One Two Three

Mab returns home and excitedly shares River’s news with her sisters. Monday is unimpressed. She points out that everyone in town knows the water is not potable, and they also know that the Templeton men are notorious liars. It will shock no one that Nathan is only pretending to drink the tap water.

Mirabel is out enjoying a crisp fall morning. From Tom, she gets a pile of supplies for their household. He has separate piles for many different townspeople, all containing repurposed items that each household needs. On her way home, she runs into River. The two talk, and he expresses admiration for how intelligent she and her sisters are. He is sure that each of them will leave Bourne to attend college. Mirabel is not convinced that this will be possible, especially for her. She also wonders what she’ll do after her mother’s death. She is not able to care for herself, and she does not know how she would manage without Nora to look after her.

River is not able to find much information on his father’s phone. Nathan is always on his phone, and River is only able to scan through it quickly while his father is in the shower. He finds only a three-email conversation between Nathan and Duke that is not particularly damning. He promises Mab that he will keep trying.

Apple shows up at the Mitchell home and asks Monday if she has any of the library’s old files. She would also like materials to help River apply to colleges. Monday tells Apple to stay put and not touch anything while she locates the materials Apple is looking for, and when she returns, she finds that Apple has moved around and touched many things. It is clear that she has been snooping through the books and files gathered in the Mitchell home. Apple leaves quickly, almost running into Mab, who has returned with a mysterious green file folder.

Apple Templeton surprises Nora by showing up for a therapy session. Nora is even more surprised when Apple informs her that she dislikes her husband and believes that the people of Bourne were indeed poisoned by Belsum. Just as Apple is leaving, Russell Russo calls Nora and tells her that she and Omar are the only names remaining on the lawsuit against Belsum. The company has bought out the townspeople by offering everyone new jobs. Belsum is willing to employ anyone who wants a job, on the condition that they remove their name from the lawsuit.

Mab’s green folder contains the email chain that River stole from his father. In it, Nathan and Duke Templeton discuss the timeline for the plant’s reopening, which, for reasons that the girls do not yet comprehend, cannot take place between December and March. A reopening date has been set for late November, which is only a month away. The emails also contain clear evidence that the Templetons are aware of the dangers of the plant, both past and present, and that they intend to ignore them and proceed anyway. The emails make it clear that the plant will reopen and that the town will once again be at risk. Duke also expresses concern that someone in town will find evidence that Belsum knowingly poisoned Bourne, although he does not clarify what exactly that information might be or where it is located.

Monday searches her library for the hidden evidence that Duke referenced in his emails; however, it is a difficult task because she has no sense of what she is looking for. When the library closed, some of its files were destroyed, some remained in the library attic, and others went to Monday and Omar. Monday hopes that the evidence against Belsum is somewhere in their home, but there is no way of knowing without digging through everything page by page. Today, although she does not find evidence, she does find an old picture of Bourne that, oddly, shows two rivers where there is now only one.

Apple Templeton returns to Nora for another therapy session. She tells Nora more about her unhappy marriage to Nathan and relates that her mother initially objected to the match because she was sure that Nathan was just after their money. Apple married him anyway, and now she regrets it. She and her husband are no longer in love, and she claims to object to Belsum’s nefarious goings-on in Bourne. She tells Nora that her family donated the stained glass in the original library and that she is hunting for some letters of her father’s that are in town somewhere because he wouldn’t want his good name mixed up in the Templeton scandals. Later, at the bar, Nora asks about Apple’s family and finds out that they were the original owners of the library, which had begun as a stately family home. Apple’s maiden name was Groves, and her family represented the original “old money” in Bourne, long before the arrival of the Templetons and Belsum Chemical.

River steals his father’s key to the plant so that Mab can search the filing cabinets located in the office there. The two children bicycle to the shuttered building, but they find it already staffed with a security guard. River lies to the man, explaining that Nathan knows he plans to explore the plant that morning, and the guard lets Mab and River in; River doesn’t even have to use the stolen key. There, they find an orderly, clean office containing row after row of filing cabinets. They begin their search, but their mutual attraction finally takes over, and the two end up kissing instead of hunting for secrets.

Monday tells her sisters about the mysterious second river that used to run through Bourne, and Maribel explains that there were not really two rivers; instead, the town installed a dam, which changed the river’s course. The girls ask their mother and Pastor Jeff when and why this happened and learn that the dam was erected right before Belsum came to town. Children used to wade in the river, but the current was so swift that parents worried about their safety. The purpose of the dam was to create Bluebell Lake, a calmer body of water that would allow everyone to swim without fear of being swept downriver.

Maribel has skipped school in order to be present for Apple Templeton’s next therapy session and has accompanied her mother to work. Nathan Templeton shows up unannounced and asks if Nora has time to see him. Although she protests, he sits down and begins to talk. Initially, he rambles on about Belsum’s deep and abiding interests in Bourne and its inhabitants, but he eventually admits that he has reservations about the company and about his father. He tells Nora that he pursued a PhD in chemistry against his father’s wishes, and although Duke wanted him to get an MBA and run Belsum, he just wanted to teach university courses in a small town. Apple, however, had other plans, so he gave up his academic career to run his father’s company.

He also admits to having invented GL606, the chemical that poisoned Bourne’s water supply. The creation of GL606 was an accidental discovery during his dissertation process, and when he began testing the chemical, he found that it was dangerous to animals. However, his father did not care about the potential damage that GL606 could cause to the town of Bourne, and, as Nathan explains, the compound was able to slip through regulatory loopholes because it was not ingestible, nor had it ever been proven to cause harm in practice. He tells Nora that he feels tremendous guilt over his role in Bourne’s downfall, but he assures her that they have now fixed the problems with GL606 and that it is safe. As he tells it, the re-opening of the plant is meant to make amends, and he claims that because the product is no longer dangerous, the plant can bring jobs and prosperity back to Bourne.