Episode 2 of Friends Like These: The Murder of Skylar Neese, titled "The Betrayal," picks up immediately where episode 1 left off, circling back to a robbery that occurred in the area. A familiar name pops in, Darek Conaway, a known drug dealer and delinquent whom Skylar, Sheila, and Rachel all knew, partied with, and possibly did drugs with.
Like episode 1, the docuseries jumps between the months leading up to Skylar's disappearance and now the months following, as the weight of the situation begins to settle on the students at University High School. At this point, the police are focusing heavily on Sheila and Rachel, believing that Derek's involvement was nothing more than the party lifestyle.
The case begins to rattle students, as they begin to believe that there is a possibility that Skylar wasn't coming back. This also causes many students to split between those who believed Sheila and Rachel had no involvement and those who weren't as convinced. These comments, some rather crass, are shared online via social media. But that isn't all the police discover.
Receiving Sheila and Rachel's phone records, the police learn that after 4 a.m. Sheila had messaged Derek asking for drugs, but what was more compelling was the very graphic and sexual images and videos of Sheila and Rachel. Although no one seemed to suspect the two friends could have been secretly together, and with both having boyfriends, a new twist seems to emerge.
We are now beginning to see how Skylar was privy to the secret sexual acts between her friends, but wanted no part in it. As Sheila and Rachel begin to grow even closer, shutting Skylar out more often, Skylar's anger is released on social media.
She calls out the behavior of being abandoned without naming names, as well as reminding those who will read the posts that she knows everything and has the ability to share it. Nearly at a dead end, the police suggest Sheila undergo a polygraph test. She agrees and fails. When the police ask her mother try to talk some sense into Sheila she confesses that they never dropped Skylar back home.
Instead, she asked to go to Derek's and fled the car in doing so. Rachel's version was that they dropped her off at Derek's and didn't see her since.
What's interesting is that Sheila remains the calm and level-headed one of the two. Rachel's tense, frightened, and erratic behavior becomes noticeable to other students, leading to a confrontation amongst them during play practice.
The episode dives into Rachel's diary, where she writes an apology to God, distraught that she had done something horrible, and asks for forgiveness. As Christmas rolls around, still with no answers, no clues, the police decide it's time for Rachel to undergo a polygraph test as well.
She agrees, however, the day of the test, she's declared missing. The police receive a call from her lawyer claiming she fled the car as they were driving to take the test.
It's not long after that they receive a call from her mother, who had been described as very strict and almost unkind by several students who knew Rachel. In the background, you can hear Rachel screaming and panicking as her mother scolds her, insinuating that it's time for the truth to come out.
At this point, with one episode left, it's becoming increasingly obvious that Sheila and Rachel killed Skylar, and the truth is about to come out. But why did they do this and how?
Stream Friends Like These: The Murder of Skylar Neese docuseries on Hulu/Disney+.