Warning: Major spoilers ahead

Five years before Milo’s disappearance, Marissa and Peter are seen arriving at their home, carrying a newborn baby Milo in a car carrier. The pair soon fall into the habits of life as parents, getting up at night to feed, getting into spats over juggling work with a baby, and sleep deprivation induced panic.

Marissa is seen taking on the bulk of the work, especially when it comes to Milo’s sleeping, which aggravates her. While Peter says her “Tell me what you want and I’ll do it”, he doesn’t take any initiative himself.

Finally, she’s able to get him to sleep through the night, and Peter congratulates her for cracking it, saying she can “do anything”.

With still no news, Marissa watches old home movies of Milo on her laptop, unable to sleep. Peter comes into the kitchen, but the pair still aren’t speaking. She contacts a news team, hoping to get his picture out ahead of the morning rush and so the hotline number for information can get to the most people.

Colin arrives at the house for support, and she notes there’s a press conference being held, and they’re waiting on a potential ransom call.

Back at her house, Jenny goes into Carrie’s room to look for clues and finds it a mess. She remembers helping Carrie change her bedsheets a month prior, while Jacob joking around playing peekaboo with her by the doorway. Jacob asks where Carrie’s gone, and Jenny tells him Carrie will be gone for a bit.

Richie tells Jacob that he’ll be spending more time with his mommy and gets angry at Jenny when she asks him to potentially pick Jacob up that Thursday so she could attend an important pitch meeting at her company. He tells her that he has “Quizzics” – an extracurricular class at his school to teach, and it’s “important to the kids”. She tells him he needs to do more to make their current, nannyless situation work.

The detectives arrive at Jenny and Richie’s house, informing them that “Carrie Finch” isn’t even their nanny’s real name, as she had used a fraudulent driver's licence and resumé to get the job with them. It shocks Jenny, who said she had personally called her references herself before hiring her. Richie questions why Jenny didn’t “sense it” when she spoke to them, and Detective Alcaras comes to her defence, asking if he’d noticed or called, to which Richie responds he hadn’t called anyone, leaving it to Jenny. Alcaras then asks about the family’s day-to-day routine and Carrie’s daily requirements, and it’s noted that Jenny takes over from Carrie at 7pm, even though Richie normally gets home at 4pm. He says he has to make lesson plans once he’s home, which is why they keep Carrie on the extra time.

When asking for any changes in Carrie’s schedule, Jenny notes she asked for a day off on the 25th – two weeks prior – and was gone all day. As they leave, Alcaras notes that it was the same day Peter took off from work.

At the Irvines, Lia goes to visit Brian, grilling each other on what the detectives asked them. They agree Peter’s comments towards Marianne were out of line, then head out together. On route to the press conference, the family see a billboard featuring Milo, appealing for help, and Marianne grabs Peter’s hand in silent solidarity as they drive.

At school drop off, Jenny says goodbye to Jacob, handing him over to a staff member at the school, which is partnered with a security officer now the school has ramped up safeguarding. On the way back to her car, she is cornered by Sarah, who digs for information on Carrie and Marissa.

Sarah tactlessly asks whether Jenny being friends with Marissa is realistic, seeing as her nanny kidnapped Marissa’s son, and suggests she keep her distance for fear of legal repercussions. Jenny’s guilt is compounded further still as a commentator on the radio refers to her as negligent.

As the Irvines arrive for the conference, two reporters can’t stop staring at the family, prompting Lia to step in and call them out on it. But things shift when Marissa receives a call from someone, who breathes down the phone and declares they have Milo, but it turns out to be a prank, with the “jokesters” mocking her and calling her a bitch before hanging up.

They find that the press have pulled Marissa and Peter’s wedding photos from Facebook for their stories. Marissa worries it makes it look like they’re showing off their wealth, making them appear unlikeable as a result, saying lack of sympathy will stop people helping them find Milo.

Lia notices reporters filming the distressed Peter and Marissa and demands they stop recording. Peter scolds her for antagonising the press, while Marissa begins to have a panic attack. Jenny arrives and gets her away from the scene, taking her outside for some fresh air. Jenny tells her she needs to lie down and will take over the building of the website for her while she does.

Hiding in an office, Jenny gets to work on the website, but Marissa can’t sleep, asking her about Carrie’s behaviour and if there was anything that could have been a red flag. Jenny says no, recounting a time that Carrie made Jacob a split for his finger in the shape of a butterfly to make him smile.

Marissa shares that she has a small circle of friends, so there’s no one else to call, but she’s happy with her life, considering herself an introvert. Jenny offers to be her friend, and the pair joke that she has an uphill battle but is “willing to take up the challenge”, but that makes Marissa cry even harder, feeling guilty for laughing.

The pair theorise why she would do this, and Jenny shares she’s told the police everything she knows, including noting she took the 25th off. Marissa remembers going to the beach with Peter and Milo three weeks prior, with the parents planning Milo’s upcoming birthday party, but when she asked Peter if he could take Milo to the dentist on the 25th, he said he couldn’t because he had a conference.

Marissa calls Peter’s office, saying she needed to check timelines for the police, and discovers that while he was on leave on the 25th, not at a conference.

Detectives Alcaras and Grecco head to ask Ana more questions, noting that she said she had never spoken to Carrie before. Ana continues to deny it, saying they shared smiles but Carrie was often preoccupied with Jacob, who liked to climb and she didn’t want him to fall.

