Anna Pigeon Season 1 Episode 5 Put Our Girl Through Hell — And I Loved Every Minute

Whew, what an hour!

Dare I say that Anna Pigeon Season 1 Episode 5 is the best of the season thus far? Yes, I think I’ll stand by that.

“The Rope,” inspired by the novel of the same name, gives us much greater insight into Anna’s background in a wholly satisfying way while placing her in real danger and delivering a compelling mystery to boot.

Much like Anna Pigeon’s series premiere, the hour thrusts us right into the mix of some activity, and it leaves us almost as disoriented as Anna as we’re forced to wonder where exactly she’s disappeared to and, next, why she’s in a hole in a cave.

It’s this hour where we really get to see Tracy Spiridakos tap into Anna at her most vulnerable, and I love it.

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Through this period of such extreme vulnerability, we’re able to piece together a bit more about Anna’s past, the time after Zach’s death, and how she’s still grappling with her guilt from that night.

The hour also gives us the first interaction between the Pigeon sisters where they’re sharing the same space, via a flashback that’s genuinely heartbreaking because it reaffirms something they’ve alluded to for a long time: Anna Pigeon is a runner.

Whether she’s running away from emotionally difficult situations or running toward danger, she’s always on the run.

And the thing about being that avoidant and fleeing is that eventually everything you think you’re running away from has a way of catching up to you.

Molly is such an endearing character because it’s just so clear that she loves her sister to pieces, and she just wants what’s best for her.

She comes with the tough love and hard truths, and she knew that Anna leaving the city and her to traipse around the country working at national parks was more about her not dealing with her grief or processing anything.

She worked hard to get through to Anna, but in the end, all you can really do is tell someone the truth, give them advice, and then support them in the aftermath of their decisions.

So much of Zach’s death haunts Anna, and seeing the flashbacks as she recalled things made it easier to understand why.

It seemed like they were disagreeing, and instead of addressing it properly, Anna got drunk and avoided him — she “ran from the conflict,” and they never had the chance to resolve things.

But worse yet, Anna didn’t even notice he was dead on the floor in her drunken stupor; she only noticed him on the floor dead after she woke up, and surely that’s something that she replays too often.

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It leaves open too many questions. Would someone have been able to kill him if she had locked the door?

Could she have saved him if she noticed him in time? Would things have even gotten to that point if she were sober, or if she had stuck by him instead of avoiding him after a disagreement?

All of that, on top of her not knowing what actually happened to him, is enough to eat away at the best and worst of people.

Zach serving as her conscience during all of these difficult situations is a great way to give him a voice and some emotional weight so that we’re invested in this and have some connection — even if it’s just through Anna’s psyche — to him, too.

It tells you a lot about their dynamic: he was her rock and safe space, and he’s the one she constantly conjures up in the worst, most difficult periods of her life.

It also speaks volumes about why her attachment to Jesse terrifies her so much. He, too, has become this safe space, someone who brings the softness out of her when she tries so hard to put up walls and a prickly exterior.

Jesse does all of this while being himself, not actively trying to fill some void her husband has left behind. And this hour, more than ever, is proof of why that matters so much.

Because Jesse does not play about Anna Pigeon, and fine, okay, between the latest installment and interviewing the President of the Anna/Jesse Fan Club, Mr. Cooper Levy himself, they’ll make a shipper out of me yet.

Anna’s entire identity has revolved around being the spunky woman who keeps her distance and picks up and moves on quickly. It was so easy for some of the others to assume she just up and left on a whim because “it’s what she does.”

But Jesse didn’t buy that for a second. He knows a side of her that the others don’t, and he knew something had to have happened to her because nothing else was making sense.

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I loved that the two people who have genuinely become friends with Anna and come to know her immediately sounded the alarm.

Sending the package back to New York, leaving the cat alone, medicine behind, and disappearing without so much as saying goodbye — nothing of the sort suited their Anna, and I loved their insistence on that.

Somewhere, the message for Anna to take away is how important it is to let other people in. Letting people inside, dropping those walls a bit, cultivating bonds — it all means that you can have at least one person out there fighting for you.

