The Beast in Me Recap ‘Thanatos’: Murderer Past Midnight

The Beast in Me Season 1 Episode 4

The fourth episode of The Beast in Me began with a voiceover of Aggie’s writing, a brief discussion of Freud’s Thanatos theory as three major characters – Aggie, Nile, and Abbott – all followed the death instinct. Even after spending a lot of time with Nile, Aggie remained convinced that he was a murderer who killed both his wife Madison and young Teddy Fenig, the boy Aggie blamed for the death of her son Cooper. Aggie’s ex-wife Shelley, furious at what she thought was Aggie’s interference on the biggest break of her career as an artist, bluntly told Aggie that if anyone killed Teddy, it was Aggie. Teddy was a kid who made a mistake, from Shelley’s point of view, and Aggie never let him forgive himself. ‘You’d rather invent a murder than look in the g-damn mirror’. 

Shelley’s words echoed in Aggie’s ears following her meeting with Madison’s parents. They had largely kept to themselves, so Aggie was surprised when their lawyer called her and told her they had agreed to a meeting. Aggie was even more surprised to find out that not only were they still in contact with Nile, they only agreed to meet with Aggie because Nile vouched for her. 

James and Mariah Ingram lived in a large brownstone that was curiously set. The furniture looked expensive, along with that tea set, but there was a notable lack in the room. There were paintings but there were also bare walls. We saw no staff, just their adult son Christopher who hurriedly left just as Aggie came in. It was a home of old wealth and taste, but not opulence. 

The Ingrams told Aggie that Madison was bipolar; she was diagnosed in her mid-teens. She was also a skipper of medicines. Nile made her the happiest she has ever been, according to her parents, and even saved her life. Two years before she finally succeeded, Nile found her in the bath, her belly full of pills. Birding, a hobby suggested by her therapist, helped her, along with medications, when she took them.

Of the two, Mariah Ingram was the one who seemed to harbour resentment over what she viewed was a hostile act by her daughter. Madison was not found because she did not want to be found; she denied her parents closure. James Ingram more charitably thought that perhaps Madison simply wanted to spare them the trauma of finding her. 

They gave Aggie a copy of Madison’s suicide note, written on paper that looked like it was torn off a notebook. James told Aggie that three different forensic experts confirmed it was Madison’s handwriting.

Did the Ingrams’ support of Nile, along with Shelley’s harsh condemnation, convince Aggie to reconsider Nile’s innocence? Perhaps. When Abbott finally returned her call, he told her there was nothing in the files he took from Nile’s computer. On the night that Teddy disappeared, Nile was home asleep by 10. Abbott claimed responsibility for putting these ideas in Aggie’s head, when he came to her house in the middle of the night, and told her to let it go. After he hung up, he deleted the call logs in his phone, erasing possible proof of collaboration with Aggie.

So, when Aggie let Nile into her home past midnight that night, it was with the knowledge that his first wife’s parents thought him innocent, and that the FBI agent who had been doggedly investigating him for years confirmed that he was nowhere near Teddy when he disappeared.

Nile, of course, was far from innocent. The underground computer expert Abbott approached, Simone, said none of the files he grabbed were the fitness app, but there was a heavily encrypted link to a private network, a live feed of Teddy Fenig alive and a captive, presumably of Nile. 

Did Abbott take this incriminating information where he worked, the actual Federal Bureau of Investigation? Of course not, this is the Thanatos episode, he decided to follow Nile at night and accost him. Nile went alone to a Jarvis family property to meet with Olivia Benitez (more on this later). After the meeting, Abbott held him at gunpoint. Whatever Abbott planned to do with Nile did not come to pass, because Nile dropped Madison’s name, which distracted Abbott and allowed Nile to gain the upper hand in their fight. It was a nice nod to the previous episode that Nile brought Abbott down by pressing on the dog bite on his leg, which he sustained after breaking into Nile’s house. Nile first strangled Abbott with his bare hands, then he took Abbott’s gun and used it to bash his head in.   

