Leaving

Season One Finale. In the aftermath of the Dylan Holt case, Mags and Amy navigate the strange work of moving on: revisiting old wounds, saying difficult goodbyes, and figuring out what comes after survival. 

As Avalon Falls begins to recede in the rearview, the girls confront legacy, friendship, grief, and the uncertain promise of the road ahead.

The case may be closed. The story isn’t.

Transcript

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Murder Girls is created, written, and produced by Eternal Teenager. Content Warning. This episode contains themes of grief, separation, and farewell. Discussions of parental death and loss. Emotional conversations involving trauma recovery. References to murder and its aftermath. A prison visitation setting. Brief references to past sabotage and violence. Mentions of wrongful convictions and legal injustice. Hallucination slash grief visitation. Non-supernatural. Emotional distress and profanity throughout. Listener discretion is advised.

Murder Girls. Episode 30. Leaving. It's been about a month, which in Avalon Falls time means everything has changed, while it also means nothing has changed. As the saying goes, it's Avalon Falls, why not both? Some things hold, other things just shape shift until you stop noticing the difference.

Okay, I need a menu.

We ordered already, and you don't need the menu. You've memorized every iteration of the menu here since you were eight.

And I will never not be proud of that, however.

You get text alerts when they change the menu.

Well, I mean, that's only practical.

You set up the text alerts.

Anyway, anyway, thank you for your input. I know the menu conceptually. Yes. But today, today, I need to know the menu strategically.

Strategically.

Mags, I have eight days, eight breakfasts, minus today, seven. And there are at least nine things on this menu I haven't had yet. That's math. That's a math problem.

That's a stomach problem for most people, not you.

It's a farewell tour. I'm giving this menu the respect it deserves. I can't just leave with Denver Omelette Regret hanging over me for the rest of my natural life.

You sound insane.

I sound thorough.

Those, as in this case, can be the exact same thing. Rude.

Okay. Denver Omelette for Amy, Tacos Migas for Marguerite, and two coffees you didn't ask for but are gonna drink anyway.

Lola, te quiero.

Amy, eres muy dulce, pero estoy casado.

Tacos Migas, huh?

Yep.

That's new.

Tried it the other day.

Jonathan's fave here.

I know.

Yeah.

It's good.

I know. So, car update.

Car update.

I don't know how exactly, but the Yaris is officially road trip ready.

That's terrifying. Rude.

I got the oil changed, topped up the fluids, rotated the tires.

You rotated the tires?

You too, baby. I'm unstoppable.

I'm impressed and afraid in equal measure.

I've got the sublet lined up for the trailer. Kathy's basically running point on that. Old Peter's got a cousin's kid or some such thing coming in from Bellingham. Seems decent. Doesn't own a lot of furniture, which Kathy considers a moral strength.

How's it been there?

I mean, good, right? Everyone's happy again. I just got to get out of there before that. The park is saved to party next week.

Oh, yeah. Definitely you do indeed.

Trailer's mostly packed, but I got to say, it's weird sleeping in a half empty version of your own life.

Mood, but I can imagine. You've lived there for over 10 years.

I know. Wow. Yeah. Uh, what about you? Estate stuff still a nightmare?

Less nightmare, more slow administrative dread.

Uh, yes, the sexiest kind.

It's just a lot. Paperwork transfers stuff Marion was handling. Like, she's offered to keep doing it, but I mean.

Yeah, that's classic Marion.

Yeah.

Is that, are you okay doing that part?

I don't know yet. I keep finding her handwriting on things, in margins, on post-its. She's everywhere in the paperwork.

Oh, yeah. I guess that's true, huh?

I will say that Walter's been a champion, though. He's definitely taken to his new role. Oh, God. He's surprisingly good at running the shop, Amy.

I know. I'm processing. Walter, running loose ends.

He's serious about it. He brought a binder.

Let me ask you this. Does it have tabs?

Color-coded. Subcategorized by different sizes.

My God.

Yeah. The only part I'm a little not sure of, you know, like outside of the entire rest of and including all of it, is that the kids are working part-time. Oh, no. Oh, yes.

Wait. So they're just running loose ends now?

More like orbiting it aggressively.

And the machine?

They renamed it.

Nice. Lay it on me.

The eyes.

Oh, wait, like their eyes?

The eyes of the eyes of Tlaquah County. Yes, those eyes.

The urban legend.

Correct.

The urban legend about a surveillance system watching the county from the shadows.

Indeed.

Which they are now in fact operating.

Oh, yes.

Yeah, no, that rules. I hate that it rules. Okay. So the town has a new set of extremely online vigilantes with access to a surveillance network. Oh my God, we created a monster.

We did not create it.

We created them.

We didn't.

We created a lot of their worldview Mags. Let's be real.

Yeah. Okay. A little.

Oh, hey, Daniel's hosting something Sunday. We're invited. A barbecue. Low key. Lily, Eleanor, Nora is going to be there.

