Diksha Sundriyal
Apple TV+’s ‘High Desert’ follows Patricia Arquette’s Peggy, who becomes a private investigator when she realizes she has a knack for investigating and getting the truth out of people. Caught in a financial bind, Peggy needs this job to pay well and to ensure that she needs to bring in business. An ex-anchorman who now masquerades as a guru catches her eye, but a more convoluted picture appears as Peggy digs into his criminal entanglements. In its fourth episode, titled ‘Get Judy off the Bed,’ the show reveals some shocking things about Guru Bob, leading Peggy to devise an equally daring plan to find out what’s going on with him and his wife. SPOILERS AHEAD!
High Desert Episode 4 Recap
A flashback takes us to 1986 when a teenage Peggy, the eldest kid, takes control of the family, attacking her father, who left her mother for another woman. Peggy’s love for her mother and how attached they remained to each other is highlighted, shedding light on Peggy’s grief and her need to connect with Ginger, her mother’s doppelgänger. In the present, her husband, Denny, is out of prison, and he is up to no good.
At first, Denny makes it look like he intends to change his ways and live a life without crime. However, Peggy still wants a divorce, and he doesn’t agree to it. They go out for dinner to catch up on what life’s been like for Peggy since he went to prison, which was not because of the drug bust ten years ago. Since then, he has been in and out of jail for several other things.
Peggy tells Denny about her new job and clarifies that she can’t get involved in anything illegal now. However, Denny has other plans. He tells her about the silver he hid at her mother’s house. Peggy thought the silver was gone, but Denny lied about it. She immediately realizes that believing he is going to change is a mistake. Later, however, she deduces that this might actually help her solve the mystery of Bob’s missing wife.
High Desert Episode 4 Ending: Are Guru Bob’s Paintings Fake? Is He Scamming People?
Peggy intends to solve the mystery of Donatella Scarborough’s disappearance, but first, she must know more about her family. She belongs to a mafia family who runs a tanning spa as a front for their illegal activities. Peggy goes to the spa and finds Donatella’s brother. She wants to know if his family ever suspected Bob of doing something to his wife, but they didn’t. They consider Bob too incompetent to do something like that, and the brother, at least, believes that Donatella ran away.
The painting at the spa captures Peggy’s attention, which she realizes is not real priceless art but a very good fake. It turns out that Donatella painted it, which leads Peggy to realize that the paintings at Bob’s place must also be fakes painted by Donatella. Perhaps, she sold those paintings as real because they are too good to be told apart by someone who doesn’t know much about them, and this led her into trouble with some bad people. Perhaps, this is why she ran away. Or maybe, the bad guys caught up with her and punished her for selling them fakes.
Another possibility is that Bob realized what his wife was doing and how much trouble it would land them in. Perhaps, his anger got the best of him, and he killed his wife. This is a big if because Peggy needs to know if Bob knows about the paintings. He told Peggy that his wife was the one who bought and sold them before she disappeared. Maybe Bob doesn’t know they are fakes and is trying to sell them as real ones. Perhaps, this is what got him in trouble with the father-daughter duo.
Will Peggy Scam Bob?
Peggy’s interest in Bob arose because she believed he had real paintings that she could report and get rewarded for. However, if they are fakes, there’s no point in going after them. That opportunity is lost. Still, there is one other thing that Peggy can cash in on. If she can find out what happened to Donatella, she can get the 70k from her family, which would still be more than she has. For this, Peggy needs Bob to trust her, and she can do that by selling one of his paintings.
Previously, when Peggy thought the paintings were real, she posed as the representative of a prospective buyer. She continues this act and brings Ginger into it by making her pose as the one interested in the art. She promises to get Bob north of one million dollars for the painting but to pull that off, she needs someone well-versed in such cons. The only person she knows who is capable of this is her husband, Denny. In the final scene, she tells him about her plan and how she needs her help with it. In return, she will help him get the silver.
This proves that Peggywillo scam Bob and, in the process, find out more about him, his wife, and what might have happened to her. Involving Denny in this means that while she is cautious of her husband, she can’t shake him off so easily. Their lives are too interconnected, even when Peggy tries to turn over a new leaf. Before Denny came on board, it was just a game, but now, it’s not just serious but also criminal.
Read More: Is High Desert’s Peggy Newman Based on a Real Investigator?
