The Stranger

Adam continues to plead for an explanation, but Corinne ignores him. He contemplates shaking the answer out of her, but he once saw his father hurt his mother, and he vowed not to abuse women. Adam tosses and turns on the couch all night. When he goes upstairs before the boys wake up, he finds Corinne, to his annoyance, deeply asleep. As he looks at his wife, he’s certain that he still loves her, but he doesn’t know whether he can live with this deception.

Adam falls asleep. When he wakes, Corinne isn’t in bed anymore. He finds his sons eating breakfast downstairs and Corinne outside on the phone. She hangs up when he storms outside. He demands to know who she was talking to. She again refuses to give him any information, though she hints that the story is complicated. She suggests meeting for dinner after school so that they can talk.

Adam sits with Michael Rinsky in his small home. Rinsky apologizes for the eclectic décor, but his wife, Eunice, loves it, and with her mind deteriorating in old age, he wants to keep her as comfortable as possible.

Rinsky recounts Mayor Rick Gusherowski’s recent visit, when he tried to persuade Rinsky to accept the developer’s offer on the house. They’re offering both money and a place for the elderly couple in seniors’ housing. Rinsky dislikes the mayor, who he remembers letting off on drunk-driving charges as a teen. The mayor tried to guilt-trip Rinsky, asserting that he was standing in the way of progress. Gusherowski claimed that the developer could revoke the offer and simply kick the Rinskys out, which Adam confirms is a possibility. Regardless, Adam is willing to help Rinsky fight the developer.

Adam returns home from work, but Corinne isn’t there. Ryan hasn’t seen his mother yet and asks about dinner. Adam orders pizza for the boys, showers, and gets dressed in a shirt that Corinne likes. He regards their bedroom sadly, wondering if they’ll share any more nights together.

When the pizza arrives, Adam leaves for the restaurant and waits there for Corinne. Minutes pass, and Corinne still doesn’t show. After nearly an hour, Corinne finally texts Adam saying that she needs a few days apart with no contact. She asks Adam to take care of the children while she’s away.

Adam sends a flurry of texts, but Corinne doesn’t respond. He returns home, and Ryan immediately asks where his mother is since he can’t find his lacrosse uniform. Not knowing what to tell the boy, Adam snaps and tells Ryan to text Corinne about it himself. Corinne doesn’t reply to Ryan either, forcing Adam to lie and say that she’s at another teaching conference. He stays awake all night, checking his and the boys’ phones, but Corinne says nothing to any of them, which is extremely out of character.

In the morning, Adam figures that he’ll find Corinne at work since she hasn’t missed a day since her supposed miscarriage. Adam came home that day and found her crying. He forced her to take the next day off to recover, and he remembers how awed he was by her resilience.

Adam avoids the boys’ questions as they get ready for school, and he drives himself to the high school. He camps out near her classroom. After the bell rings, he watches a substitute teacher enter her class. Kristin Hoy pulls him into an empty room and demands to know where Corinne is, but Adam doesn’t know. He reads Corinne’s text, and Kristin reveals that she got a message too. She noticed that Corinne was acting strangely over the past month, and yesterday, Corinne was shaken up. Corinne asked Kristin to cover her shift in the study hall, texted that she needed time away, and never returned to school.

At home in Ohio, Heidi Dann logs into Kimberly’s “sugar baby” account and cries as she confirms what the stranger told her. The stranger also demanded $10,000 or else he’d publicize Kimberly’s secret online.

The situation reminds her of when Kimberly was in high school and went too far with a boy after getting drunk. Another mother called to tell Heidi and Marty what she’d overheard, and Marty overreacted so much that his relationship with Kimberly was forever changed. Heidi thinks that they would have been better off not knowing at all, and she decides not to tell Marty this time. She calls Kimberly, and though she initially denies the accusations, she tearfully confesses. They talk for hours, and Kimberly begs Heidi not to tell her father.

The next morning, Detective John Kuntz of the NYPD knocks on Heidi’s door and asks to talk about Kimberly. Heidi invites Kuntz inside, and he explains that he’s investigating FindYourSugarBaby.com, though he’s not interested in prosecuting Kimberly for sex work.

Kuntz says that he’s with the Cyber Crime Unit, which is tracking a group who blackmails people. He spoke with Kimberly last night, and she told him that a couple approached Heidi and told her about the website. Heidi confirms this, but she’s wary of Kuntz and thinks she needs to speak with a lawyer. She asks Kuntz to leave, but he pulls out a gun and shoots her in the knee. He threatens to kill her if she screams and continues to ask his questions.

Adam sits in his office ruminating on where Corinne would go on her own. He looks up their bank account, but there is no activity for the past two days. He wonders if a larger withdrawal from two weeks ago means anything and considers whether Corinne knew that he would confront her. His mind spirals as he imagines that something bad happened to her, like if she was killed and the killer texted him. He’s apprehensive about going to the police since he doesn’t want rumors to spread and get back to the boys.

Andy interrupts, and they chat about his gig from the previous night. Mayor Gusherowski wants to meet with Adam later that evening, so Andy sends him an address. Adam refocuses on Corinne and lists the facts so that he can make a plan. He tries to check tollbooth photos for her car, but he can’t log in to the website.

Adam heads home, and when he pulls into the driveway, he sees Tripp, who wants to talk to Corinne because she missed a lacrosse board meeting. Adam lies and says that she’s out of town, but Tripp senses that the matter is serious. He claims that he can’t tell Adam about the meeting due to confidentiality, and he urges him to get Corinne to call him.

Adam meets with Mayor Gusherowski in a new seniors’ housing complex. Gusherowski over-enthusiastically greets Adam and offers him a tour of the “state of the art” facility (137). Adam quibbles about the descriptor since the features are pretty normal.

The mayor shows Adam one of the units, which Adam thinks looks like a hotel—not something that the Rinskys want to exchange their beloved home for. Gusherowski drops his performance and complains that the Rinskys’ stubbornness is holding up a chance for real “progress” in the area. Adam neither agrees nor disagrees, but as the Rinskys’ lawyer, he’s not willing to budge. Gusherowski offers $50,000 more and says that if the couple doesn’t accept, the law allows him to kick them out. Adam tells the mayor to build around the house because the Rinskys aren’t giving in.

The stranger waits near an elevator for Michaela Siegal to split from her friends after her bachelorette party. He knows that the information he’s about to reveal will be painful, but he hopes it will set her life right again. Michaela stumbles drunkenly toward the elevator, and the stranger stops her to ask about her ex-boyfriend David. Michaela doesn’t want to talk, especially about her embarrassing past. The stranger presses on and asks whether Michaela and David were already broken up when he supposedly leaked their sex tape together. The video completely ruined Michaela’s life, and she figured that he posted it as revenge after a fight.

The stranger, however, claims that David’s roommate Marcus—Michaela’s now-fiancé—actually posted the video, and he hands her an envelope with Marcus’s IP address attached to the video upload. Instead of thanking him, Michaela berates the stranger for trying to stir up her life again. He’s now forcing her to keep a new secret since she’s not going to cancel her wedding. She confirms with the stranger that he won’t tell anyone else, and she leaves.