Eric – Episode 5 Recap & Review

Episode 5

In Eric Episode 5, Renata Clark tells the press the NYPD isn’t paying attention to marginalized people. She advocates for Marlon Rochelle, who remains missing while nothing is done to find him.

Vincent sleeps outside and continues his hunt for Edgar, while Eric continues to pester him.

Raya again tries to convince Yuusuf to let her take the boy, but he refuses. He notices Edgar wrote words on his wall from Good Morning Sunshine, about being brave, kind, good, and different.

William’s sister Caroline reminds Michael he has no legal entitlement to William’s apartment. She blames him for killing him and giving him AIDs, but he insists William got it from someone else. He loved him and says she’s trying to ruin the love they shared for seven years.

Yuusuf calls Cassie to tell her he has her boy. Raya is right there when he gives her the info of where to find Edgar and where to bring the money. He tells her no cops, or the deal is off.

Cassie looks for Vincent to tell him the news, learns he was fired, and starts yelling at Lennie. She then goes to see her mother-in-law to get ahold of the reward money, but she can’t give her the money without Robert’s presence.

Meanwhile, Vincent sees the flyers for the Good Day Sunshine charity meet and greet and is too tempted. He attends the event, which was organized by Costello, Hudson Sanitation, and Robert Anderson to make people think they are trying to “clean up” the streets.

There, Costello talks about his project to improve New York City. Sebastian critiques him for closing down shelters, but Costello brushes him off.

Vincent can’t stand the Eric suit that comes out on stage to perform with the other puppets. The Eric in his mind then disparages that this puppet was his “master plan” to get Edgar back. 

Michael goes to see Ricardo (the guy Lennie has been paying for sex) at the basketball courts and finds him wearing Marlon’s jersey. He says they swapped jerseys the last time they saw each other, right before Marlon was due to meet someone in the afternoon. He won’t tell him if he ever saw Marlon at the Lux. But when he asks him what number jersey his was, Ricardo says it was number 8.

Once again, Michael talks to Gator to ask if he ever saw TJ with Marlon. He tells him to look into The Lux’s CCTV from June 12th, the night Marlon disappeared.

Michael does get his hands on another tape, but this one’s from the day Edgar went missing. It shows him following after Yuusuf. Michael orders a sketch of their new suspect, but he doesn’t want to circulate it to the press just yet.

He then talks to Cripp about what Dana told him and what he learned about Marlon being “8.” He wants to bring Nokes in, but Cripp asks him to drop it, then tells Nokes to get his wife back in line.

Michael’s thoughts of William are interrupted by someone in the office using the f-slur. He confronts the culprit about it but is interrupted by a call from Robert Anderson.

Michael shows up at the Andersons’, where Robert tells Cassie he won’t give her the reward money unless she involves the cops. Left without a choice, she tells Michael exactly what Yuusuf told her. But unbeknownst to them, Raya tells TJ she has the trade and can get the boy to him by the end of the day.

Vincent returns to the subway and marks off more items on Edgar’s map. He then sees one of Yuusuf’s tags, all of which Edgar has marked down, and theorizes that’s what Edgar was following. So, he gets on the subway tracks and keeps following the tags.

He follows someone down into the tunnels where others are living. Eric tells him Edgar isn’t there, that he’s never going to find him, and that there’s no way to make up for his mistakes. Discouraged, and seeing all the drugs down there, Vincent stops to take a hit.

Sebastian tells Michael what he knows about Yuusuf–that he lives in subway tunnels, but he doesn’t think he’s a bad guy.

Against Michael’s wishes, Cripp got the press to release information about Yuusuf, ruining his chances to get Edgar back in the deal, as Yuusuf will now likely run. Cripp yells at Michael that he’s forgotten his rank.

Gator asks TJ where the tape is for June 12th last year, as he found tapes from all the surrounding dates, but not that one. In another tape, however, Marlon can be seen going into the club. When TJ can’t answer, he beats him up until he tells him where the June 12th tape is.

Cassie goes to the phone booth to make the trade, despite how hopeless she feels that Yuusuf will show up with Edgar now.

Edgar tells Yuusuf he doesn’t want to go home because his dad scares him. Yuusuf then hears about the sketch of him that’s circulating, so Raya tries to convince him to let her take the boy so he doesn’t risk himself. He reluctantly agrees, making her promise to keep him safe and to bring the money back.

Drunk and high, Vincent starts beating himself up for not keeping his boy safe. But then he glances Edgar hugging Yuusuf goodbye. He tries to chase after him, but the police start raiding the tunnels at the same time. The chaos keeps Vincent from catching up to Edgar and Raya, and his glasses get smashed in the raid.

When climbing out of the tunnels, Edgar slips, causing himself and Raya to fall and TJ to give up on waiting for them.

When he sees the tunnels cleared out, Michael knows they ruined their chances of finding Edgar. At the end of the episode, he goes to see Gator, and they kiss. Meanwhile, still stumbling through the tunnels, Vincent finds Edgar’s drawings–right before he faints.

The Episode Review

Well, I’m certainly invested in how this series will wrap things up. I really thought TJ was going to get his hands on Edgar, so the fall (while not great!) could be a welcome twist.

We essentially know everything by now, so it does feel odd that there’s not much left to come together. It’s confirmed that Marlon was involved with the Lux and with Nokes. And Edgar followed Yuusuf since he wanted to get away from his dad. Those are the main mysteries.

But there is one big thing left to resolve–Richard Costello’s corruption. Depending on how that’s handled, it could really bring the themes of the show together.