Netflix Pieces of Her season 1 recaps: Episodes 1 to 8
By Mads Lennon
Episode 7
Pieces of Her episode 7 begins with a young Jane in prison. Apparently, Paula wasn’t the only person from the group to spend time behind bars. Jane was sentenced to nearly five years as part of a deal made with the U.S. attorney, for what? We’ll get into that.
In the opening scene, Jane chats with a much younger Charlie, who sets her up with her new life as Laura Oliver, a widowed mother who will live in the quiet retirement community of Belle Isle, Georgia. Since we know that Nick is Andy’s bio-dad now, we also know that “Jerry Randall” was just a construct devised by WITSEC. He’s not real. Charlie also informs Jane that she can’t play piano or do anything that would signal Jane Queller. At this point, Nick is also M.I.A. The FBI still can’t seem to catch him.
Back to the diner in the modern-day. Charlie arrives at the diner to pick up Andy. Jane is long gone, having taken off in her car and already in the process of switching vehicles.
Another flashback, this time not as far into the past. Jane is receiving chemotherapy treatment for her breast cancer while Andy takes care of her. Jane is forced to sit next to a chatterbox who can’t stop talking about her dreams of taking her grandkids to Disney when she gets better.
Back in the past, Paula is driving the getaway van after Paula, Nick, Andrew and Jane escape the FBI raid. They arrive at a safehouse in the woods where they meet up with Nick’s friends Eli and Clara. Unfortunately, when they arrive, it becomes apparent that Andrew was shot during the escape, and he’s barely hanging on. Jane wants to take Andrew to a hospital, but they’re afraid because the FBI is looking for them, and the hospital staff would call the cops for a bullet wound.
Charlie fills Andy in on what has happened since she left Jasper’s. It looks like Jasper is covering his tracks if he sent those people after the suitcase. Charlie tells Andy that they issued a BOLO for Jane and she wanted Andy out of the line fire, hence why she left. He also believes that if they find Jane, they’ll find Nick and can finally put an end to everything.
Despite everything, Charlie still believes Jane is fundamentally a good person. He also remarks that he was in the delivery room with her, and was the second person to hold baby Andy. Charlie thinks it’ll be worth visiting Eli and Clara’s old house in the woods. It’s one of the few places Jane might go.
Chemotherapy again, and Jane has finally reached her threshold with her chatty neighbor Gloria (Genevieve Lemon). She snaps at her. “You’re not going to Disney World. You’re dying! I’m dying!” Andy overhears her mother’s outburst and confronts her about her attitude. She thinks Jane is giving up, just waiting to die. We can see the strain between mother and daughter here. Andy is frustrated with Jane for not fighting to survive. “Even if you’re the last person I want to talk to most of the time, I need to know you’re on this planet with me.”
Tensions are rising between Nick and Jane in the past. Jasper goes on live television and proclaims that the Army of the Changing World is a domestic terrorism group, and he wants them to be brought to justice. Nick is pissed that Jasper is acting so self-righteous, even threatening to bomb him and the conference. “It’s a revolution, Jane.” “Is it? Or is it just revenge? Because it’s getting harder to tell.”
As for Andrew, he’s dying and definitely won’t make it if he doesn’t get real medical attention. But unlike Jane, Andrew is still completely enamored by Nick and believes he’s dying for a righteous cause. Even worse, while Jane is going through their things, she finds a tape recorder and listens to a disturbing and damning conversation between Nick and Jasper before the conference.
The tape proves that Jasper knew something was going to happen to Martin at the conference, that he and Nick planned it so that Jasper could take over the company! Did they orchestrate Martin’s death?
Nick finds Jane in the room and confronts her. She tells him she’s done with all of this and plans to take Andrew to the hospital. For the first time, we see a truly dark side of Nick. “if you ever leave me, I would scorch the earth to find you.” He then hits her and, I’m pretty sure, gives her that nasty shoulder scar. It’s implied, so we don’t see it happen. The worst part is that Jane was pregnant at this point in time, although Nick doesn’t know that.
Skipping a little ahead in the timeline, Jane is saddened when she realizes that Gloria was moved to hospice care. She visits her and ends up spilling her guts, apologizing for her outburst and discussing the pain and depression she’s dealt with for 30 years living as another person. All Jane wants is to be free. If any scene is going to win Collette an Emmy Award, it’ll be this one. “I don’t want to die in someone else’s skin.” And it’s tragically paralleled with a younger Jane watching her brother die in the hospital.
Just after Andrew dies, young Jasper (Calum Worthy) enters the hospital room and implores Jane to lie to the FBI agent. Tell them that Nick and Andrew forced her to cooperate. “You are the second person today to ask me to abandon Andrew.” Jasper tells Jane it’s her fault since she felt for that con man. Of course, now we know he’s a raging hypocrite.
Jane agrees to turn herself in, serve her time, and get on with her life. She doesn’t want anyone to involve or besmirch Andrew’s name. Jane tells Jasper that he can have the company, so long as he uses the proceeds from the pharmaceutical division to make amends. But if Jane hears he does anything to harm people or involve Andrew, she’ll release the tape and ruin his life. After that, Jane turns herself in to the FBI.
While driving to Eli and Clara’s old house, someone slams into Charlie and Andy. Andy wakes up inside the house and finally starts to get her memories back from her childhood. We find out that Clara and Eli raised Andy there while Jane was in prison. In a flashback, we see Nick found Andy there and even debated taking her with him. When Jane got out of prison and came to get Andy, she was hesitant to leave with her mother, even trying to run away from her.
And in the present, Andy walks downstairs to see a full-grown Nick (Aaron Jeffery) in the kitchen!