‘Dirty John’ Episode 4 Recap: “Shrapnel”

With each new episode of Dirty John, I have the exact same thought running thought my head: if I didn’t already know this story was true—if I hadn’t heard the exact words coming out of Connie Britton’s mouth were first said by the real Debra Newell—I wouldn’t possibly be able to believe it. How could someone so successful, with so many people around her telling her to run, believe that this twirling-mustache of a villain truly loves her?

Being frustrated with Debra is simply part of the Dirty John experience, and in Sunday night’s episode, the series tackles what is probably the hardest pill to swallow in the entire Debra/John saga. And it took place long before she ever swiped right on his shirtless pics.

Last week, we learned about John’s past: the early cons, the mounting lies, the women he used and disposed of, and the men who stood by and helped him get away with it. It all eventually led to John Meehan showing up on Debra Newell’s doorstep for a date, fresh out of a stay in Orange County Prison, and ready to prey on what was surely his greatest catch yet. But this week, we learn that it’s not just John’s past that laid the ground work for this perfectly disastrous pairing. Flashbacks to 20 years ago mean two things: getting to see Jean Smart out of her old lady makeup and—hold onto your wigs—having to endure a character making even more unbelievable decisions than Debra.

The story of Debra’s older sister Cindi being shot and killed by her husband is one that’s been hinted at in past episodes, but now we learn the full, chilling details of the murder, and in parallel cuts between the past and the present, come to see how the cyclical nature of family trauma could have put Debra in a position to be particularly susceptible to John’s manipulations. Debra was raised in a home that taught unwavering forgiveness and endless love, and whether intentional or not, played its part in a long history within the Christian church of employing guilt and shame to keep women in dangerous situations.

What is required of forgiveness when the person on the other side poses a threat to your wellbeing? Can it really be love when it’s built on a foundation of lies? And is a commitment under the eyes of God not voided under the eyes of God when you find out the co-committee has purposefully and constantly misled you? These are questions that Debra’s mother Arlane seems to have somewhat turned around on by the time Debra begins unraveling John’s lies. But when we meet her in flashback at the top of the episode, Arlane is…making some choices.

Sitting at the breakfast table of the house she still lives in today, we see Arlane taking part in two very different conversations on the same subject: one is with her daughter Cindy who’s saying she’s miserable in her marriage, and the other is with her son-in-law Bobby who’s pitiful and sobbing about how he loves Cindi and wants to save their marriage.

Cindi tells her mother that Bobby has ignored her complaints for years, but now that she’s finally ready to leave, he wants to go to counseling, “so someone can tell me to try harder.” But Bobby controls everything Cindi does; he won’t let her wear a bikini to the beach, won’t let her do anything alone, and now she now knows that they got married way too young. Arlane tells her daughter she wants to stop her from “making a mistake you won’t be able to fix.” And Arlane tells Bobby: “When Cindy thinks about what she thinks she missed, it’s easier for her to just blame you. It’s easier for her to say you’re in her way and she wants a new start rather than trying to make the life she has into the life she wants.”

Can you imagine throwing your own child under the bus like this?

But we’ve seen Debra do it too. When her youngest Terra begged her not to let John interact with her nieces and nephews, Debra agreed… then immediately arrived at Christmas with John dressed like a gift-laden Santa, and when Terra ran off upset, she rolled her eyes and explained it away to Toby as Terra being spoiled and needing to grow up. It’s a lesser form of manipulating the truth, but they’re both examples of this family’s history of ignoring reality in order to hold onto an easier, more comfortable truth they’ve built in their heads…

For Arlane, that’s looking past the fact that Cindi is miserable and being controlled by her husband in order to uphold the idea of marriage that she believes in. “When we choose what we want, what we feel right now, over what we promised, over what we swore to somebody—that can haunt us the rest of our lives,” Arlane tells her daughter, following up with good ol’ Proverbs 3:5.

I want to reach through time and space and screen to tell Cindi, Girl, if your husband won’t let you go to the grocery store alone, divorce his ass, whether your mother’s faith agrees with it or not! But I won’t get to tell Cindi that, nor will Arlane have another chance to support her eldest daughter with safety and care rather than with ideologies. Because in both Debra and Arlane’s cases, the final results of turning a blind eye to truth is nothing short of tragedy.

In flashback, Bobby, still a mess, arrives at his friend’s house to pick something up. The friend’s wife passes over a gun and bullets, and tells Bobby to be safe.

In present day, Ronnie is sitting with her own mother, Debbie, in the Newport Police Station, standing her signature ground to a detective who’s telling them there aren’t any current charges he can bring John in on, but at least now he’s back on their radar. Debra listens to all of this take place through a haze, like it’s happening in another room. And when she and Ronnie exit, we realize the constant buzzing we were hearing wasn’t a noise in the police station, but Debra’s cell phone. When Ronnie drops Debra off at her new hotel hideout, with her inconspicuous clothes and her brown wig, all measures to avoid being found by John, we find out who it is: John.

Finally, he leaves Debra a voicemail from the hospital where he’s still laid up: You figured it out now, I guess. I don’t understand where you are, Deb. I don’t understand what’s happening. Maybe I do, I just don’t wanna believe you’re a coward. You promised this was forever. We promised that to each other. I guess you didn’t mean it—but I did. The choices we make show who we are…and I know who you are now, Deb.

