'The Crowded Room' Episode 3 Review: Was it all a setup? Ariana and Yitzhak's twisted plot exposed
Spoilers ahead for ‘The Crowded Room’ Episode 3
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Apple TV+'s thrilling psychological ten-episode miniseries ‘The Crowded Room’ has captivated its audience with twisted characters, mystery manipulation, and psychological tension. The whole narrative of the first two episodes surrounded Danny’s past life and his growing care towards Ariana. In the third episode, an unexpected truth is revealed that could turn the whole story upside down.
In the third episode titled ‘Murder’, Ariana opens up with Danny and reveals her secret. Danny being a sensitive and caring person takes matters into his hands and contends to gift Ariana something completely inappropriate to make her feel safe. While Rya helps Danny untangle the truth, she keeps asking about his brother, Adam. Danny hasn’t talked about Adam considering his deep psychological tension because of him. When Danny takes a huge risk by involving with drug dealer, Angelo, he ends up risking Anabelle’s life which was luckily saved as Yitzhak saves them. The most intriguing part of the whole episode was the revelation which changed not only our perspective of the show, even Danny’s stance on Ariana and Yitzhak, who he referred to as his family.
Ariana reveals her secret
After Ariana asks Danny for help, she reveals the secret of her erratic behavior and unpredictable actions. She tells him that she loves Jerome but she always botches something good in her life. Ariana opens up about her impulsive and irrational thoughts which stem when people get too close to her. She encourages Danny to understand where she’s coming from and reveals that she’s been raped by her friend’s dad. Ariana explains how she still feels him around her shoulder which ends up her sticking a needle inside her. At the same time, Danny also gets vulnerable with Ariana and discloses his brother, Adam, where he indirectly enunciates that he was abused too and couldn’t take it anymore.
Danny’s attempt to give Ariana a ‘second chance’
When Ariana expressed herself, Danny decided to help Ariana give her a second chance at life and help himself as well. By himself, it is assumed that he meant he blames himself for Adam’s death and wanted to save someone else to forgive and let go of his regrets. He meets up with Angelo and asks for a gun, but the conversation went too far which resulted in gore consequences. Angelo asked him to suck his d*** in exchange for a gun and take him and Johnny to a secret warehouse. As Johnny attempts at changing Danny’s mind, he runs out of this mess. Upon entering the warehouse, Angelo threatens Danny with a gun in his mouth and forces him for a b**w j*b. Scared Danny was about to do it but was luckily saved by Johnny who break Angelo’s nose with a log. They run away after Danny grabs the gun.
Was it all a setup?
Danny gives the gun to Ariana expressing that it is a gift for her to make her feel safe. He also reveals that he doesn’t know how to use it, and didn’t intend to use it. Ariana has a playful act with the gun, however, asks Danny to get rid of it. When Rya asked him if he get rid of the gun, he refuses and points out that he never used the gun. Later, Anabelle and Danny had a memorable evening together, but it was short-lived when Angelo returns in the middle of the night. Danny hides Anabelle inside a closet and was about to get himself killed until Yitzhak arrives and hides him. Angelo finds Anabelle and threatens to kill him only that Yitzhak beat the sh** out of Angelo.
After the incident, Yitzhak asked Danny and Ariana to leave his house, but in the morning, he let Ariana stay. When Danny was packing, Ariana enters his room and manipulates him to help her scare the person who raped her and not actually kill him. Danny reveals to Rya that he didn’t realize what he was doing was crazy, however now he realizes that Ariana’s words were manipulative. He kept on talking about the incident and stumped when Rya asked who was the person. To everyone’s shock, it was Marlin, Danny’s stepfather. The whole story changed when Rya finally helped Danny realize that it was all a setup, to begin with. Apparently, that was the beginning of everything to understand why Danny was set up. The episode flashes back to Yitzhak asking Danny to find his father after the incident and Danny revealing that this was all that they wanted since they showed up at the ‘ghost house’.
The episode unveiled mind-bending twists but also left the audience with several questions. When Yitzhak asked Danny to find his father, was that person his real father or Marlin? And did we all get it wrong, maybe it was Danny’s real father who actually raped Ariana? Well, these questions can only be answered in the remaining seven episodes. Stay tuned and until then, keep crafting your own understanding of the characters and the story.
‘The Crowded Room’ Episode 3 is streaming on Apple TV+
