How It All Goes Down
Nick Dunne—The Night of the Return
- When Nick goes to the police station to pick up Amy, he discovers he has new celebrity status with the world since her return. The same reporters who wanted his head on a platter hours before are now swarming him like tween autograph seekers at a One Direction concert. They grill him about his harrowing experience of being the primary suspect in her murder, to which he only responds that Amy's safety is all he cares about. This isn't exactly true, but it's the answer they want, and we all know how Nick loves to give people what they want at his own expense.
- Right now, Nick is just trying to get past the grotesque fact of life that his wife is such a sicko that she murdered a guy in cold blood so she could come home and be the big hero. Of course everyone is buying the story and is, well, amazed, that cute, sweet little Amy ripped into a guy's throat. They don't seem to really care that there are inconsistencies here—like how it's impossible to knife someone when you're tied up—and it's making Nick sick.
- You know what else is making Nick sick? Rand and Marybeth Elliott. Rand apologizes to him profusely for their encounter at his house, while Marybeth is still giving him the cold shoulder for cheating on Amy.
- Then, just when this whole thing couldn't get any more awkward, Jacqueline Collings barges in, demanding to see Amy, the killer of her son. She has a dust-up with the Elliotts, who are obviously the beneficiaries of Amy's return, made possible by Desi getting whacked. Jacqueline insists that Amy is lying and that she actually murdered her son, but the cops and reporters dismiss her as too grief-stricken to be in touch with reality.
- In spite of the Andie affair, Amy agrees to come home and spend her first night back with her husband, which would look pretty forgiving and sweet if we weren't talking about Amy. Once they're alone, Nick tells her that he can't be in the same house with her, while she fawns all over him, citing his declarations of love on Sharon Schieber's show as evidence that he still wants to be with her. She tells him something that chills him—that they know each other better than anyone in the world. And it's true. Their marriage is one giant power play, but the fact that they know each other cold makes each blow sting worse.
- Nick finally persuades Amy to tell him the truth, but she agrees only if they are naked in the shower with the water running so she can be sure that Nick isn't wearing a wire, and also just in case the bathroom is bugged. It is under these conditions that Amy tells Nick the story we are all well aware of by this point, so we'll skip those details.
- The bottom line is that Nick learns for the first time that his wife, for the better part of the last year, has been a total lie. The part that hurts the worst is that there was never a baby—Nick still has a desire to be a parent and do for his child what his father could never do for him.
- Amy also tells him some stuff we didn't know—like the fact that she actually did poison herself with anti-freeze and did get sick. In fact, she's even saved some of her vomit as an insurance policy so she can still nail Nick if he doesn't play by her rules.
- As soon as he can get alone, Nick calls Tanner and tells him that Amy confessed to killing Desi. This means nothing if they can't prove it though, and her entire story, according to Tanner, is "foolproof." She has covered every base that someone might use to attack her credibility. They can't even get Noelle Hawthorne in their corner because she never knew that Amy used her pee to fake a pregnancy.
- For now, Tanner's best advice is to "play nice" with Amy and not to do anything to tee her off enough to prompt her to share her attempted-murder-by-antifreeze story with the cops. Nick throws a tantrum and hangs up the phone. From behind him, he hears Amy call his name and tell him to play nice with her.