52 pages • 1-hour read
Everyone Is Watching
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Chapters 22-28Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 22 Summary: “The Assistant”
Fern leads the contestants through an elimination episode. She tries to ignore the fact that Ned has a knife. Because Maire and Camille won challenges, they are safe from elimination. Crowley is voted out, which upsets Fern, who wanted Ned gone. Crowley whispers to Fern that he “know[s] what [she’s] up to and [that she] won’t get away with it” (183). Fern assumes this is about Cat, locked in the wine cellar; her unease about Cat’s continued imprisonment heightens when Alfonso stresses the urgency of speaking to Cat.
Crowley resists leaving the estate, saying that Fern has “ruined [his] life” (185-86) via the woman in the puzzle and Camille’s reference to an eight-year-old. Maire notes Crowley’s aggression, warns Fern that the show seems to be about “more than money” (186), and begs to contact Dani, but Fern refuses. Fern sends out a press release about Crowley leaving and an encrypted email to major players in the media, informing them to “utilize the attached documents as [they] deem appropriate” (189). Fern decides to leave Cat in the cellar for another night.
While being driven out of the estate, Crowley jumps out of the car and disappears. In the garden, Fern encounters an angry, drunk Crowley.
Chapter 23 Summary
Shana Stonehaven sits with her son, Caleb, when she receives a text with a link to an Instagram video. In it, an influencer reports that Shana, a sex worker, had an affair with Crowley, the former senator. Shana listens in horror as the influencer gleefully reports that Crowley paid Shana with campaign funds and is the father of her eight-year-old son.
Chapter 24 Summary: “The Confidante”
In bed, Camille considers her Super Clue, Crowley’s aggression after the comment about having a son, and the expensive painting in her jigsaw puzzle. She quietly pulls her Game Changer and Super Clue from her suitcase, then creeps from the bedroom to inspect them while everyone else sleeps. The Super Clue is a death certificate with details blacked out, but Camille reassures herself that her association with Wingo is untraceable. Wandering in the dark, she notes that an iron railing is loose.
A loud sound wakes Maire and Samuel. They hear crashes and yells and find Crowley attempting to strangle Fern. Maire drags him off, while Samuel pins him down. Fern tells them not to call the police, as it would compromise the show. Crowley yells about being ruined, which leads Maire to put together that the mug shot clue was of Shana, the mother of Crowley’s child from an extramarital affair.
Camille sees a key card that shows Fern’s full name: Fernanda Espa. She assumes that Fern is Nan, a client who hated her (now disappeared) boss. She grows more worried about this dangerous game.
Chapter 25 Summary: “The Best Friend”
Maire grows suspicious of Fern and Camille’s seeming insider knowledge. She realizes the partial family tree from her Super Clue shows Caleb, Crowley’s son, and wonders if Camille knew the import of her comment about Caleb. Maire takes the mystery pill with her when she heads to the next challenge.
Over lunch, Camille makes a comment about Ned assaulting women (implied to be one of her secret sentences), and then feigns innocence when Ned grows angry. Samuel wants to discuss Crowley’s violence, but Maire and Ned urge him to “just play the damn game” (211). Maire surreptitiously drops the pill into Ned’s soda.
Maire’s anxiety heightens when the group is led to a lake covered by a sturdy, airtight tarp. In the center is a hole—the only place to get air when swimming underwater. Contestants must dive in the freezing water and find pouches that correspond to the color of their branded clothing. Ned seems unsteady; Maire worries he will drown, making her “a killer. Again” (215). Camille protests about the danger of drowning if someone can’t find the hole in the tarp, but the others shout her down.
They all plunge into the water. While others pursue nearby pouches, Maire targets faraway ones. She holds her breath as long as she can, but while she’s returning to the surface, Ned grabs her. Maire kicks free, but fears she will drown before she reaches the hole. Fern and Camille pull her the rest of the way. Ned and Samuel have not surfaced, so Maire reenters the water to help them.
Chapter 26 Summary: “The Best Friend”
The narrative flashes back to Maire and Samuel’s college days in a section titled “Then.”
