Home Before Dark Season 2, Episode 4 recap: Dark Rooms

The central mystery of Home Before Dark Season 2 deepens this week as Hilde crosses paths with the mysterious man following her yet again. Meanwhile, Matt stumbles upon a disturbing secret involving his father.

Home Before Dark Season 2, Episode 4, “Dark Rooms,” begins with Hilde, Donnie, and Spoon following the money trail from the recent pond clean-up. An anonymous donor leads them to Strata Technology, a local company where Donnie’s dad works.

Hilde meets the CEO, Grant Williams (David Cubitt), who takes them on a grand tour of Strata’s facilities. Apparently, Grant is a fan of The Magic Hour Chronicle. Reading a previous article on an animal shelter inspired him to make a significant $20,000 donation. Hilde is impressed but is Grant trustworthy?

Strata is mostly a dead-end, although Grant does help them look through personnel records to see if Hilde’s stalker works there. They come up empty.

But the trip does give Hilde one valuable clue. The episode is titled “Dark Rooms,” because Hilde breaks the lens on her camera and borrows her grandpa’s old-school film camera. Matt helps her develop the images in the basement-turned-dark-room and she notices something interesting about one photograph she managed to snap outside of Strata Technology.

That WM symbol (seemingly standing for Wott Management) is inscribed into the cement outcropping outside Strata. It’s the same symbol the kids spotted on the basement door in the Catherine Higgins house while attending Jessica’s birthday party. In short, they need to get into that basement.

MORE: Home Before Dark Season 2, Episode 2 recap: Fighting His Ghost

Hilde, Donnie, and Spoon sneak inside using the kitchen dumbwaiter and find airplane wreckage stowed inside. They take the black box and sneak out before Hilde’s stalker catches them, but he does find Hilde and Donnie’s backpacks while they hide from him. Let’s hope there’s nothing too valuable in there!

Home Before Dark Season 2, Episode 4 recap: Matt discovers something disturbing about his father’s friends

Remember the photo Sylvester was looking at in the first episode of Season 2? It returns this week as Syl pulls it out of his hiding place to examine. Matt catches his father staring at it and is inspired to reunite his dad’s old friends for a fishing trip the way they used to.

But when Matt starts calling around to find out what happened to all of his dad’s pals, he discovers something disturbing. They’re dead. All of them. Did they all contract something from the pond that made them sick? Was Hilde right about Syl being poisoned by the water? And will he die next? Or did the group witness something they shouldn’t have, and someone is now picking them off one by one?

Odds & Ends from Home Before Dark Season 2, Episode 4

• No wonder Hilde isn’t doing well in school; she never goes to class!
• Desperate for a fresh start, Principal Kim Collins tries to get a job in another school district. Frank happens to spot her out on a job interview and questions why she would leave town without telling him. But given that her mom is in jail and the interview got interrupted by a cop, Kim tells him not to worry since she probably won’t get it anyway.
• Ethan returns to Eerie Harbor this week, and because his mom has just gotten a new job at Strata, he tells Izzy that he’s back in town for good!
• It looks to me like a love triangle might be blooming between Izzy, Ethan, and her new friend Emma, who has stepped in to take Jessica’s place in her absence.
• My theory is the writers want to explore Izzy’s sexuality this season which they were going to do with Jessica/Izzy. Still, when Whitney Peak left for Gossip Girl, they had to restructure and are shifting that storyline to Jessica and Izzy’s mutual friend Emma instead.
• Note: I could be completely off base here, but that’s the vibe I’m getting. Storywise, it really doesn’t make sense to create Jessica/Izzy’s friendship and then kill it in three episodes unless the actress left.

New episodes of Home Before Dark Season 2 air Fridays on Apple TV+.