Oh, yeah. How's she doing?

Yeah, actually, you know, she's yeah, she's dealing, I guess.

That's good.

Yes. Yeah.

So barbecue at Daniel's sounds.

It sounds weird. Totally. You can say it.

It sounds very weird.

It'll be awesome, though.

I can see that, too.

I had a guy at Falls Mart thank me yesterday.

Wow.

Yeah. And then immediately tell me I ruined his retirement.

There it is.

We saved the town.

Did we?

Yeah, we saved the town.

Not the one they wanted.

No, guess not. Okay. What's the plan for the rest of the day?

I've got a meeting with the estate lawyer, then I'll be back at the shop, cleaning up the apartment, getting it ready for Walter.

Oh, yeah? Count me in. I want to check in with the eyes.

Amy, Marguerite.

Sheriff.

You can relax, just grabbing a coffee.

Carter looks tired, not broken tired, just tired. The kind you get from believing things will settle even after they haven't. You two heading out soon?

Soon.

California.

That's the plan.

Anything you need before you go, you know where to find me.

Thanks, Sheriff.

You got people checking in on Kathy?

I got people checking in on Kathy.

Good. If I don't see you before you go, have a safe drive.

Well, he's doing his best, I guess.

Not the best re-election slogan, but what can you do?

So, are you going to finish those migas?

Yes.

Just checking.

Take a bite. One bite.

I'll try to respect the spirit of that.

We sat there a while longer. The coffee got cold. Lula refilled it without asking. The old couple two booths over finally agreed it was Wednesday. The light was coming in at that particular angle. The diner was warm. The omelette was half eaten. The migas were mostly gone. For a minute, it felt like everything had settled, like the story had finally landed somewhere. It hadn't. It just wasn't ours anymore.

Welcome to Loose Ends.

Hi, Walter.

Oh my god, what?

I have a system now.

You always have a system.

I have a binder now.

And its reputation precedes it.

How's the leg today?

The leg is doing great, thank you for asking.

That cane says otherwise.

The cane is an accessory. Doctor says I'm ahead of schedule. Couple more weeks in the cast, then I'm a free man.

You're walking on it though, that's a good sign.

What, you want me sitting on a stool for eight hours? I've got a shop to run.

That you do.

No one can replace the original owner, but I'm gonna give it the old college try.

You're gonna kill it.

Everyone's downstairs. You know the way.

Exciting.

No, that's not the same truck.

Look at the rack.

It's different.

I am looking at the rack. That's the same.

Guys, guys, just hold on. Run it.

Whoa.

We left them a room full of wires, cameras and questions, and they turned it into a workplace.

Look who it is.

What happened in here?

Efficiency.

That's a strong word.

It's an accurate word.

We made zones. Live feeds, archived feeds, flagged anomalies, and things that are probably nothing, but we don't trust them.

I love that last category.

It's the biggest one.

Tell them about the map.

Oh yeah, the map.

Show me the map.

Yeah, come see.

Okay, so this is Tilakwa County. This is every active feed the eyes is currently pulling from.

Holy shit.

Yep.

Guys, that's a lot more dots than there were a week ago. We've been busy. Some of them were already there, and we just found them. Dee Dee had stuff indexed that she never brought online. It's been sitting in a cold storage folder for like four years. I brought them up. You brought them up? Technically, I reactivated the existing handshake.

It's not new installation. It's... She set it up. I just turned it on.

Never change. Actually change a lot. Become more powerful. I don't know.

The yellow pins are feeds we have but haven't sorted through.

The green pins are feeds we've indexed and archived.

The red pins are feeds that are active and pulling patterns right now.

You've got red pins in Cedar Brook and Bearview and...

Throughout the county, yes.

They're already on it. They're like 12 years old and they're already on it. Okay, they're not 12. 15 and 16. Same difference. The top of their brains still says, what if we were a band on a semi-regular basis? They're not guessing. They're building something. This is amazing.

Thank you.

This is also terrifying.

Also, thank you.

Those are not the same compliment.

In this household, they are.

You've been busy. We've been inefficient. That's new.

We're fixing it.

There's a lot to fix.

You can't blame them.

They weren't logging anything consistently.

They were also in the middle of everything while it was bursting into flames every five seconds.

Yes, they were trying to stop something.

We're trying to keep it stopped. We're standing right here.

We know.

So, this is the eyes now.

Yeah.

It's branding.

It's fitting.

And we were right about it all.

Yeah, don't get used to that feeling.

Well, it's extremely cool and I hate it.

Thank you.

What's this? What are we looking at?

Pattern.

That's not an answer.

It's the correct answer.

Same truck, three different days, different times, same route.

We're building a flag system for recurring anomalies. You guys have been here how long?

We started a shift schedule.

We never had shifts.

It definitely showed, Guy.

You also never slept.

Hey, you know, that is not relevant.

Walter, are you excited to move into the apartment?

Definitely. I'll have a kitchen now, a real kitchen.

