KNIVES

OUT
Scene-by-Scene Breakdown
by Dan Gorski
GoIntoTheStory.blcklst.com

1: Dawn inside the Gothic manor house of the Thrombey Estate, as housekeeper FRAN
carries a tray of coffee up a flight of narrow stairs to the third floor master bedroom, but the
bed is empty. She continues up an even more narrow, half flight of stairs to a single door that
opens to a study, where she finds HARLAN THROMBEY dead — his throat slit.

2-3: One week later, MARTA CABRERA looks for a job in her South Boston housing project
apartment, while her sister ALICE watches CSI. Marta’s concerned MOTHER argues with
Alice over watching the insensitive subject matter, given Marta’s friendship with Harlan.
Alice finally agrees to stop since she figured out the ending already. Marta laughs at the
absurdity of the moment, then cries, but a call from Harlan’s son interrupts her.

3-5: Marta arrives at the Thrombey estate where MEG, Thrombey’s college-aged
granddaughter greets her, identifying her for the COP as Harlan’s nurse, and part of the
family. She leads her into the foyer, where Harlan’s sharp, steely-eyed daughter LINDA
welcomes her. Linda’s gruff, confident husband RICHARD finishes an angry phone call with
someone who didn’t show up to the funeral, and now is refusing to join them for this
investigation. STATE TROOPER WAGNER then invites Linda into the library to start her
interview.

5-7: In the library, Linda meets LIEUTENANT ELLIOTT who questions her with Wagner, but
she also notices a man in a linen suit blending into the background. Elliott asks Linda about
Harlan’s 85th Birthday party, which she remembers as a good party, with attendance
including Fran, Marta, as well as their Greatnana, Harlan’s very old mom. She admits her son
Ransom attended, but left early. In flashback, the handsome RANSOM, hurries out the side
door.

The silent linen-suited man interrupts the interview by playing a single piano key, which
reminds Elliott to ask if everyone her family arrived together. She admits Richard came early
to help the caterers. The questioning turns to her business and her relationship with her dad.
She built the business from the ground up, and she admits she had a secret way of
communicating with him.

8: In Richard’s interview, he admires Harlan’s ability to start with a “rusty Smith-Corona”
and become a best-selling mystery writer, but disagrees that his kids are self-made
overachievers.

8-10: Harlan’s obsequious son WALT admits to running the family’s publishing company.
Trooper Wagner gushes as a big fan until the linen-suited silent man in the background taps
his finger to get them back on track. Walt confirms he and his wife DONNA, as well as his
teen son JACOB, arrived at the same time. The other family members characterize the teen as
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an alt-right troll and a literal Nazi. Walt recalls the party as a chance for his dad to pass the
torch.

10-12: Harlan’s boho chic daughter-in-law JONI, Meg’s mom, stayed close to the family after
her husband passed 15 years ago. She admits that Harlan helped her get through tough
times. Intercutting with Meg’s interview, Meg admits that her granddad gives her mom a
yearly allowance, as well as wiring tuition to her schools. Meg left the party early to visit
friends at Smith. The linen-suited man taps his finger to trigger the question about arrival
time. However, Joni doesn’t answer, instead asking why they have to answer questions at all.

12-14: Elliott clarifies they just need to determine the manner of death as follow up. Walt
laughs at the idea that Elliott may be implying that one his family may have killed Harlan.
Richard wants to know who the linen-suited man is, so Elliott introduces him as BENOIT
BLANC, a private investigator, who is not with the police, but who offered to consult. Joni
remembers Blanc from a New Yorker article as a famous gentlemen sleuth. Because Harlan
committed suicide, Linda questions Blanc’s need to be there. Blanc finally speaks, admitting
he was hired by someone, but he cannot say by whom.

15-16: Blanc tries to bait Linda into bad-mouthing her siblings in front of the detective, but
she calls him out. Richard has no problem, though, revealing how Walt will have a few drinks
and then get into arguments with Harlan, implying they had a private meeting at the party,
where Walt seemed to push too hard for TV rights, and Harlan must have let him down by
the way Walt looked after the meeting.

16-18: When asked about the private meeting, Walt’s flashback reveals Harlan took the
publishing business away from him. However, he lies to Blanc that they had a simple
business discussion about e-books, then changes the subject to his dad’s argument with
Ransom.

Walt reveals that Ransom had a blow out fight with Harlan. A flashback reveals Ransom
bursting out of the room and leaving during the party.

