Home Before Dark Season 1, Episode 3 recap: Hilde solves Penny’s murder

Matt confronts Frank

While his kids are at school, Matt revisits his father. It is heartbreaking to realize that Matt’s father has been counting the days since he last called, utterly unaware that his son is sitting right in front of him. He also blames Matt for putting him in the retirement center.

Well, all of this and the town, is taking its toll on Matt. He heads to a local bar, a place he knows Frank will be, to poke the bear and drink whiskey after whiskey. Frank all but accuses Matt of having something to do with Penny’s death, which is funny because wasn’t Frank the one insisting Penny’s death was an accident? He tells Matt to get his act together and let the Sam thing go, he’s already wasted seven years of his life, and his dad’s life, chasing Richie’s ghost.

Matt isn’t one to be pushed around or dissuaded so easily, Hilde certainly inherited his stubbornness. His main goal for going to the bar is to tell Frank to stay far away from his family.

As I expected, Matt shows up drunk at home after drinking all those whiskeys. Bridget isn’t happy. He’s acting like a child to cope with his pain. She storms out of the house and goes to the ice cream shop to hang out with her new friend, Meena. I am surprised she left her kids alone with a drunk Matt, but I guess she didn’t have another option. None of this goes unnoticed by Hilde.

Bridget tells Meena that Miriam is a woman he got close with on a different case, a case he became obsessed with (I’m sensing a pattern here). She laments that she could never have that kind of bond with Matt because she never lost someone close to her and never knew what happened the same way Matt and Miriam did.

However, Bridget also says she believes that Matt never cheated on her. In the same scene, we also meet Spoon’s mother, Winnie Witherspoon, who happens to be Meena’s sister.

Back at home, Matt attempts to make amends by washing the dishes and getting the girls sorted. Bridget confronts Matt about his drinking and everything that has happened since they arrived in Erie Harbor. She tells him she got the court transcripts from that fateful day in court.

Turns out, Frank most likely lied on the stand, or he genuinely believed Sam was guilty. Ever since, there has been ice between Matt and Frank.

Part of Matt has always wondered if he did the right thing. He wonders if he could have been wrong about Sam, and he also blames himself for not being enough to keep an innocent man out of prison. That’s a lot for one man to carry around, and Bridget tells him as much.

As for the kids, Hilde uses her newfound knowledge of Izzy’s secret cabin to steal it. She wants it for her “office” three nights a week in exchange for not telling their parents that Izzy has a boyfriend. Izzy is pissed because Hilde interrupted an intimate moment between her and Ethan. Still, she relents to the proposition.