Maire and Samuel watch as the angry, drunk man vomits and collapses. When another car approaches, Maire wants to get help, but Samuel lists the danger to their futures if they are implicated in the car crash. They flee into the woods, struggling to find their way back to the group. They come to the lake, then cross the ice to where they can see the bonfire, though Maire is uncertain the ice is strong enough to hold them. They pause and kiss until the man with the pipe emerges from nearby and chases them.
Chapter 27 Summary: “The Assistant”
The narrative returns to the present.
Fern and Camille jump in after Maire. They help Samuel drag an unconscious Ned to the surface. Camille does CPR, reviving Ned. Fern wonders why she saved him. Ned refuses to go to the hospital, as it would mean losing his chance at the money. Fern imagines Cat’s criticism while scheming to avoid the inevitable fallout of the show by stealing money from Cat and seeking “anonymity” in “a far-off country” (213).
When Samuel tries to quit the competition, Fern distracts him by giving him his Super Clue—a letter opener (similar to the weapon Ned used while sexually assaulting Fern and other victims). Fern announces that the next challenge is postponed until tomorrow, but Maire refuses to wait: If the others want to delay, it means they quit.
Fern remotely checks on Cat, who is unconscious. Cat wakes, demanding to know why Fern has done this “after everything [Cat has] done for [her]” (235). Fern tearfully apologizes and promises to come let Cat out right away. When Alfonso reports that the show has a record 16 million viewers, however, Fern decides not to let Cat out yet.
Chapter 28 Summary: “The Best Friend”
In her vault session, Maire passes off saving Ned as something anyone would have done—except Ned, who tried to drown her. She has an improved impression of Camille after Camille helped Maire in the water. She has no comment about Samuel. She discusses her desire to win for her daughters and the challenges of Dani’s illness: “for [her] family, One Lucky Winner is life and death” (239).
Commenters debate Maire. User IowaBornAndBread claims to have known Maire and Samuel in college—they “just kind of disappeared from campus” (240) after the Tanglefoot Lake incident. User FiggyPudding13 says they were “there that night [and know] what happened” (240).
Chapters 22-28 Analysis
This section of the novel delves into the ramifications of using Exposure as Punishment. While it might feel justifiable to have the slimy Crowley’s secrets revealed for mass consumption, the novel complicates this treatment by portraying the way Crowley’s mistress, Shana Stonehaven, reacts to seeing her life turned into gossip on Instagram. Crowley is a former US senator; he may be embarrassed by the publicizing of his extramarital affair, but he is in a position of power and privilege that will allow him to be basically unscathed by Cat’s scheme.
However, Shana and her son clearly have much lower social standing; the novel implies that they are the people who will actually be ruined by Cat’s misguided idea of revenge. Shana’s primary fear is having to reveal to her eight-year-old son that she is a sex worker—and that his biological father was a client. Thus, Shana is presented foremost as a mother, a role that the novel (primarily through Maire) consistently sentimentalizes; the novel depicts her profession neutrally. Nevertheless, the novel does not elide the social stigma sex workers often face: At the end of the novel, Shana and her son are harassed for their connection to Crowley. Underscoring this dichotomy, Crowley gets the chance to violently attack Fern in response to being outed for misappropriating campaign funds. Meanwhile, Shana has no such recourse—she must bear the brunt of the revelations without even knowing who is behind them.
The limits of the characters’ capacity for violence is further tested during the challenge on the lake. Maire is shown to be willing to harm when she drugs Ned. However, her decision to plunge back into the freezing water—despite her own near drowning—to help rescue Ned demonstrates her moral compass: She is not capable of cold-blooded murder. Even though letting Ned die would increase her chances of winning the money, she cannot let this happen. Maire’s decision to save Ned is somewhat connected to her regret over the Tanglefoot Lake incident, albeit the connection is a red herring for readers. Eventually, the flashbacks will show Maire similarly saving someone from death by drowning, so the implication that she is a killer is more to create suspense than to foreshadow Maire’s true reasons for being invited onto the show. Still, it is not yet clear the extent to which she is willing to risk her own life to win, given the dangerously extended dive she takes into the lake. Maire’s willingness to risk her own safety comes from her worry regarding Dani’s health—a different way that Desperation Reveals True Character.
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