19-20: Blanc asks Richard about coming early to help the caterer, revealing the caterer never
got his help, but did hear him screaming with Harlan in his study, where Harlan shouted
“you tell her or I will…” Richard at first denies it, but then in flashback, he remembers how
Harlan showed him photos on a laptop of Richard kissing another woman, insisting he tell
his wife about the affair. When Blanc presses him that the caterer heard two male voices, he
lies to Blanc, explaining that the fight with Harlan was about putting his mom in a nursing
home.

20-22: Blanc presses Joni about her meeting with Harlan, which she remembers dealing with
a missed tuition payment for Meg’s school. In a flashback, she remembers how Harlan
confronted her for double-dipping by having one of his offices send a tuition payment
directly to the school, and another office send an additional tuition payment directly to Joni,
on top of her support patent. Harlan promised no more support payments to the family. For
Blanc, though, she also omits the full story, calling it a simple money wiring issue.
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23: Richard sneaks into the small study to find the note Harlan had threatened to send to
Linda regarding his affair. When he opens it, he laughs, relieved to find an empty card with
no note.

23-30: As the investigators take a break, Elliott pushes for an open and shut case of suicide,
given no motives for murder, but Blanc has suspicions. Blanc catches Marta eavesdropping,
and asks her about her unique quirk where she vomits if she tries to lie, and she admits it’s
true.

So, he puts it to the test by asking if Richard was having an affair. As she recalls in flashback
how Harlan showed her the photos of Richard’s affair, she tries to lie to cover for Richard,
which makes her vomit. Blanc concludes he was right about Richard, but Elliott does not see
covering up an affair as a strong motive for murder. Blanc then presses her to admit that
Harlan was planning to cut Joni off. Marta prepares to lie again, but her convulsing throat
stops her, and she admits he is correct. Both Trooper Wagner and Lieutenant protest that
her motive is not strong enough. Blanc agrees, but still points out that they lied.

Blanc then makes the case that Harlan was cleaning house, asking if Harlan wanted to fire
Walt, but Marta avoids the question this time and exits into the house. Blanc admits to
Wagner and Elliott that he dodged Linda’s question earlier - the question of who hired him,
now revealing he does not know. He came because he received cash with a news clipping
implying foul play.

30-33: Elliott walks Blanc through the evening events. The party broke up at 11:30. Marta
and Harlan went upstairs for his meds, while Richard, Linda, and Jon went to bed. Because
the stairs leading up to Harlan's attic office creak, they know every time someone used the
stairs.

First time, Joni heard a ka-THUNK, so she took the creaky stairs to find Marta preparing a
hypo needle and Harlan reassuring her they knocked over the GO board (game with grid and
stones).

Ten minutes later, Marta leaves, creaking down the stairs, as she says goodbye to Walt, who
smokes a cigar on the porch with his son Jacob. He notices her driving off at midnight.

Fifteen minutes later, Linda is woken the third and final time by someone coming down the
creaky stairs, who Walt sees is Harlan coming down for midnight snacks. Walt tells him to go
to bed. The medical examiner determined the time of death between 12:15 and 2am.

Walt finished his cigar about 12:30 when Meg came home. She went straight to bed, then
Walt and Jacob shortly after that. Meg woke up possibly near 3am when the dogs were
barking outside. She used the bathroom and went back to bed.

34-41: In Marta’s interview, Blanc asks her to describe her time with Harlan from 11:30 to
12:00…
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In flashback, Marta remembers wanting to give Harlan his medicine and send him to bed, but
he insisted on playing a game of GO. Harlan joked how she always wins, pretending to fake
an earthquake to avoid losing. The board tipped, sending stones, vials and syringes to the
floor.

She then gave him the medicine as they chatted about the party. He admitted cutting the line
all four of them, so they could stand on their own, as they only play life without consequence.
Marta then offered Harlan a tiny bit of morphine, which she seemed to provide on occasion
in small doses, but as she looked at the label, she panicked. Checking the labels, she realized
she gave him a large dose of morphine by accident instead of his regular medicine.

As she desperately looked for the emergency shot of Naloxone that would prevent him from
dying, he realized an ambulance would never arrive in time if they didn’t have the
emergency shot. When she could not find the saving shot, Harlan stopped her from calling 9-
1-1. She fell on the ground trying to reach her phone, causing the ka-THUNK. He insisted he’s
already dead, and it’s too late to save him -- that she should think of her mom, who is still
undocumented, and avoid blame. At that moment, Joni came to the door, so Harlan acted
normal. Once she left, Harlan made the plan for Marta, which we watch as he explains...