Oh my God.

The trailer is now exclusively about the sauce.

As it should be.

Converting the den area into a tasting room with a wood bar and custom-made sauce spouts.

I love it. We stayed another 20 minutes. Walter showed us the binder. It was objectively a very good binder. And when we finally stepped back out onto Cedar Street into the cold November air, the shop was still glowing behind us. Someone else's light now. That felt right. We thought we were leaving something behind. Turns out we were just getting out of the way.

There was sun, actual sun, in November, which in Avalon Falls usually means either a miracle or a trap. Choosing to believe it was a miracle, we took breakfast to go and had a walk on the beach.

You realize this is the first breakfast this week not consumed under fluorescent lighting? Growth. And these Jojos somehow taste better outside.

That's called oxygen.

No, this is terroir. Hey, you know what's weird?

Drinking milk with dinner?

Yes, well, most of the time, but also this might be the most normal we've been together in years.

Don't jinx it.

I'm serious.

Me, too.

Breathe into the resistance.

No way. Is that...

Well, well. Won't your creepypasta credentials be revoked if you're caught out in the sunlight?

Is she doing combat yoga with accessories?

I think that's trauma-informed kettlebell.

Drool indeed. It's Vegas nerve optimization, if you must know.

Of course it is.

Cold exposure, circadian grounding, emotional load redistribution. Tim Ferriss and Tavian Echo swear by it.

Those are words.

And names? They're a practice before anything else. Using Piper and her friends as your little investigative hacker collective sweatshop did not love.

Fair.

It did work, though.

Yes. I hate that. Anyway, congratulations. You've handed me a monster.

What do you mean?

Downloads, subscriptions, two literary agents. One woman in Oslo started a Marion Caldwell subreddit.

That sentence physically injured me.

People are into Marion?

Obsessed. Betrayed daughter. Prison philosopher. Murder ethicist. Catnip.

Cool. You know, I can actually see that.

And less attention on us.

That's true. Nothing but upside.

Ah, don't pout. You're in the show.

I wasn't pouting.

The show, you say?

That's what they're calling the podcast. Not the case. The show.

And how do we fare in the show?

Honestly, you're being somewhat overshadowed.

I am surprisingly pro-overshadowed.

Don't be wounded.

I just finished saying I wasn't.

Public Appetite loves conspiracies more than process. They want contaminated land, occult heraldry, erased histories, less women did careful work.

You know, that tracks depressingly hard, honestly.

But there's a faction of listeners who think you two are secretly the emotional center.

A faction.

Very vocal. Very queer.

Okay, great. So you capitalized on our lives again? Cool. Happy for you.

Listen, for all my embellishments, you did something real. Don't let other people decide what this was.

But you realize those other people are you, right?

You're literally monetizing an alternate interpretation.

And I said, don't let me. Also, I need a quote from you before you leave town. Something haunted but marketable.

Absolutely not.

Refusal is usable. Anyway, think on it. The Pacific is listening. Also, I'll just go back and take something you said wildly out of context if you don't. So bye, my little sad faced haunted cardigans.

She's impossible.

She contains multitudes.

She contains a newsletter.

In Avalon Falls, even Goodbye had a tendency to become material.

Some knots don't come undone, you just loosen them enough to move. I like that about boats. I was hoping it applied to people.

Didn't think I'd see you.

I didn't think I'd come.

Well, here you are.

Need a hand?

You know a cleat hitch yet?

No.

Then no.

Still charming.

I conserve charm for offshore emergencies.

So, I didn't want to leave it like we left it.

No, I figured.

I'm not here to do round two. Good.

I'm too old for dramatic repetition.

I just, I get why you took the money.

You do?

I think I do. You were tired. You wanted something to be over.

That's closer than I was corrupted by maritime greed.

I considered that one too.

It doesn't make it right.

It doesn't.

I should have told you.

You should have.

I told myself I was trying to steer you away.

I know.

From the Holt's, from your father's ghost, from becoming this.

You know what pissed me off most?

I'm sure there's a list.

That you let me think maybe he was wrong.

Jonathan wasn't wrong.

He was stubborn, which is different.

That sounds like something you've rehearsed.

Maybe. He'd have kept digging.

Yeah, he would have.

I'm glad you're here.

Me too.

Look at us, running away into sunshine.

I'm calling mine growth.

Fair.

Maybe I'll see you again.

Maybe.

Ocean's round.

Things come back.

Claire.

Don't make it sentimental. You'll ruin it.

Okay, okay.

Amy, try California before you solve it.

No promises.

Go on now. You got a road to chase.

And you've got an ocean.

Watch yourself, kid.

You too. Sometimes making peace is just showing up where you swore you wouldn't. Sometimes what's left is enough. Some endings don't get fixed. They just get revisited softer.

Some places survive mostly through spiteful stubbornness. The sloppy otter had always treated that as a business model.

Well, look what the fog lured in.

We brought emotional instability and no reservation.

