Nadia takes a backseat and Alan, the guy she met in elevator at the end of the previous episode, drives. The episode follows Alan, for the most part. He goes to propose to his girlfriend Beatrice (Dascha Polanco). He's been here before. He anticipates everything she is going to say. She denies that she's been having an affair. He leaves, goes home, spends the night eating junk food and playing video games.
The next day he meets up with his friend Farran. Later he goes to see his doctor. It is after he leaves the doctor's office that he gets in the elevator with Nadia. The scene replays from the end of the previous episode and Alan's day starts over again. He doesn't seem to be trying to break the cycle. It is almost as if he thinks he can figure it out by going to all the same places over and over again, like a video game.
Nadia has other ideas. She isn't sure where to look for Alan until she walks past a jewelry store with boxes in the window with the same logo as the one Alan was holding in the elevator. She goes in and unsuccessfully tries talking the woman working there into telling her Alan's name. The woman refuses but sees a Yelp (well not really, the social media site in the show is called Yep!) and finds him through that. She finds his home address and waits outside his building until he shows up.
Alan isn't happy to see Nadia. He recognizes her. She suggests he come to the party the night before, the one where the show started. Alan's day is all messed up. He feels out of control. He goes to see Mike, the guy who Beatrice is sleeping with. It is the same Mike from the first episode. The guy that Nadia has sex with in the first episode. Alan loses it, attacks Mike, and breaks a mirror. Eventually he leaves.
That night Alan throws the ring into the river. He gets electrocuted by a lamppost that shorts out. He returns to life in front of his bathroom mirror, as usual, while brushing his teeth. He goes through his suitcase and finds the box from the jewelry store. He opens it up the ring isn't there. He seems happy, relieved. He leaves the apartment. He doesn't feed his fish on the way out. It seems to be missing from the tank.
Notes
Alan and Nadia's paths have crossed before this episode. In the first episode he's Farran's friend who get sick in the bodega where Farran works. I didn't piece this together until I saw Alan meeting with Farran in this episode. I went back and fast forwarded through episode 1 and found the scene and thee he was. He doesn't have any lines and he only gets a few seconds of screen time but he was there.
I fast forwarded through the second episode and found him with Farran once again. This time they were just leaving the same bar that Nadia was at. She was in the basement meeting with War Dog and the scientist. She left through a side door. Farran and Alan left through the front door. She saw them and tried running after them but then she fell down the street elevator shaft and was killed.
Alan shows up once more after that in third episode, before they meet in the elevator. Alan walks past Nadia while she is in the park looking for Horse, the homeless man. This is just after she froze to death. You can barely tell its him in episode 3 but its pretty clearly him (when they show the same scene) in this episode. Blink and you miss it episode 3.
Dascha Polanco is also in Orange Is the New Black.
Thoughts
What a ride. I'm loving it even if it still feels like a bit of a gimmick.
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