Elliot, bruised and bloody, sits in a car. A visibly pregnant Beverly steps out of a huge mansion, watching her. Beverly shakes her head. Silas carries a bag out to a distraught Elliot.
Earlier, Silas is at home alone. He monologues about not writing, his anxiety and depression. Until Rebecca calls. She demands a puff piece about the Mantles and their new Birthing Centre in Alabama.
Lenka strokes the head of her premature baby, sleeping in his crib. Beverly watches, cradling her own bump, calling the baby a miracle. Silas asks if she really believes in them.
With Genevieve gone, all’s well between the twins. Beverly meditates while Elliot cooks for them both. Elliot even asks about the baby. On their way to the airport Beverly reminds Elliot she loves her. Moved, Elliot takes her hand.
Silas meets the twins at Rebecca’s private jet. On the flight he asks about Elliot’s addiction, which both twins deny, and their co-dependency. He’s perplexed when Beverly claims they’re both about to become parents, raising her babies together. Silas grills them about Alabama. But Beverly comes in clutch with statistics about maternal mortality and poverty.
Susan Parker welcomes the Mantles and Silas to her family home. She invites Beverly to rest whenever she needs, reminding Silas to be gentle. She introduces them to her sisters, grandmother, and father – Dr Marion James.
It’s awkward at first. Beverly talks to Florence, Susan’s heavily pregnant sister. Marion invites the twins to examine her – until now he’s been her OB. The Mantles, being hypocrites, find it weird. They’re even more thrown by the detail Florence will be their first patient, having her quadruplets delivered tomorrow at the new Centre.
Over dinner, conversation turns to birth. Marion’s fascinated by Lenka’s baby, thriving against all odds. It’s Elliot’s earliest successful delivery. Even Silas is impressed, if concerned about the implications for women’s right to abortion. Marion knows Elliot’s responsible for the miracle baby, but Beverly’s shaken by the revelation.
Marion waxes lyrical about his own career specialising in women’s health. He describes the birth of modern obstetrics, glossing over the abuse of Black women. After dinner he asks how Elliot made Lenka fertile. She has a flashback to the delivery, calling Tom to help rather than Beverly because the implantation was “unusual, high-risk” and also illegal – and Elliot had no idea what the consequences would be. She grew the embryo a full month before putting it in. Elliot keeps the truth secret, which Marion accepts. Beverly guesses the truth and vomits, disgusted.
Beverly remembers watching Lenka, amazed the baby breathes on his own. And Silas asking about Genevieve. She and Beverly only communicate via lawyers now. When Silas asks about their love, Beverly fights back tears and says Genevieve no longer exists to her.
At home Greta tries on the Mantles’ clothes, stuffing a jumper up her top and being sad like Beverly. Later she dresses as Elliot, bold and flamboyant, dancing.
In the bath Beverly ignores Elliot’s knocking, biting on her arm to keep from screaming. Elliot tries to pass off the Lenka situation as a joke with Marion. Beverly dips under the water, not wanting to hear it.
Later Susan finds Beverly and explains their mother regretted having them all and left. She’s sure Beverly will be a good mother.
Elliot tracks down Silas, unimpressed when he asks whether she wants kids. As far as Elliot’s concerned, the babies are hers as much as Beverly’s. She hates Silas differentiating between them. But he charms Beverly into opening up about her addiction. She spins pushing Agnes off the balcony into a funny story about hallucination.
Beverly has an intense nightmare about when she was a child, swimming and struggling to find her sister. She explores the house, following groaning, and finds a Black woman who retells the story Marion shared at the dinner table from the perspective of a girl enslaved and experimented on without anaesthetic. Beverly’s covered in blood. Until Elliot calls to her, and she wakes up.
In the morning Greta leaves the apartment. The building next door is cordoned off, swarming with police and CSI. They found Agnes.
At the new Centre all Susan’s family watch from the gallery as Marion and the Mantles perform a C-section on Florence. She’s ecstatic, ready to meet her kids. All four baby girls are fine.
But Elliot cuts Florence’s bladder by accident, spattering blood everywhere. Marion pulls Elliot away from his daughter, throwing her into the wall.
Back at the mansion, Rebecca’s pragmatic, going into damage control mode. When Marion kicks off Rebeca pulls rank, reminding him she owns his house. The Parkers are trying to wipe the botched surgery from Twitter, determined to press on with the Centre.
Elliot sits out in the car, banished and bloody. Silas carries his bag out. Beverly appears with no bag. She remembers Elliot’s lies about Lenka and goes back inside, ignoring Elliot’s shouts. Silas watches Elliot fully melt down without her sister, screaming and kicking bags.
Inside Beverly sees Rebecca and Susan kiss. She watches Elliot speed away in the rental car. She calls Genevieve, claiming to have left her sister; that Elliot no longer exists.
Elliot goes home, alone save for the dog. Beverly has a romantic dinner with Genevieve. Rebecca phones Silas, warning him not to write. But he sits at the laptop with a Dictaphone and an article about Agnes being found on a rooftop. And Silas writes.