Lucky for you, we seep by damage.

How's the otter treating you?

Like an underinsured avalanche, darling.

So it's official?

Yep, Jake left me the otter without telling. Shoot, without asking. Bank says so. Left it all along with 17 unpaid tabs and a freezer that sounds haunted.

He gave it to the one person he trusted to keep it safe.

It's back to being busy in here too.

You love to see it.

Actually, wait, I found something. Been meaning to show y'all.

Uh-oh.

Found this here on the liquor shelf. Says, do not play unless dead or very high.

Yep, that's Jake.

Let's hear it.

Okay. Okay. If this is playing, I fucking died. Or Kenzie finally cleaned behind the shelf. Either way, holy shit. Historic. Burn. Okay, Kenzie, so first. First, if you sell, and I don't fucking blame you if you do, because running a bar is a sucker's game. Shit. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Not even my worst enemy. Not even to my cousin Carl. You know what that means. You know what he fucking did. Fucking Carl knows what he fucking did. Fuck. Ah, shit. Ah, fuck. Okay, don't listen to that. Don't listen to that. Is there fucking a race button, or fuck? There isn't. Anyway, uh, look, if you sell, Kenz, if you sell, my only wish, my last fucking wish is, and I'm trusting you with this, don't let anybody turn the Otter into one of those places with Aeoli. Okay? If I come back and there's fucking Aeoli anywhere, I will haunt this fucking building, aggressively. Like one of those poltergeists fucking breaking plates and floating knives around and shit, alright? Amen. Kenz, you got the place. Which means you fucking won somehow, probably through attrition. Respect. And don't run yourself down trying to keep everything standing. Stuff leans. That's normal. Well, since I'm dead, I can say to you, Kenz, you are an amazing person and a good friend. And I love you. I wish you nothing but the best. Uh, yeah. It's haunting, okay? You want some invisible presents, reading people's thoughts and upsetting plates of fries onto the floors? Fucking customers, slipping and sliding in ketchup and vinegar and ectoplasm and shit? No, you do not. Alright? Good.

Wow, he got meaner dead.

I'll never clean Han there. He's right. Historic.

Glad you did.

Come here, darling.

Oh, what?

Prophecized hug time.

Oh right, you did call it, yes, yeah.

This is huge for regional diplomacy. And I'm snapping a pic.

Thank you, that hug is gonna be hard to top, not gonna lie.

Challenge accepted.

What? Jake said something once about y'all.

This should terrify me.

He said, those two are either gonna disappear together or accidentally become a myth.

That is annoyingly good.

I reject prophecy on principle.

Don't tangle up leaving with escaping.

You got anything stronger than emotional insight?

Funny you should ask, darling. Okay, one for Jake, one for the road, and one cause y'all look like you need worse judgment.

To bad judgment, to leaning structures.

To anti-Aole Poltergeist. Cheers.

Hey, cheers.

Cheers. The dead have a way of lingering, sometimes in grief, obviously. Sometimes in recordings. Sometimes in the things they leave other people to run.

All right, y'all. Don't forget to write. Bye, Kenzie.

Take care.

Bye, Kenzie. Love you. Mags, come on. You got to walk me before I start giving the moon my spare opinions.

Seems I may be a bit too late. Avalon Falls, on a Tuesday night in November, at the hour between last call and genuinely last call, is quiet in a way the rest of the world doesn't quite do. It's not peaceful. It's not dead. It's just waiting. And there's fog, which of course complicates things. I've been walking these streets since I was six years old. I have walked them sad. I have walked them scared. I have walked them furious. I have walked them grieving. I don't think I've ever walked them drunk. Until the last month, when I've done it twice now.

Mags.

Yes?

Mags.

Heard you. Responded. Waiting for new information.

The thing is.

Yeah?

The thing is, Kenzie's shots are bigger than regular shots.

I mean. Yes. Yeah.

Like structurally though.

They're the same glass. Let's calm down. The glass lies. The pour is bigger. Honestly, fair.

It's like, okay.

It's like she's doing emotional math. She looks at you. She does the math and then she pours.

That's actually exactly what she's doing.

Yeah.

It's definitely a gift. It's also a public health hazard, I think.

It's Avalon Falls. Why not both?

Did he really say that though? For real?

Did he?

Who? Jake?

That we were either going to disappear together or become a myth. Like trickle-down economics or Antiope the Amazon Huntress.

He had his moments. It's very on-brand.

Yes. Yes. It's totally on-brand.

Okay.

But wait. So let's think now for a sec and see. Which one are we of the two of them?

Two of what?

Disappearers or myths? Pick. Now, Mags.

It's Avalon Falls, etc.

You can't be both. That's greedy.

I'm going to be both, Amy. I don't know what else to tell you.

Mags!

I'm gonna disappear into the myth. It's like a spiritual thing. So, you know, maybe it's not for you, right? Not everybody gets it. Not everybody has to get it, okay?

