"Annabelle" is a construct of Kate's traumatized mind by way of the mirrors in the basement.
After months of captivity, being drugged by Martin so he could bring her food (and possibly abuse her) without reprisal or attempted escape, with nothing to look at but her own reflection, Kate subconsciously produced "Annabelle" to cope with her loneliness, creating someone who would understand her torment through undergoing the same experience, which Kate lacks after her rescue and which she bitterly references. Annabelle's apparent death is something that Kate rationalizes after her rescue, again subconsciously, to explain why there were no signs of anyone else being held with her.- Jossed. Annabelle is an heirloom handgun belonging to Martin Harris, which Kate used to kill him.
You shouldn't believe either Kate or Jeanette.
As much as the series urge people to believe either Kate or Jeanette, both of them are known to be liars. Kate has lied about the abduction, Jeanette has lied about being in the house. I'm really going for a third option. I believe it was Mallory who saw Kate. Mallory has consistently been going down (and taking her friends down) a bad path with their list of things. After their falling out, I think she went to take back the necklace charm, found Jeanette's souvenirs, including the key to Martin's house. Combined with Martin's anger over the videotape and her detention, she went back to the house to do some mischief, and saw Kate. Kate saw the necklace charm, and believed it to be Jeanette. Mallory is known to despise Kate, and would also have to face some questions she'd prefer not to answer about how she knew about Kate's captivity.- Ok I totally agree, Kate knew it was Jeanette’s necklace and would wonder if Jeanette saw her there (she thought she was nice but didn’t know her well) but she’d especially have reason to believe it Jeanette was there when she later finds out that the girl stole her life. Kate mad that she was not only left in the basement when she could have been freed earlier by a girl she thought liked her, but wasn’t, and when she was saved found out that that same girl Jeanette stole her life. Kate would want her to feel pain and told everyone Jeanette saw her there. Mallory if she was there in 94 would still be hating Kate and would also be hating Jeanette by then. Mallory didn’t want to be in trouble she left it there believing if Jeanette somehow got in trouble then she deserved it. She didn’t think it would go as far as it did though. She was neutral at first hating both girls and just hoping she wouldn’t be found out however when she found out Kate was being sued by Jeanette Mallory by then thought Jeanette was just worse than Kate was, while noticing Kate herself was different from the girl she used to hate, and figuring Kate needed a friend befriended her, hoping if she is ever found out Kate will side with her over Jeanette.
- Somewhat confirmed. Mallory is the person who "saw" Kate, but she didn't actually see Kate's face and consequently didn't realize who it was until after Kate was freed.
- Yeah, my basics were fine, though details were off. Kate knew Jeanette had broken into the house with the necklace, and thought she knew it was her bicycle as well. However, she only saw Jeanette on Mallory's bicycle before, and made the wrong association as to who looked into the window. To be fair, even then Kate wasn't easily identified at that distance. Mallory's assumption that it was girlfriend or visiting family member was also wrong, but was a more likely guess than Kate was surreptitiously living with Martin.
Jeanette is the one who tipped off the police about Kate's location.
The Season 1 finale reveals that Jeanette heard Kate crying for help from the basement at some point in 1994 and chose not to let her out. While this initially looks like Jeanette's detractors were right about her character all along, take a look at how she's dressed in that scene: short dress, short-sleeved shirt, long, straight hair. In other words, she's dressed for summer, aka right around the time of Kate's rescue. Given that Martin Harris mentions the police closing in on him just before his death, it's possible Jeanette anonymously tipped them off. Now, why she would do this instead of just freeing Kate herself is another question.- Somewhat jossed. Showrunner Tia Napolitano explains in an article with TV Line that Jeanette quickly gauged the risk and reward to setting Kate free — what she had to earn and what she had to lose — and Napolitano implies that potentially losing her popularity by setting the most popular girl free would destroy her due to what she was raised to believe. However, That's all that's been officially said on it as of right now.
- That said, while this would explain why Jeanette didn't free Kate in that moment, it doesn't necessarily rule out the possibility that she changed her mind later out of guilt or another reason, and subsequently tip off the police anonymously rather than going in herself and risk encountering Martin or facing difficult questions about why she knew where Kate was.
- However if she tipped off the police, why would she be so terrified when she learned Kate had been found?
Jeanette miscalculated the cost-benefit analysis when weighing whether or not to free Kate in 1994
.Think about it. Yes, freeing Kate had its costs, but Jeanette failed to weigh the potential upsides. If she chose to free Kate, she would have earned her way into Kate's social circle and likely be viewed as a hero by the town. There would be obstacles of course, which are likely what Jeanette focused on-losing Jamie for instance-but what Jeanette generally wanted-popularity and social acceptance-would have still been achievable with the moral option. Which makes Jeanette's choice here all the more indicative of how fundamentally off she is that she either did not consider this or gravitated towards the potential drawbacks.- True, but how would she explain how she was in Martin’s house in the first place?
Jeanette has antisocial personality disorder.
Going over key symptoms:- Addiction — Antisocial personality disorder tends to increase impulsive and reckless behavior, which often contributes to substance abuse. At first glance, Jeanette doesn't meet this condition, but the addiction in her case is behavioral rather than to a substance-after the first time breaking into Martin's house, she becomes addicted to the rush of breaking rules and norms, which is what drives her to keep breaking into his house over the next two years.
- Impulsivity — Jeanette regularly does not think through the full implications of her actions, especially concerning optics of her interactions with other people.
- Limited empathy — Jeanette tends not to demonstrate much concern for other people, even her own friends or family. She tends to treat issues involving them from a lens of It's All About Me. She does not really consider that the optics of suing a kidnapping victim look bad for her even if she has a point and does not display much emapthy towards Kate until the final episode and even that loses a lot of legitimacy given the final scene.
