[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for A Million Little Things Season 4, Episode 16 “Lesson Learned.”]
By the end of the latest A Million Little Things episode, we’re left with two question: Has a murder been committed, and if so, did Anna (Erin Karpluk) do it?
Gary (James Roday Rodriguez), Maggie (Allison Miller), Eddie (David Giuntoli), and Anna’s double date comes to an abrupt end when Peter Benoit (Andrew Leeds), the music teacher who assaulted Sophie Dixon (Lizzy Greene), shows up at the restaurant. “How could you, after everything I told you?” Anna asks Carly (Robyn Ross), his date. But Peter told her that stuff wasn’t true, plus the podcast was taken down, Carly argues. “How many girls were just making it up?” Anna asks her ex-husband when he joins them. Then she finds out they’re there to watch one of his students play, and she can’t believe he’s still teaching. Gary, Maggie, and Eddie back Anna up, and Peter comments that Gary looks familiar. “I’m the guy that knows where you live,” he tells him.
That run-in stays with Anna as Eddie drives her home. “How many other girls is he hurting?” she worries. She turns down his offer to cancel his plans for the next day (a music convention) to stay with her. “Honestly, I could probably use a day to process,” she says. The next day, he tries texting her but she doesn’t respond.
Meanwhile, Detective Saunders (Brian Markinson) stops by Gary’s and tells him and Maggie that Peter’s cleaning lady found him dead at the bottom of the stairs that morning. There were “no signs of forced entry,” so it’s looking like it was probably an accident, but the detective has to cover all the bases, considering Peter was attacked semi-recently. Gary does have an alibi: He and Maggie were at the fertility doctor, though they’re not yet telling anyone their plans to have a baby. Rome (Romany Malco) overhears the detective wishing Gary luck when he stops by later to let him know the alibi checked out, and so he and Regina (Christina Moses) do now know.
But yes, it is possible it was just an accident, but if not, should the police be looking at Anna, given her reaction to seeing Peter again and concern for other girls he may be assaulting? Plus, her behavior when Eddie stops by to check on her after finding out what happened could be suspicious. She claims she didn’t respond because she broke her phone, though she also says the police called her that afternoon about Peter. So did she break the phone after speaking to the cops? Or could she have broken her phone while killing Peter? (Or does she have a landline, which might be more shocking than if she’d committed murder?)
But maybe there’s another reason she wasn’t responding to Eddie: She was drinking. How much she drinks has come up before, since he’s sober, and she did initially spot Carly at the bar while drinking tequila away from the others. And after letting Eddie into her home, she goes to throw out the trash and it does sound like there are bottles inside. Maybe what she’s hiding is how much alcohol she consumed between the dinner and the next evening, not that she took matters into her own hands when it comes to Peter in fear of the girls he may assault next. After all, can we rule out the possibility that Anna’s words to Peter and that entire confrontation may have gotten to Carly, and she may have done something? Or that it was, really, just a fall?
A Million Little Things, Wednesdays, 10/9c, ABC