Stuck and injured in a snowed-in motel in the mountains, Charlie has to figure out the dangerous secrets of its occupants.
Tropes
- Alone with the Psycho: Charlie realizes she's in this position after Trey shoots Jimmy.
- Asshole Victim: Morty is a woman clearly looking out for number 1 only, as she uses Chloe's murder as blackmail material and was willing to leave Charlie at Trey's mercy. She's one of the show's few victims to actually deserve what she has coming.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- When a familiar car arrives at the motel after Trey and Jimmy find the hit-and-run victim they tried to bury collapsed at their front door, the audience is likely to assume that it's Charlie coming along to stumble across and solve the mystery. Going further into the ep, we see "Morty" - the klepto Charlie meets - wearing similar clothing to the victim. But it turns out Charlie is the victim; Morty, who found (i.e., stole) her car, is the driver.
- We're led to believe that Trey will get caught because he drank from the cup with the sedatives in it which will knock him out before he can get back to the house. Instead, he powers through it and makes it back, only to get caught anyway because Charlie removed his ankle bracelet.
- Blackmail Backfire: Poor Morty makes the mistake of thinking blackmailing a suspected killer for his fancy car is going to work out in her favor.
- Boom, Headshot!: Jimmy joins Chloe, Morty, and everyone else who's been murdered in the show this way.
- Boredom Montage: Trey, under house arrest, does the same thing every day — Works out on his Peloton, makes himself a health shake, plays his golf simulator and driving video game, orders takeout and doesn't tip — and we see him getting more frustrated and bored.
- Call-Back: Charlie's sensitive nose provides a crucial clue, just as in "The Stall"
- Chaotic Stupid: Trey is a hopeless idiot coasting on the entitlement of his parent's money and Jimmy being a Hyper-Competent Sidekick, whose initially successful murder gets revealed because, while under house arrest, he chose to abuse a break in his ankle monitor's service to do some drunk driving in snow in the mountains, and resorts to murder and runs his mouth too often to keep Jimmy on his side.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Morty keeps stealing Charlie's wallet. At the end of the episode, Charlie sees on TV that Morty had it with her when she was killed so the authorities think she was Charlie, giving Charlie the perfect cover of being "dead" - well, perfect if Cliff wasn't already parked right outside her hospital.
- Trey's favorite drink, coconut rum, is used in an attempt to drug Charlie; she fakes swallowing the pills and spits them back out into the cup. Later, after Trey thinks he killed Charlie, he takes a swig from the glass, with the pills dissolved into it, leading him to become drugged to the point where he almost doesn't make it back to his house. It wouldn't have mattered much if he did, but still.
- After regaining consciousness in the motel, Charlie recounts that after she got run over, she had a memory of being in a beach club with her family when she was 8. The same memory being triggered after nearly drinking from Trey's cup makes her realize that she smelled the same substance (coconut rum)note after being run over, and learning that it's Trey's favorite drink causes her to figure out Trey is the hit-and-runner - and consequently the murderer of Chloe Jones.
- Closed Circle: Charlie, "Morty", Trey and Jimmy are trapped in the Deerfield Motel in the middle of heavy snowfall, with no cell reception, and the phone lines are cut.
- Darkest Hour: Charlie goes through pretty much the worst day in her life, having been run over by a car, left for dead in a hole, ends up witnessing multiple deaths, and then stabbed in the chest and left for dead in the same hole. And when it seems like things could get better for her after not only surviving but her identity also being attributed to a dead woman, Cliff is lurking right outside the hospital she's admitted to, having tracked her down.
- Death by Falling Over: Jimmy believes Trey that Chloe died after taking some bad cocaine, hitting her head as she fell. Turns out Trey just killed her himself.
- Death by Materialism: Morty gets killed trying to blackmail Trey for his car over Chloe's death.
- Eating the Eye Candy: Charlie drinks it in when Luke takes off his shirt.
- Extremely Short Timespan: The bulk of the episode takes place over a single period of under 24 hours. The montage of Charlie's experiences with Luke, however, spans months, by far the longest timespan seen in any one episode.
- Failed a Spot Check:
- Trey manages to not once but twice fail to realize that Charlie is still alive before he dumps her in the hole he and Jimmy use to dispose of bodies.
- He also fails to notice she cut off his ankle monitor until he gets back to his mansion.
- Gilligan Cut: Charlie is shown enjoying the mountains in the summer, a wonderful time and boasting "I am never leaving Magic Mountain!" Cut to her in the middle of a February snowstorm, trying desperately to earn enough money where she can get off the mountain.
