52 pages • 1-hour read
Everyone Is Watching
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Chapters 29-35Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 29 Summary: “The Confidante”
Camille struggles to get warm, wondering over the true purpose of the game. She feels Fern—who Camille believes is former patient Nan—is the key. This reassures her, as Fern could only know about Camille’s debts, not her off-book patients or Wingo. When Samuel urges the importance of a fair competition, Camille contends that there will be no winner—the game is a setup. Ned pushes back against her theory.
After Ned leaves the room, the others plot how to ensure that he is the one voted off. Camille urges Maire and Samuel to “lay it all on the line” (244) and admits she knows Fern as a previous patient. Maire thinks Camille is trying to trick them, but Samuel asks for the story. In response, Camille shares the last two sentences from her Game Changer, which refer to them lying on the road and kissing by the lake. Maire, angry, storms off. Camille tells Samuel she doesn’t care about his past, she “just [wants] to get out of here in one piece” (246). Samuel insists he is innocent.
The next challenge is on the veranda. Fern dictates where all the contestants, now dressed in white, are to sit. The challenge is called “Spin, Speak, Shoot,” combining spin the bottle and truth or dare, but with a real gun, which Fern demonstrates is unloaded. Contestants will spin the gun; whoever it lands on must answer a question from a color-coded deck of cards. If they refuse to answer, they must point the gun at themselves and pull the trigger, which Fern calls symbolic and Camille notes is sick. If they refuse three questions, they lose.
Maire’s first answer is that she went to Tanglefoot College. Ned’s first answer is that he has “never committed a crime” (253). When the gun lands on him again, Ned reluctantly admits that he has made employees sign NDAs, though he frames this as common practice. Camille notes that while answering, Ned “suddenly recognize[s] Fern”; Camille wonders if his crime is “sexual misconduct in the workplace” (254).
When asked about losing a patient, Camille refuses to answer, citing patient confidentiality. Anxiously, she raises the gun to her head and pulls the trigger, as directed.
Chapter 30 Summary: “The Confidante”
The narrative flashes back to Camille’s past in a section titled “Then.”
Doug Weatherly has been showing up in Camille’s life since his wife left him. He clearly blames Camille for his marriage’s dissolution.
Someone has continued to vandalize Camille’s office, and she receives anonymous flower deliveries. One day, Camille smells smoke and finds her electricity out. Wingo is sitting in her office, flicking a lighter. Though Camille insists he needs to leave and find another therapist, Wingo refuses. Police sirens sound nearby. Camille worries that if her neighbors saw Wingo breaking in and called the police, any investigation would lead to an audit, revealing her off-the-books clients and unreported income. Wingo begs her to excuse his behavior to the police so he isn’t arrested, but Camille tells the knocking officer that she is “not safe” and “think[s] he has a gun” (262).
Chapter 31 Summary: “The Best Friend”
The narrative returns to the present.
Camille puts down the gun, looking “so small, so defeated” that Maire angrily decides that “this game [is] cruel, sadistic” (263). Maire also fears there will be no money for the winner, but remains determined to try if there is even “one iota, one sliver of a chance” (263). When Camille wants to quit, Maire, recalling how Camille helped her earlier, encourages her to stick it out.
Maire assumes the spins are rigged. Ned’s turn is next. Fern struggles through a question about whether Ned has “ever been accused of sexual misconduct in the workplace” (265). Ned flatly denies it. Fern presses on, describing his assault of her in detail. Ned calls this defamation and threatens legal action, points the gun at Fern, and pulls the trigger. This time, the gun goes off (this is the scene that MatthewSwimBikeRun watches in the Prologue). Maire drops and sees Samuel next to her, a gash on his head.
Chapter 32 Summary: “The Assistant”
Fern is shocked the gun was loaded. She sees red liquid, but it’s just wine. The contestants are furious; they were supposed to point the gun at themselves. Fern worries about the implications for her career as Ned storms off, declaring he is done. Alfonso texts Fern to report that “social media is freaking out” (271). Fern tells him to resume streaming in an hour.
Samuel also quits. Maire declares that she and Samuel are “good people” and that “there’s no proof” (272). Camille accuses Fern of being behind this revenge plot, citing her history with Nan. Fern denies knowing any of the contestants, though this is untrue, since she worked for Ned. She insists that the show is real and widely watched, but internally makes plans to leave the estate.
Chapter 33 Summary: “The Confidante”
In a vault session, Camille compares the show to the Roman Colosseum and the contestants to sacrificial gladiators. She professes not to care if she wins; she “just [wants] it all to be over” (276).
Commenters argue, some calling Camille dramatic, others insisting she is wonderful. User SanFranTreat calls Camille a liar and claims knowledge of an incident where a client was shot by police after Camille falsely accused him of having a gun. SanFranTreat demands “#justiceforwingo” (278).
