After the explosive premiere episodes of Full Circle, the investigation simmers down a bit. The humor and direction are still in top gear, but the central mystery feels a little too stretched out in the following episodes. However, if things proceed like they are, the final two episodes of the miniseries may lead to multiple chaotic convergences that will be exciting to witness. For now, lets dive into a detailed recaps of Full Circle, Episodes 3 & 4:
Full Circle Episode 3 “Jared’s Body” Recap:
Episode 3 begins with Aked and his boys burying Keesan and Jared’s (the mannequin) bodies somewhere in the woods. Louis handles the dead bodies by himself, not allowing anyone to touch them because he doesn’t want them to know what he has done. Xavier and Aked discuss why Auntie Mahabir had them do the job right at 1:11 and what the job fulfilled. Xavier asks Aked if Auntie Mahabir has grander things planned for him, why is he still not feeling a sense of accomplishment even though the job is done?
On the other hand, Harmony visits the FBI office, where Manny is sitting alongside the FBI agent assigned to the case as they discuss the events that transpired in Washington Square Park.
While the FBI head is sharing details about what happened, Manny, who has not been supportive of Harmony’s hunch, is trying to present the case as a mutually discussed investigation.
Harmony is clearly pissed off about Manny finally taking her seriously, and since she is pretty straightforward, she brings him down for what he has done. The agent tells them that the case feels like that of a botched kidnapping, and since the enforcement guys heard a popping sound, it’s a possibility that someone is dead, but they are not sure about this yet.
Back at the Browne’s residence, Derek is still in a state of shock as they discuss what had happened. Sam is aware that something else is going on with Derek, but since he doesn’t say anything about it, her curiosity stays. She even tries to find out who ‘Charisse’ is when Derek is resting, but she is unable to.
Natalia, who has taken a wounded Nicky to a roadside motel, cleans his wounds when he wakes up. She also suggests that they call his parents to inform them about his well-being, but she is unaware that this boy is not Jared but someone else. Nicky realizes that calling the Brownes’ would complicate his own state, so he tries to stall Natalia’s plan by saying that his parents hate him and calling them right now wouldn’t be a good idea.
Meanwhile, Aked, who is returning with the boys after burying the bodies, is pissed off at Natalia for not answering his calls. He is also angry at Xavier because everyone from Garmen to Paul is communicating through Xavier instead of him. Aked goes to visit Mahabir, who is ecstatic because she thinks that the job is done. However, she inquires about Natalia, who has not come in for her usual massage session.
Then we see Xavier visiting Garmen at his house, who appreciates Xavier’s good work and gives him some money for being loyal to Mrs. Mahabir. We also learn that Mahabir is aware of Xavier’s girlfriend, and even though he wants to go back to Georgetown, he can’t. Xavier learns that even Garmen wants to go back, but they have gotten themselves into such a fix that it’s hard to come out of it.
Next, we see Harmony going through the Citizen app footage before she is asked to join FBI agent Roan Jessup and Detective Brian Sanders of NYPD to investigate and question the Brownes. They inquire about Nicky and if the Brownes have any idea who he is. Derek tries to dodge their question by asking them questions instead.
When Harmony specifically talks about if they heard a Guyanese accent, Sam feels rattled and goes to the other room for a glass of water. Harmony follows Sam and asks her to show Jared’s room. When there, she asks really intrusive questions about her relationship with Derek, hinting at more about what Derek is hiding from her and them.
While discussing further, the chalk circle in the park comes up when Derek tells them that the sum of money is actually equivalent to the circumference of a circle, and the NYPD detective hints that it might be related to some kind of shamanistic practices followed by Guyanese people. Harmony leaves their place, suspecting that something is off with both Derek and Sam.
We then see Sam trying to get in touch with Manny (Harmony’s boss), but it feels like she is reaching out to him after a while, so she gives in her old name, that is Sam McCusker. However, she is unable to reach him. Derek also reaches out to someone (we later learn that it’s his lawyer) and vaguely talks about some kind of paternity settlement. Sam overhears it but is unable to make out what her husband is up to.
Meanwhile, Harmony tries to search for information about Sam’s connection with Guyana. She learns about Gene McCusker, who was an NYPD detective involved in a case. We later learn that this Gene guy is Chef Jeff’s (Sam’s father) brother.
