In part one of the two-part finale of Sweet/Vicious, Jules gives the Title IX office the chance to hold Nate accountable for his actions. Elsewhere, Ophelia struggles with the thought that Harris may end up being punished for her mistakes again and the police finally start looking into Carter’s disappearance. There are ups, there are downs, and as always, there are feelings. Here is what went down in episode nine, “An Innocent Man”, written by Amanda Lasher and directed by Leslie Libman.
REPORTED | Jules (Eliza Bennett) and Kennedy (Aisha Dee) sit down together with the Title IX counselor to officially report Nate (Dylan McTee). Kennedy brings the summons to Nate herself and breaks up with him. He tells her it’s Jules’ word against his and that she is a liar. When Jules tells Ophelia (Taylor Dearden) that she reported Nate, Ophelia is surprised that she trusts the school to do something but Jules tells her she has to at least try. Each of the Zeta sisters and Miles (Ethan Dawes) sit down with the Title IX office to give them their accounts of that night. The counselor is fishing for reasons to blame Jules but her boss seems to be a little more objective. As Miles recounts what happens, it starts to become clear to him that Jules is the one telling the truth. Next up to testify are Jules and Nate. Jules recounts the night, explaining that she wasn’t even able to walk and told Nate to stop. The way Nate tells the story, Jules came on to him all night, wanted to have sex with him, and this “lie” is because she felt guilty because of Kennedy. Later, Nate asks Miles about what he told the Title IX office and Miles tells him he told the truth but that he doesn’t know what happened when Nate went upstairs. Nate’s football coach comes in and tells Nate not to focus on the game that weekend and that he’ll take care of everything. Nate leaks to social media that the girl accusing him of rape is Jules so now everyone knows. Tyler (Nick Fink) comes to see Jules, horrified that he didn’t know and sincerely sorry that he would ever ask her if she had feelings for Nate during the lockdown. She forgives him and asks him to come with her to hear the verdict tomorrow.
Before the verdict announcement, Jules and Kennedy run into Miles and two girls talking trash about Jules and Kennedy takes it upon herself to call them out. She specifically tells Miles to take a closer look at his best friend because he is not the person Miles seems to think he is. They meet up with Tyler outside the Title IX building and run right into Nate. Tyler and Nate get in each other’s faces and after a comment from Nate about not doing anything wrong, Tyler turns and punches him in the face. Jules is horrified and she and Kennedy leave Tyler outside. They go in and meet up with Ophelia. They each take one of Jules’ hands and it’s a moment where two very strong very different women both have Jules’ back unequivocally. Jules and Nate are called in to hear the verdict and they are informed that the Title IX office has found Nate guilty and he will be expelled. This feeling of relief for Jules doesn’t last long because she is called back into the office the next day and is informed that because they do not qualify as legal proceedings, their ruling is not the last word. Nate’s family appealed the decision to the president of the university who then overturned the ruling without so much as hearing Jules’ testimony. Mackenzie (Skyler Day) finds Jules at the house and tells her how sorry she is that they left without making sure Jules was accounted for. She is instating a new rule as safety chair that states no Zeta leaves a party until every sister is accounted for. Miles goes to Nate’s room and confronts him about what happened. He tells Nate that he believes Jules and Nate kicks him out of his room.
DARK HOLE | Picking up where the last episode left off with Harris (Brandon Mychal Smith) confronting Ophelia about discovering her and Jules’ vigilante activities. She tries to explain why they are doing this but he is not hearing and leaves. Evan (Stephen Friedrich) notices that Ophelia has been down lately and she confides in him that she and Harris got in a fight. Jules shows up at the apartment to tell Ophelia how sorry she is for the horrible things she said to her during the Brady beat down. Ophelia forgives her and tells her about Harris but reassures her that Harris would never send them to jail, he’s just never going to speak to her again. After Jules is revealed as the accuser and starts being slut shamed, Ophelia brings it to Harris to show him why girls don’t report assault. He is still angry and leaves to take a call from the District Attorney who wants to meet with him. Ophelia plants a microphone in Harris’ bag and listens in to his talk with the DA. She tells him she found his investigation on the vigilante and wants to know if he has anything he wants to tell her. He denies knowing anything but she warns him that withholding information makes him an accomplice. Wracked with guilt, Ophelia (not in a sound mental state) calls Harris and leaves a message apologizing and telling him she is turning herself in. Harris sees the missed call and upon listening to the message, gets Jules and the two of them rush to the DA’s office to get Ophelia before she does something stupid. Back at the apartment, Harris tells her that while he doesn’t support what they are doing, Ophelia is his ride-or-die and he has her back no matter what. He and Jules both wrap Ophelia up in a huge hug. Later, Evan visits Ophelia at the store and she confides in him about how she has been very anxious and depressed and together, she and Jules make a twisted dark hole. This show needs a second season and it needs to delve deeper into Ophelia’s demons because she is so interesting and complex and I love seeing this layers of her.
FINDING CARTER | Jules meets Tyler to talk to him and tell him what happened with Nate but before she can, he tells her that he reported Carter missing. She rushes out to tell Ophelia and make a plan to make sure they didn’t miss anything when they were cleaning up the garage. Ophelia uses her ‘damsel in distress’ acting skills to lure Officer Veach (Matt Angel) away from his squad car long enough to download software allowing her to hack into the police server. Next, she and Jules go to the garage to clean up and after a near run-in with Veach and Ballard (James MacDonald), they do their best to erase any trace of themselves at the crime scene. Veach and Ballard return to the crime scene with a CSI team who spray luminal to look for blood. After the mess at the courthouse, Tyler arrives with flowers and an apology and tells Jules he just wants to make her feel safe. Even with the ruling overturned, Jules feels safe with Tyler and the two have sex. Ophelia is monitoring the police scanner and sees an arrest warrant be sent through. She rushes to the Zeta house where the police have showed up to arrest not Jules, but Tyler. Kennedy and Ophelia hold Jules back and all the girls hold her as she breaks down in the foyer.
OTHER THOUGHTS:
• We’ve all done the “Call me so I can have an excuse to leave” text.
• The snapchat picture of Panda Jules is way too cute to delete and in fact needs to be Ophelia’s lock screen.
• I enjoy how chill Jules is about Ophelia’s penchant for spying on them. “Oh please! How do you think this all started? She put tracking software on my phone.”
So what did you think of part one of the season finale? Did you predict the ruling being overturned? How badly did you want to punch Nate like Tyler did? Let us know in the comments below!
Tune in for our recap on the second half of Tuesday night’s Sweet/Vicious season finale!