Diksha Sundriyal
Fox’s ‘Accused’ is an anthology series that captures the story of a different person in every episode. The thing that keeps the show interesting is that one never knows what to expect regarding the crime and the one who has been put on trial for it. Just like the first two episodes, the show continues this pattern of intrigue with its third episode, titled ‘Danny’s Story’. It is a very turbulent episode, with many twists and turns, especially in the last few minutes of the episode. Here we break it down and see what that ending means for its protagonist. SPOILERS AHEAD!
Accused Episode 3 Recap
Danny’s mother had cancer and a nurse, named Alison, was hired to take care of her. Despite her degrading health, Danny believed that his mother would stay around for a little more time. But then, she gets worse, and when she dies, Danny starts suspecting Alison of foul play. Things get worse when the boy discovers that his father, John, is having an affair with Alison. Danny suspects that the affair must have started when his mother was still alive, which makes him hate Alison even more.
The episode switches back and forth in time, with Danny in prison for a crime, in the future. He is told to get a psychological evaluation, but he decides not to. Everyone believes that Danny has been having some mental troubles for a while, which worsened after his mother’s death. Danny, on the other hand, claims that it is Alison, who is out to get him and is poisoning him. No one believes Danny, but the truth comes out in the end.
Accused Episode 3 Ending: Was Danny Schizophrenic?
Danny had his suspicions about Alison, but he was never able to convince anyone of the same. Whenever he talked about her with someone, he would be advised to stop looking at things through the lens of his grief. This only made him angrier and more stubborn about proving that he was right about the woman who had slithered into her family and was now breaking them apart. His rage further makes others think that he is losing it, which feeds into the cycle of him getting angrier. In the end, however, Danny is proven right, but no one is around to witness it.
People around Danny believed that he was schizophrenic. By the end of the episode, he is coerced into getting a psych evaluation and is admitted to a hospital where he is sedated at all times. People believe that he is being treated for an illness, but the situation is really bleak because he was never ill in the first place. All of Danny’s suspicions about Alison were right. She had, in fact, been trying to poison him. Had he succeeded in getting the sample of the porridge she made for him tested he could have proved it, but luck didn’t favor him.
With this revelation, several things throughout the episode make more sense. When Danny complained of severe stomachache, which the doctors couldn’t account for, his father believed to be a result of his mental illness. In reality, Alison had poisoned his food and he got sick because of it. Danny was also right to believe that Alison had killed Chester.
The dog never seemed to like Alison. He always barked at her, and surely, it must have been a nuisance for her. He was also a support system for Danny and his family, and she wanted to take that away from them. So, she took the dog for a walk one night, under the guise of wanting to bond with him and showing Danny that she wasn’t evil. When she came back with its corpse, she claimed that a car had run over him, but it was clear that she killed him. Danny knew this very well, but when he pointed a finger at her, no one took him seriously. In fact, it only made things worse for him.
What Happened to Danny’s Father and Brother?
In the final scene, when Danny is in the hospital, Alison visits him. She’d been wearing black clothes, and it turns out that the reason for that was the death of his father. She reveals that as soon as they came back from their honeymoon, John died of a heart attack. When Danny asks about his brother, Matthew, she says that he has been having severe stomach aches. This confirms all of Danny’s fears, but he is in no situation to tell anyone about this. Even if he does, no one would believe it.
Considering all that happens, it is clear that Alison had a plan in mind when she found herself employed by Danny’s family. His mother had been ill, but Alison aided in her death while putting her plan in motion. All this while, she used John’s grief to get close to him. After his wife’s death, she made her move and entered the house as soon as possible. Once there, she started poisoning Danny as well as Matthew and John. As suspected, she was using a poison, probably antifreeze, to slowly kill them. Her plan worked because when Danny was taken to the doctor, they couldn’t find out what was wrong with him.
It was easier to get Matthew to like her, but Danny was cleverer than that. So, Alison made it look like he was mentally ill, and the teenager’s overall situation worsened the prospects of anyone taking him seriously. Things only got easier for Alsion once Danny stabbed her. With him gone, she married John and got rid of him, most probably after getting some of his property to her name. Danny and Matthew would be the only other people on the will. Danny was already dealt with. Now, she was slowly poisoning Mathrehw too. Because there’s no one to stop him, it can be guessed that she’ll eventually kill Danny’s brother and then have the whole house and everything else to herself.
Read More: Is Accused Episode 3 “Danny’s Story” Based on a True Story?
