I still have so many questions as we learn more about our characters and the mysterious death. Originally, I thought that only our main characters could be the skeleton in the tub. The evidence continues to make me question everything. Ciara is actually Megan, Oliver isn’t using his real last name, Elliot knows who Oliver really is, Lee hid a deep secret, Karl is struggling with his divorce and the job, and then there’s Kevin lying about knowing our key players living in the building and doing shady things. Not only is Oliver most likely this murderous guy with terrible anxiety, but every other character is also nursing dark secrets. Slowly, those secrets are starting to creep up on them.
56 Days is mysterious, sexy, and downright addicting as we try to uncover who killed whom and who’s still alive. Nothing is off the table as we uncover more things about Oliver and Ciara’s life together and what led to a gruesome end. Episode 4 has me thinking maybe Oliver and Ciara are alive, and Jane is the one who ended up murdered. Until we find out who the skeleton in the tub is, we’re left to theorize if Jane stalking Oliver ended up with her murdered and the modern-day Bonnie and Clyde fleeing. Or if Oliver murdered Ciara, fled Boston, and somehow Jane is missing, too. Whichever outcome it is, I expect it to blow my mind.
56 Days season 1 episode 5 follows day 32
We start the episode with a montage of happy mornings between Oliver and Ciara. They look and sound like any other couple except their relationship is full of secrets. On Day 32, Ciara reveals that she stole the Organic Panic chocolates Oliver’s therapist gave to him. It’s St. Patrick’s Day so she thinks this is the perfect time to use them. She wants to be psycho nuts together and dive into the depths of their brains. He finally agrees to do it and they cheers their pieces like it’s a normal day.
Ciara and Oliver are feeling light after taking the chocolates as they walk in the sunshine arm in arm. As they walk into a crowd of St. Patrick’s celebrations on the street, she flashes her bra to share the wealth with everyone. She’s free and they are worry free. They even look happy starting in the middle of the crowd watching he St. Patrick’s parade. He lifts Ciara on his shoulders, joins the parade dancers, and starts dancing. Again they seem like any other couple, while he looks stresses leaving the crowd, she’s happy about making so many friends.
While Ciara is having fun in Boston, her sister, Shyla (Megan Peta Hill), is dealing with things at home. On the bright side, their mom looks the best she has since this storyline started even though she’s worried about her daughter running into their dad. As their mom walks out of the kitchen, her sister finally gets the bank transfer notification.
Jane’s stalker room
Jane’s apartment is full of more questions. They can’t ask her landlord, Elliot, because Karl messed that one up. Kevin offers to be the middleman, but Karl turns him down and has him ushered out. They make theories about if Jane was killed in her apartment and then placed in Oliver’s. Then, Lee finds Jane’s room of researching and stalking she did on Oliver. From surveillance photos to his driver’s license, there’s stuff everywhere from how deep she got into looking into his past and present.
As Lee is trying to get Karl to see the Oliver research, Jane walks into her apartment. She explains that she’s a freelance reporter working on a story about Oliver and his extended family. This reveals that Oliver hasn’t spoken to the press in 16 years and she wanted to give him a chance to speak for himself about his past. Karl cuts right to the chase about her smashed window, leading her to call Oliver a psychopath and missing a chance for an interview due to his rage. I love that Jane isn’t hiding the fact that she dropped off not one but two anonymous letters to Oliver. Even though she thinks she was gracefully trying to get him to tell his story, Karl disagrees and says she was poking the bear. I agree with him because it ramped up Oliver’s anxiety and drove him to smash Jane’s windshield.
The detectives finally find out that his girlfriend’s name was Ciara, since Jane did meet her. Jane doesn’t hold back when she says Ciara had eyes that seemed like they saw right through someone. That was ironic because her relationship was a lie due to her being a con artist. The detectives don’t believe Jane for knowing that Ciara was after Oliver’s money. They were a fugitive and a con artist living in a warped reality where they were obsessed with each other.
