Inventing Anna Season 1 Episode 2 Recap – The Devil Wore Anna

Vivian interviews Anna in yet another media visit. Anna tells her that she’s good at seeing talent in a person in a way that if she sees that a person will be good for her team, then she’ll hire that person despite their personality. Vivian tells her that she’s meeting with her friend Val later that day. Anna laughs at her and asks her why she’s meeting with Val when they hardly know each other. Vivian tells her that she wants to have a perspective of who Anna was before everything happened. Anna tells her that it would help the both of them if Vivian didn’t think of her as basic like everyone else. She says that there is no evolution for her; she was always who she is.

Val works with a group of models at a photoshoot when Vivian arrives. Val tells her she has worked with lots of wannabes and thirsty socialites before, but Anna was not one of them because she was the real deal. He tells her Anna was flawless and that she was born with taste. He says she is understated and elegant. Vivian asks him if they were close, and he responds that Anna was cold and unapproachable and cared only for herself. He tells Vivian that he was dying to be Anna’s friend, just like Chase was obsessed with her from Day 1.

Vivian’s interest gets piqued by the mention of Chase’s name, especially when Val tells her that Chase is Anna’s boyfriend.

Chase speaks in front of an audience for a TED talk and promotes his app, Wake. At the end of the talk, the audience, including Anna, gives him a standing ovation.

Back at the office, Vivian tells her groupie what she just discovered. While Barry is more interested in who Chase is, Maud tells them that something serious must have gone down between Anna and Val because he deleted every public memory of Anna in his feed. Vivian asks her why she knows that, so Lou tells her it’s all laid out on Instagram. Vivian then realizes that they have all been helping in her story.

Lou presents the Anna Delvey timeline beginning in 2011 when Anna leaves Germany to attend a fashion program in London but ditches it immediately and goes to Paris. The timeline continued to 2013 when Anna worked as an intern for Purple Magazine, and the same year, she traveled to the US for a vacation from which she did not return. He says she arrived in Manhattan on August 13 and met Val a couple of days after. He says that on August 26, Chase posts a photo of a chess set, which Vivian identifies as the first photo Anna has ever posted on her feed. He says that a week later, they get intimate, and Vivian figures out that their feeds are almost perfectly synced from that moment on.

In Vivian’s interview with Val, he tells her that Chase was the futurist ‘it’ boyfriend and that they went everywhere, stayed in hotels, and had a lavish lifestyle that Chase always has paid for. He reveals that Chase had money coming in for the app, and Anna isn’t supposed to get her trust money until she was 25, so he always paid for everything until the summer they stayed with him and Nora. He says that Nora is his super-rich best friend who insisted that he stay with her and who loved him more than his mother ever did.

At the office, Maud tells Vivian that she’ll find out a lot if she talks to Chase, but Vivian tells her that Chase is nowhere to be found, and his Instagram went dark in 2016. Lou finds a photo of Anna and Chase with Talia Mallay, so Vivian asks Paul to approve her expense for a car and a room in the Hamptons so she can speak to Talia. Paul gives it to her after a heated discussion.

Neff meets Rachel and asks her to take turns with her visiting Anna in prison, but Rachel tells her that she is not going to visit Anna in jail at all. Neff guilts her, tells her that Anna paid for everything she is wearing, and calls her a user, and Rachel insists that Neff is the user, not her.

Vivian barges into Todd’s office and asks him what they have on Talia Mallay. Vivian tells him that they should work together and volunteers to do a follow-up on Talia once she gets to the Hamptons to help with Anna’s defense. Todd tells her to go away. After she leaves, Tood asks Alexi, his assistant, to check on Talia Mallay. Alexi holds a discovery box in his hand, so Todd asks for the rest. Alexi does not have them.

Jack drives Vivian to Talia’s house in the Hamptons. Talia insists that Vivian wear a kaftan from her newest collection, so she does. Vivian asks her if she is close with Anna. Vivian asks her how they knew each other. Talia tells her that she appreciates a woman who doesn’t try to impress and has excellent taste in art. She tells Vivian the story of how they met: Talia looks at an art piece she was considering buying and asks Anna’s opinion of it because she happens to be looking at it too. Anna tells her that the gallery’s only piece worth the money was the 8×10 of Cindy Sherman. She disagrees and says that the piece is only Sherman playing dress-up. Anna then tells her that it is Sherman being brave, stepping into her frame, and deeming herself worthy. Talia gets impressed by this that she thinks Anna works in the gallery. Anna laughs at her and tells her that she doesn’t work because her father buys anything she tells him to, and someday, she will own it all. Talia tells her that earning it beats inheriting it.

Talia tells Vivian that she bought the Cindy Sherman piece, and Anna became part of her circle for a while. She tells Vivian that she liked Anna until she showed up in Ibiza, then she tells her the Ibiza story: Talia is in Ibiza. Anna texts her and tells her that she and Chase are in town.

Flashback: Anna was browsing her Instagram feed and saw that Talia was in Ibiza on Henrick Knight’s yacht. Chase tells her that Henrick is huge in tech and that he needs him to invest in Wake. Chase instructs Anna to text Talia and tells her they’re also in Ibiza. They get an initiation to dinner on the yacht and then book their tickets. Anna tells Chase that she has no money to pay for tickets because his father is not happy with her at the moment, so Chase tells her that he’s got it. They get into the yacht the next day.

Back in Manhattan, Todd confronts Catherine for not sending him the entirety of the discovery. Catherine tells him that they haven’t sent them because she is doing her responsibility to process discovery disclosure in the most thorough manner possible. Todd demands she sends everything to him by the end of that week.

