'Before We Die' Recap: Season 2 Episode 4

Before We Die airs Thursdays at 8:00 pm and is available to stream. WTTW Passport members can stream the whole show now. Recap the previous and following episodes.
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Death and new life are inextricably paired. As Hannah attends the funeral of her murdered son, Dubravka goes to the doctor with Bianca to view the first ultrasound of her and Hannah’s grandson, Christian’s son. The baby boy’s due date is November 27—the birthday of Dubravka’s murdered son, Davor. Dubravka later places a printout of the ultrasound on her shrine to Davor.

Bianca uses Dubravka’s moment of shock at the coincidence of the due date to borrow the doctor’s phone, claiming that she forgot her own and that Dubravka doesn’t have one. She tries to text Christian a photo of the ultrasound but gets an “invalid number” message. So she texts Billy the ultrasound and the message “Help. Don’t reply.”

Billy has asked Kane to find someone he trusts to look over the notes Billy and Hannah made on the corrupt policeman Marcus’s past, in order to ferret out the Mimicas’ other partner in the police. He has also asked a contact to identify the woman who tried to abduct Christian on behalf of the Mimicas at the airport.

Hannah and Billy know Dubravka is behind Christian’s killing but need to prove it. Dubravka herself offers circumstantial evidence by sending Hannah a bouquet with a card reading “A son for a son.” But the police can’t pin anything on her, even when she calls Christian’s death “divine retribution” under questioning, and her lawyer prevents the questioning from dragging on.

Billy is worried about Hannah. At the funeral, she gave a eulogy, saying that Christian was sometimes the only thing that stood between her and darkness. She has also asked Billy how he has gotten over the trauma of loss and of killing someone—in Hannah’s case, Davor. All he can tell her is to numb herself, and then wait. Eventually love—perhaps for someone like him—might eventually return.

But for now Hannah is lost. She takes a kitchen knife and goes to the Mimica restaurant in search of Dubravka. Billy returns to her house and finds the door open, the knife block upturned, and Hannah’s phone there. He follows her via a tracker on her car, to the Mimica house. There, she bangs on the door and screams at Dubravka, who stays inside and enjoys listening to Hannah’s desperation.

Billy arrives and drags Hannah away, showing her the ultrasound and text from Bianca. Hannah is going to have a grandson, and needs to protect the baby’s mother. Love has returned—Hannah has a purpose again, to distract her from the darkness.

Hannah returns home and begins looking through the security footage from hidden cameras of Sangita’s store to try to identify the people who broke in to steal information about Christian. She runs the face of one through a police database and finds an ex-military man with a checkered past, Thomas Fordham. Plus, she finds a surveillance photo of Fordham meeting with Nicky Harris recently.

Evidence from Billy’s contact about the woman who tried to abduct Christian suggests Fordham’s meeting with Harris wasn’t a coincidence: the woman, another ex-military type, received a phone call from an unregistered cell phone at police headquarters just before Christian landed.

Billy and Hannah worry that Kane might be in on the corruption—but when they arrive at headquarters, he calls them into his office. He has been going through Marcus’s files and found that Nicky recommended Marcus for an award. And yet when she signed on to look into the Mimica investigation, she signed an affidavit stating that she didn’t have a personal connection to anyone involved, including Marcus.

Kane has realized that Nicky is corrupt, and Billy and Hannah’s evidence only corroborates it. He reveals his romantic relationship with Nicky to Billy and Hannah, realizing that he not only broke professional rules but is also indirectly responsible for the damage Nicky has wrought. The detectives have grounds for reasonable suspicion of Nicky, but they need to catch her in the act of liaising with the Mimicas in order for charges to stick legally.

So Kane invites her over to his house. He needs to find a chance to put her phone on silent and then call it with his own to install surveillance software on it. Using the excuse of separating her from her phone, which she constantly checks, he goes to charge it in another room. But the download fails, so Hannah—observing from outside with Billy—comes in while Nicky is in the bathroom. She changes the phone settings and the download succeeds. Nicky doesn’t see Hannah, but she does notice the two calls from Kane on her phone.

The software on Nicky’s phone allows the police to see her email inbox and call log, and tracks her location. Based on an unlisted call, they determine that she is probably meeting the Mimicas. While Billy goes to observe from afar, Hannah uses the excuse of the Mimicas being away to surveil their home and check on Bianca.

Dubravka has brought Goran to the meeting with Nicky, and will let him be in charge of all dealings with Nicky as a reward for killing Christian. She has had a hole dug through her pool to retrieve the cocaine that Nicky will be selling for her.

Billy watches and photographs Nicky and Fordham and then Dubravka and Goran arriving at a meeting place. He wants to go in, but Kane forbids it—they have what they need.

Hannah leaves her phone in the car and takes a camera to photograph the Mimica house. Seeing no one, she sneaks closer and sees the hole in the pool. She takes a picture.

But Jovan is still home, having been assigned to guard Bianca in her locked basement room. He is trying to be kind to Bianca, who told him after Dubravka showed her Christian’s obituary that Dubravka was no longer her mother because of her cruelty. He has agreed to get Bianca fruit, just like Christian used to every morning in Costa Rica.

Hannah hides as she hears Jovan coming out of the house to take a phone call. It’s Dubravka or Goran, telling Jovan that they will be back in ten minutes. Hannah overhears.

While the Mimicas are returning home, Nicky and Fordham are going to an unknown destination—and Billy has decided to follow them, with Kane’s permission. Billy maintains his distance, but eventually Nicky’s phone stops moving in an isolated area and Billy catches up to it. He gets out of his car and can’t see anything—Nicky must have ditched her phone.

Billy gets back in his car, reaches across himself to buckle up, and a truck smashes into the side of his car.