You know, that's, you know, okay, that's, first of all, that's actually kind of sick and I want to be mad about it, but I can't be.

Thank you.

Second of all, if you're both disappearing and the myth, what am I? What about Amy?

You're the warning.

Nice.

The warning in the form of a raccoon. Rude.

Rude and accurate. The worst combo.

Combo of the year.

The combo that built this town.

And the combo that's leaving it.

Holy shit, we're doing this. We're leaving.

We are.

Goodbye, intersection of Coastal and Maine.

It's exciting. Goodbye, StamPipe.

Hey. Hey.

The moon looks fake tonight.

Yep, it does.

Like it's too round. Suspiciously so. Fucking sus moon, man. Shit.

That is how moons work generally though, right? They are round. Although I did read about a lemon-shaped planet somewhere, so maybe there are moons that are, you know, like lemon-shaped or even other shaped ones? Square? Or rhombus? Who knows?

This one is doing too much. It's like, it's showing off. See, this is what California is gonna do to us. We're gonna be one of those couples that has moon opinions. I can feel it coming.

Couples. Road trip couples.

You know what I mean. Don't worry about it.

Uh...

You know what I just realized?

That your eyes are not gray or green or blue, but somehow a perfect combination of all of them at once? What? What?

I just realized we have been a lot of things in this town.

We have.

Right now, though, right now we are just two girls.

Two young women walking home.

A little drunk.

A little drunk, yes.

That's nice.

It is nice.

I don't think we've ever just been young women walking home a little drunk in this town.

I don't think so either. I like it.

Me too.

Yeah, no shit.

Oh my god, dude.

We still haven't found that fucking payphone.

Oh my god.

The thing about being 12 together was that it didn't feel like anything. It just felt like what we were doing. And then we stopped being 12, and it stopped. And for 10 years, I carried around this quiet dread that I had imagined the whole thing. That we hadn't actually been like that. That I'd built her into something in my head because I missed her. And then I came back, and she was still her. Still absolutely, unequivocally her. Black hair, more scars, same laugh. I hadn't made any of it up. That turned out to be the scariest and most beautiful information of my adult life.

Daniel invited us over Sunday, said some people needed feeding. He insisted it wasn't a barbecue. This was hard to sustain because it was visibly very much a barbecue.

This is a nice party.

This is not a party.

But there's folding chairs.

Irrelevant. Plate.

You just assigned me a plate.

You were drifting.

What's that smell?

Salmon, miso glaze. Don't touch anything until it rests.

You made miso glaze.

If you're gonna do this, why wouldn't you do it as well as you can?

There it is.

He said that four times so far.

Hi, Nora. You made it. Apparently to a non-party.

It's very much a party.

He made three sauces.

Hi, Lily. Hi, Eleanor.

Three sauces?

Contingencies.

He has labeled condiments.

Of course he has.

No one touches the chimichurri until protein lands.

That sounds like doctrine.

Protocol.

Right. He'd somehow done the impossible. Created a place where damaged people could be fed before they had to explain themselves.

So how bad is it for threshold?

Bad enough. Sapina is moving. Environmental review expanding. Omni is dead. Victor's wounded. Not finished, but wounded for now. Hand me those tongs.

Oh, okay. Here.

My father has entered his strategic reinvention phase.

What does that look like for Richard Holt?

He married a wellness fascist who is two years older than me.

She sells weighted infrared trauma blankets.

I'm sorry. What?

And I'm apparently getting a baby stepbrother, and that is super weird given the timing.

This feels fake.

Oh, I assure you, it is real.

Unfortunately.

Dylan would have called this a strategic meat event.

He would have liked this.

More chicken wings. Thanks.

I still keep expecting him to text me.

I know.

We mostly solved a murder through trespassing aggressively, for the record.

You got him justice.

Thank you.

We tried.

You did right.

Thanks. You know, I think you like hosting.

Incorrect.

Dude, you made smoked paprika compound butter for fish.

Contingencies.

That doesn't mean what you think it means.

It means love, apparently.

Don't start. Fine. A toast.

This I have to hear.

To people who made bad decisions for defensible reasons.

That is the most Daniel Toast imaginable. Love it.

And weirdly moved.

To survival.

To Dylan. To the living still being annoying.

To the journey ahead.

And the road behind.

And to nobody touching the Chimichurri early.

For a few hours, the world behaved like one where people stayed. Even knowing they wouldn't.

Sunset Shores had survived. Which made sense, places built out of improvisation often do.

Well, look what washed up.

We brought ourselves, against advice.

And what's this?

Flowers? Aw, thank you, Marguerite.

My mom would kill me if I didn't bring something.

From what I remember about Susan, that is well within the realm of possibility. Sit down, y'all.

I hear you're heading out soon.

Yeah, couple days.

California girls. Lord help us.

We're not California girls. We're visitors with intentions.

That's how cults start.

Well, I know California.

You do?

I do. You do not trust a man selling mango on a median.

