This post contains spoilers from The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox episode 2 from this point forward.
After the first episode of The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox revealed that Amanda returned to Italy in 2022 and reunited with her prosecutor, episode 2 doesn't feature any flash forwards to the future. Instead, we're focused solely on Amanda in the aftermath of Meredith's murder as she becomes an object of fascination and suspicion for the local authorities.
The beginning of episode 2 returns to the scene of the crime, only this time, we watch the events unfold from the perspective of the detectives and officers. They take an early liking to Amanda for the crime, even though there's clearly evidence that points in a completely different direction. There's blood found in the apartment below. But it's Amanda's phone that has been tapped.
Back at the police department, Amanda becomes mildly overwhelmed with their questions about Meredith's life. The authorities also don't take kindly to her expressing that she hasn't slept and her struggles with the language barrier. They also know she's lying when she says they didn't smoke pot. No pun intended, but they basically take that as something of a smoking gun.
Amanda cracks under pressure
Watching the various detectives discuss the case, it's rather obvious that they have decided Amanda did it or was at least involved and are working backwards from there to try to put their story together. They soon discover that a hair on Meredith's floor belonged to a Black man, which sends the team looking for any and all connections between Amanda and a Black man.
The boys who live downstairs reveal that Meredith could have been involved with someone they played basketball with who goes by The Baron, but they have trouble tracking him down. The detectives also spot a mark on Amanda's neck they believe to be a sign of a struggle, but it's very clearly just a hickey. (You could probably guess this, but they don't ask her about it.)
After finishing up at the police department, Amanda visits her boss Patrick Lumumba at the bar where she works to quit her job in fear that the killer could easily track her down. Meanwhile, the detectives think they've found another smoking gun: Amanda and Raffaele's phones were both turned off the night of the murder. Because there can't be a reasonable explanation for that?
When they take Amanda back to her house to look at the crime scene, she unsettles the detectives with her quirks before they even enter. Inside, they force her to open the kitchen drawer with knives to see if anything's missing. The experience of doing so gives her a panic attack, crying and hitting her head with her fists, which they take to be an expression of guilt.
In spite of Amanda telling her not to, her mother Edda (Sharon Horgan) informs her she's on her way to Italy, which of course the authorities now know about. That night, the detectives call Raffaele back for questioning and Amanda joins him because she doesn't want to be home alone. One of the detectives speaks to her in the waiting room about yoga (it's weird), but she's pulled into a room.
Amanda's forced confession and arrest
She wasn't even there to be questioned, and now she's forced to once again answer the same questions and then some. They want her to walk through the exact timeline of the night Meredith died. While she might not have exact timestamps, she doesn't waver from the fact that she stayed in with Raffaele, ate dinner, watched Amélie, had sex, smoked pot, and showered.
Being forced to recount this night and attempt to assign exact times to when everything happens confuses Amanda, and they're convinced it means she can't get her story straight. More and more detectives enter the room and, finally, so does her translator. She explains that she had her phone off for downtime (this was pre "do not disturb"). She also has to explain a text to Patrick.
They assume her saying "see you later" to Patrick meant that she made plans to meet him later. In fact, they're convinced that she's lying about meeting up with him and that the pair killed Meredith together. They claim to have "hard evidence" that she was at her house, not Raffaele's, the night of the murder: the text message. Because Patrick is Black and they misinterpreted the text message, the whole group believes they have cracked the case. But the motive would be...?
Apparently, during Raffaele's questioning, he claimed the Amanda wasn't at his place on the night of the murder and she asked him to lie for her. From there, the episode becomes truly bone-chilling as we see the detectives bark orders at her and even hit her in order to force her confession. The process of their constant badgering breaks her down into admitting Patrick did it.
When she snaps out of it, she realizes what she's done. She tries to change her statement and write a long letter explaining her story, but it's too late. The authorities have already arrested Amanda, Raffaele, and Patrick for the murder of Meredith Kercher. Amanda's mother arrives in Italy just in time to catch a news report explaining Amanda has been arrested for murder.
The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox releases new episodes Wednesdays on Hulu.