Gone Girl

Nick’s team—Go, Tanner Bolt, and Betsy Bolt—spend the day with Nick, helping to prepare him for his Sharon Schieber interview that night. Just as Nick is being introduced to Susan, a producer hurries up and whispers in her ear.

Amy calls Desi Collings, who rushes to her aid. They meet at a casino, and Desi promises to protect and help Amy escape from her abusive husband. Amy has long regaled Desi with tales of Nick’s marital rape and physical abuse of her. Amy has also told Desi that her father sexually abused her for years. Desi believes that Amy staged her disappearance in order to escape her abusive marriage.

Desi decides to take Amy to his lake house. No one will bother her there; she can rest and decide what to do next.

As Amy leaves the casino with Desi, she sees Andie giving a press conference. Andie confesses to her affair with Nick and says how sorry she is. Rand and Marybeth Elliott are also at the press conference. Marybeth announces that the Elliotts withdraw their support for Nick.

Sharon Schieber is furious about the last minute revelation of Nick’s affair, but the interview is still on. Nick pulls off a convincing performance with Sharon’s help. He humbly apologizes for his mistakes, takes full responsibility for the difficulties in his marriage, and begs Amy to come home. He asserts that he didn’t kill her.

Go calls. The police have found the woodshed, and they are also searching Bill Dunne’s old house. Nick and Tanner try to tell the police their side of the story, but no one believes Nick’s claims that the things in the woodshed are not his. The collection includes golf clubs, a huge television, and a lot of violent pornographic DVDs. Go is taken away in a police car.

Nick goes to the police station to collect Go. He and Tanner go into an interview room with Detective Boney, and she confronts Nick with Amy’s diary and the fact that the goods in the shed are covered in Nick’s finger prints. 

Desi shows Amy around the lake house; he has painted her room her favorite color—from when she was in high school. In an even more disturbing gesture, he has filled a greenhouse with tulips so that Amy can have tulips year-round. Tulips were Amy’s favorite flower in high school. Amy realizes that Desi has planned her visit for a long time. When she asks for money, he hands her $40, and she begins to worry that he will not let her go when she wants to leave.

Nick knows that Amy’s diary, whatever it says, will ruin him. Boney and Gilpin confront him with the incidents in the diary, including the entry that claims she is afraid that Nick will kill her. Tanner tells the detectives that Amy is alive and that she framed Nick. The police are incredulous. When Tanner turns over the Punch and Judy puppets, Rhonda Boney looks at Nick as if she knows he is a killer.

Amy watches Nick’s interview with Desi at her side. Nick finally says all of the things that she wants to hear. Amy believes that Nick wants her back so that he can treat her the way she deserves to be treated. Amy decides to go back to Nick.

Nick wakes up with a hangover, wanting to kill Amy. Tanner informs Nick that he is certain to be arrested whenever the police are ready.

Nick and Go argue, because they are getting on each other’s nerves. Nick decides to go home. The horde of reporters threatens to overwhelm Nick as he leaves, but Go turns her garden hose on them.

The press has surrounded his home too. Once safely inside, Nick imagines all the different ways that he would kill Amy. His father shows up at the door, looking for the “little bitch” (359). Nick has an insight: hating Amy doesn’t mean that he is like his father who hates all women. Nick drives his father back to the nursing home.

Desi has become Amy’s “posh jailer” (361). He visits her constantly, and she cannot get him to leave, because it is his house. She doesn’t have access to a car or the code to the gate. The walls around the house are 15 feet high. She is Desi’s prisoner; his manipulations and delicate threats disgust her. She wants to rescue Nick from her scheme but she cannot escape Desi.

Nick comes home to discover the detectives and Tanner in his living room. They have a club in an evidence bag: it is the Judy puppet’s missing piece. Amy’s blood is on the club, and they believe it is the murder weapon.

Amy lures Desi into bed. They have sex, and after drinking a drugged martini, Desi falls asleep.