Anatomy of a Scandal recap guide: Episodes 1 to 6

Anatomy of a Scandal episode 4 recap

Everyone’s mind is on the case as Sophie starts dreaming about Holly and Kate struggles with what she should do next. Richard, a lawyer who Kate is seeing despite him being married to someone else, grows suspicious of why she’s taking the whole thing so personally, though she combats his questions.

Sophie decides she won’t be going to court and instead will be taking the kids to the country to visit James’ parents, although James and Chris advise her against it. She tells James she had a nightmare about Holly accusing him, to which he gets defensive.

While on the way to the courtroom, Angela confronts Kate about a potential other accusation against James, and Angela is visibly shaken. She calls up her friend in distress, who becomes worried about her. Tensions continue to rise as viewers realize maybe there really is something about the case that Kate is hiding.

Sophie spends time with James’ parents, who are unsurprisingly on his side and angry that he’s in the situation. James’ mother recalls he was always “over-confident” growing up and often cheated in games of Monopoly. Of course, this is a red flag for Sophie who asks why his mom would condone lying at a young age. They have a tough conversation while Sophie starts to realize that women shouldn’t just sit back and be complicit while men do whatever they want.

Over at the courthouse, Kate questions one of Olivia’s friends, Kitty (Kathryn Wilder), who recounts Olivia calling her after the incident with James. For Angela’s turn questioning, she suggests that perhaps Kitty told Olivia to go to the police simply because she didn’t approve of her relationship with James. Kitty denies this and says she told her to report the incident because it was rape.

James returns home and eats ice cream with the kids’ nanny, Krystyna (Violet Verigo), where he thanks her for taking such good care of the children and asks her about her life. It’s kind of a strange scene, as because the viewer is already very suspicious of James, it seems like he might be coming onto her. Fortunately, nothing escalates.

Sophie and James have a tense conversation at home where Sophie says they’re no longer lucky and questions some of the details of James’ affair with Olivia. She brings up Holly, saying she can’t  let it go. James deflects and scolds her for not going to court that day, but Sophie keeps pressing. Sophie remembers a night out at Oxford but gets confused with her memory.

After James goes to sleep, Sophie has a vision of that night at Oxford again. We see Holly walking home from a party only to bump into James. They’re both seemingly very drunk, and James gets aggressive by ripping her clothes. When Holly tries to leave, James pulls her back in and calls her a “pr*ck tease” (the same language Olivia alleged he used with her), sexually assaulting her. We then cut to Kate in present-day, as if she was having the same vision. She sees a young Holly behind her and picks up the phone to call her mom.

We get a major bombshell here and the biggest plot twist of the show. When Kate calls her mom, she says, “It’s Holly.” This reveals that Kate is actually Holly and has been using a new identity as a woman named Kate. This adds a whole extra layer to her investment in the case. And of course, it makes Kate’s acceptance of the case very unethical.