- Give Me Back My Wallet: This happens more or less every time Charlie and Morty interact.
- Hate Sink: In a show that's never been particularly interested in making its villains sympathetic, Trey stands out as one with absolutely zero redeeming qualities.
- Hope Spot: Charlie and Trey alternate hope spots towards the climax of the episode, with Charlie getting one when she gets the knife (then undone by said knife entering her chest), then Trey gets one when he manages to get home before his parole officer (undone by realizing his ankle tracker was gone), then Charlie celebrates after realizing that she is announced dead to the public at large, as Sterling wouldn't need to continue his hunt for her. Cut to Cliff waiting outside.
- Hyper-Competent Sidekick: It becomes extremely clear in the episode that Trey is so impulsive and stupid that he would have been caught long ago if not for Jimmy being better at covering up his crimes than Trey could ever be.
- Implicit Prison: Trey is stuck in his house thanks to the ankle bracelet as part of his parole, and is going out of his mind from boredom.
- Karmic Death: Morty can't help but to steal or put her own interests above everything else, and it's this attitude that gets her killed when trying to blackmail an even bigger danger who thinks the same way.
- Kick the Dog: Trey repeatedly stiffing the delivery guy makes us dislike him right off.
- Legally Dead: Charlie wakes up to discover that Morty's body has been mistaken for her own, meaning that she's finally safe from discovery (or so she thinks).
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Trey handles Morty by bashing her head into the steering wheel of his car, then pushing it off a cliff with her in it.
- Mr. Fanservice: We don't learn all that much about Luke, but damned if he isn't easy on the eyes. One look at him with his shirt off sends Charlie into a summer fling, vowing to never leave the mountain until Winter sobers her up.
- Near-Villain Victory: Trey makes it back to his home just before the power comes back on the monitoring for his ankle bracelet, boasting of how he's won and getting away with murder, his parole officer calling... then looks down to realize Charlie stole his ankle monitor.
- Nice to the Waiter: The fact that Trey refuses to tip his deliveryman, despite clearly being wealthy and living well out of the way in the mountains, shows what kind of guy he is.
- Not Quite Dead: Charlie is left for dead twice, once after being hit by Trey's car and again after he stabs her in the chest; both times, she manages to get out, either by her own power or because she's stolen Trey's ankle monitor.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Morty freaks out when she realizes that the "stick" Charlie used to get out of the hole is actually a human's leg bone.
- Trey's face when he realizes his ankle monitor is gone says it all.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: "Mortimer Bernstein" is the name on one of Morty's stolen credit cards - we never learn her real name.
- Running Gag: Charlie continuing to ask Morty to give back her wallet.
- Running Over the Plot: The plot kicks off when Trey, taking a joyride when his house arrest monitor goes out due to a snowstorm, hits a pedestrian and drives to his friend Jimmy's motel to bury the body. Later, we discover that the victim was none other than Charlie herself, who survives.
- Saying Too Much: For years, Jimmy believed Chloe died as a result of a fall from bad drugs he sold her. It's Trey yelling about "another chick going crazy on me," for Jimmy to realize Trey killed her.
- Shout-Out: Charlie, dazed in a snowbound motel after getting hit by a car, says that she's "always been the caretaker." Also, the cut to a snow-covered landscape with a harsh sound effect and a large title card is reminiscent of a certain Wham Shot in that same movie.
- Sticky Fingers: Morty is a compulsive thief, picking pockets almost as a reflex. Sometimes this serves her well, as when she takes Trey's gun from his back pocket. Other times, it just gets her into more trouble.
- Time Skip: Charlie arrives on Magic Mountain sometime in the summer and stays there through the fall and into the winter.
- Too Clever by Half: Morty figures out what Trey is up to, and outwits him for his car and lulled into a sense that she's got every chip on the board, not realizing that the murderer she's trying to blackmail has put himself into a position where he can hurt her.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: For once, not Charlie. If Morty hadn't abandoned Charlie in her car by the side of the road, Charlie wouldn't have been in the position to get hit by Trey's car, and the events of the entire episode (including Morty's own death) wouldn't have happened.
- Wham Episode: Charlie has several near-death experiences, her identity is found on a dead woman's body, and Cliff has finally caught up with her and she can't run thanks to being hospitalized.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: We never find out what happened to Luke, the hunky guy Charlie had a summer fling with.
