The Snow Girl (La chica de nieve) recap guide: All 6 episodes explained

The Snow Girl episode 3 recap: Quid pro quo

We pick up in 2010 right after Samuel kills himself. A clearly traumatized Miren is sitting in the back of an ambulance when Detective Belén arrives. She rebukes Miren for being alone with Samuel. During their conversation, Miren makes it clear she doesn’t trust cops, revealing that Belén was the cop handling Miren’s rape case. She questions if Belén will leave the family alone and without answers the same way she did to Miren.

Eduardo arrives moments later to take Miren home. Like Belén, he tells Miren how dangerous it was for her to go see Samuel alone. Samuel and his father were part of a significant illegal porn network. Miren is disgusted. She shows Eduardo a drawing she made of something she saw on Samuel’s laptop. It looks like a slide.

Miren questions whether the porn network could still somehow be linked to Amaya. What about the users and the clients who were buying the porn? She wants to write an article about it all, but Eduardo tells her no, warning her not to make things personal.

Outside of Miren’s home, Eduardo offers her a shoulder to lean on if she needs to talk about anything. “I can’t imagine what you’ve been through.” Miren kisses him in response, seemingly surprisingly both herself and Eduardo. But it’s clear Eduardo is one of the only people in her life who genuinely cares about her, and I can understand how Miren’s trauma has her confused emotionally and otherwise. Let’s just hope Eduardo doesn’t take advantage.

At the precinct, David is distraught upon learning of Samuel’s death. Yeah, well, hard to feel sorry for him! The bad news is that they checked their alibis. David and Samuel were both accounted for at the time of Amaya’s disappearance. So despite being predators who drugged and raped women, they didn’t appear to have anything to do with Amaya’s abduction.

With David’s name cleared (at least for Amaya), Ana and Álvaro are back to square one just like the cops. Their marriage is already showing signs of strain from the stress and pain.

In 2016, the detectives are doing everything they can to find clues on the videotape. The problem with VHS is that it doesn’t contain metadata like digital video files do, so it’s basically worthless for trying to pinpoint a location. They can’t even tell if it was filmed in Spain. The most they can see is the type of VCR used to make the VHS recording, in this case, a Sanyo VCR from 1985.

At the Diario Sur offices, Miren’s boss, Paco, is pissed she took the tape to the police instead of him first because it could have blown the story wide open. But Miren doesn’t care about the “story,” she wants to save Amaya.

Belén’s partner Chaparro hands her a list of vintage retailers who sell the Sanyo VCRs. Belén wonders why they would send the tape now, after all this time, specifically on Amaya’s birthday. It’s all so meticulously planned. Belén gets a call. They’ve got eyes on the guy who delivered the videotape.

Miren, who is now an editor at the Sur, visits a shop across the street from the newspaper under the guise of writing a story on small businesses. In reality, she wants access to their security camera, which is perfectly aimed at the Sur‘s front door, meaning she can see the guy who dropped off the tape. Miren gets the files in exchange for a front-page ad. Once he sees what she has, Paco again presses her to publish, but Miren says other businesses might also have cameras with better angles. She wants more time to see what she can find.

Searching the surrounding area for another security camera leads Miren to a car storage lot a little ways down the street. Belén and Chaparro are already there. Apparently, the owners delete footage every two hours, so it’s another dead end. Realizing they need “a thousand eyes” out there searching for this man, Belén and Miren come to an agreement. Quid pro quo. Miren will publish a story so they can get every reader to search for the guy in the photos while Belén promises Miren that she can have the first interview with the guy once they have him in custody.

In light of what’s going on with the tape, Ana gets a call asking if it’s okay for them to publish the tape, and she agrees. Álvaro is upset because he thinks that Miren is taking advantage of them and that publishing the tape will just make everything start all over again.

He might have a point, but as Ana also points out, Miren is one of the only people who has kept the story alive and kept looking for Amaya after all this time. Plus, Álvaro wrote a children’s book about their lives together in the years since Amaya disappeared. Is that not also taking advantage?

Belén gets in big trouble for leaking the videotape, but she stands by her decision. For years, Belén has been begging the higher-ups to spread the word and get more people on this case. Now they finally can. With the story circulating, who knows what true crime buffs and journalists might find?

Paco is thrilled with the article’s success. They’ve received millions of hits on their website, and everyone is celebrating in Miren’s honor. Eduardo attends Miren’s celebratory party to congratulate her on her job well done. We learn that Eduardo has left the paper since 2010 and is focused solely on teaching now.

Miren and Eduardo catch up during the party with Miren filling Eduardo in on the tape and the guy who delivered it. Eduardo admits he knew from the moment they met that Miren would make something of herself and become one of his favorite students. He’s very impressed with her. Their conversation is interrupted by a phone call, and while Eduardo is gone, Miren becomes uncomfortable due to some of the men hanging around the bar, eying her. She and Eduardo call it a night. Once she’s safely back home, Miren succumbs to a panic attack.

The day after Samuel’s suicide in 2010, Miren goes to therapy and finally reveals exactly what happened to her. Two years ago, in 2008, Miren had a few drinks at a beach party, and unbeknownst to her, some guy had drugged her. The drug was so strong, she can only remember flashes of the assault, and while she doesn’t remember much, she does know that he wasn’t alone. Miren makes the devastating reveal that she was gang-raped.

Back in 2016, the police station is overwhelmed with calls leading to new tips and information. They slowly cross off various leads, including the dollhouse and the type of wallpaper used in the room as possible avenues to find out where it was filmed.

They get one call regarding a man named James Foster who hung out in a nostalgic online chatroom looking specifically for the Sanyo VCR. When they track down his information, they find out he has a record of trying to abduct girls and at least one charge of molesting a minor, and he currently works in Málaga. Belén keeps her word and tips off Miren that they’re about to pick up their suspect.

When Belén and Chaparro arrive at James Foster’s tattoo parlor, he doesn’t seem surprised to see them. “You’re here about the girl?” During the interrogation, James says he knew they were coming because he saw the videotape. He recognized the device it was made on since he bought one a few months back.

James admits he did molest a minor but says he’s found God and gone to rehab. He claims his work saved him. James also says he wasn’t at the parade when Amaya went missing. As for the kidnapping allegation, his response is that he was only trying to help the girl, not kidnap her. It seems like James has an answer for everything. He also alleges he wasn’t the guy who dropped off the tape, saying he was with a woman at the time and the woman in question confirms his alibi. Seeing as they have nothing to go on and a search of James’s caravan also doesn’t turn up anything, Belén is forced to release James.

Once outside the precinct, Miren asks James if she can question him. James recognizes her immediately. He says he’s read all of her work—Miren did eventually write a story about David Luque, for instance. Then he reveals something especially chilling: Miren is close to the truth. In 2010, when that girl went missing, James was still exploring his “vices” he would get in touch with David Luque regarding his videos. He won’t confirm or deny if David’s pornography ring has anything to do with Amaya’s disappearance, but he tells Miren that it is connected to her rape.