By Nupur Kudapkar
The Woman in the House Across from the Girl in the Window. First and foremost, such a lengthy title for a show. Second, I really can not stop watching it because it is so horrible. Watching the world go by from her living room window, Anna, the main character, sets her sights on a handsome new neighbor until she witnesses a terrible murder. One would be enticed to watch the show until things turn weird (not in a good way).
We begin with Anna, a melancholy red-wine drinker who is mourning the loss of her daughter as well as the separation from her husband until a lovely neighbor walks across the street. She becomes interested in the family next door until she discovers that Neil, the good looking neighbor across the street, has a girlfriend: Lisa. Anna decides to make an entrance by bringing over a casserole; she has a thing for casseroles and is frequently seen with them on the show. Closely after his wife died, enraged, she sets out to find more about her in doing so she finds Lisa’s Instagram and she is posing with a guy, who was not Neil. Finding that the guy’s account was private she creates a new account posting “sexy” photos of herself in lingerie.
Later that night, as she sits by her window, sipping her merlot, she notices it. What exactly is it? Lisa was brutally murdered. Panicked, she phones the cops, but then passes out, and when the officers arrive, they knock on her door. When the authorities arrive, they find spilt wine and a few empty bottles and pills laying about. They dismiss Anna, despite the fact that she says she saw a murder being committed.
This is when we learn that her ex-husband worked for the FBI as a forensic psychologist specialized in serial murderers. It was to bring your daughter to work day, and Anna had pleaded with Douglas to bring their daughter, Elizabeth. In a flashback, we find her seated in a room with a serial murderer, Massacre Mike, who was a cannibal, being interrogated by Douglas. Douglas leaves the room for a second and the door closes. Massacre Mike killed and began to devour their daughter in the short time her father was gone. This entire premise was outrageous and foolish; it would never happen in real life, which made the series a bit unappealing.
Back to the narrative, if one exists at all, Anna chooses to play detective because the real ones will not believe her. This sends her on a wild goose chase to establish Neil is the murderer of his lover. Since Neil revealed his wife’s death, Anna conducts a fast google search (as any stalker would) and discovers a few facts that lead her to disaster after catastrophe in a nearby town. Anna’s suspicions run wild, and she imagines Neil murdering women at each new address she discovers. First, they go to his late wife’s sister’s house, where they discuss his wife’s death, and then to the lighthouse, where Neil’s daughter, Emma, went on a fieldtrip when her instructor died by jumping from the lighthouse, and Neil happened to be a chaperone.
A stranger approaches her door when she returns home. Do you remember the individual I was referring to? Which one was Lisa posing with? So it was him. Lisa had not reacted to the man, Rex, and they were involved in a con plot, and Rex suspected Anna was involved. Also, Lisa’s name is Charity, not Lisa. The cops arrive at this same moment to interview her, so she conceals them in the pantry. There is an explicit sex scene all over Anna’s house after they depart. Why would you have sex with a stranger who just attempted to murder you? The next day, she finds Rex preparing her breakfast when officers break in and arrest him, and they discover Lisa’s dead.
However, in a narrative twist, they subsequently free him and arrest Anna. She intends to establish her innocence after spending the night in a cell. That night, she is on call with her therapist, whom she contacts several times throughout the performance. The mystery man on the phone turns out to be her ex-husband Douglas, who has been prescribing her level four antipsychotics. This is another narrative point that does not make sense; I do not believe it is legal, safe, or would occur in the actual world. Anyway, according to the episode, she has also been hearing things in the attic, and following more investigation, she discovers that their local handyman, Buell, has been living in her attic. This man has been working in the neighborhood for years and is considered criminally crazy, yet Douglas recruited him as his first patient for a few minor adjustments because he had been declared safe for the normal world. WHAT?? Why would you hire a criminally crazy individual to work around your wife and child?
Fast forward to night time, and Anna suffers from ombrophobia (fear of the rain). When she realizes Buell has been living in her attic, Anna looks out the attic window and sees him coming over to Neil and Emma’s house. It begins to rain, she is still on the phone with her ex, and she needs to stop Buell. She flees out of the home and makes it halfway down the street before collapsing; she magically awakens and run-crawls back into the house, where she finds Buell on the floor, his throat cut. She yells at Neil and dashes into the living room, only to see Emma, Neil’s daughter, brandishing the knife. Emma, the nine-year-old, turns revealed to be the murderer. What was the source of this? This story twist is really dubious. The episode concludes with Emma being stabbed and murdered by Anna during a fight, and Douglas rushing in to save Anna.
Anna is admitted to the hospital, and everyone apologizes to her for calling her names. Then comes the cliffhanger: Douglas is shown with a lady throughout the show, and it turns out that she is only his appointed partner for his profession. In the end, they reconcile and have another kid, and Anna is shown at the airport on her way to see her closest friend, where she blacks out drunk next to a lady. When she wakes up, the lady is gone, but she goes to the restroom and finds the woman dead. She hastily grabs the flight attendant and returns him, but by the time they arrive, the woman has vanished. The flight attendant carefully seats her, but she discovers her cosmetics case hidden in the seat. Blackout. The show was a snoozer, with an intriguing but terrible narrative, yet I watched it all in one sitting. Would I suggest it? I’m not sure; watch it for yourself and decide.