Louis finally reaches the motel room in which Natalia is staying with Nicky. The brother and sister discuss in private what their next step should be, and Natalia tells Louis that there is something wrong with the boy and that they should act fast to get themselves out of this mess.
Chef Jeff visits the park to find that Clarence is not in his usual chess spot. The people there tell him that he was taken to the hospital, so he visits him there.
Who is Charisse?
The FBI, on the other hand, has brought Charisse in for questioning after she filed a complaint about her missing boy. It’s great that the show doesn’t pretend the revelation of Derek being Nicky’s father is a shock, as Harmony casually reveals it as an obvious happening. Charisse clarifies that she did not have much to do with Nicky, who is suffering from mental health issues and is obsessed with Derek (his father) despite never having met him.
What plan does Natalia come up with?
Seeing that Louis’s plan involves blackmailing Jared’s (Nicky) parents, Natalia comes up with a better plan involving Edward Chung (the man from the opening scene of the first episode). She tells him that she has a friend, Eloise, who works for Edward Chung and will help them get in contact with him. She thinks that, since she knows the inner workings of Mrs. Mahabir and her clan, Edward Chung would need that in return for their safety. She then calls Eloise and tells her that she, along with Louis and possibly Xavier, will need her help.
We briefly see Harmony on Carol’s apartment porch, trying to get in. Carol dismisses her completely and asks her not to bring her toxic ass back to her apartment ever again.
Sy and the casino people try to figure out how the culprits knew what the limit was for Chef Jeff’s account. One of their employees, named Ron, was approached by Mrs. Mahabir through Garmen Harry, who lured him with money to sneak out this information.
A sequence at Chef Jeff’s office establishes that he acts like a privileged person who needs someone (his daughter, Sam, in this case) to constantly pose him as a do-gooder when deep down he isn’t one.
Manny returns Sam’s call, and the two of them meet up. The discussion brings up a case from 20 years ago that involved Gene McCusker, Sam, Jeff, and Manny, but the details about it are not revealed to us yet.
Derek visits his lawyer, clouded by the regret that he might have deliberately not saved Nicky and is more eager to know about that than he is about knowing Charisse’s whereabouts. He then tracks down Charisse, and they discuss what the police are currently aware of.
Sam visits Uncle Gene, but it doesn’t go well as Gene gets really mad about the way Jeff treated him, even though he tried his best to help him out. We can see that there is some bad history between the McCusker brothers, and Gene doesn’t want anything to do with Jeff.
The ending of Full Circle Episode 3 finds Aked realizing that there was a big fuck-up with the job they did. He senses that Louis, who was being extra shady when they were burying the bodies, had something to do with it. Louis and Natalia’s absence makes him question why there isn’t any news about Jared’s death. This is when it finally dawns on him that Louis didn’t want him to see the bodies because there weren’t any.
Full Circle Episode 4 “Safe in the Circle” Recap:
Picking up from where we left off, Episode 4 of Full Circle opens with Mrs. Mahabir learning that Jared was never killed, and there is a break in the circle. She tells Aked that he will be protected again once the circle is closed, but for now, he needs to find Natalia and Luis.
On his way to locate Natalia, he logs into her food-delivering app and finds out where they are hiding. Meanwhile, Natalia receives a call from Elois, who asks her to meet Edward Chung. So, when Aked arrives at the motel, the three of them – Natalia, Louis, and Nicky – have already left. Mrs. Mahabir calls Aked, telling him that they will have another party once the break in the circle is removed, and for that, Aked needs to bring Natalia and Louis to justice.
Natalia, along with Nicky and Louis, meets Edward Chung. She asks the two boys to stay in the car while she negotiates with Chung. Hoping that Chung will help them go back home, she offers key information about Mrs. Mahabir’s intentions. However, Chung, who wants to resolve the conflict between Mrs. Mahabir and his own clan, calls up Garmen and promises to give her up. He also tells him that the money they got from Quincy before killing him belongs to both of them, and he is ready to give up half of it.
Elois senses that something is up and hints to Natalia that she needs to run away from there right now. So, she uses the bathroom window to escape as they return back to the motel.
Harmony pays Sam a visit at her home and directly tries to frame her for something related to Essequibo – an industrial complex in Guyana that her family was involved in. She also brings up Charisse’s name and asks her if she knows about her.