41-46: Harlan had her go downstairs, saying goodbye, driving past the security camera out
front just past the elephant. Then she had to walk back along the side yard path, through the
yard gate, where the dogs would recognize her and not bark. She would then need to climb
the trellis, come through the trick hall window, put on his robe and cap, and head downstairs
to be seen by Walt from the front porch.

As Marta climbed down the trellis at the end, she was seen by Greatnana looking out the
window, who luckily mistook her for Ransom, asking if he’s back again already. Harlan’s last
words of advice for Marta told her to use only fragments of the story for the police
questioning - only the truth parts to avoid puking.

46-47: Marta keeps her details limited with Blanc, describing only how they played a game of
GO, knocked over the board, gave him meds, and left at midnight. When Blanc asks about the
medicine, she explains she has been giving him 100 mg of Toradol and 3 mg of morphine.
Blanc lets the interview end at that point, and Marta heads calmly into the bathroom, where
she pukes.

47-48: Linda looks at old pink note cards, similar to Harlan’s note that Richard found to be
blank, except these have notes from a father to his daughter. Walt checks on her as they get
ready for the memorial, and she longs for a big reveal to make sense of everything.

48-51: Fran corners Marta at the memorial with conspiracy theories based on a Hallmark
movie and her cousin at the medical examiner’s office. Marta daydreams, remembering in
flashback hearing Harlan and Ransom in a heated argument at the birthday party, while
Richard, Joni, Donna, and Linda get into an argument over immigrants in America. As the
discussion heats up, Richard tries to bring Marta into the discussion as an example of an
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immigrant who did it the right way, hoping she will side with him, but at that moment,
Ransom bursts out and leaves.

As the memory overwhelms her, Fran and Meg try to help relax Marta at the memorial. Fran
unlocks a mantle clock above the fireplace to take out a joint from her secret stash to share
with Meg. Meg offers to Marta, but she refuses, despite her racing heart.

51-52: Meg prompts Walt to tell Marta what the family discussed, that they want to take care
of her financially because she was good to Harlan. Marta feels relief that maybe all will be
okay.

52-54: Later, Marta finds Blanc at the memorial, who continues to dig for the truth. He has
convinced the medical examiner to delay ruling it as suicide for forty eight hours. He asks
Marta to join him the next day when he searches the grounds, as the only person who had
nothing to gain from Harlan’s death.

54-56: As Marta heads home that night to watch TV with her mom…

She recalls in flashback how Harlan worried he missed something in his plan to protect her,
but he urged her to do whatever she would have to do to beat it and win. She exited his
study, doubting she could do it, and returned to insist she get him help, but he reassured her,
then promptly used his knife to slice his own throat in front of her.

Marta tells her mom it will be okay, but she doesn’t notice on her shoe — a single drop of
blood.

56-58: The next morning, Marta meets Blanc, Elliott, and Wagner inside the small guard
house, where Harlan's security man, MR PROOFROC, provides the VHS tape of the night in
question. Marta realizes that she can see the carved elephant in the video, and she
remembers that Harlan told her to pull off the road just after that marker. They have trouble
forwarding the tape to watch, so Blanc asks Wagner to digitize the tape, but Marta grabs it
first. She then hands it to Wagner, after working it with some old magnets she took from the
security guard’s fridge.

58-60: As Marta heads up towards the house, and Wagner and Blanc discuss Ransom’s
address, Marta notices the ground by the gate is soft, and she sees her footprints from that
night, so she quickly steps right through her previous prints, just as Blanc notices the
ground. Blanc tells everyone to freeze, but Marta plays dumb and pretends she can’t hear,
stepping back through again, one more time, messing up the evidence. The dogs come
running, to bark at the men, but Marta calms them. The family starts to arrive for the reading
of the will, distracting the detectives, giving Marta a moment to look at the trellis, where she
finds a piece of the broken trellis on the grass, and sees the broken spot. Blanc greets
Greatnana, getting almost into a trance staring at her, so Marta kicks the broken trellis into
the bushes.

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61-62: Blanc, Wagner, and Marta move to the study, where he looks for the medical bag, but
concludes it must be in evidence. Then he tips over the GO board to see it land on the ground,
but does not make a big noise. The dogs interrupt by barking crazy at Ransom outside.

