Anna Pigeon Season 1 Episode 6 Recap and Review: Bethany’s Betrayal Changes Everything

Anna Pigeon escaped the cave, but the real shock was waiting for her outside.

Anna Pigeon Season 1 Episode 6, “There’s Always a Road,” picks up immediately after Anna (Tracy Spiridakos) survives the nightmare that began in “The Rope,” only to discover that nearly every piece of evidence has disappeared.

The attacker Anna left trapped in the cave is gone.

So is Kay’s body.

For someone already recovering from a concussion, dehydration and the hallucinations that nearly overwhelmed her underground, it’s enough to make Anna question what she remembers.

Fortunately, Frederick Stanton (Ronnie Rowe) believes her.

That sends Anna and Frederick into an investigation that finally begins connecting the cave mystery to Jeremiah Paulsen (Kim Coates) — before exposing a betrayal much closer to Anna than she expected.

And after five episodes of Anna Pigeon establishing Jeremiah as the wealthy landowner who seemingly has influence everywhere around Glacier National Park, Episode 6 reveals that his reach may extend directly into Anna’s circle of friends.

Anna Returns to the Cave — And Finds Nothing

After everything Anna endured underground, returning to the cave should provide answers.

Instead, it creates another mystery.

The man Anna trapped during her escape is nowhere to be found. More disturbingly, Kay’s body has also disappeared.

Someone cleaned up.

That immediately changes what Anna thought happened.

The man who imprisoned her wasn’t operating alone.

Without Kay’s body or her attacker, Anna also has no physical evidence supporting the story she’s telling everyone. After spending the previous episode suffering from a concussion, dehydration, drugged water and hallucinations, even Anna has reason to wonder whether every detail she remembers is reliable.

But she never stops believing the central truth.

Someone put her in that cave.

Someone killed Kay.

And someone went to considerable trouble to erase the evidence.

Frederick Believes Anna

Frederick doesn’t dismiss her.

That’s important for both the investigation and their increasingly interesting relationship.

Anna and Frederick begin reconstructing what happened before she disappeared, including her confrontation with the young man whose radio she smashed.

Maybe Anna simply witnessed a murder and became an inconvenient loose end.

Frederick identifies the problem with that theory.

If the killer was eliminating witnesses, why didn’t he simply kill Anna?

Whoever trapped her seemed almost determined to torment her.

Anna being kept alive suggests that something more complicated was happening.

Their investigation eventually leads them back to the young man with the smashed radio, who admits that he helped someone move Kay’s body.

The expensive watch on his wrist provides another clue.

The Paulsens are involved.

JP Paulsen Was With Kay Before She Died

The investigation turns toward Jeremiah Paulsen’s nephew, JP.

JP was apparently the last person seen with Kay before her death.

That gives Anna a suspect, but investigating a Paulsen isn’t the same thing as investigating anyone else.

Jeremiah has money, influence and the ability to make problems disappear. Anna knows that accusing his nephew without overwhelming evidence isn’t going to accomplish anything.

She needs JP to talk.

Anna’s plan is to exploit his ego.

Jeremiah has already dismissed JP as someone who isn’t exactly a criminal mastermind, while JP appears convinced he’s considerably smarter than everyone around him.

Anna intends to use that arrogance against him.

If JP believes Anna is about to die anyway, he may finally tell her what happened.

It’s a dangerous plan.

Even by Anna Pigeon’s standards.

Anna Walks Into Another Trap

There is something wonderfully frustrating about watching Anna recover from nearly dying because she ventured into danger alone — and then almost immediately watching her do it again.

This time, at least, Frederick and the others know what she’s doing.

Mostly.

The plan is built around the cave, where everyone will be positioned to move once Anna gets JP talking.

But Anna first goes to the Paulsen property.

Without backup.

Then she drinks tea.

Drugged tea.

Again.

It’s one of those moments where you simultaneously admire Anna’s determination and desperately want someone to confiscate every unattended beverage she encounters for the remainder of the season.

But the drugged tea also provides the clue that blows the entire case open.

Bethany Betrays Anna

Bethany Lopez (Melanie Scrofano) has always been slightly difficult to read.

She’s quiet, helpful and seemingly harmless.

She’s also been unusually interested in Anna’s disappearance and the investigation surrounding the cave.

Episode 6 finally explains why.

Bethany has been helping Jeremiah Paulsen.

The revelation transforms a character who appeared to be one of Anna’s newer friends into someone connected directly to the man Anna has increasingly viewed as the source of Glacier National Park’s problems.

Bethany isn’t merely someone who knew more than she admitted.

She was involved.

That means Anna wasn’t simply dealing with an unknown criminal in the wilderness.

Someone inside her own circle was helping the people targeting her.

For Anna, who already struggles to trust anyone, the betrayal couldn’t be better designed to reinforce every instinct telling her to keep people at a distance.

Bethany May Be Jeremiah Paulsen’s Daughter

Then the episode goes one step further.

