‘Notorious’ Episode 2 Recap: Abby Keeps Noah In Prison

Notorious’ episode 2 opened up with the resumption of the part where Sarah’s killer is still on the loose and Oliver is looking guiltier than ever. Louise goes off to meet a rapper. Jake looks at videos of Sarah on her birthday, certainly helping his emotional stability, and when Bradley offers to help like the good childhood friend he is, he opts to refuse his offers and continue to cry. Bradley and Jake are hired to get Abby, the mother of Noah, to come on to some news outlet in order to let others know about her missing son. Of course, she comes onto Louise Herrick, and Abby goes into detail about how much she misses Noah as a video of her feeding him plays in the background. Kyle, Abby’s ex-boyfriend, calls up in the middle of the interview to let them know that Abby doesn’t have a kid, as they have dated relatively recently. My question is: why does everybody have videos of their loved ones for the specific purposes of getting sad about them when they’re gone?

‘Notorious’ Episode 2 Recap

Kyle gives photos and his account of their relationship to Julia, not giving any of this information to the police in order to distance himself from the case. Jake meets up with Oliver, who has taken up drinking again. Levi walks in, and Jake states that he needs to leave or else he can’t legally do his attorney-ing. On cue, somebody else walks in to let him know that a detective is there to see him, to which Jake stops Oliver from agreeing to see him with liquor on his breath. Louise, refined as always, is playing strip poker with an assistant cameraman, and tells Julia she won’t be coming to Sarah’s funeral before convincing herself that she’s simply too important not to go. I love Louise. Julia discusses the photos of Jake with Sarah, Oliver with a mistress, and a beaten up Sarah. Jake storms out, certainly not like an unstable, emotional wreck. Julia cannot trace the photos, and Julia surprises Sarah’s brother, meeting him in a restaurant to talk about coming on Louise Herring Live. He tells her to go, and she tries to convince him, as he could let America know about her personality and make it so that others care about her just like he does. He walks out before telling her off and making her feel terrible for what she does on the show.

Bryan crashes in Julia’s office for the night and explains that he doesn’t want to sleep at his dad’s place. Julia meets with Jake and Abby to hear about her child, and Abby states that she is a nurse and often her mother helps watch him during her long working hours. Julia’s suspicions erupt into a full-blown argument between the two, and once again Julia is ridiculed for how she does her job. Ella calls Jake to let him know Oliver is drinking again. Meanwhile, Julia meets with Abby’s mom who kept blocking calls from prison. Jake meets with a drunk, aggressive Oliver and gives him a speech about how he needs to act more responsible, and he calmly decides to drink more instead. Upon coming back to the office, Megan tells Julia that Bryan’s phone was the device that the photos were traced back to, perhaps making him the blackmailer.

Julia confronts Bryan and explains that she didn’t send the photos, and Julia lets him know she is furious and he could have become a prime suspect. Jake meets with Julia and apologizes for his crap recently, and while everything is still rocky, they begin associating again. Emmi tells Jake that Oliver started a bar fight, which makes me wonder ever more why a young, normal woman is babysitting a drunk, angry, unstable man. Bryan comes in to Julia’s office and apologizes to her before admitting surprisingly that he’s admired her for the past 5 years after he stood up to her dad. She lets him off the hook, but also lets him now that he’s on thin ice. Jake talks to Officer Ken, letting him know that Oliver came back to his home before Jake arrived.

Julia and Jake meet Abby with the recording talking with ex-husband Troy in prison. Abby admits that she hid Noah in her church so that Troy wouldn’t be able to get him. They use the months’ worth of phone calls of threats from Troy to incriminate him further in order to protect Noah. Through bending the rules, they are able to keep him in jail and give her back Noah. At Sarah’s funeral, Jake tells Bradley he slept with Sarah. Oliver begins his eulogy before going off script and then getting interrupted by the cops. Jake tells him to simply say that he loves his wife, he wasn’t involved in her murder, and then to walk away. He listens for once. Julia confirms with Jake that this was all according to Jake’s plan. Julia talks to Sarah’s brother, who, after yelling at her, states that he will go on LHL in order to tell the truth about Oliver.

In this week’s episode, Notorious is just as fast paced as last week’s, yet it focuses slightly less on setting up the plot and more on the side-plot which is honestly more interesting. Character interactions take more importance this episode, and while some acting was a bit overdone, namely Abby’s, this episode effectively continued where last week left off. Stay tuned for a recap about a show about what happens on a show!