Dangerous Ground
Episode 5 of The One begins with Connor arriving at Fabio’s door. He leads the Portuguese man downstairs where he sits with Rebecca to talk business. Matheus doesn’t know about this meeting either, as Fabio taunts her about Ben and how unhappy he was learning about the app and the match. He asks for 2 million euros to keep quiet – including 20,000 in cash. Connor isn’t sure this is a good idea, pointing out that Fabio is a junkie, but Rebecca pays him off nonetheless. Meanwhile, Damien shows up at James’ door but fails to find the investor. We then jump back (although it’s not actually clear thanks to the editing) to see James and Rebecca pitch their idea to Damien. He decides against investing, at least to begin with, as Rebecca blindsides him after he’s finished work. It’s here she asks to take his DNA and admits that she too has been matched up using this app. Based on her word, he decides she should call in the morning to reconsider the investment. In the present, James and Damien talk. Damien believes that Rebecca is involved in Ben’s death and wants his help to usurp her from the CEO position at the company. Damien also hands over evidence showing that Rebecca had every intention of screwing him over. This includes watering down his shares and taking away his voting rights. Damien admits that she was never his friend, even way back when this all began. Hannah awakens after her fight with Mark but finds him gone in the morning. He’s still mad, rejecting her calls and instead meeting Megan. He breaks the news to her that they’re a match, eventually laughing and spontaneously kissing out in the rain. Mark pulls away when he realizes what he’s done and apologizes. He eventually heads back home and admits to Hannah that he met Megan and told her the truth about the match. The pair do eventually have sex, but Mark struggles to get Megan out of his mind. Connor shows up and drops off the cash for Fabio, messaging Rebecca to let her know that the deal has been completed. Well, that evening Fabio rings but all she can hear is breathing. Naturally, Rebecca decides to break into his apartment to check on him. She finds Fabio passed out on the bed and convinces Connor against helping him. She lets him die right there, although we don’t actually see this scene play out. Elsewhere, Sophia regains consciousness as Kate shows up to see her. Despite only knowing each other for a tiny fraction of time, they kiss as Kate admits that Valeria is there, along with her family too. Sophia’s face drops. She pleads with Kate not to let her family see her, which Kate relays on to them. She doesn’t know the full story here though but implores them not to show up. After this visit, Kate and Nick show up at the rooftop where Ben fell to his doom. The pair look around, eventually noticing that the building is close to a canal, which they believe is where the body may have been dumped. From here, it could have drifted downstream. Well, the investigation is cut short again by Kate heading back to see Sophia. She admits she knows about the past but Sophia is cagey about the specifics and refuses to open up. Instead, she asks Kate to lie down on the bed with her. We then jump across to Damien, who tells Rebecca she needs to resign. If she doesn’t, then she’ll be kicked out the company via a unanimous vote. Given he has James and his influential voice, Rebecca is put in a difficult position. That position is made worse though when Matheus suddenly shows up unannounced at Rebecca’s place. He asks about Fabio, who’s not answering his phone, but Rebecca lies and claims she hasn’t heard from him.
The Episode Review
With a slightly shorter episode this time around, The One starts to show some pretty unconvincing character motivations. The editing can be a little choppy at times as well, making it a little difficult to discern if we’re in the present or past timeline. Having said that, if Rebecca has indeed let Fabio kill himself, that will almost certainly come back to bite her. Not only would the police find out about the money, they’d also seemingly track down his messages and learn that Rebecca paid him off. And that’s before mentioning the CCTV footage from the building. It also doesn’t help that Rebecca’s character is a little flaky. On the one hand, we’re supposed to empathize with her ‘one true love’ story and the issues she has with her own romance while simultaneously watch her outright torture and blackmail people. She was even willing to have James’ knees shot just to keep her secrets! The Kate situation is a bit of a weird one too, with the investigation oftentimes taking a backseat for her to check on Sophia at the hospital. In a way, this offsets the balance of the show, with the investigation into Ben’s death far more interesting. Mark and Hannah’s weird romance woes see Mark act completely uncharacteristically here too by kissing Megan – despite telling his wife he loved her. Would finding out who your true love is really make this much difference to someone? I mean if these men and women are really that happy, is it so important to have that true love tagline? Still, if you’ve made it this far you’ll almost certainly see this one through to the end.