Neff meets with Kacy to talk about Rachel and visiting Anna. Neff tells her they cannot leave Anna there because she is not ready for the real world. Kacy tells her that Rachel has her reasons for not visiting Anna, and so does she. Neff asks her how she can just abandon a friend. Kacy says that the person in prison is not the Anna Delvey they know; she is a made-up character pretending to be Anna.

Flashback to the Ibiza story: Henrick toasts in Russian and expects Anna to understand since she is sporting a Russian accent. She does not understand it. This makes Chase think, but he does not say a word. That night, Talia observes that Chase is pitching Henrick hard and tells the girls that he is shameless. Talia pulls Henrick from the conversation and asks him to dance because they’re on vacation. Chase tries to stop her, but Talia tells him to stop pitching. Anna comes to his rescue and pitches Henrick, which concerns Talia. She asks Anna to stop pitching, but Henrick tells her to go on. Henrick gets amazed by Anna’s persuasive skills and ends up investing 100K in Wake. Talia gets impressed by Anna once more, so much so that she tells Chase that he is lucky to have Anna.

In the interview, Talia tells Vivian that Anna was mad about Chase, and Chase was glued to her every second of the day. She says she got a strange call from Henrick a week later telling her that Anna and Chase were still on the boat. She calls Anna and confirms this to be true, so she angrily asks her to get off the boat, and that is the last time they ever spoke. She tells Vivian that overstaying in the boat couldn’t have been Anna’s idea because she was so smart. She is so sure that it was Chase who led Anna to do it and that Anna must have followed him because she was so blindly in love. Talia tells Vivian that that is the end of their story. Vivian looks outside the window and sees that it has already gotten dark. She tells Talia that she’ll call her husband so they can go, but Talia insists that they stay in the guest cottage. She says that Anna has stayed there a couple of times and that she has hung the Sherman there, so if Vivian wants, she can soak up the vibe.

Back in Manhattan, Vivian sees Val and asks him if he saw Anna and Chase after going to Ibiza. Val asks Vivian if she knows what happened in Ibiza because there must be something. He tells the story of them staying in Hotel Gulacsy in Paris during Fashion Week, where he was styling three shows.

Flashback: Val is working, and he hears Chase and Anna argue in the background. He goes near them and finds out that Chase is insisting on giving Anna a part of Wake, which she does not want to take because she wants to build something of her own and thinks Wake is practically nothing. When Val tells Chase to stop arguing, Chase leaves and tells Val that Anna is all his. Val and Anna return to the hotel, and while Anna is sleeping, Val gets a call from Chase. Chase asks him to check Anna’s passport because he thinks she’s lying about her money. Val refuses to do it.

That night, the hotel locks them up from their room and holds their possessions because the wire transfer Anna promised them has not come. Val needs the pills from his bags badly, but the hotel manager won’t let them near their bags, let alone their room. Val tells Anna that he will call Chase or Nora to settle their bills, but Anna says she will fix it. Anna fakes a mental breakdown, so Val hugs her, and they fall asleep on the couch until Chase comes to their rescue. Val finally gets access to their luggage, and while getting his pills, he does what Chase has asked him to do – he checks Anna’s passport.

The next morning, Anna and Chase are already on good terms when Val comes to the restaurant for breakfast. Anna leaves the two of them to shop with Chase’s card. Val tells Chase that he checked Anna’s passport and reveals that Anna’s last name is a Russian one – Sorokin, not Delvey. He also says that the passport is German, but she was born outside of Moscow. He tells him there must be a logical explanation that must be traumatic as well, given what happened in the hotel the previous night. The next thing he knows, Chase tells Anna that he checked his passport, and Chase refuses to admit that he told Val to do so. Anna gets upset by this, and they leave Val alone.

Vivian tells Val she does not understand why they dumped him when he did nothing wrong. Val does not comment on this, so Vivian just asks him for Chase’s contact details, and he does not give them to her.

Meanwhile, Todd gets what he asked for from Catherine –  literally a truckload of discovery. Neff gets ready to visit Anna in Rikers, but when the lady calls out for ‘Sorokin’ in the waiting area, she realizes that she does not know the Anna she is going to visit, so she jumps ship.

Vivian visits Anna instead and asks about Chase.

Flashback: At the Hotel Gulacsy, Anna arrives from her shopping spree. Chase confronts her and tells her that he knows her last name is Sorokin, not Delvey. She dismisses him and says that she only changed her name, so that shouldn’t be a big deal. Chase gets upset and tells her he needs to know who she is because he has given her everything. Anna tells him that she’s building a home for artists and people like her, the pinnacle of the art world, and this foundation will be who she is. She then comes close to Chase and asks him if he will stand in the way of that or help her instead. (paradiseweddingchapel) He falls into her trap after Anna bats her eyelashes a couple of times. He holds Anna’s hands and tells her he will help her realize her dream. Anna tells him that no one can question her identity as she does, so Chase lies and says that it was Val who checked her passport.

Our Thoughts

Sorry, but as the episodes roll by, I find myself getting more disgusted by Anna. She’s manipulative, mean, and ruthless, but not in a good way. It’s like she exists to make a fool out of other people, and while I can understand that she’s a dreamer – an unstoppable one at that, I don’t think that it is an excuse to do what she did. Poor Val had to suffer the consequences of being friends with someone like Anna, who would take advantage of any opportunity she saw. Anyway, I think Vivian has a perfect support system in her circle – her ever-supportive husband and her cooperative teammates help her without being asked. In this episode, we learned that ambition can make a person do unimaginable things, which is not always a good thing.