They pause the interview with Karl gets a call from Russo, who is watching news coverage of Ciara and Oliver on surievullance footage with the headline: Murder in Boston. She’s goes right into asking if Karl got Lee’s secret out of her. He confirms that she talk him everything and shares the reason he met her, but that’s it. He keeps his word about the awful things that followed Lee meeting Finch. Russo tells Karl that TikTok Hannah (Dalia Allocca) had multiple unpaid parking tickets so they put out a warrant. He doesn’t respond immediately because he finds something concerning in Jane’s apartment. On the desk with all the Oliver research, Karl finds handdrawn plans of the apartment and a photo of the crime scene.
Jane thinks that it’s possible that Oliver found out that Ciara knew his secrets and killed her for it. Then, she tells Lee that Elliot’s wife, Allison Meadows’ (Jesse James Keitel) accident wasn’t an accident at all. She’s pretty sure Oliver killed her, too. Honestly with how much Allison didn’t want Oliver around anymore, that makes sense.
Allison and Jane warn Ciara
They run into Elliot as they’re talking about where they want to trip out from the chocolates. She compliments his hat and he invites them to drinks. He brings them to a table where his wife, Allison, his sitting with Jane. Everyone is shocked. Oliver looks distressed as Jane talks casually to Ciara. They play off knowing each other saying they’ve sent each other around the Crossings since Elliot was nice enough to let Jane stay there. Elliot confirms that Oliver’s staying in the other apartment. Oliver bravely asks how they all know each other. Allison casually answers that Jane and her met years ago after a museum scandal.
Allison talks Elliot into helping Oliver gets some drinks leaving Ciara alone with Allison and Jane. They immediately ask her if she’s okay. They get straight to the point about Oliver not being who he says he is and that he killed someone. As if it’s normal girl talk, Ciara tells they that she knows. This revelation leaves them stunned, but she’s doesn’t need them to understand why she’s still with him.
Elliot tells Oliver that all he knows is Jane needed a place to stay while she researches stories. He has to immediately calm down Oliver when he says that he’s the subject of her story. Oliver tells him that Jane has been stalking him at his home, the street, and the gym and now she’s talking to Ciara about him. Being the person that cares about him, he encourages him to tell Ciara about him, but it didn’t go so well the last time when he told his secrets to someone.
Jane tells Ciara that she came to Boston to tell Oliver’s story when Allison told her he was here. He’s been evading murder for years since his family covered it up. Instead of telling Jane his story in his own words, he doesn’t seem interested. Then, tries to convince her to ask Oliver to talk to her and Allison quickly shuts that down saying it might get her killed. Ciara isn’t the first girl to get caught up in Oliver’s act. Ciara only starts to look concerned when they tell her about his serious girlfriend that he wanted to propose to back in London. Once she told her the truth, she ran for her life and shut down talking to Jane about it. He told that girl everything about the murder, but before she can answer Allison about what he told her, Shyla texts Ciara to see why she’s not answering her phone.
They all look suspicious and concerned as Ciara walks away from the table and passes the men. Elliot calms Oliver down by telling him that Allison crossed a line this time and that he’ll tell Jane to back off or leave. He reveals that he’s the one who wanted Oliver to come to Boston because he promised Oliver’s father he’d look out for him. Even though he says it’s all right after telling him he’s got his back and touching his hand, Elliot walks away.
Ciara’s confession off the record
Meanwhile, Ciara calls Shyla while sitting in the bathroom away from everyone else. Shyla’s nervous that it’s too much money. But Ciara tells her he has so much money he’ll never notice, and that he goes by a different last name now. Ciara finally tells her that she knows him. She tries to convince Shyla that he isn’t who she thinks he is, but she doesn’t buy it. Shyla angrily ends the call, mad at Ciara for meeting the enemy. Lo and behold, Jane is in the bathroom when Ciara opens her stall door after her conversation with Shyla, and she hears about the money scheme.
Jane backs them into the stall and locks the door, finally confronting Ciara about being a source on the record since she can’t convince Oliver. She basically blackmails her by offering her fame and headlines instead of handing her over to the police for stealing from the St. Ledgers. Ciara doesn’t take the bait in a normal way. Instead, she pushes Jane up against the stall door and gets into her face, sharing an off-the-record confession. Jane storms out, scared of who Ciara is after she reveals all the secrets she knows about Oliver that he didn’t have to tell her.
