Netflix’s Ares season 1, episode 3 recap

The new members of Ares celebrate their induction at a decadent party, but as Rosa adjusts to this new unfamiliar life, lives hang in the balance.

After the initiation, the new members of Ares are sent to their rooms. Jacob scrubs at his hands, tentatively examining his blackened fingers. He is startled by eerie noises and runs outside into the street. He seems disturbed, looking back at the house in fright as an unnatural pulsing noise sounds in the background.

The next morning Rosa awakes to a gong. A girl named Puk shows her to a wardrobe of clothes from which she’s free to choose and then she goes downstairs to meet the others. The breakfast room is full and bustling with Ares members being served by white-gloved butlers. Rosa sees Joost whispering to Jacob and she asks good-naturedly what it was about. Jacob basically hisses at her that it was nothing and she just shrugs his temper off.

After breakfast, Rosa gets her phone back and sees all the messages and missed calls from her father. Carmen takes her to the hospital where Rosa finds out that her mother had a suicide attempt. Her father is disappointed that Rosa let them both down. But when Rosa is conflicted between her responsibilities to her parents and Ares, she chooses Ares.

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Meanwhile, Jacob’s loyalty is questioned by the senior members of Ares. They put him through an intense and trippy interrogation that reminds me of some of the mental conditioning employed in Patrick McGoohan’s The Prisoner. He finally passes their tests and they welcome him back into the fold.

Rosa attends a party being held by Dr. Hester De Hoogh, the doctor she missed out on having the internship with. Carmen, wearing another ridiculous outfit with ballooning sleeves, greets her at the door with a glass of champagne. But Rosa faces some discrimination from some of the more snobby members of Ares, particularly from one especially obnoxious guy named Arnold Borms who judges her based solely on the social status of her parents.

Rosa feels sick and makes herself puke up whatever she ate. We don’t know what it was, but her fingers come away black and slimy as if the Ares monster is somehow inside her. She chats up Hester outside and she makes a good impression. Hester gives Rosa her coat and says she’ll be just fine.

Back inside, Jacob desperately searches for Rosa but ends up in a confrontation with Joost. Jacob was told not to come to the party and yet here he is. Jacob touches Joost’s face with his black fingers and Joost is momentarily transported to a dark room with black leather chairs. It’s weird. He backs away and then catches the eye of an older gentleman in the crowd. He walks away into another room and Joost follows him.

The room is empty, but when Joost turns around the guy is there again. He’s transported again into that dark room where he sees a vision of him killing the older guy. Then Joost is attacked by the guy’s zombie corpse.

Everyone else at the party is beginning to get a little wild. The pills are starting to come out and Rosa takes one. She catches the eye of an Ares guy named Roderick and they go into a bedroom together. There’s already another woman in there, but she ends up joining them in a threesome.

Jacob takes Fleur aside and asks her if she’s seen Rosa. He’s crazed at this point, saying that nothing is okay and that they need to get out of there. He’s trying to save Rosa from something, but no one is letting him get near her. The party is raging and no one is paying any attention.

The next morning, Rosa wakes up and finds Joost dead in the bathroom. It looks like he’s stabbed himself in the neck with a broken champagne bottle. Another brutal suicide connected to Ares.