Ugly Truths are Revealed in the Second Half of 'The Jetty'

The third episode of The Jetty picks up with Riz’s autopsy. “The chances of being murdered are small. But the shadow cast by its threat is so vast that we don’t even know we are living in it. My name is Riz Samuel, and I chase the darkness for a living,” Riz intones as the coroner examines her body. 

We quickly learn there are two sides to Mack. There’s the guy who was utterly in love with Ember and turned his life around for her; however, he’s the same Mack who was seeing Amy when he met Ember, the Mack who didn’t come to Ember’s birthday party due to “work,” but what he was doing was having sex with Amy one last time. Ember’s been wrestling with how young and vulnerable she was when Mack came into her life (and how little she knew about him) when she discovers Hannah’s boyfriend spread inappropriate pictures of her around, and now they are everywhere. 

Back in the past, Amy tells Kitty that she wants her to have sex with Mack’s brother, Joe (Ryan Dean), simultaneously as she and Mack do, so they can both lose their virginity at the same time. However, before they can start this odd foursome, Kitty finds out it isn’t the first time Amy and Mack have had sex and leaves the boathouse in tears. Amy follows her, and Kitty (utterly in love with Amy) tells her she has to end her relationship with Mack or she will go to the police about it. 

Back in the present, Ember, who is already emotionally compromised, goes to confront Miranda’s Uncle Liam (Arthur Hughes) and learns that despite being a creepy step-uncle, Liam isn’t the one having sex with underage girls. He’s the one pimping these girls out to older men. As she leaves, Ember realizes she has not exactly been conducting herself as a police detective should; there’s a trail of evidence that looks deeply suspicious, including messages left on Riz’s phone that she knew Riz was investigating Mack. Her colleagues put everything together, and the third episode ends with Ember being arrested for obstructing justice and suspended from the force. 

Ember gets out on bail and returns home just in time for the anniversary of Mack’s death. Hannah wants to spread his ashes in the lake. Ember tells her daughter they won’t be able to do that now. “You need to show everyone that dad’s innocent,” Hannah tells Ember. “He didn’t do it, Mom. He was the kindest person, and you know that.” But Ember is no longer convinced of that. 

Like all good cop shows, suspension doesn’t stop Ember from continuing to investigate the case. She goes to see Kitty, who now goes by her real name; she is now Professor Caitlin Owen (Lorna Nickson Brown), railing against the patriarchy. Ember asks if Caitlin knows who took that picture of Amy and Mack together, and Caitlin says it was Mack’s half-brother, Joe (Jonny Fines), who is in prison. Ember and a (very) reluctant Hitch, who knows he will get in trouble for helping Amy, go to see Joe. But when Ember reveals Amy is dead, Joe’s distraught. “Amy was switched up,” he says. “Old for her age. But looking back, she was lost.” It is obvious to Ember Joe is innocent, at least of this. 

Ember visits Sylvia to confront her again, mainly because Ember has realized that her mother wasn’t the least concerned that Mack gave Ember roofies for her 17th birthday. “What the hell were you thinking,” she asks her mother before telling her that some people shouldn’t have kids. Sylvia doesn’t understand what Ember wants from her. “I want you to have kept me safe,” she tells her mother. However, in their conversation, Sylvia says something Ember didn’t know previously — Mack wasn’t alone when he returned to their house the night Amy went missing. His best friend, Arj, was with him.

Ember begins adding up the details and confronts Arj with the math. “I know you were with Mack the night that he killed Amy,” she tells him, leaving him looking stunned. However, her math is apparently wrong because that’s not what happened at all. Mack called Arj to pick him up, and while driving down the dark road, he accidentally hit Amy with his car. He thought it was a log and didn’t realize it was Amy until days later when Mack still couldn’t reach her. They found Amy in the woods and buried her in the basement of the boat house because Mack thought it was “kinder.” 

The secret has been eating away at Arj. He’s the one who set fire to the boathouse when he heard they were tearing up the basement during the renovation; he also killed Riz when she came to confront him. However, Ember suddenly remembers that night and going to pick up Mack — she was driving, not Arj. She was so high and delirious she didn’t remember; she realizes in horror Mack did all this to protect her. 

Ember tells Arj they should go to the police and tell them everything. Arj isn’t a fan of this plan, insisting all this happened because this is his and Ember’s opportunity to be together. (Ember’s face!) When she isn’t a fan of that plan, he attacks, pouring gasoline all over the jetty. But instead of killing Ember, he set himself on fire. Ember returns to Caitlin and tells her what happened and how her friend Amy died. She will go to the police and tell them everything. “Do you think truth and justice are always the same thing?” Caitlin asks her, freeing Ember from the responsibility of turning herself in. Ember decides to let Arj take the blame for killing both Amy and Riz. 

The one unfinished piece of business is who fathered Miranda’s baby. She says she doesn’t know because she had sex with so many men. “I like to have a good time,” she tells Ember. But Ember tells her she is going to need the names of every man who had sex with her and that she needs to do this for her baby girl. “One day, she is going to be a young woman navigating this world that we are creating for her,” she tells her. 

The final scene shows Ember, Hannah, and Sylvia finally spreading Mack’s ashes in the lake. “Your dad was complicated; he did some things he doesn’t deserve forgiveness for,” Ember tells her daughter. “But also, he was funny, smart, loyal, generous beyond belief, and he gave me you, Hannah, the greatest gift imaginable.”

The final words of the series belong to Riz. “I chase the darkness. But I chose to believe in the light.”  That is the choice Ember and her daughter are making as well.