Oliver storms out behind Jane, while Elliot pushes Allison to stop her darts game and leave the bar. Without hesitation, Allison tells Elliot that she did tell Jane where to find Oliver because she needed a story. She caused this mess and he’s not okay with it. She thought the world needed to know and didn't care about Oliver was Elliot’s Godson. The alcohol definitely gives her liquid courage as she tells off Elliot about helping his billionaire lover’s son get out of murder by covering it up. They walk off in different directions, pissed at each other.
Ciara stares in the mirror as if nothing weird just went down a few minutes ago, while Oliver sits in the bar tripping out. He immediately starts questioning her about what Jane told her when she emerges from the bathroom and takes him outside.
Jane’s ride downtown
Karl searches through Jane’s belongings and finds a black ski mask. Jane tells Lee about how Oliver made Allison uncomfortable while Ciara and him were both tripping out. That connects to his past because he was messed up when he killed his classmate. As Jane is getting concerned about Karl still being on a call, he emerges and needs to talk to Lee. She tells Jane to wait with the cop while Karl shows Lee the evidence of Jane pulling the fire alarm. Not only is there a ski mask but also a coat. Her having a photo of the crime scene means it had to be her because the person took a photo that morning.
Lee and Karl escort Jane out of the building in handcuffs, with Kevin following behind them. They aren’t arresting her, nor are they concerned with Kevin’s illegal habits as a property manager. They put Jane in the back of a cop car and asked Kevin to go home. They plan to get things taken care of and then meet at the ME’s office for the autopsy on Jane Doe in 40 minutes.
Ciara’s confessions almost sends her running
Oliver’s tripping out is heightening his anxiety which is the last thing it’s supposed to do. He’s rambling about not telling her something, but she tries to calm him down. He worries she’ll hate him, even though she tells him she won’t. He doesn’t want her to leave him as he breaks down. They do a breathing exercise as she puts his earphones in and turns on static noise on his phone to center him. With his eyes closed and earphones in, she confesses her real name and how they didn’t meet on accident so she could take what he owes her and her family. She thinks she knows what happened in that river. She grew up believing he was a monster and now she can’t tell. Despite it all, she wishes she could understand him because falling for him became real for her, but they’ll never work in the long run. It’s really sad because she really could have loved him. After finishing her story, he opens his eyes to find she’s disappeared as if she was never standing there at all.
Alone on the street, Oliver texts Ciara and then runs into Allison. He finally tells him off about hating his father, too. He thinks she’s jealous of a dead man because Elliot loved his father. She throws his lies in his face and hopes all of it comes out. He threatens that Elliot will never love her the same way he loved his father in him. She finally pulls out of his grip, telling Oliver that he’s perfect for Ciara because they are both liars.
Heartbroken, Ciara trips out from the chocolates as she walks alone down the street and back to Oliver’s apartment. As she throws stuff in a bag at the apartment, Oliver runs through the parade chasing Allison. The woman he’s chasing walks into the street and is run over by a truck. As far as we know, it’s real and it could be Allison. But since he’s tripping out, I can’t positively ID her. It looks like maybe he wasn’t responsible, for once.
Sitting in her dark room, Ciara texts Shyla to let her know she’s packing to come home. When Shayla sees the text, she’s already less than two hours from Boston. She’s definitely fed up with Ciara. As Ciara is heading to the door to leave, Oliver walks in and tells her he’ll tell her the truth.
The skeleton’s possible gender shocks Karl
Karl waits for Lee at the EM’s office, texting to let her know the autopsy is starting. Lee steps out of the apartment, walks out of the building, and gets into a car. While Karl keeps her secrets and waiting on her, she rides off to an unknown location with Finch.
Karl finds out that the autopsy results won’t be in until early next week, but his begging for some answers gets him a few details. Based on the partial skull and some of the digits on the hand, she can draw a fairly certain conclusion that the victim is male. Just like Karl, I’m shook from the news.
All episodes of 56 Days season 1 are now streaming on Prime Video.