62-66: Elliott and Wagner approach Ransom, but he refuses to answer questions and mocks
Blanc. While attorney ALAN STEVENS sets up in the library, Walt confronts Ransom about
his fight with Harlan, revealing his son Jacob overheard the fight about the will from the
bathroom, where Ransom told him, “I’m warning you.” When Ransom confirms he was cut
out of the will, his parents praise the move as an opportunity to grow up. As the rest of the
family weighs in on his misfortune, he lashes out, and a loud argument erupts.

67-69: Blanc and Marta retreat to the porch, away from the family fight, where the dog
retrieves the broken trellis piece from the bushes. Blanc takes it to the side of the house to
find the trellis with the missing broken area, which reveals a boarded window. Blanc heads
inside and upstairs to find that hallway where the window should be. Marta swings open the
painting to reveal the trick window. They also find mud in the hallway, on the window sill,
and he suspects on the trellis. Blanc asks Elliott to analyze the mud because someone went to
a lot of trouble to sneak into Harlan’s room on the night in question.

69–75: Blanc, Elliott, Wagner, and Marta stand in the back as Alan the attorney reads the
will, with Elliott insisting no one leave town for two days until the investigation is complete.
Alan indicates that Harlan altered the will one week prior, which covers the house, sixty
million in accounts, and the publishing company. Alan first reads a statement from Harlan,
which prepares them to be surprised, but encourages them to accept without bitterness.
Then, the will reads simply that his entire assets of the house, money, and company are left
to Marta Cabrera.

Marta feels the room spinning as everyone looks at her, followed by denial and anger from
the family as they protest with the attorney. Meanwhile, Ransom laughs wildly at the turn of
events, then slips out. Linda accuses Marta of manipulating Harlan into the change. As the
family mobs her, Blanc helps Marta escape the house, and she tries to flee, but her car stalls.
Ransom offers her a ride, so she escapes with him in his Porsche.

75-77: In a roadside diner, Ransom wonders why this happened, but Marta suspects it’s
more about his family than her. Ransom admits his granddad wanted him to build something
from the ground up, and he knows it was meant to help him, but when he told him he was
cut off, he could have killed him. Then later, he felt good when he realized he would have to
do for himself. Ransom then tells Marta three things: 1) he knows his granddad did not
commit suicide, 2) she’s not going to lie because she’ll puke, and 3) she just finished a full
plate of sausage and baked beans. After this setup, he insists she tell him what really
happened.

77-80: Meanwhile, the family works hard to contest the will, but Alan insists they don’t have
any good reason. Joni discovers the slayer rule by googling it, which states that if someone is
convicted of killing the person, or even held responsible in civil court, they can't get their
inheritance. At this point, they turn to Blanc, who admits that he has eliminated no one yet.
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Richard dismisses this, insisting the only logical option is for Marta to renounce the
inheritance.

80–83: Marta concludes her story to Ransom, insisting it’s crazy but all true, ready to go to
jail, but does not want her mom or sister in trouble. Ransom admits his granddad told him
that Marta beat him at GO every time, more than Ransom could, which seemed to mean
something to him. Ransom promises not to tell on her or make her give up the family
fortune. Instead, he promises to help her, if he can fool his family and get his cut of the
inheritance.

A call from Meg interrupts to check on Marta. When Marta asks her for advice, Meg suggests
she should give the money back to the family because it’s the right thing to do, admitting that
she would have to drop out of school. So, Marta promises to help Meg out no matter what.
When the call ends, Ransom suggests Marta ride it out for a few days, as Blanc has nothing.

83-84: The next day, Marta wakes up to her mom and sister flustered and confused,
wondering if they are rich now, because the news crews are outside their apartment
reporting on Marta.

84-85: Blanc visits Thrombey’s Greatnana to talk about grief, as he grows tired pursuing
truth, even as she does not respond. Blanc suspects she may want to tell him something,
having seen something at the party, and he offers to sit patiently and wait until she’s ready.

86-88: Meanwhile, Marta escapes out the back with a stack of envelopes from money-hungry
lawyers, where she runs into Walt. As they discuss, she sees one of the envelopes is just
blank with no postage or return address. Walt threatens that the press might find out about
her mom’s status, but offers to help fix her situation with his resources if she renounces the
inheritance. Marta finds this comforting because she now owns all his resources.