Sam, who is angry at her prodding questions, asks her to leave. On her way out, she also meets Derek and drops the name Essequibo, wishing for some kind of confrontation between the couple, who has been hiding secrets from each other.
Back at the motel, a desperate Louis tries to reach out to Xavier as a last resort but goes straight to his voicemail. With no other options in plain sight, they decide to call Jared’s parents. When they call, Sam picks up and, after confirming that Jared is safe, tells them that they do not have their son. When Derek realizes that Nicky is safe, he finally admits to having another son, and he is the one who is kidnapped. He tells Sam that he had a brief affair when the two of them were on a break right before their engagement.
Sam gets extremely angry and leaves the home to go to her parent’s place.
Back at the motel, Nicky finally tells Louis and Natalia who he is and that he has run away from his home and has no ties with his mother. He then proceeds to offer them a plan to get some money and go back to their home. Nicky tells them about the expensive painting that hangs in the Browne’s residence and proposes that the three of them steal it.
Louis then realizes that since Derek has paid money before to keep Nicky a secret, he will be willing to pay again in order for things to stay that way.
At Garmen’s house, where Len, Paul, Aked, and Xavier are supposed to have a meet-up to discuss what to do next, Garmen’s wife enquires about where their savings are gone. Carmen tries to convince her about what he is doing and asks her to take the kids away so that he can have the meeting there.
All of them arrive at Garmen’s house, but Aked instructs Xavier to stay in the car while he goes in to discuss. Harmony, who has been keeping an eye on Garmen’s place, sneaks up on Xavier and takes him into custody.
Meanwhile, Manny and the NYPD detective Brian tell Ron (the casino guy who leaked info to Mrs. Mahabir in the previous episode) that he has been invited to the gathering, possibly to be eradicated as a loose end. So, they want him to wear a wire and attend it so that they can gather dirt against the Mahabir clan.
Manny calls up Harmony to warn her about not intruding on Sam’s life by constantly questioning her when she is not a suspect. However, this call makes Harmony suspect that there’s something deeper going on between Sam and Manny and that she needs to know about it in some way or another.
Threatened by Harmony’s upfront nature of trying to get in his way, Manny shares her psych eval that says she is suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder to his superior, Peter Fong – possibly to jeopardize her stand on the investigation.
After the meeting is over, Aked tries to call Natalia’s phone yet again. But this time, Edward Chung picks up his call. He tells Aked about Natalia escaping from his clutches and proposes that he comes to him for Natalia’s phone and the money he wishes to settle up with the Mahabir clan.
Meanwhile, Harmony takes Xavier to a hotel room and puts him under surveillance by attaching an ankle monitor to him. He tells her about Mrs. Mahabir’s idea of taking the curse off their family that was put on them many years ago after her husband’s death. He tells her that she has been trying to reprehend that karma by trying to close the circle and lifting the curse.
Derek, who is alone at the house, looks into Jeff’s finance (the company’s finance) and finds numerous irregularities post the Essequibo scandal. He meets up with his lawyer to discuss the possibilities of foul play, but his quick-witted lawyer one-ups him by saying that he is basically trying to find dirt on his wife because his marriage is about to be in some serious trouble.
When Sam wakes up the next day at her parent’s place, she overhears Harmony at the doorstep asking for Gene’s contact info. Harmony also calls up Manny and tells him that he is going to find dirt on him because he is also directly connected with everything that going on.
Full Circle Episode 4 “Safe in the Circle” Ending Explained:
What happened 20 years ago?
Gene doesn’t give her much but he points her in the right direction by telling her about an NYPD report that has all the details about what happened 20 years ago.
Manny drops a message to Sam saying that they need to meet up urgently. The two of them then discuss what happened back then.
Manny tells Sam that his family was involved in bribing top politicians and officials and that he basically helped Sam and Jeff come out of it unharmed by burying key evidence.
He also instructs Sam to just stay still and not do anything beyond the ordinary, hinting that all of it will simmer down eventually.
The ending of Full Circle Episode 4 sees Xavier calling his girlfriend and asking her to come to his hotel room. When she arrives, they have lunch, but soon Paul and Len break into the hotel room. They threaten to kill him when they see the ankle monitor, but he requests a meeting with Garmen to sort things out.