We next see Nile’s handsome, charming face outside Aggie’s house, asking to come in. Aggie, who looked like she was ready to reconsider her conclusions about Nile, let the man we the audience just witnessed brutally murder an FBI agent, into her house.

Until he decided to kill Abbott, Nile was for the most part avoiding Thanatos through this episode. He called Aggie from his car, with his stone-faced wife in the passenger seat, and told her Nina would kill the offer to show Shelley’s paintings at her gallery. Nile called it a stupid idea, and promised that Nina would lay the blame on Nile and not Aggie. He once more alluded to the two of them being friends, a casual manipulation, because Aggie most definitely did not consider them friends, at least, at around this time.

With the collapse of the political support to Jarvis Yards, Nile’s father Martin hired a crisis communications team, The Montgomery Group, that billed three thousand dollars per hour, per person, which meant that if that meeting lasted an hour, with eight people from the team, that would have been a $24,000 bill. Did they charge for work prior to the meeting as well? I can’t even comprehend billing in these amounts. 

For the equivalent of a very good annual salary in a third world country, The Montgomery Group concluded that Jarvis Yards only needed to flip one vote to swing the council back in their favour. They identified someone named Haas, but Nile quickly told them that was a waste of time. The focus should be on Olivia Benitez, the shepherd instead of the sheep. Nile was convinced she was an opportunist, that all they needed to do was to figure out what she wanted. Martin was intrigued by Nile’s idea.

It was Olivia Benitez and her chief of staff Elijah Garrity whom Nile met that night that Abbott followed him. Nile offered the land where they were at, a donation to the city, in exchange for approval of the Jarvis Yards plan. Nile suggested that Olivia could spin the deal as her idea, that she extracted her pound of flesh from the Jarvises to alleviate the affordable housing crisis. It was not a bad pitch, but Olivia remained firm; her vote was not for sale. Nile had to call his father to report his failure. Martin took the news calmly and declared that since Olivia wouldn't take the carrot, they would move on to the stick. 

Nile managed to keep his temper up until Abbott showed himself with his gun. Nile knew they were on private property, Abbott likely did not have a warrant. The FBI agent was there illegally. He could have just lawyered up, he didn’t know that Abbott knew he kidnapped Teddy. Did he sense a finality in Abbott, a decision to kill him, which made him fight back and kill first? At least to me, it felt like Nile had been holding back evil Nile, and liked that he was able to let him out. He let loose whatever frustrations he felt after the Olivia Benitez meeting, so that when he went to see Aggie, he had his mask on again.

The episode closed with a shot of Aggie and Nile from outside Aggie’s window, as they shared a drink, to the sound of Patience and Prudence’s Tonight You Belong To Me. It was a cozy shot, and it was all the more unsettling because of it. Aggie was in the presence of the abyss, and her uncertainty due to the words of Shelley, the Ingrams, and Abbott blinded her from it.

Rating: A-

Strays

📬Simone’s no cash or crypto policy, but that one day she would ask Abbott to return the favour, and he would do it with no questions asked, was very The Godfather of her. 

📬Nina went to Shelley’s studio to break the news to her personally, and as promised, she did try to lay it on NIle, but Shelley knew Aggie too well. Nina gave Shelley a card to another gallerist.

📬The fight between Shelley and Aggie was well-written and well-acted, filled with the small cuts of daily married life, of deep love that lingered, and pain-laced anger.

📬Erika met with Rick and told her what Abbott told her, that Aggie reached out to him on background once. Rick wanted her to keep an eye on Abbott.

📬Aggie: ‘The truth is, we need our villains alive and well because without them, we’re left to face ourselves.’ 

📬Nile picked up what looked like a claw bar on the way to his meeting with Olivia Benitez. Did he intend to kill her and changed his mind when he saw she was not alone?

Episode Title: Thanatos

Episode Writer: C.A. Johnson

Episode DirectorL Tyne Rafaeli

Original Air Date: November 13, 2025

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