88-89: Marta retreats back to her apartment. Inside the mysterious envelope, she finds a
photocopy of her nametag from the medical examiner office, along with a hand-written note:
"I KNOW WHAT YOU DID." Marta gets a call from Blanc, but sends it to voicemail.

89: Marta turns to Ransom with the letter, as her name tag indicates they have her medical
bag. He concludes the report would show his morphine overdose, but he wonders how it
could work as blackmail with the real report available to police at the medical examiner’s
office.

90-92: Blanc arrives at the medical examiner’s office to find it torched after an explosion.
Ransom and Marta also survey the damage across the street, and Ransom suggests that the
blackmailer would have the only real copy of the report now. Marta then finds an email with
an address and time to meet in 30 minutes. While Ransom reasons that destroying the
report would put her in the clear, Blanc spots Marta and approaches. Marta panics and
escapes.

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92-94: As Marta flees, Blanc and the police pursue. She ignores a call from Blanc. The cops
pull alongside as Blanc calls her again, holding his phone up and pointing to it. She considers
pulling over, but Ransom urges her not to miss her meeting. So, she slams on the brakes,
turns on a side street and takes narrow alleys where cops cannot follow. She parks and gets
ready to meet the blackmailer, prepared to do whatever it takes.

94-95: However, Blanc interrupts the moment by knocking on the window. Blanc tells her
that he spoke with Greatnana, who saw someone climb the trellis to the third floor. They
take Ransom, because she says that Ransom came back that night, and they take him into
custody, assuming he made Marta lead them on the chase. Marta goes along with that story,
so she can go meet the blackmailer. Unfortunately, Blanc gets in her car, asking her to take
him to the police station.

95-96: Blanc talks through his process as he tries to solve the mystery, comparing it to a
donut with a hole as the missing piece in the middle, all while Marta panics that her deadline
approaches to meet the blackmailer. She finally asks if she can pick something up and stops,
sneaking through a hair salon and heading into her destination through the back door.

96-99: Marta finds her medical bag in the vacant retail space, as well as a burnt remains of
the piece of paper, then discovers Fran on a chair, dying. Fran manages to say only a few
words, saying to Marta “stashed...copy” and then “you did this” and “won’t get away with
this.” Marta freezes for a moment, considering letting her die, but instead calls 9-1-1 and
administers mouth-to-mouth. In her car, Blanc wonders what is taking so long, until he sees
the ambulance.

99-100: Marta wants to come clean, but Blanc reveals Ransom already told Elliott
everything. Marta wonders why Fran took her bag, except maybe for the morphine if she was
a user, and suspects maybe she needed the money. Marta wants to tell the Thrombey family
herself.

100-101: Marta drives to the estate, as she tells Blanc the story, finishing with Fran’s last
words.

101-102: Richard, Walt, and Meg greet Blanc and Marta. Meg and Marta make amends, and
Meg looks forward to raiding Fran’s stash after everything is over, which triggers Marta to
take Blanc to the clock where Fran kept her stash. She pulls out the toxicology report, since
Fran mentioned stash in her last words. Marta jokes that Blanc is a bad detective, and offers
it as a way to tie everything up for him. Blanc calls her a lousy murderer in return.

102-103: Marta prepares to tell the family the truth about why Harlan killed himself, as
Blanc reads the report. Blanc then interrupts her and rules the death definitively a suicide,
suggesting the case be closed, insisting she not renounce. Blanc leads Marta into the library.

104-108: Blanc thought her confession had filled the donut hole, but now he sees that donut
hole may have it’s own smaller donut hole. Whoever hired Blanc knew the contents of the
will, but also knew a crime was committed. So, if their intent was to reverse Marta’s
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inheritance, they must have known Marta was responsible for the crime when they hired
Blanc.

Wagner brings in Ransom, and Blanc proposes that Harlan told Ransom everything,
including that nobody gets anything. Blanc then brings up how Marta beat his granddad at
GO more than Ransom, and he wondered why Harlan would even mention Marta to Ransom
in that context. He suggests he would bring her up if he told Ransom he was giving
everything to Marta.

108-110: Blanc reasons his theory makes sense considering the plan he believes Ransom
made next. Blanc narrates his proposed theory as we watch Ransom carry it out.

