to write it. Has handwriting so completely gone out of style that experienced FBI agents missed this?

📬David Lyons, who played Abbott, and Claire Danes have good chemistry, I wish they had more scenes together. Abbott gave Aggie the number to a burner phone that she could call, and stayed outside Jarvis Yards the night Nile forced her to meet him there.

📬Aggie brought up talking to Nile’s father (Martin ignored her) and Madison’s parents (we haven’t met them yet as of this episode).

📬Abbott’s lover Erika had his phone logs pulled and knew he talked to Aggie Wiggs. Abbott lied and claimed that was just background for her book.

📬Seeing kids at the party, Aggie had a painful vision of Cooper and his tantrum on  the day he died.

📬Upon seeing Madison’s photo in Nile’s office, Abbott had a quick flashback of  Madison getting in his face as he tried to arrest Nile. Hmm.

Episode Title: Elephant in the Room

Episode Writer: Erika Sheffer

Episode Director: Tyne Rafaeli

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