Original air date: 10/6/2022
A murder mystery podcast inspires Sam to develop her own based on Alberta's turbulent life. To gather more information, she invites Alberta's obsessive fan Todd back to the mansion despite Jay and the ghosts' warnings, and he comes across Alberta's secret diary; meanwhile, Flower shows Hetty how to use the mansion's noisy washing machine as a sexual stimulant.
Tropes:
- Dark Secret: Alberta thinks ratting out Clara to the police was this.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Alberta is convinced everyone will hate her if they find out she got her professional start by Removing the Rival, having her sent to jail so she could take her place in a show. However, as Sam points out, the context changes things a lot from a modern perspective. The rival was an Alpha Bitch who was picked over Alberta solely because she was thin and conventionally beautiful, despite Alberta being way more talented. Alberta, despite working her ass off and having an amazing voice, was never given a fair shot in show business because of her size. With awareness of unfair beauty standards and discrimination based on looks being far greater in the twenty-first century, Sam correctly guesses that modern people hearing this story are much more likely to take Alberta's side, seeing her not as a cheater, but as an underdog leveling the playing field.
- Dramatic Gasp: Sam gasps at the revelation that Alberta ratted out the club headliner Clara to the police so she could take her place. Isaac later enters and comments that he sensed a good gasp somewhere. Later, as the ghosts discover that Clara was at the house the night Alberta died, thus making her the chief suspect in her murder, they all gasp, with Isaac complementing them on a good gasping.
- Hypocrite: Alberta claims that nothing is worse than being a rat (one of her big hits was even about this), and yet she ratted out Clara to advance her career. Sam convinces her that rather than making her look bad, her decision was excusable due to the circumstances Alberta found herself in and, if anything, made her more relatable.
- Removing the Rival: Alberta got rid of Clara, who got the lead singer spot over her because she was more beautiful, by calling the cops on her for illegally distributing liquor (which everyone was doing during Prohibition anyway).
- The Roaring '20s: The flashbacks are set at the height of the Harlem Renaissance; 1926 and 1924 to be exact.
- Secret Diary: Todd discovers Alberta's diary hidden in a secret compartment in her nightstand. Alberta is worried that he will discover her darkest secret, that she ratted out Clara to advance her own career.