Blanc suggests Ransom returned, stopping short to avoid the security camera by the
elephant marker. Ransom then headed to the house on foot, passing the party, and climbing
up the trellis, to enter through the trick window. Blanc explains how Ransom knew the
slayer rule would nullify the changed will if Marta was responsible for his death, even
unintentionally. Blanc suggests Ransom used the vials to switch the medication, moving
morphine to the taradol bottle and vice versa, then taking the Naloxone with him to prevent
her from access to the life saving antidote.

110-112: Marta thinks she accidentally switched the vials back, so Blanc asks her to grab the
bottle of morphine from two identical bottles. Without thinking, she grabs the correct bottle,
even though he had taped over the label to hide the contents. Blanc confirms that she gave
Harlan the right doses, because her experience helps her know the difference by sight. She
instinctively gave him the right medicine that night, but then panicked when she saw the
label. The toxicology report proved his blood was normal, thus cause of death was strictly
suicide.

Blanc suggests that when Greatnana mistook Marta for Ransom, saying “you’re back again
already” - she must have seen him dropping from the trellis first, saying “Ransom, you’re
back.”

112-114: Ransom calls Blanc’s theory a fairy tale without any evidence, pointing to Marta’s
confession. Blanc continues, proposing what he believes happened next, as we watch
Ransom carry it out. He suggests Ransom had to return to retrieve the tampered vials that
night, but the dogs barked and stopped him. Ransom then couldn’t return the next day
because of the news of the suicide, so that’s when he had to hire Blanc anonymously. Blanc
then suggests that Ransom had to miss the funeral so that he could retrieve the medical bag.

114-117: Blanc proposes that while Ransom was going through the study, Fran witnessed
his tampering. She suspected foul play, which is why she discussed the Hallmark movie at
the party. So, she got the toxicology report from her cousin and sent it to Ransom with a
blackmail note, even though she didn’t know what the numbers meant.

Blanc believes Ransom was elated to get the blackmail note, because the report would prove
Marta’s guilt. So, Ransom went to the reading of the will assuming that it would be undone
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when the tox report came to light. However, when Marta confessed at the diner, he realized
that the tox report would prove her innocence. Blanc concludes at this point that Ransom
has lost, unless he decides not going to give up the money, and go one step further.

117-118: As we watch a gas can ignite and explode through windows, Blanc further reasons
that Ransom would have one last act. Step one: Ransom would have to destroy evidence of
Marta’s innocence. Step two: He would have to send Marta an anonymous email with late
rendezvous time for the blackmail. And, then Step three: Keep the appointment with Fran.

118-119: Blanc suggests that Fran must have confronted Ransom, who then injected her
with morphine and burned the tox report. Blanc explains how he would then have planned
to call the cops on Marta, so they would catch her for killing Fran and Harlan. Fran must have
said “Hugh did this,” because he made the staff call him Hugh. Blanc concludes the plan
would have worked if Ransom wasn’t being questioned at the time, and if Marta didn’t have
a kind heart, which made her save Fran’s life.

119-123: Ransom seems afraid at hearing that Fran is alive. Marta gets a call from the
hospital at this point. She tells them that Fran is ready to talk, so Blanc asks Wagner to take
Ransom in custody, while they get ready to head to the hospital. Ransom warns Marta that
he will fight to get the house back. He doubts they can do much to him, since he admits he
killed Fran, except he really didn’t because she’s alive, so it’s only attempted murder. Then
he admits to the arson of the medical examiner’s building. Marta projectile vomits into
Ransom’s face, admitting that she was lying. Fran’s dead, making his a murder confession.

Ransom grabs a knife from his granddad’s display, tackling Marta, and plunging it into her
chest. After a moment, she blinks, and Ransom finally realizes -- the knife is only a prop from
the theatre, as Wagner and Elliott wrestle Ransom into cuffs and out of the room.

123: Linda in her dad’s study finds his letter with the empty note he showed Richard. She
moves outside as her family falls apart in front of her. Walt sobs, Richard yelling at the cops,
Meg crying about Fran, and Joni staring into space, broken. Linda lights a flame under the
blank note to reveal hidden writing - a note from her father via their secret communication.
As the letters appear, her face changes.

123-124: In the living room, Marta wonders when Blanc knew she was involved, and he
admits he saw the drop of blood on her shoe from the first moment. He suggests she won by
playing the game her own way, and suspects she will follow her heart moving forward. As he
drives off, the family stops arguing and turns to look at her up on the balcony of the house, as
she looks down on them from her house.