Oh, this asshole knows just what he’s doing, doesn’t he? We might never know exactly what in John’s past shaped him into the conscienceless criminal we know him to be, but here, with an understanding of her family history, we’re given a pretty good historical reason for why Debra couldn’t recognize the evil in him. It doesn’t make it any less frustrating, but it does snap a few more puzzle pieces in place.

In flashback, Arlane waits for Cindi who’s supposed to be coming over for another chat about her estranged marriage, but instead, two police officers arrive at the door to give her the new that Cindi was shot by her husband, who then turned the gun on himself. Cindi died; Bobby, her murderer, didn’t. And if you were someone who felt Arlane threw her daughter under the bus earlier…buckle up because this is when the ride gets really wild.

Arlane collapses into prayers when the officers deliver the news, and comes up with a sort of numb resolve: “I can do this, I’m not alone.” She goes into the other room and tells 11-year-old Toby that his father has shot and killed his mother. It’s impossible to know the right way to deliver this news to a child in that moment of grief, but this feels like…not it.

Of course, we’ve been able to observe that of everyone in this family, Toby seems to be the only one who turned out to be both kind and logical, so maybe it was okay. He tells his grandmother that he can be strong with her, and in present day, we see grown-up Toby now attempting to comfort his aunt. But just as in the police station, Debra seems to have her ears turned to 50 percent while Toby talks about John. Even though Debra has the facts to be able to see John for who he really is now, there seems to be a constant pull for her to want to ignore those things—or as she might see it, to forgive those things.

And there is nothing sadder than the fake laugh Connie Britton rolls out to try and convince the people around her that she’s just as disgusted by John as they are. (Except, of course, trapping Connie Britton’s beautiful golden hair under a ratty brown wig: that is the saddest of all.) Even Arlane can admit that she felt something missing inside of John, assuring Debra that she did nothing to deserve the way he lied to her. But she also assures her daughter, that even though John’s done all these things and told all these lies, she’s sure he loved her…

And there that is again. This concept of love that can exist in a vacuum—exist outside of action and consequence.

In flashback, we see Arlane arrive at a prison; she’s there to speak to Billy. “You killed my daughter, Billy—I hate what you’ve done, more than I’ve ever hated anything in this whole world,” she tells him. “But you loved her, I know that. God has given us all this love we have for each other, and long ago he showed us who you are. So we love you still…we all do.”

I would like to say this very clearly: speak for your fuckin’ self, lady.

With that message rolling around in our heads, knowing that it’s the one Debra grew up with her whole life, we see her approach John’s hospital bed, and it feels like a horror film. He is the picture of a sinner begging for forgiveness.

But Debra, bless her for trying, does first asks for some answers. And boy, does John ever have some them for her. That restraining order—it was his ex-wife trying to get back at him. Those other restraining orders—they’re other John Meehans! Saying he was a doctor when he wasn’t, saying he went to Iraq when he didn’t—that was his ego trying to impress her because she’s soooo successful and he “just wanted to be great” for her. The gun he was building and the cyanide pills the police found—oh, well he didn’t want to tell her this, but everything those were a plan-b because everything that seemed like the signs of a drug addiction…it was actually MS.

John tells Debra, right there in a hospital, that he has MS. Because he knows she’ll believe him. “I told you it was shrapnel,” he says of one of his many lies: “But I’m the shrapnel. The drugs, they explode me, they make me lie, they make me steal, and they make me hurt the people that I love the most.”

Nothing is ever John Meehan’s fault, and it’s sickening to watch Debra fall for it. But he knows exactly how to make her do it; she might not know him at all, but he knows her. He’s met her mother, he knows her past. And so it’s awful, but not a shock to hear John tell Debra before she leaves: “I lied, I lied about me, I lied about my past, about my job—but never about you. I never lied about how much I love you, Deb.” But again, we scream at our televisions: Where is the truth in love when it’s built on a foundation of lies? How is that a love that would warrant not just forgiveness, but blind acceptance?

Cue Arlane. In flashback, she has arrived at Billy’s lawyer’s office. She wants to testify at Billy’s trial…on behalf of him…at the trial for the murder of her daughter…the murder committed by him…

If I didn’t know it was true, I wouldn’t believe it.

Arlane’s treacly voice sound like nails on chalkboard as she describes how surprised Billy was that Cindi wanted a divorce, how much he did to try to save the marriage, how he never really had a chance. She tells the courtroom how Bobby had such a pure heart, how he worked for their family, how his whole life was about Cindy and Toby…

If I didn’t know it was true, I wouldn’t believe it.

“Bobby did a terrible thing, the worst thing,” she tells the jury in the trial for the murder of her daughter by her husband. “But if he had been in his right mind, he never could have done that. So I can still love Bobby and I can forgive him because I want to forgive him. Because of what I know.” And here, she looks straight to camera: “I know his heart was full of love—he just lost his way”

If I didn’t know it was true, I wouldn’t believe it…

In the present day, we see John being wheeled out of the hospital, and Debra there waiting for him, a blank look of resolve on her face. And in in flashback, we see her older sister Cindy: sitting at a table, going about some paperwork, with no idea that her husband behind her is pulling out a gun to shoot her in the back of head.

Jodi Walker writes about TV for Entertainment Weekly, Vulture, Texas Monthly, and in her pop culture newsletter These Are The Best Things. She vacillates between New York, North Carolina, and every TJ Maxx in between.

Watch Dirty John Episode 4 ("Shrapnel") on Bravo