Advocacy is everything, and it’s scary to think that if Jesse and Zoey weren’t there pushing so hard and looking into things, they wouldn’t have pieced so much together or had people actively looking for Anna.

Anna saved herself; no real shock there, but can you imagine what it would’ve been like if she just came stumbling out of the woods, and folks were none the wiser about something horrific happening to her?

That’s the kind of thing that would inspire someone to leave, feel more isolated than ever, and confirm that opening up to people is futile in the end.

I’m happy that Anna likely won’t take that message away, but now we have to figure out who pushed her down in that cave and who murdered that poor hiker.

It seems like the person she has her sights on is that shitty, obnoxious camper whose radio she broke, and that maybe he was trying to pay Anna back.

But once we got the revelation that the camper’s body was down there, it’s also evident that Anna got pushed down there out of fear of exposure because of that.

At this point, that entitled, obnoxious dude bro may be too obvious a choice. But his friend who attempted to placate Anna, JP, was it? Maybe it was him instead. Otherwise, why did they go out of their way to give us that exchange, right?

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As obnoxious as the EMT/Firefighters were who gave Jesse a hard time, I doubt they would have resorted to something like that, and their alibis probably check out.

I also think someone with extensive knowledge in field medicine probably would’ve done a better job at drugging her.

And as much as I cannot stand Jeremiah, I doubt he’d be the type to go around pushing her into caves. Well, unless he paid someone to do it, now there’s an idea. I also feel like he’d arrange a better method of getting rid of a body, too.

See? Despite our girl spending much of the hour in a gosh-darn cave, it’s such a great episode because it delivers a new mystery that would truly have us invested and one worth pondering for a bit.

I also love a good two-parter with some carryover, and I NEED to see what happens next.

For example, why did this person hold her captive down there instead of killing her outright? And why did he carve into her back? Did he stab her? Inject something? It was her upper shoulder, and that’s such a specific place to meddle with, you know?

Nevertheless, I loved how resourceful Anna was here. It’s so easy to freak out with all that, but she’s really taken well to being a park ranger and picking up so many skills.

When she realized the water was drugged, she still found a way to keep herself hydrated with it without knocking herself out.

Her knowing all these clever ways to potentially start a fire using what was around her was great. And hiding beneath an alcove to trick the person into coming down there was a great move.

I only wish she’d used the rock to knock the guy out rather than hitting him with that canteen, because it was worrisome that he could be on her heels at any point.

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And I never would’ve even thought about using that cattail (?) to purify the stream water. Anna is so resilient in admirable ways, and I know she’ll be fiercer than ever when it comes to finding out who did this to her.

It was an exciting episode, and I can’t wait to see the next one!

Cave Contemplation:

• So does no one around there ever lock their doors? That’s kind of crazy! Jesse looked so hurt, too, because you definitely sense the fear that Anna is always shutting down on him.
• I need so much more of the Pigeon sisters. Give them to meeeee!
• I did laugh at two park rangers and a bartender just casually opening up someone else’s mail and going through it for clues. Small-town privacy, am I right?
• Okay, so can we talk about how much Bethany lowkey hates Anna? What gives? Is it just me? Everyone was all worried, and she seemed annoyed that Manny even cared. And I haven’t forgotten how judgmental she is of her. What’s the deal, my friends?
• Geoff blowing up at Anna like that was insane. I know he’s probably feeling the pressure because of that situation with Jeremiah, but benching for a week and yelling at her in the office felt like such an overreaction to her not kowtowing to a bunch of brats!
• Zoey really is taking after Anna, and I’m here for it. I laughed at her telling Geoff she was taking the day for “cramps” and just ignoring everything he said to team up with Jesse.
• Not enough Stanton. Boo! Hiss!

Over to you, Anna Pigeon Fanatics. Was this your favorite episode so far? Who do you think pushed Anna into that cave? Let’s discuss!

The post Anna Pigeon Season 1 Episode 5 Put Our Girl Through Hell — And I Loved Every Minute appeared first on TV Fanatic.