That feels too specific.

A scooch to alliterative as well.

She went twice and came back with a man named Todd and a nasty off-color rash.

That was 1997. I will not apologize for anything in the 1990s.

History matters.

Sometimes affection arrived around here disguised as interference.

Y'all got a place lined up?

No. This starts out as a no-end date vacation and we go from there.

Good. If and when y'all land somewhere, I'm visiting unannounced.

Terrifying. I'll criticize your groceries.

She does need supervision.

Traitor. Also, why would I eat anything but fish tacos if I'm living in California?

Amy, come here. I've been meaning to say something.

That sounds dangerous.

Oh, hush. I'm proud of you. And not just because you did something brave or stubborn, though Lord knows. I like who you are. I like who you've become.

That means something to me.

A lot. Good.

It's supposed to.

Mr. Biscuits is eating a cigarette.

What? No. Whoa. False alarm.

Leaf.

Barb, you know I can't survive another Mr. Biscuits emergency. Remember last time? I went through four sage bundles just to get the resonance right in my trailer again.

I hate this place.

Liar.

Ugh, fine.

And you, Marguerite, take care of her for me, please.

I will, of course.

No, I mean when she's impossible. That's the harder part.

I'm, like, right here.

And Amy, take care of her, too. She's got that I'm fine face. Never trust that face.

Noted.

No matter how ridiculously and heart-stoppingly cute it is. Oh my God, how are you so adorable? My heart is literally going to explode, right?

Oh, that face.

That sweet, sweet face. I can't stand it. I'm going to barf. Oh, I'm so tied up in knots about it.

I am being attacked.

Don't come back successful. People hate that.

I'm framing that.

Mr. Biscuits is going to miss you.

Okay, now I'm emotional. This feels suspicious.

Okay, better go before I start crying and ruin my reputation.

Love you.

Love you too, sweetie.

Drive safe.

Bye, Kathy.

Bye, Barb. Bye, Mr. Biscuits.

She can't hear you. She's thinking.

It struck me then. Leaving didn't feel like breaking away. It felt like being trusted with distance. Home doesn't always ask you to stay. Sometimes it helps you leave. Marion somehow looked exactly like Marion. Detained, charged with murder, still somehow appearing more prepared than most free people.

You look annoyingly well.

I've had structure imposed on me. Apparently I thrive.

How are you really?

Shockingly productive. I'm helping three women appeal convictions and teaching one how not to file motions in all caps.

You started legal aid in jail.

County detention, please don't demote me.

We brought crossword books.

Good, the ones here are written by sadists.

We felt bad showing up empty handed.

Well, you can add money to my commissary. I accept guilt in practical forms.

We keep thinking if we'd seen-

No, do not turn my choices into your guilt. I killed a man. I'm a lawyer. I am under no illusions what that means.

You're really okay?

No, I miss my granddaughter. I dislike what I've handed my daughter. Those things hurt. This is logistics.

That is the most Marion sentence ever spoken.

Thank you.

By the way, we figured out you were the caller.

That took you long enough.

You used a voice.

Obviously, I used a voice. I'm a lawyer. Sense of drama comes with the job.

The payphone theatrics were a lot.

You both respond so well to theatrics. I adjusted strategy.

Where was the payphone?

Pier 4, at the end of an old dock.

I'm going to be sick.

You know, we're still calling you from California when we need legal advice.

Collect calls only. And if you commit crimes, do not improvise without counsel.

That feels directed.

Oh, it is.

Hey, counselor, they moved my hearing.

File the grievance first. I'll go over it with you tomorrow. Thanks. Sorry about that.

Are you running this place?

No, improving it.

We're leaving soon.

Good. Go. Do not make me your anchor. Visit because you like me, not to perform remorse. That's much more flattering. We do like you. Well, then, if that's true, you can put $20 on my commissary.

Marion, was that a joke?

$20.

Some people survive catastrophe by hardening. Marion apparently survived by becoming even more herself.

Some places remember people. Or maybe it's that we remember them harder in certain places.

Okay, Amy, tacos migas, extra tortillas.

Gracias.

De nada, por supuesto.

And I wanted to say something to you, Lula. I practiced it. And I wrote it down even.

Okay.

Solo quería agradecerte por hacerme sentir que este también era mi hogar. Significó mucho para mí, especialmente cuando sentí que ya no tenía un hogar después de la muerte de mi padre.

Yup.

Oh, sweetie. First of all, you speak Spanish very well. Shockingly well. You say you just learned it on YouTube?

Yeah, more or less.

Second of all, Amy, you are my best customer. Obviously. But you are also part of my family. Never forget it. This has always been and will always be your home. Take care.

I may have missed some of that, but I'm still crying.

Me too, Amy.

Me too. You take care of yourself, okay?

Okay.

You too. I'm going to miss this place. My God.

Not as much as we're going to miss you, chica. We're probably going to go out of business now. Enjoy your food, honey.

Hey, kid, you're eating my order.

