The episode opens with an aerial shot of the chemical plant ruins—on the scorched earth of the three-year-old fire, Dave Goodson squats down, his fingertips brushing the charred metal door frame, as the screams of his former comrades echo in his ears.
Meanwhile, three arson cases erupt in different corners of the city: Inside an abandoned motel, Freddie Fasano, after being released on bail, douses his tattered mattress with gasoline and sets it ablaze; in the flames, the mocking face of the fried chicken restaurant’s chef seems to materialize. In front of the city hall mailbox, a limping man in a fire uniform hurls a burning gasoline bomb; surveillance footage captures the white knee brace peeking out from his pant leg, matching the characteristics of the supermarket arsonist from Episode 2. Inside Michelle Calderon’s apartment, the night she receives news of her mother’s parole, her bedroom curtains suddenly catch fire—the pattern of the flames is identical to that of the childhood fire she witnessed. Amid the ashes, she finds a yellowed half-photo of a fire department group: Dave and Archie Harper are arm-in-arm, with the three-year-old chemical plant in the background.
The investigation gets mired in the three arson cases. At Freddie’s bail hearing, he suddenly tears open his shirt to reveal a chest covered in cigarette burns, shouting, “Fire can burn away all labels.” In his locker, Dave finds a copy of a novel manuscript—Freddie has copied verbatim the passage from Dave’s novel that reads, “Flames are class crushers.” Michelle discovers a fragment of a firefighter’s badge at the city hall arson scene; the serial number points to Archie Harper. When she confronts him, he sneers, “You should ask your partner how much he knows about the chemical plant fire.” Old case files from Michelle’s mother’s arson case reveal that a Zippo lighter identical to Dave’s was found at the scene back then. More eerily, at the parole hearing, the burn scar on her mother’s wrist is in exactly the same position as Dave’s.
Dave and Michelle raid Archie’s trailer, and the arsenal in the bunker is shocking: Among the crates are not only M16 rifles but also a copy of the three-year-old chemical plant fire investigation report—with key pages torn out. Encrypted files on Archie’s phone show frequent calls between him and Dave’s deceased comrade. When Michelle presses for answers, Archie suddenly presses a gun to his temple: “You think the chemical plant explosion was an accident?” In the chaos, Dave destroys the bunker’s surveillance hard drive—a scene Michelle witnesses, and she suddenly remembers: during the archive raid in Episode 2, Dave had deliberately sabotaged the monitoring equipment too.
Freddie’s arson trail finally leads to Dave’s residence. As he splashes gasoline onto the study, Dave sits in the dark writing his novel; the paper in the typewriter reads, “When the investigator becomes the judge, fire is the final jury.” Freddie trembles, holding a lighter: “You taught me—fire can burn away all injustice.” Dave stands, his sleeve slipping to reveal a burn scar identical to Michelle’s mother’s: “But you forgot—fire also burns the one who lights it.” When firefighters break in, Freddie lies in a pool of blood, clutching Dave’s novel manuscript—on the title page, it reads, “To those of us reborn in flames.” At the scene, Michelle notices that Dave’s Zippo lighter is engraved with the chemical plant’s coordinates.
The episode ends with three explosive twists: Michelle finds an encrypted folder on Dave’s computer, containing hundreds of videos documenting his disguised limp and arson sprees; the latest video is labeled, “When Michelle uncovers the truth, the end begins.” Police announce Archie died by “suicide to avoid punishment,” but the autopsy report shows the gunshot wound to his temple is at an unusual angle, and the encrypted files on his phone have been remotely deleted. At her mother’s parole hearing, Michelle suddenly presents Dave’s lighter and the chemical plant coordinates—flames dance in her eyes, overlapping with the firelight from her childhood memories into a dizzying blur.
This episode constructs a “mirror narrative” through the three arson cases: Freddie’s self-destruction embodies how the anger of the working poor ultimately backfires, echoing the core metaphor that “fire is the weapon of the defeated.” Dave, wielding violence in the name of “justice,” has a poster of The Trial on his office wall, hinting at a Kafkaesque self-judgment. Michelle’s childhood trauma and the present case form a Mobius loop; in the fire scene, she picks up the fire department group photo, where the flame pattern at the edge of the picture slowly devours Dave and Archie’s smiles.
Through the escalation of arson cases and the explosive revelation of characters’ secrets, this episode pushes the “investigator as perpetrator” narrative labyrinth to new heights. With Dave’s dual identity confirmed and the mystery of Archie’s death unfolding,
Michelle is forced to face a harsh reality: The three-year-old chemical plant fire may have been a carefully plotted class purge—and both she and Dave are merely pawns in this conspiracy.