CBS’s Tell Me a Story
Chapter 10: “Forgiveness”
Directed by Craig Zisk
Written by Kevin Williamson & Mary Leah Sutton

* For a recap & review of the previous episode, “Deception” – click here
* Season 2 to come next year!
Colleen (Kim Cattrall) wakes in a hotel room to the news media coverage of her abduction from the shop. She sees the trunk in the room, but nothing else. Nick (Billy Magnussen) is keeping her there, refusing to let her leave. What’s his ultimate goal, though? After Kayla (Danielle Campbell) got away from him, in every sense of the word, what’s he after now? Is it only blood at this point?
At the hotel, Terry (Kurt Yaeger) is doing reconnaissance on Esther (Debra) and Katrina (Becki Newton) while Hannah (Dania Ramirez) waits out in the car. They’re trying to figure out all they can about the mother-daughter duo. Turns out the patriarch runs a “family of crooks.”
Jordan (James Wolk) sees the news about a “professional hit” on Dt. Garcia, which begins to thin out his options even worse than before. He knows Dt. Sam Reynolds (Dorian Missick) had her murdered. Except he has nothing concrete, and after his vigilante streak the cops will likely put cuffs on him.
Speaking of Sam, he’s over looking after the abduction of Colleen. He meets with Kayla and Tim (Sam Jaeger) to update them, though he doesn’t have much. They know Nick took her, they just need to find him to do something about it first. Tim’s not happy sitting back relaxing. Little do any of them know Mr. Sullivan’s lurking right under their noses, hiding in the restaurant where Tim works for Jordan as a chef in the restaurant.
Nick explains everything to Colleen, starting from when he stalked the family all the way to the city, to the point of causing an ‘accident’ for Kayla’s previous teacher. He’s obsessed with the young lady. “I could just eat her up,” he tells grandma, as if it’s a genuine scene from “Little Red Riding Hood” between the grandmother and the Big Bad Wolf.
Elsewhere, Jordan is back with Marianna (Simone Missick), wife of Dt. Reynolds. He asks her to open the safe in their home belonging to her husband. Inside, he finds the “$6–million in uncut diamonds” from the heist confirming everything. He tells the wife about what her dirty cop husband did to his own wife. She already suspected something was amiss, now she fully understands Sam is “a monster.” Jordan does the wrong thing by going to Dt. Olsen (James Martinez), entirely unaware of how deep the dirtiness goes in the department.
Hannah and Terry have enacted their plan. They have Esther someplace, and Katrina’s confronted with the possibility of her mother’s torture and death, just like they’ve been doing with Hannah’s brother Gabe (Davi Santos). This “Hansel and Gretel” story is fast becoming a scarier situation once Katrina puts a taser to our Gretel and a nearby man injects her with a syringe. Oh, shit.
While the cops are swarming around the house, Kayla gets a message from dead Ethan, telling her to go to the kitchen window. There, she finds a cellphone left on the ledge for her. She calls Nick, who’s smug and nasty. He tells the granddaughter her grandmother will die if she doesn’t come to the hotel alone. This prompts Kayla to put on her little red raincoat and go find grandma.
All the fairy tales are converging at the hotel, as upstairs Kayla arrives and heads upstairs. She finds Colleen at knife point in the room with Nick, then they all sit together. The Big Bad Wolf wants a game of “Truth or Dare.” He uses this to try and get Kayla to talk about their brief relationship, and Kayla tries to use this as an opportunity to get Nick to tell him the truth about his mother’s death. He reveals what truly happened that night. And then the granddaughter offers herself up to the Wolf in place of her grandma, hoping to save her.
At the hotel, Jordan finds himself caught in a room with Dt. Olsen and Dt. Reynolds. They order him to open his safe and give order the diamonds. Jordan does all he can do, trying to turn the two dirty cops against one another by sowing seeds of doubt and distrust. When Sam shoots Dt. Olsen, he’s knocked on his ass by Jordan, who’s able to get out of the room alive— for now.
Gabe and Hannah are in the basement together, tied up. Katrina doesn’t care about her mother anymore in the face of all that money they’re supposed to be getting for Dt. Reynolds. Hannah takes her chance to shit on Bruce (Tom Lipinski), the guy she nearly killed. She taunts him before attacking, and the two brutally fight once more, this time with a few more harsh weapons at their disposal. Before Bruce can choke Hannah to death he’s shot in the face by Gabe, who gets his hands on the dropped gun.
Nick has Kayla tie grandma up before they go. After that he sets the room on fire as a distraction. But Tim interrupts them, beating the Big Bad Wolf until he’s bloody on the floor, lying in the midst of the blaze. The family leave with the rest of the guests evacuating the hotel. Meanwhile, Gabe and Hannah are attacked by Katrina in the kitchen, though our Gretel burns her face on the grill and stabs her in the chest after a brief tussle.
There’s also Dt. Reynolds, continuing to hunt Jordan through the hotel. They wind up going fist-to-fist rather than gun against gun, and the vigilante widower finally gets the rotten detective at gunpoint. Jordan wants to kill him, and Sam dares him to, but Beth (Spencer Grammer) begs him not to become a cold blooded murderer. And he doesn’t shoot Sam— Sam shoots him in the chest. The detective gets his diamonds back, successfully escaping into the street. Although it’s only a matter of seconds and he gets run over by a car.
In the aftermath, Jordan dies. Grandma Colleen is safe back home. Nick’s body hasn’t yet been found in the rubble of the hotel floors burned by the fire, though Tim’s sure they’ll discover his corpse eventually.
That night, Kayla hears noises, so she goes to check on her grandmother. Everything’s fine. Well, except for the fact Mr. Sullivan’s returned. “You will learn to love me,” he tells Kayla while wrestling with her. She sends him flying over the stairs and he breaks his neck, ending their family’s terror once and for all.
This series got better and better with time. This Season 1 ending’s been great, so it’ll be interesting to see where Kevin Williamson & Co. take Season 2, given these fairy tales have come to an end. Williamson said recently there will be new fairy tales, new characters, though it would be fun to see some of these actors/actresses return. Who knows! Either way, good stuff, and nice to see Williamson back doing something intriguing again.