When asked where she was on the 25th, she says she was free most of the day as Milo had a dentist appointment that Marissa took him to, but she was at the home from one, as was Peter, but he left before Marissa and Milo got home, not mentioning where he was going.

As they prepare to leave, Alcaras asked where Jacob liked to climb, as there was nowhere at the school that he could. She tells him it was the playground on Lombard Street, where nannies often took their children to play after school. They pick there as there’s an ice cream place the kids like to go to.

On the way out, Alcaras gets a call from his wife and plays with his son on the phone. Grecco theorises that Carrie and Peter may have been having an affair, which would explain no ransom, but also noted that Peter seemed like a loving father, so it makes little sense.

Back at the offices ahead of the press conference, Peter, Lia and Brian start deleting “unsympathetic posts” from their social media. Brian begins to struggle physically, but Peter assures him it’s not his fault. Double checking Lia’s feed, Peter calls her a “great aunt” as loving pictures of her and Milo show up. He then receives a text from an unknown number saying that they got his message, and they want to talk.

As he goes outside for some fresh air, he calls a number and asks what it’s going to take to “end this”, telling the person on the other line to “name their price”.

Marissa calls Colin, demanding to know if Peter is having an affair. He assures her if he was and he knew, he would’ve told her immediately. When she asks if he thinks it’s possible, he admits he doesn’t know. He offers to help organise a canvassing effort to help find Milo.

Marissa and Peter take to the stage for the press conference, with Peter taking the lead to pleading for help to find Milo and bring him home. Marissa then takes over, speaking about how she had promised to always protect him, and how she feels like she failed in doing so. She asks for help and begs anyone who knows anything to come forward. However, she’s then bombarded with questions from the press, who appear to ignore Peter as they question why Carrie was able to pick Milo up, where she was, and why it took her so long to realise he was missing.

The line of questioning gets vicious, with one noting her company is under financial audit and in debt, another inferring she was trying to sell a book and she had something to gain from Milo’s disappearance. Marissa is quickly ushered out of the room in a panic.

Taken into a room to calm down, Peter reveals that he tried to quash the story ahead of the conference. He had been contacted by a reporter after finding out she had contacted someone at Random House Publishing – something she did to try and talk to someone who had written a book on missing kids in the hope he’d be able to help. He was aware there was a rumour spreading already that they had faked the kidnapping for money.

She asked why he didn’t tell her, and he thought he was helping by not adding to her distress, even trying to pay the reporter off. She responds by asking him if he was sleeping with Carrie Finch, noting they had the same day off and he’d lied about the conference, but he insists he had never met her and would never cheat on her.

When asked where he actually was, he reveals he had driven downtown to meet with a neurosurgeon to see if Brian was eligible for an experimental spinal operation, not telling her until he had all the facts and was aware of how much it would cost. He tells Alcaras that he can check records with the doctors, and check cameras to prove it.

As Brian and Lia wait for them in the lobby, they read news reports about the possibility the kidnapping was staged, calling them “sick”.

Peter gives Alcaras the information for the surgeon and notes that Brian was not getting the surgery as he was considered ineligible. He also notes how Brian – who has been walking around with a cane – hates to use a wheelchair as he does not want to be treated differently. He works for his brother and lives on their property so he can be semi-independent.

Through questioning, he also reveals he covers Lia’s basic expenses, and that her “interior design work” was renovating his and Marissa’s house three years ago. Alcaras notes that makes him incredibly generous, essentially bankrolling his entire family on his wages. Peter says he doesn’t mind as he’s family-oriented, and likes being there to take care of the messes Lia gets herself into, noting she’s chaotic. He also shares Brian wasn’t born disabled, with him getting into an accident caused by Lia when they were younger.

As Alcaras leaves, he’s called by Grecco after Carrie’s car is found abandoned in Vernon Hill, the middle of nowhere. Alcaras notes someone would have had to pick her up – so she’s not working alone.

Back at the Irvines home, Jenny is on hand to talk to Marissa, when she receives a phone call from an unknown number. Unnerved after the previous prank call, she asks Jenny to answer it, with her putting it on speakerphone. It turns out to be a call from a cake store returning a request for the cake Milo wanted for his birthday.

Marissa reveals it’s Milo’s birthday this Saturday, and he wanted a “mall cake” but she didn’t know what he meant. Jenny says that Jacob likes malt shakes, something Carrie would get him from a store called Mo’s Malted Milkshakes near the park and wondered if it could mean that.

Marissa asks if she would ever get one for Milo, but Jenny checks Carrie’s card statement and sees the price would only ever cover one adult and one child shake. When Marissa checks Ana’s card, she notices a purchase from the shop, timed two minutes before Carrie’s last purchase. Backchecking previous weeks, they realise that the pair must be friends – as they’ve repeatedly been in line together at the milkshake shop.

At Ana’s house, she looks guilty as she watches a news report before getting into her car and driving off. At the same time, Carrie is revealed, having dyed her ginger hair brown and, changing her appearance further by putting coloured contact lenses in. Milo runs in, saying she looks different, and Carrie tells him maybe they should change his look too. He worries that his mum might get mad, but she says not to worry as his mommy trusts him.

When she gets a knock at the door, she tells Milo to hide under the bed. It’s the co-owner of the property, Louise, there to introduce herself as she’d been away. Louise sees the TV report about Milo’s kidnapping, and comments on the rumours that the parents faked it for a book deal. She then gives Carrie a spare key, who informs Louise she is “expecting company”.