After Bethany is exposed, she tells her husband Manny Lopez (Manuel Rodriguez-Saenz) to call her father.

Jeremiah Paulsen answers.

The implication is difficult to miss.

Bethany appears to be Jeremiah’s daughter.

The series leaves just enough ambiguity around the exact family relationship to keep from spelling out every detail, but the connection fundamentally changes how we understand Bethany.

She hasn’t simply been doing favors for Glacier’s most powerful landowner.

She may be part of the Paulsen family.

That also puts Manny in an awful position.

He loves Bethany, but he has just discovered that his wife has been hiding an enormous part of her life while participating in events that nearly got Anna killed.

Bethany is taken into custody, but Manny’s reaction to what she has done may prove almost as important as the betrayal itself.

Jeremiah Paulsen Is Becoming Anna’s Real Enemy

Episode 6 also changes Jeremiah’s role in the series.

Until now, Kim Coates has played him as a powerful obstacle who repeatedly crosses Anna’s path.

Now those encounters are starting to look less coincidental.

The cave.

Kay’s death.

JP.

Bethany.

Different threads keep leading toward the same family.

And Anna already has another unresolved mystery hanging over her life: Zach’s death.

There still isn’t enough evidence to say Jeremiah had anything to do with what happened to Anna’s husband.

But after “There’s Always a Road,” Anna has considerably more reason to wonder just how far Paulsen’s influence extends.

The case-of-the-week structure isn’t disappearing, but the series finally has a season-long adversary capable of tying its larger mysteries together.

Anna and Frederick Make a Good Team

One of the quieter successes of Episode 6 is how naturally Anna and Frederick work together.

Their relationship doesn’t need to become a romance immediately to be interesting.

What matters right now is trust.

Frederick believes Anna when the physical evidence doesn’t.

He helps her reconstruct what happened rather than treating her concussion and hallucinations as reasons to dismiss her.

For Anna, that may matter more than she’s willing to admit.

The cave storyline has repeatedly challenged her insistence that she doesn’t need anyone. Anna survived because she’s resourceful and stubborn, but other people also noticed she was missing, searched for her and believed her afterward.

That doesn’t erase the damage Bethany’s betrayal does.

If anything, it makes Anna’s situation more complicated.

Some people deserve her trust.

Others absolutely don’t.

Figuring out the difference may be harder for Anna than surviving alone in the wilderness.

Final Verdict

“There’s Always a Road” gives Anna Pigeon its first genuinely game-changing betrayal.

Melanie Scrofano deserves much of the credit for making it work. Bethany has been strange enough to inspire suspicion without being so obviously sinister that the reveal becomes meaningless. Learning that she has been working with Jeremiah — and may actually be his daughter — immediately changes several earlier interactions.

Tracy Spiridakos is equally strong as Anna moves from physical survival into investigative mode without ever completely shaking off what happened underground.

There are still moments when Anna’s determination crosses into maddening recklessness. Watching her put herself in danger again so soon after the cave ordeal may have viewers yelling at the television.

But that’s also becoming an important part of who she is.

Anna is extraordinarily capable.

She is also convinced that capability means she can handle everything herself.

Episode 6 gives her reasons both to reconsider that belief and to cling to it even harder.

Most importantly, the series finally feels like it’s building toward something larger.

Jeremiah Paulsen is no longer simply an irritating rich man standing in Anna’s way. His family and influence are becoming woven into the mysteries surrounding Glacier National Park.

And with four episodes remaining, Anna has finally found an enemy worth chasing.

Anna Pigeon Season 1 Episode 6 Ending Explained

The biggest reveal in “There’s Always a Road” is that Bethany has secretly been working with Jeremiah Paulsen.

Her unusual interest in Anna’s disappearance wasn’t simply concern for a friend. Bethany needed to know what Anna remembered and how close the investigation was getting to the people responsible.

The episode then strongly suggests an even deeper connection.

When Bethany tells Manny to call her father, Jeremiah answers the phone.

That indicates Bethany is likely Jeremiah Paulsen’s daughter, although the episode deliberately leaves a little room around the exact nature of their family relationship.

What is clear is that Bethany’s loyalty to Jeremiah helped put Anna in danger.

JP Paulsen’s connection to Kay also pulls another member of the family into the cave mystery, making Jeremiah increasingly difficult to separate from the criminal activity Anna keeps uncovering.

Bethany is caught, but exposing her doesn’t end Anna’s larger problem.

It reveals how extensive that problem actually is.

Jeremiah has money and influence, his nephew is connected to Kay, and someone Anna considered a friend was secretly helping him from inside the park community.

For a woman who already has trouble trusting people, Bethany’s betrayal may prove more damaging than anything Anna endured in the cave.

When Is Anna Pigeon Season 1 Episode 7?

Anna Pigeon continues with Season 1 Episode 7, “The Three Matt Skweikis,” on Friday, September 18 at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT on  USA Network.

The next episode sends Anna and Frederick into another unusual investigation when a mysterious man with no memory leads them toward a decades-old mystery.