Bad Sisters (Season 1), Episode 5 Recap & Ending Explained: Following the slight narrative slump in ‘Baby Becka’, the fifth episode ‘Eye for an Eye’ not only restores the series’s brisk style of storytelling but also turns out to be the best episode yet. Focusing on Bibi, the mysterious sister’s backstory is not simply a series of revelations but has an entire narrative arc of hers in it. It brings out the elusive human side of her while doubling down on how ruthless she is. The character of Thomas is provided with more depth as his snooping around turns out to have a much more serious cause behind it than simply avoiding paying his dues. The relatively lesser focus on JP, who’s no less loathsome in this, is a welcome break from the agitation he causes by his actions in every episode.
BAD SISTERS (SEASON 1), EPISODE 5 “EYE FOR AN EYE” RECAP:
In the present day, Thomas and Matt visit Bibi at her place for their final Garvey sister interrogation. They find out that Bibi used to be a decorated archer, is married to a woman named Nora, and has a son named Ruben. Though Bibi is characteristically reserved and hostile toward the Claffin Brothers, Nora reveals how they both hated JP because of the diabolical and sadistic person he was. Nora also provides a key piece of information – Bibi’s loss of her right eye was because of him. In a flashback later in the episode, we see how JP picked Bibi up on a rainy night to take her home and then started to recklessly drive fast. It triggered Bibi’s trauma of having lost her parents in a car accident, the exact thing that JP was trying to provoke. When he didn’t listen to her pleas for him to slow down, she interfered with his driving in her anxious state, causing a crash. Bibi lost her eye and JP acquired a ‘fontanelle’.
Back home, Thomas’s wife gets rid of him with an excuse and has a talk with Matt. She knows the large sum Thomas has to pay to Grace and wants to enlist Matt’s help in figuring out how to help Thomas out of the quandary he’s in that’s causing him to be extremely anxious. Matt, therefore, sneaks into Thomas’s office when he’s out. Inside, he discovers amongst his documents, a suicide letter from their father where he apologizes for the mess he’s created. Matt is dumbfounded as he was under the impression that their father, Liam, died of an accidental overdose. When he confronts Thomas about this, Thomas reveals that Liam was a crook. He took the premiums from his clients and spent it on his extravagant lifestyle while Thomas and his mother had to clean up after him. Thomas has no money that he can pay to Grace and if they can’t find a way to incriminate the Garvey sisters, Liam’s crimes will come to light, which would implicate Thomas and lead him to bear the brunt of. Matt is absolutely shattered at this discovery and blames Thomas for not letting him know sooner, so they could’ve thrown Liam under the bus as he deserved.
In the past, the Garvey sisters are provided with a golden opportunity to murder JP. On his birthday, he has organized a paintball match with the entire family and given that Bibi is a crack shot (or used to be, at least), she can shoot him in his fontanelle and make it appear to be an accident. At home, Bibi struggles as a parent because of her controlling attitude, unlike Nora who is quite sweet and loving. Even though she’s obsessed with the opportunity to kill JP single-handedly, she’s been out of practice for years and has a hard time practicing shooting for that purpose. Having one eye now only aggravates this issue. During a moment with her son where she discovers that he got into a fight at school because children were making fun of her, her determination is strengthened. An accident with frozen peas leads her to the epiphany that if she freezes the paintball she’ll use to shoot JP, it’ll surely kill him. Soon, practice and determination combine to bring out the old archer in Bibi.
Grace’s life continues to unfurl in its subservient monotony. JP not only manipulates her to his benefit but also is sexually distant from her. She takes up dancing as a way of winning Blanaid over but at the class, can’t bring herself to join the others given how stiff she’s become from having had her confidence and energy beaten out of her by JP for years. JP fails in trying to lure Roger into a pedophilic trap on the latter’s church group’s messaging site. While bullying Blanaid’s kitten, he drives it out into the street where a car runs over it. He sheepishly exits the scene and when Grace, while driving back home, mistakes herself to be behind its death, he is glad to let her take the blame.
Eva has a gigantic crush on Gabriel which seems to progress quite smoothly. At their office, JP reveals to their boss that Eva drinks too much, as a means of further hurting her chances of becoming the new financial director. During a date with Gabriel, Eva runs into an ex-boyfriend from ten years ago, Ciaran, who’s at the gallery with his family. Eva tells Gabriel that she and Ciaran didn’t work out because he wanted a family and couldn’t handle the fact that she was infertile. Following their date, when Eva’s at Gabriel’s place, which is a yacht, he reveals to her that he’s gay just as they’re getting hot and heavy. Eva is crestfallen and angry at him for not having revealed this to her sooner. He justifies it on the grounds that she’s extremely smart and funny and he loves spending time with her. She calms down eventually after realizing that they’re indeed great friends.
BAD SISTERS (SEASON 1), EPISODE 5 “EYE FOR AN EYE” ENDING, EXPLAINED:
On JP’s birthday, Bibi plans to divide themselves into separate teams and lure him into a trap. This doesn’t work as the regular match is changed into a ‘Shoot the Bunny’ match. Grace is to be the bunny, whose job is to get across the battlefield without getting shot. When JP corners Grace, he relishes shooting her even after she’s defeated, something Grace clearly isn’t enjoying.
Bibi asks her sisters to attract JP in a way that his back is turned towards him, which would make shooting him in his fontanelle quite convenient. When the opportunity does arise, Bibi takes her time in sizing her target up but an overeager Becka nudges her right when she’s about to shoot. This causes Bibi to misfire, the frozen and lethal paintball thereby hitting Cyril, the instructor, in his eye. Cyril’s injury will, in all probability, cause him to lose an eye just like Bibi did and this breaks her heart.
