Hunting season was in full swing on Anna Pigeon Season 1 Episode 10—and the person being hunted? None other than Anna herself.
What a surprise, right?
The season finale finally delivered a ruthless showdown between Anna and her nemesis, Jeremiah Paulson, giving audiences a deeper look into his disturbed mentality.
We knew he was evil, as he’s been buying up all the land at the national park and poisoning the river so that no one is around to complain or challenge him, and threatening Anna from time to time, but gathering a group to hunt her like she’s an animal took it to the next level.
Rich men have weird hobbies.
And it’s truly questionable how much hatred this man must have to go out of his way to concoct a detailed plan to kill.
Anna’s resourceful, so despite once again getting caught up in a near-death situation while responding to an SOS call, she was able to survive the night on the toughest climb in the park, cut off the tracker ankle monitor, and ambush both of Jeremiah’s lackeys before confronting the landowner with the rifle herself.
Anna going missing has become a weekly event, and I’m glad the series took a self-aware approach to that tidbit, as everyone bonded over having to execute yet another search mission on her behalf.
But something was missing to really drive this storyline home. While Jeremiah posed a real threat to Anna, his desire to “take care of his Pigeon problem” didn’t make all that much sense.
Yes, they’ve crossed paths before, including with the whole Bethany situation, but there was nothing concrete leading up to this hunting plan.
Anna asked him point-blank why he hated her so much, clearly just as confused as the rest of us, despite knowing that they were adversaries, and Jeremiah couldn’t really come up with a solid reason.
He mentioned prioritizing a legacy for himself and his family, including his nephew JP, which was logical, as Anna’s a witness whose testimony can incriminate them in the case surrounding Kaye’s death.
She’s also the only one who actively investigates all his illegal doings and holds him accountable, refusing to be intimidated by his wealth and power. She’s not someone that Jeremiah can bully into turning the other way, or pay off to keep quiet, so I guess killing her in the woods is his solution? But a man that rich would probably be able to find alternative options to drive her away and out of his business—threatening her sister, tarnishing her reputation, are just a few options to come to mind.
But nope, the man just resorted to straight-up bloody violence.
With so much wealth and power, he likely assumed that he would be able to weasel his way out of any criminal charges, not realizing that there would be plenty of people looking for Anna and standing in her corner.
In theory, it makes sense, even if it paints Jeremiah as a cartoonish villain archetype, but to the audience, there simply wasn’t enough lead-up to the showdown.
Jeremiah’s entire arc fell flat due to a classic “show, don’t tell” failure—we never truly saw him severely inconvenienced by Anna, and the two rarely crossed paths in a meaningful way, so the eventual conflict felt rushed.
Also, was anyone else thrown off and slightly cringed out by the way he kept calling her “girl”?
There’s also the fact that it’s a rather quick resolution. Jeremiah has put Anna through the wringer and tested her, but it feels like his story was only just beginning—at the very least, that he’d finally be forced to face the consequences of his actions and see his whole little dynasty fall—but instead, he just succumbed to the gunshot wound. The stage manager has good aim.
He was so laser-focused on Anna, he didn’t even see her pointing a gun at him. It feels like a missed opportunity for a true Jeremiah and Anna showdown; the kind where everyone sees who he is and he gets what’s coming and has to live with it.
Moving On
Of course, I’m looking at this as a long-play, while the series is seemingly following the trajectory of the Anna Pigeon books, which find her solving crimes across different U.S. National parks, marking an end of this chapter.
Anna isn’t sticking around anywhere for too long, it seems, so we likely won’t see many of the Glacier National Park rangers in the next season. It felt like Anna was leaving that life behind, and admittedly, that’s probably why we didn’t get too many chances to get invested in the secondary characters. The biggest ones we’ll miss are Jessee and Zoe, and one could make an argument that they’d drop everything to join Anna wherever she goes—she just has to make the call. Everyone else was largely forgettable.
Anna learned a lot about herself at Glacier National Park, which was necessary for her healing and grieving, but considering the number of times she nearly died there, I don’t blame her for wanting to reset and leave it in the rearview.
She’s preferred solitude since day one, and while she’s opened up and welcomed others into her life throughout the season, in the end, she chose to be alone, as it was what she was used to—aside from her furry companion Piedmont.
And she left her legacy, keeping the park safe from Jeremiah; his death ensured that they got their land back and took down his property expansion.
Yet, I don’t think the Jeremiah storyline is totally over, as Bethany Paulson seemed to inherit her father’s “dynasty,” and honestly, it doesn’t seem like the apple fell far from the tree. Will she blame Anna for killing her father? Will she seek revenge? Or is she just happy to finally have all of it to herself? I couldn’t really figure her out, especially when she revealed that she was coerced into attacking Anna cause Jeremiah threatened to kill her, assuring that she has the utmost respect for her. Obviously, we’ve seen what he’s capable of, so I believe it, but we also saw what Bethany was capable of, and how she manipulated everyone around her, including Manny, so I don’t think there’s any ounce of truth or credibility to what she’s saying.
There was a lot of potential for Bethany and Jeremiah’s storyline, so it’s a bummer we won’t see their relationship evolve. Surely, it would’ve been a rollercoaster. After all, she took his last name (not her mothers) even after he threatened to kill her, so in some twisted way, she still wants to earn her father’s love.
A Breakthrough in Zach’s Murder
I don’t believe that Jeremiah just hates Anna cause she’s a pain in the ass for him—I think it goes deeper and connects to Zach’s death.
He knew so much about the case, even giving Anna the piece she was missing to trigger her memories from that deadly night, and I think it goes beyond simply having friends in his place.
When he suggests that Anna may be the one behind Zach’s murder and knows she’s being considered a suspect as part of a “break in the case,” pieces of that evening begin rushing back—not in order, of course—but it’s enough for her to know that she didn’t do it (we never doubted you for a minute—it’s not in your nature). She was, however, framed by someone who wanted people to think she did it.
Though why no one has acted on that yet is also beyond me. Wouldn’t they have arrested her already, especially if her alibi wasn’t airtight?
We see a clear picture of the woman in the red jacket, whom a drunken Anna sees kissing Zach the night of the party, which was undoubtedly planned to force them into an argument that evening. We then see the same woman placing the murder weapon—the knife—in Anna’s hand. Which begs the question—who wanted Zach dead? And why?
And why did they want to frame Anna for it? We don’t know enough about Anna and Zach’s past life—aside from she was a stage manager and he was an actor—to put those pieces together just yet, but I’d bet my money Jeremiah had something to do with it.
They seemed pretty well off for artists living in New York, which also raises suspicions about what was really going on.
The Real Suspect in Zach’s Death
And to make matters worse, the suspect is hiding in plain sight, as she’s a patient of Anna’s sister, arriving wearing a red shirt, which honestly should’ve jogged her memory! Does she know more than she’s letting on? Does she know the woman attended the party that night? Was Zach really having an affair? Did Anna know and block it out?
Leading into Anna Pigeon Season 2, this hook is extremely enticing, especially because, yes, the series has been renewed already. Frederick got a promotion, which means that with Anna’s newfound memories, they’ll likely be working on the case even closer together in the future. And he made it very clear when he cuffed Jesse (cuffing season takes on a whole new meaning here) that he wants to be the one Anna chooses.
What did you think of Anna Pigeon Season 1? Did you like the finale? Will she leave Jesse behind? Where will her adventures take her next?