'Ridley' Recap: Episode 6

Ridley airs Sundays at 7:00 pm on WTTW and is available to stream. Recap the previous and following episodes.
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Under another round of questioning, Liza Varnham admits that she visited the recently murdered Julie Conway at Julie’s house to try to buy Ravenstoop, a house Liza’s late father Julian unexpectedly bequeathed to Julie. Julie refused. Liza also admits to finding her father with Julie at one point, as her brother Jed told the police. She lied to the police because she didn’t want them to suspect her in Julie’s death.

More lies: Ridley realizes that the handwriting on Julie’s threatening letters to Jed Varnham matches the supposed handwriting of Luke Marbury to his sister Eve over the years. Ridley believes Julie pretended to be Luke in the letters. When Ridley and Farman visit Jed and ask him about Luke, he says he’s never even heard of him.

Ridley also finds out that a call into a radio station about a recent sighting of Luke is a hoax. There was no phone call into the station at the time listed in the call log, and since the host, Ray, runs everything on his own, he must have fabricated the call.

The dishonesty of Ray seems confirmed when someone else calls into his show claiming to be Luke, revealing to listeners that Ray is aware of Luke’s location. Tell everyone, or I will, the caller says. The call is traced to Duncan Darwin, who was the last person to see Luke before he disappeared. 

Ridley and Farman visit Duncan, who admits something that he’s never told to anyone: Ray abused him and other teens, including Julie and Luke. Ray befriended troubled, neglected kids, turning his record store into a cool hangout.

Ridley breaks into Ray’s apartment above the record store when Ray doesn’t answer, despite Farman’s objection that they need a warrant. They find photos of the kids and markings of their heights on the wall, just as Duncan described. Ray is found, too late: he has hung himself.

Goodwin is impressed by the detective work. Ridley and Farman want to continue to follow other avenues of inquiry, but Goodwin wants to focus on confirming Ray as Julie’s killer—perhaps Ray feared Julie would share stories of the abuse now that Ridley was asking questions about Luke, and killed her.

But two discoveries make Ridley and Farman disregard Goodwin. First, they find out that Julian Varnham hasn’t updated his will since 1989, meaning Julie has stood to inherit Ravenstoop for years and thus has a long association with Varnham. Second, Darren finally finds Luke’s missing persons report from 1989. It was deliberately misfiled so as to be difficult to find, by a police officer of high rank. And it shows that Luke had made a complaint about Julian Varnham the day before he went missing.

Farman and Ridley once again go visit Duncan. As they ask questions, he tells them to drive to Ravenstoop. The place hasn’t been inhabited for years. There’s a bed inside that Ridley recognizes as the one in some of Ray’s photos of kids. In the basement, Duncan pushes aside shelves to reveal a hidden door. Behind it is a room with a skeleton.

Duncan tearfully explains that Ray didn’t abuse the kids himself; he was just a middleman for Julian Varnham. Ray would insinuate himself into kids’ lives, and eventually recruited Julie to help. She would go to some of the clubs owned by Varnham that were frequented by young people, get them drunk, and invite them to parties. Varnham would spike the drinks at the parties and then do whatever he wanted.

Varnham was a powerful man with powerful friends, so he learned that Luke had complained to the police. He got Julie to trick Luke into coming to Ravenstoop, where Luke told Varnham that he would also go to the newspapers about the abuse. Julian killed him, bashing his head in with an ashtray. He then made Duncan carry Luke’s body down into the cellar.

Duncan and Julie went along with it because Varnham had photos and videos of them with which he threatened to blackmail them, and they were scared of him. Varnham told them to pretend that Luke had run away, and Julie wrote fake letters from Luke to Eve.

Ridley decides to wait to reveal all this to Eve until the skeleton has been confirmed as Luke’s and Duncan’s story has been corroborated.

Ridley has already had one difficult interaction with a close acquaintance. Michael Flannery, the man who killed Ridley’s family in a fire, has called Ridley to prison to ask him to intercede on his behalf so that he can visit his son and mother, who is dying of cancer. Ridley refuses.

At Marling’s, Eve tells Ridley that she has decided to go back to the States after she sings at Julian Varnham’s funeral tomorrow. She asks Ridley to come with her. They kiss, and Annie Marling sees.

The next morning, Annie finds Ridley playing piano early in the bar. When Ridley asks her for advice, she tells him it’s his life—but moving would be a big risk, since he barely knows Eve.

Meanwhile, the serial number of a watch on the skeleton is traced to one believed to have been stolen by Luke. A hair matches Eve’s enough to confirm the skeleton as her sibling.

Ridley and Farman watch people file into Varnham’s funeral from afar. Ridley notices Eve wearing a red dress, even though she told him she would be wearing the white one she wore to his house for dinner the night Julie was killed. Ridley also realizes that she told him she wanted to go back to the States because the area no longer felt like home now that her brother wasn’t there—she already knows Luke is dead.

Ridley visits Eve’s hotel and learns that she returned around 11 after dinner with him, and met someone. He goes into her room and finds her white dress stained with blood.

Eve is about to sing when Ridley, Farman, and other police officers enter the funeral. She sees them and stops the music. I can’t sing for the man who killed my brother, she announces. She’s proud of Luke for being brave enough to go to the police about Julian Varnham, she says.