The Note

As Lauren and May return to the beach house, they accidentally stumble into an intense conversation between Kelsey and Nate about Kelsey’s decision to have children. Nate flirts with May.

May and Lauren are not pleased to learn that Kelsey has told Nate everything about David Smith and the notes. Lauren tells May and Kelsey that David was Marnie’s boyfriend.

Lauren recalls the summer that Marnie drowned. At that time, May always complained that Marnie made her feel like a second-class citizen, but May’s mother worked hard to send her to Harvard. Lauren was annoyed by May’s complaints about being a “model minority” with a Harvard degree.

Tinsley is anxious to find out what has happened to her son, so Carter tells her about Christine. Tinsley is adamant that David had no enemies. Carter tells her that David was originally planning to go to the Hamptons with a woman other than Christine. Tinsley tells him about David’s relationship with Marnie, revealing that her drowning still affects him. Carter realizes that the camp she is discussing is the same one that he saw listed on May’s LinkedIn page.

Carter receives a notification about a suspicious vehicle parked on the highway.

Meanwhile, at the beach house, the friends are searching online for information about David Smith. They discover that he went to Phillips Exeter. May asks Kelsey to look for mutual friends, but Kelsey reminds her that she deactivated her social media accounts after Luke was killed. Instead, they comb through David’s Instagram, looking for people that Kelsey might know. Then Lauren receives a call from Carter, who wants to speak to the three of them.

May recalls that after her first year of law school, she was invited to join a seminar that conflicted with a planned trip to see Kelsey, so she declined it. Now, she reflects that she struggles to maintain boundaries in her friendships. She also reflects on the fact that Josh became angry when he called May and heard Nate’s voice in the background; he is now suspicious of her activities.

Kelsey thinks that they should tell the detective that they don’t want to talk to him. The friends try to strategize how they want to convey their account of the weekend’s events. May thinks that they should point out the Wildwood connection.

Carter, a Hamptons native, contemplates how much the town has changed. His mother’s friend once lived next door to the house where the friends are staying, and he calculates that the women are paying at least $10,000 to stay there for the week.

Carter is suspicious of all three women, especially Kelsey. The three explain how they first became friends, and he privately reflects on the fact that all three women have been enmeshed in massive scandals in the past. However, they are forthcoming about the Wildwood connection, and Lauren is very open about her connection to Thomas. Carter pretends that this is the first time he is hearing about Marnie Mann. He then separates them for individual interviews.

May is nervous about the interview. She wishes that she had time to tell Kelsey that Carter knows about the note left on David’s car, but they are separated before she can do so. May wonders how Carter learned about the note. Meanwhile, Josh calls her to grill her about Nate. While she is on the phone with him, May scrolls through Instagram, then abruptly hangs up and runs downstairs. Kelsey tells Carter that she wrote the note, and May tells Kelsey to stop talking.

May tells her friends that David Smith is dead; friends have posted “RIP” on his Instagram. Kelsey screams and has a massive breakdown, declaring that her life is over. She believes that because Carter mentioned Luke, he is about to accuse Kelsey of killing both men.

Lauren tells May that when Luke was killed, Kelsey also said her life was over.

May ponders Carter’s very specific questions about the house rental and when it was booked. When she calls the number left by the owner and pretends to be Kelsey, she learns that Kelsey actually reserved the house two months earlier than she said she did. She booked it under the name Callie Martin.

May confronts Kelsey and asks her who Callie Martin is. Kelsey explains that after she was doxxed online, she created the persona of Callie Martin so that she could date safely. She saw David on Instagram and thought that he was attractive, so she messaged him and gave him the number of her burner phone. She and David had originally been planning to visit the Hamptons together this week, but David really wanted to have children, and once Kelsey explained her fertility situation, he broke up with her.

After seeing David with Christine at Sag Harbor, Kelsey was extremely upset. After she, Lauren, and May returned to the beach house that night, she called David, who realized that she was the one who left the prank note. May is furious that Kelsey has been lying to them, but Kelsey says that May is out of line for being angry about an anonymous note, alluding to the fact that May is the one who left the note at Wildwood, revealing Lauren’s relationship with Thomas and ultimately getting her fired. This conversation is the first that Lauren hears about this fact. (May had intended to get Thomas in trouble, not Lauren, but Lauren was the one who suffered the consequences.) Now, Lauren asks May to go home.

Carter calls May and proposes several theories. Josh tries to listen to the phone call and begs May to tell him everything.

When Josh learns what is happening, he is furious with Lauren and Kelsey. He wants May to make a clean break with her friends and tell the detective everything that she knows about them. May researches Luke’s death and sees how Kelsey was persecuted online. She then looks up the laws surrounding the disposition of embryos after a divorce and learns that Kelsey would not have had unilateral control over the embryos after her eventual divorce. However, because Luke died, Kelsey now has total control over the embryos.

Her research reveals that Luke was shot in his car while taking a deposit to the bank. The glove box was open, and May finds it odd that Luke would keep the deposit bag in there. May reflects that David was found in the same position, with his license on his lap. Suddenly, she realizes the connection between them: They were both pulled over by someone whom they believed to be a police officer. May now believes that this person was Kelsey.

Carter is devastated at the prospect of telling Tinsley that David is dead. He returns to the hotel where David last stayed and speaks to a guest, who was staying in the room next to David’s. She tells Carter that she heard Christine and David arguing, after which David walked down the hall with a big garbage bag.

May calls Carter to tell him her theory about Kelsey. She also tells him that Kelsey hated Marnie Mann. May tells him that she no longer considers Kelsey to be a friend.

May anxiously checks her phone to see the latest messages from her friends. Both are furious with her. She returns to her online research, looking at the true crime message boards to seek out other people’s thoughts on the connection between Luke and David. Someone has posted information about Kelsey, May, and Lauren, as well as Kelsey’s connection to David. May panics when she receives an email from a student reporter, who asks for a quote.

At the beach house, Kelsey and Lauren discuss their fury over what they see as May’s betrayal. They also look at the messages that they have received from reporters. Lauren worries that this new scandal will hurt her professional reputation. Detective Carter arrives and arrests Kelsey. He has a warrant to search the beach house, and Lauren and Nate have to leave.