Chapter 34 Summary: “The Confidante”
Camille, Maire, and Samuel speak in the bedroom. Camille believes the game won’t end for Samuel even if he leaves, claiming Fern has info about them all. Maire cries: Dani could die without money for her treatments. Camille offers to help Maire find alternate funding.
When Samuel and Maire remain silent on the subject of secrets, Camille insists she doesn’t care about their pasts. She reveals that her Super Clue is the death certificate of a 32-year-old man. Samuel insists he is not a traitor, no matter what his wine bottle label said. Camille and Maire still don’t know the translations of their labels.
Camille theorizes the show is not actually airing, and that the entire setup is part of Fern’s revenge plot. She has stolen Fern’s key card and suggests the three contestants search for answers.
Chapter 35 Summary: “The Assistant”
Fern sends a press release attributing the chaos to a prop malfunction and promising that the stream will resume imminently. She plans to release Cat remotely from the cellar once she is gone from the estate, then to feign ignorance if questioned. Cat’s phone rings, but Fern doesn’t answer; she shuts the phone off and hides it in a back stairwell. Feeling paranoid that someone is watching or listening, Fern creeps to Cat’s office to steal Cat’s laptop so she can blackmail Cat if Cat tries to press charges. At the office door, she realizes her key card is missing. She finds a different door open. When she steps inside, Ned grabs her and drags her into the dark room.
Chapters 29-35 Analysis
After the “Speak, Spin, Shoot” game, the most extreme challenge that the contestants face on One Lucky Winner, the characters come face to face with the true maliciousness of the game. In response, they begin to shift their perspective about The Value of Money, although there are still differences of motivation. When Ned aims the gun at Fern and the group realizes that it is loaded with live ammo, Samuel and Ned decide to quit the contest. They are no longer interested in the prize money, Ned because he is scared of the damage to his reputation, and Samuel because he insists that he is an innocent, good man who does not deserve this treatment. Fern decides to forget about showing off her reality producer competence and instead wants to flee the estate with damaging material about Cat in tow. In contrast, Camille, also no longer interested in the game, nevertheless becomes the voice of reason that is thinking about the big picture implications of what they’ve gone through: She insists that what the other contestants may have done before the game is unimportant—what matters is surviving and getting to the bottom of who is behind what is happening. Conversely, Maire remains grimly invested in trying to win, motivated by her daughter’s imperiled health—the only motivation for money that the novel looks at positively.
The novel frames Ned negatively in a variety of ways. First, his past sexual assaults are presented as the worst of the crimes the competitors have committed (including the death that Samuel and Maire caused). The same self-interest and disregard for others that let him become an unrepentant serial rapist also make him a cheat and a liar during the game: His decision to lash out and fire the gun at Fern, though he assumes it is unloaded, is a marker of his corruption and his capacity for violence against women. Ned’s self-assured viciousness leaves him without allies: After the “Speak, Spin, Shoot” game, Maire, Samuel, and Camille make no move to include Ned in their plans. As the game becomes increasingly dangerous, Ned’s actions are thus presented as not merely immoral, but shortsighted, as well.
Ned (and, to a lesser extent, Crowley) thus represent the novel’s stance on power, corruption, and ability. Though Ned and Crowley have gotten away with their respective crimes, which have to do with sex and the abuse of authority, this is due to any particular talent or intelligence. Instead, the novel suggests that whole systems support powerful men who callously hurt those around them: Crowley relies on his public status and position of power, while Ned relies on his popularity, business success, and wealth. The dynamic of the powerful harming the weak is so pervasive that even Cat, the woman clever enough to entrap Crowley and Ned and bring them down, is also a cruel and abusive boss. Power and standing breed corruption, the text suggests.
This portion also plays explicitly with conventions of the thriller genre. One such technique is the near-escape. In Chapter 35, when Fern flees the estate, she reaches the back door, but then decides to return for Cat’s laptop. This moment—when a character has nearly gotten away but is re-ensnared—is used in thrillers to reveal a character’s deepest motivations. Fern justifies her actions as a matter of safety, arguing that Cat’s laptop has enough blackmail material to protect her against legal action for locking Cat in the wine cellar. The novel, however, suggests that Fern’s Desperation Reveals True Character in a way that Fern is possibly not fully aware of: She is really motivated by the desire to take revenge on Cat, which fuels her extended imprisonment of her boss as well. Another technique is the jump scare. After Fern makes her way into Cat’s office, an unexpected attack occurs as Ned emerges from the shadows to grab Fern. While indecision and curiosity often prove foolish for characters in thrillers (in horror, for example, these motivations frequently lead to death), Fern is ultimately rewarded. This contributes to the novel’s overall ambivalence about many of its less corrupt (but not entirely moral) characters.
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