Appetite for Innocence

Days after her rescue, Ella is in the hospital awaiting discharge. Jocelyn proposes bringing Sarah home to live with them, believing Sarah has nowhere else to go. Ella forcefully rejects the idea. Randy advises against the plan, stressing that Ella needs to focus on her own healing without the presence of one of her captor’s enforcers nearby.

During a police interview, Sarah is asked to identify missing girls in photo arrays. The photos trigger a flashback to when she begged John to let her stay as his assistant. He agreed but installed surveillance cameras and threatened her with a gun to ensure compliance. Though the arrays include photos of Tiffany and other captives, Sarah lies to the detectives, denying any knowledge of them.

John rapes Ella several more times. Paige reassures Ella that he will eventually slow down, though this does little to relieve Ella. Ella fantasies about violently killing John. When she is called upstairs, Ella relies on the wine John serves her to help her dissociate. John starts making Ella wear costumes and styling her hair around his fantasies. He shows her affection afterwards, but Ella only wishes for death.

Sarah is elated when John invites her to move out of the basement. As she packs, she offers her coloring books to Paige, while Ella remains catatonic nearby. Paige accepts the supplies and asks to take over Sarah’s former, more favorable sleeping spot.

Ella continues to oppose her mother’s plan to bring Sarah home. During her first unsupervised shower, the sight of her hair triggers memories of John’s fixation on it. Overwhelmed, Ella decides she must get rid of it. Jocelyn reluctantly brings her scissors and a razor. With Randy’s support, Ella shaves her head, feeling a sense of relief and reclaimed autonomy.

The same day, Sarah agrees to live with Ella and Jocelyn, preferring it to a group home. She reasons that it will be easier for John to find her if she stays at Ella’s house. She remains convinced that John made a promise to her and will eventually come for her once the official protection eases.

After Sarah moves upstairs, Paige takes her old bed, leaving Ella spiraling into guilt. Her despair triggers a flashback of her abduction. She remembers John luring her close with a story about a lost dog before striking and throwing her into his trunk. When she tried to escape, he subdued and drugged her. Ella blames herself for her abduction.

Sarah enjoys living upstairs, which triggers a flashback of her attempts to prove her loyalty to John. When she earned John’s trust, Sarah was given her ultimate test. John ordered her to drug Tiffany. John then drove them to a remote desert location and forced Sarah to dig a grave. At gunpoint, he made her shoot and kill Tiffany. On the drive back, he renamed her Sarah, which means “princess,” and declared that they were a family.

Six days after her rescue, police confirm that human remains found at the house belong to Paige. Ella meets with Paige’s grieving mother, Melanie, and stepfather, Victor, and shares memories of Paige’s kindness. Melanie embraces Ella, but the unspoken question of why Ella survived hangs in the air, deepening Ella’s guilt.

Sarah lives upstairs as John’s “daughter.” John’s obsession shifts to creating a perfect family, and Sarah internalizes this fantasy. She imagines herself as a mother, planning a nursery and watching television shows about babies.

As John’s fixation on fatherhood grows, his behavior towards Ella changes, becoming alternately rough and tender. He tells her of his plan for her to carry his child and promises she can move upstairs once she is pregnant.

Ella learns the full extent of her mother’s search efforts. Jocelyn recounts how she quit her job, mobilized the media, and organized search parties after police were initially dismissive. Jocelyn expresses the contrast between her relief at Ella’s return and the torment now faced by Paige’s parents.

Agents Blake and Phil press Sarah with questions. They imply that Sarah became jealous when Ella became pregnant and was moved upstairs. Sarah feigns indifference. A flashback shows John’s jubilant reaction to a positive pregnancy test. He assigns Sarah as Ella’s caretaker. In the present, the agents reveal that Sarah’s biological father, Enrique, is cooperating with them. Sarah assures herself that her resolve is unbreakable.

Once her pregnancy is confirmed, John moves Ella to a locked upstairs guest room under constant surveillance. He enforces a strict regimen administered by Sarah, including prenatal vitamins and a special diet. In secret, Ella hides the vitamins and forces herself to vomit. After another assault, Ella resolves to end the pregnancy.

Investigators explain that John created fake social media profiles to map his victims’ routines, targeting girls who posted about purity. He also monitored their parents’ pages after the abductions. Horrified to realize her own posts helped him target her, Ella’s self-blame intensifies.

Blake and Phil confront Sarah with the truth: John’s real name is Derek Hunt, and her biological father, Enrique, sold her to Derek for $2,000. The revelation sends Sarah into a fury. She shows the detectives old burn and belt scars that Enrique inflicted on her, insisting Derek was the one who truly cared for her.

Determined to end the pregnancy, Ella hides a wire coat hanger in her robe. She asks Sarah for a trip to the bathroom, locks the door, and performs a self-induced termination of pregnancy, muffling her screams. She hides the bent hanger in the toilet tank just as bleeding begins. Weak and in agony, she calls for Sarah.

Sarah finds Ella bleeding profusely on the bathroom floor and panics. She triggers the house alarm to summon John, who refuses to take Ella to a hospital. They move her to the bathtub, and John directs Sarah to administer pain pills and clean up the blood and tissue.