This post contains spoilers from The Beast in Me episode 7 on Netflix from this point forward. Trigger warning: Domestic violence.
The cat and mouse chase between Aggie and Nile heated up in the previous episode, with Nile planting Teddy Fenig's dead body in Aggie's house. But The Beast in Me episode 7 doesn't pick up where were left off. Instead, we're in a flashback to December 2019 as Abbott and the FBI rip money out of the seats of an airplane. Does this have anything to do with Nile?
Still in the flashback, Nile asks Nina, who's seemingly taking a serious phone call, where Madison is because he wants her to meet someone. She's indeed having a smoke outside the gallery party like Nina said, but she's also snorting cocaine. Nina cleans her up when she gets back inside and rushes to Nile's side to meet Pedro Dominguez, a developer from Miami. Suddenly, Abbott and the FBI storm in to arrest Pedro. Madison confronts Abbott and throws her drink on him.
After everyone clears out of the party, Martin confronts Nile about what's going on. He explains that taking Pedro's money to help cover Jarvis Yards tied them to a cartel. Martin's worried that they'll be ratted out to Abbott, but Nile wants to know how Abbott's already on their trail anyway. He suspects someone's working with Abbott and feeding him information. Could it be Nina? She pokes around Madison's things under the guise of looking for her medication.
Who was leaking information about Nile to Abbott?
It's revealed that Martin came up with the plan to work with someone inside the FBI to keep Abbott at bay. Nile talks to Madison about his fears that Nina could be double crossing them. He meets with one of his higher up employees upstairs in the office building and asks him to take the fall and do jail time. Breton and her ex-husband attempt to get out of the legal mess he's gotten them into, and divorce seems to be the way to do that. (As we know, they are divorced in present day.)
Abbott rejects the man's confession, believing he's taking the fall for Nile, but his boss won't let him continue to pursue the case with nothing actually linking back to Nile. Rick approaches Breton at the park and uses her husband's situation as a bargaining chip for her to lend her help to the Jarvis family. So, that's how she became involved as an informant.
Shocker: Madison's the one talking to Abbott, not Nina. That's why she made such a display of hatred for him when he arrived at the gallery. Abbott asks Madison to come forward as a witness in order to take down Nile, otherwise they have no other options. He tells her to divorce Nile, but she rebuts that if she tries, she fears that he will kill her. She shares a story about Nile being jealous of an artist she was working with who later turned up dead. She assumes Nile took care of him. Sound familiar?
Madison reveals more of Nile's scary history and pleads to him to help her. She also kisses him, leaning into Abbott's own feelings for her. When she leaves her meeting with Abbott, Nina's waiting for her in the alley. She confronts her about not taking her lithium. Nina drops the news that she got a new job with another gallery, and Madison barks back at her about using her and not having talent.
Did Nile kill his wife Madison in The Beast in Me?
Now that they have someone on the inside at the FBI, Martin warns Nile to stand down. Nile spots Nina at the office after hours and she tells him that she quit. Finally, he accuses her of leaking information to Abbott. He doesn't accept her denial until she makes a case that it's Madison because she saw her with him. Nina hands over all of Madison's pills to Nile and storms out. She's done trying to help save Madison from self destruction.
Madison seems prepared to flee the country, but Nile catches her gathering her passport and confronts her. She tries to leave, but he grabs her throat and strangles her. She sprays him with pepper spray and gets away, though not far enough for him to catch up to her in the gallery and kill her with a small statue. He cries over her bloody body before calling his dad. Martin and Rick arrive, and Rick springs to action to help mediate the situation.
Rick lays out the options to Martin, one being turning Nile in and the other being what they ultimately went with: a cover up. The next day, Nina returns to the gallery, and it's as if a murder never happened. Abbott worries when Madison doesn't respond to his messages. Nina's the one to find Madison's suicide note in the gallery. Nile and Rick bury her body in a suitcase in the ground at a construction site. As the episode ends, Aggie watches the coverage of Madison's disappearance on the news before cuddling with Shelley and Cooper.