You're dead.

And yet...

Rude.

You'll find another diner to fall in love with. Don't worry.

Your heart will go on.

My stomach will not. I think Lula's is the one for me.

You'll survive, kiddo. How's California?

Preliminary. Promising. Probably awesome. You're early, dude. We haven't left yet. Ask later.

You did good, Amethyst.

You did good.

We trespassed a lot. Almost got shot. Town hates us even more now.

Still, I'm proud of you.

Okay, but if you tell me that, and you're technically me, isn't this me telling me I'm proud of me? Wait, that feels recursive. Hold on.

Amy.

No, seriously, I may have broken grief.

You do this when something matters. Turn it into a puzzle or a joke or both.

Well, yeah, the alternative is crying in a diner.

That's allowed, too.

Dad, did I do right by you?

You don't owe the dead correctness, only honesty. You were honest. Oh, boy, you were definitely honest.

I was angry at you for leaving for a long time.

I know.

That's natural.

I'm still a little angry.

Good. Means I existed.

Are you saying goodbye?

No. I'm saying maybe you won't need to see me this way.

Same thing from the outside, different from the inside.

That is annoyingly wise.

Family trait.

I'm scared, Dad. I'm scared to go.

Good. Go anyway.

That's your advice?

Worked once. You know, it's just one last thing I can pass on.

Refill?

Oh.

Honey, you okay?

Yeah. Yeah.

Sorry.

Yeah.

I'm okay. I'll take that refill, please.

How are the migas?

Tastes like home. Loose ends was quiet in that particular way places get when they know you're leaving. I stood there alone for a while before touching anything. There's that smell again. Or maybe it still isn't smell. Maybe it's memory doing chemistry. Dust, old wood, lavender, something herbal Dee Dee swore repelled bad energy. I never asked whether it worked. Maybe I should have. The first time I walked back in here, I thought the shop was watching me, waiting for an answer. Stay. Go. Keep it. Sell it. As if those were opposites. Now I think it was just keeping my place. I'm leaving. Again. But better this time. Huh. Look at you down there. The wooden raven Amy carved me when we were kids. The first day back, this nearly fell on my head. I thought it was a warning. Now I think it was just Amy trying to get my attention across 10 years. You made me a raven and I carved you a wolf, which is embarrassingly on brand. The wolf looks so rad. I threw the raven across a room once, thought maybe symbols could break

. Turns out anger doesn't break things like this. It just reveals what survives it. Oh, hey, box of Mexican Spider-Men. Hola. You know what? I think Walter will be alright with 22 of you guys. Raven. Wolf. Alternate Spider-Man. Legacy is inconsistent. A month ago, I stood here wondering what I was building that might outlast me. I thought the answer had to be impressive. A title, a career, something framed. Maybe it's smaller than that. Maybe it's a weird curiosity shop you inherited from your aunt and pass on. Her secret surveillance network in the basement you trust other people to tend. Solving a murder in your hometown that exposes corporate malfeasance, environmental contamination, and a dark legacy of generational corruption. Okay, those are all impressive in their own weird way, I guess. But it can also include two carved animals, one very confusing superhero, and most importantly, who leaves with you. I used to think Dee Dee believed in what we solved. Now I think she believed in what we became. You w ere right about her, you know. Magnet Sisters. Still weird, still true. Funny, I did get a sign. I came back asking for one, and she was standing outside this shop in a black jacket. Sometimes the sign was a storm. Sometimes it was just Amy. That turned out to be enough. Loose ends wasn't forcing me to stay. It was teaching me how to go.

Why is it dark? No idea. Oh god, where are the ventriloquist dummies Mags?

Hello, Walter?

Yo, Murder Girls about to be murdered. Surprise!

Oh, irony!

I can't believe they fell over.

I thought you guys would be more on the ball.

What are you doing to me? Oh my lord!

Yes, surprise party, surprise achieved.

I had forgotten teenagers can weaponize celebration. There were balloons, there was cake, there was, for reasons unknown, a banner reading, Don't get murdered in California.

Okay, who made that?

Yeah, that was me.

Uh, whoa, did you draw your taser on us? It was instinct and reflexes. I'll just put this away.

The sign is very supportive, thank you.

There are dips. No one has approached the dips.

I work up to the dips.

Oh, interesting technique. I'm going to have follow up questions later. It's fine.

Sit down. We have a program.

There's a program.

There's always a program.

First item, retrospective PowerPoint.

Hard pass.

Too late. Slide one. Operational errors. Operational what? Examples include breaking into the wellness initiative without perimeter coverage.

It's not breaking into something when the door is open. I keep saying this.

The list continues. No shift structure.

No anomaly flagging.

No snack discipline. Snack discipline?

You two solved a murder fueled entirely by coffee and trauma. That's not scalable.

There were expired granola bars. Those are the real heroes.

Toast. Everyone hush.

Malter.

Okay, fine. Come on, man.

