The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window Season 1 Episode 2 Recap

Anna heads to her attic to find her set of markers. She looks for a light green one after Emma mentioned she would like to paint her duck that color the other night.

On her way to Neil’s, a girl walks with her. She introduces herself as Neil’s girlfriend, Lisa. Neil is about to bring Emma to school, but Lisa asks for a group hug before they leave. Anna finds herself remembering how she, Douglas, and Elizabeth did the same back then.

Disappointed to know that Neil has a girlfriend, Anna goes home and decides to get a drink, just like she always does. But she finds her wine box empty, so she goes to the grocery store to buy more wine. She overhears Carol and Beth talking about her: that she cannot believe Anna showed up at school in her pj’s, that she can’t believe Anna flaked when Carol set her up with Mark, that Anna has a drinking problem, and that she throws herself at their new neighbor even though he has a girlfriend.

Driving home from the grocery store, Anna sees Lisa talking to someone on the phone while throwing away the markers she gave Emma, which upsets Anna, so she imagines herself running Lisa over. Anna goes down her car to confront Lisa about the markers. Lisa tells her she threw them out because she has a sensitive nose, and she doesn’t like how they smell.

Back at her house, Anna empties an entire bottle of wine on her huge wine glass and opens yet another bottle so she can refill the glass right away. She receives a call from her therapist, who asks about her. Anna tells him she heard noises in the attic, and she saw Elizabeth playing in her room again. He tells her it’s the trauma that’s causing her to see her dead child. He asks about the drinking—Anna lies: she tells him she’s cutting back. He reminds her she shouldn’t be combining the pills he prescribed with alcohol because it can cause hallucinations, even leading to a psychotic episode.

She should try coming to his office, the therapist tells her. But she can’t risk driving that far in fear of getting caught in the rain. He encourages Anna to talk about her ombrophobia, saying she has a good reason to fear the rain because it is linked to the worst day of her life.

He urges her to talk about that day because he believes it will be helpful in her recovery. Anna hesitates, but the therapist insists, so she narrates it was Take Your Daughter to Work Day, so her then-husband, Douglas, brings Elizabeth with him to work. Before they leave, the rain pours, so she gets an umbrella for Elizabeth. Her husband is a forensic psychiatrist specializing in serial killers for the FBI. He takes Elizabeth with him to prison, into a room where he needs to assess a serial killer who had murdered and eaten 30 people. Just before the assessment began, the warden asked Douglas to step out of the room for an urgent matter. The warden shut the door and accidentally locked both Elizabeth and the prisoner nicknamed Massacre Mike.

Telling the story brings Anna to tears, so she abruptly ends the call. She sees Lisa by Neil’s window, wearing only a pink brassiere and jeans, holding two phones. Anna opens yet another bottle of wine and drinks while observing Neil play with Emma outside while Lisa works out upstairs. She gets a notification that Neil has accepted her follow request. After scrolling through Neil’s photos, she lands on Lisa’s profile.

Sloane shows up unannounced. Anna rants to her about Lisa being shady. When Sloane asks about Neil, Anna tells her he just moved in across the street, and his wife died, he has a daughter, and he’s perfect. They had something at dinner, but he never mentioned Lisa. Anna continues to browse Lisa’s profile and sees that Sexy Rexy has liked all her photos, even commented on one with an eggplant emoji. She thinks maybe Sexy Rexy was the one Lisa was talking to earlier. She sends him a follow request.

Sloane tells her to stop thinking about her neighbors and focus on painting instead. Anna obliges. She starts to paint the flowers Sloane sent her the other day. After finishing the painting, she furiously destroys it. While washing her hands and her painting materials in the sink, she sees Carol talking to Buell, the postman. Thinking that Carol is talking badly about her to Buell like she did with Beth at the store, Anna comes at her with a knife. She tells her to stop saying she’s batshit crazy and she has a drinking problem. She tells her to get into her shoes and imagine what it’s like to lose a child.

Carol tells her to stop pointing the knife at her—she was just asking Buell about a letter Scott has been waiting for. Anna tries to apologize, but Carol tells her she doesn’t feel bad about Anna anymore and will not include her in her prayers.

Anna cries out of embarrassment, so Buell comforts her, saying everyone makes mistakes.

Anna revisits Elizabeth’s grave and tells her about what happened. It is about to rain, so Anna heads home. She makes it inside just as the rain has started to fall. She drinks her pills and drinks wine to push them down. She checks if Sexy Rexy has accepted her follow request, and when she finds out he hasn’t, she decides to look at her profile—it looks dull and uninteresting. She decides to create a new profile.

She decides she needs to appear sexy, so she takes her lingerie from her drawer, bringing back memories with Douglas. She wears sexy underwear and takes selfies, just like what she saw on Lisa’s profile. She uploads it and sends a follow request again to Sexy Rexy. He accepts it almost instantly. She stalks his profile and sees a photo of him licking Lisa’s neck while she’s sitting on his lap posted just five days ago.

While drinking wine again, Anna sees Lisa holding her neck, seemingly hurt. Lisa looks at her hand—she sees blood and falls to the floor, out of Anna’s sight. Anna calls 911 and frantically tells the operator about seeing someone get murdered. She runs out of her house to help Lisa, but it is raining, so she passes out in the middle of the street.

Our Thoughts

So why does Anna always have to take the pills with wine? Now we do not know if she really saw Lisa get murdered or if it is just her mind playing the same tricks again. Why did it have to be raining? This episode really had us furious, but at the same time, interested. Speaking of being interesting, did everybody notice how Elizabeth’s epitaph now reads: ‘IN HEAVEN YOU CAN DANCE LIKE NO ONE’S WATCHING,’ when it read previously: ‘IF LOVE COULD HAVE SAVED YOU YOU WOULD HAVE LIVED FOREVER?’ That’s just weird, but yeah, one of the many easter eggs in this show.