New mystery show Harlan Coben's Shelter debuted on Friday, August 18 with its first three episodes all landing on Prime Video, and it's time for us to recap the last of the initial trio of episodes.
Already in Shelter we've been faced with lots of mysteries surrounding the creepy house and the woman who lives in it, the disappearance of Ashley and enigmas from Mickey Bolivar's past, and it's starting to seem like they're all connected.
We've got a guide on how to watch Harlan Coben's Shelter if you want to watch it yourself, but this recap is intended to highlight the key plot points that you need to remember going forward. We've adjusted the order of events so we can present the details together.
So here's our Harlan Coben's Shelter episode 3 recap, and spoilers for it ensue.
A surveillance job
Mickey (Jaden Michael) is absent for the first half of school, due to he and Shira (Constance Zimmer) checking Kitty back into the clinic, but during an assembly in which a celebrity sponsor for the school musical is announced, he finally returns.
Arthur (Adrian Greensmith) introduces Mickey and Ema (Abby Corrigan) to a lounge he's created in an abandoned boiler room where they can hang out, in which he's made a classic red-string theory board for them. Arthur notes that Ashley disappeared on the same day Dylan Shakes did, 27 years prior
They decide to break into Ashley's locker to look for clues, but it's empty. Instead, Arthur downloads the entire school CCTV archive for them to look through, and they take turns scrubbing watching the footage to track Ashley's day before she disappeared.
When Mickey looks, we get a flashback to his time with Ashley in Spanish class, reciting the learnings of a group project — this is probably a fantasy though, given that Mickey only knew Ashley for a matter of hours. When Ema looks, she sees Ashley hiding crying, and she and Arthur try to work out where she'd come from before that, though all they can spot is her being bullied by the cheerleading squad.
However they also find footage from the night after the disappearance, of Sunglasses Man breaking into the locker, and it's empty save for the hippo magnet which he takes. When they look at earlier footage, they find a video of Rachel (Sage Linder) taking all of Ashley's belongings.
Through the episode, we do catch up on the cliffhanger from episode 2, of Rachel finding Ashley's money. Turns out she ran away from octopus man, though got cut on the arm in the process, and only survived by using Ashley's own gun to threaten the man.
Shira's big day
Mickey's aunt Shira has a lot going on. When she's sleeping at home her parents (Mickey's grandparents) show up, and they've decided to replace their wedding anniversary cruise with a party that they're hosting at their house (the one she's living in).
The party takes place that day, and because Mickey returns home late, Rachel is there too, waiting for him so they can do their group project. Everything becomes a little awkward when the Taylor family shows up, due to the ties between Shira and the adults of the family, and the fact that Rachel is Troy's (Brian Altemus) estranged girlfriend. As Rachel leaves, Troy follows her to ask why she's avoiding him, but she doesn't give an answer.
Shira gets annoyed at her mother for criticizing her decision not to have kids, a pointed remark at how she's struggling to look after Mickey. Shira retreats to the roof, where she's joined by her former best friend, and the mother of Troy, Hannah (Missi Pyle). They drink wine and decide they should be friends again.
When the party winds down, Mickey stumbles upon his grandparents arguing, due to the grandmother not wanting to talk about their son's death. Then Mickey has a flashback, to when he was camping with his father when he was younger — the man is washing blood of his hands, which alarms Mickey, and he tells them that they need to get out of there quickly. He suggests that he's protecting innocents but could be about to pay a price for it.
After the party as Mickey clears up, he and Shira play a quick game of basketball, finally getting some bonding done, where she admits that she didn't approve of his mom and dad due to his mom whisking his dad away and making him change all of his life plans. When Mickey leaves Hannah returns, and her and Shira start kissing.
Lizzy Sobek and the butterflies
The Bat Lady (Tovah Feldshuh) and Sunglasses Man (Hunter Emery) are still hunting for Ashley, as the former gets a flashback to refugee children escaping a concentration camp and being guided by magical blue butterflies.
Late in the episode, Mickey goes to the Bat Lady House, to ask the woman living there for answers. He sees Sunglasses Man driving into a hidden garage and rolls under the door to get in. He finds himself in some tunnels, which lead to the main house, and when he arrives there he finds out that the man knew he was being followed, and was waiting for Mickey.
Rather than being aggressive, though, Sunglasses Man summons the old woman, who promptly admits that she's actually Lizzy Sobek, who helped children escape from concentration camps in the war, and hers is a name that's been coming up through the episodes (Mickey and Rachel's history project was on her too).
Lizzy says the butterfly logo was originally used when she smuggled children out of Nazi concentration camps, as a symbol carved in trees for them to follow, until the Nazis started using it themselves to lure the kids back into a trap. While the legend says she rescued nearly 50 kids, actually only 6 of the 49 survived, as the rest were captured and killed by a man called The Butcher.
Lizzy shows Mickey a picture of The Butcher, and it looks eerily like the man who took away Mickey's dad in the first episode.
But there's more! We see footage showing that Ashley is still alive, sitting in a bed somewhere, with a butterfly tattoo on her shoulder. Then we cut to Mickey's previous flashback to his father, seeing it from a different angle, when Ashley was watching them from a distance until someone grabs her from behind.