Now what? Far as I can tell, the county is still weird. The originals are still slippery. The debt are still inconvenient. Uh, and I gotta say, I didn't like seeing Jake go. And no one seems to care about a secret tunnel system under everything. Not really sure what's up with that. But on the bright side, somebody's keeping watch. Guess that's us now.

That was actually beautiful.

I can be beautiful.

So, how are the eyes doing?

Did you just call it the eyes?

Don't make a thing of it.

I am absolutely making a thing of it.

Historic moment. Logging it.

You know, I always thought weirdos was unfair. We hated it.

For 48 hours.

Then it became branding.

Especially once we knew it was connected to Sherlock Holmes.

Yeah, I invented all that on the fly. You're welcome.

Same thing happened with Murder Girls. It was meant as an insult. It worked as an insult. And now, ugh, now I still kind of hate it. No, no, no.

Come on, man. It's a great nickname.

That's how names work. You survive them long enough, they start belonging to you.

We made you something. Covered in notes, post-its, warnings, drawings, conspiracy symbols. No way.

Whoa, what is this?

It's our homebrew California field guide.

Places to investigate.

Possible cult zones.

Best roadside pie along the PCH. Priorities.

This is incredibly unhinged. I love it. Oh, my lord.

Thank you, really.

Hey, so, wait, what's the actual plan? You get to California, and then what?

Survive.

No, seriously.

Are you living somewhere?

Together?

I mean, yeah, we'll get a place.

Like, as roommates?

Yeah, roommates.

Roommates.

You staying in one town? Maybe. Maybe we move around a while, see what sticks.

I mean, there's San Francisco. There's LA.

Maybe. Maybe one of those. Maybe neither. We'll see.

No fixed plan. Very mature.

Terrible plan. Excellent age for it.

I hear there may be surf noir.

Please don't call it that.

So like you coming back someday?

Will we ever see you again?

Chill out, guy.

I thought you said you could handle this.

I'm emotional now. I can't help it.

Yeah, I think so. Maybe. Just not for a bit.

You miss us already, huh? You already missing my big laughs and Mags good looks?

You think we'll be okay?

No. I think you'll be amazing.

And terrifying.

Correct.

For a while, nobody talked about murder or leaving or endings. We ate cake, argued about surveillance ethics, and let the night get pleasantly disorganized. We thought we were being sent off. It felt more like being folded into something. Much better. So, this is it.

This is it.

The Odyssey begins.

Adventure awaits.

Tally-ho!

Let's bounce.

We can do this all day, and I would love that, but...

But it's feeling like cold feet a bit.

Exactly.

Yes, we should go.

You feel like we're forgetting something?

Almost certainly.

Perfect, that means it's a real move.

You sure about the Yaris?

Absolutely not.

Love that.

So, Park, you ready? Nope. Yeah, same. There's... There's still time to back out. You know, if... If you wanted to.

Of California?

No.

Get in the car, O'Connell.

Moving always looks less cinematic than people pretend. Mostly it's bags and cables, and arguing whether you packed chargers.

And whether Mexican Spider-Man belongs in the front seat.

He does.

Loose ends got smaller in the rear view fast. That surprised me. I thought leaving would feel louder.

It didn't. It felt like turning a page with cold fingers. You got that Atlas Almanac guidebook thingy?

Yep.

The snacks?

Curated by state, categorized by time of day, subcategorized by spice level, organized alphabetically.

Marry me, Mags. There goes Cedar Street, Sounders Beach, the turn toward sunset shores, the road to the harbor, places I thought I'd never stop orbiting.

I kept expecting some dramatic feeling. Triumph, grief, a score swelling.

Mostly, I was trying not to miss the highway exit.

Maybe that was the feeling, life insisting on itself.

You realize because we already live on the West Coast, we are not technically driving into the sunset.

We're driving adjacent to the sunset.

Much less romantic.

Strongly disagree.

Way safer, honestly.

A month ago, I came back to decide whether to stay. I'm leaving with more than I brought. That seems important.

I looked in the rear view once and for a second, with the sun behind him, I thought I saw Jonathan standing by the road. Just a silhouette, watching. Then I looked again, and there was only light.

You okay?

Yeah. You?

Yes.

We used to think solving things meant reaching the end. Finding answers, closing the file.

Turns out sometimes solving something just means knowing what you can carry forward. The county kept receding, the light kept changing. And for the first time in a long time, I had no idea what happens next.

It felt amazing.

Like a broken.

Hello, from all of us here at Murder Girls.

Well, if you made it this far, I suppose you're one of us now. Thank you for listening to Season One of the show.

For all your theories, your kindness, your curiosity, thank you.

Mags and Amy will return. Until then, keep asking questions and take care of each other.

Hey y'all, Avalon Falls has a soundtrack.

Yeah, we just keep finding pieces of it. You can listen to all the music from the show on the Music from Murder Girls playlist on Spotify.

Headphones recommended.

Emotional preparedness optional.