Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers

Julia feels alive during her first photography session. Her client, a TikTok influencer named Cassie, is delighted with her work. Julia comes home to find Sana with Vera and Emma. Vera announces that Sana is an artist and that Marshall stole her work, but she didn’t kill him.

Vera invites Riki to join her at the beach for a picnic. She greets him with the news that she accessed Marshall’s laptop and found a file with Riki’s name on it, named “scalping bot”—a program designed to scam people. She asks if he is a scammer, and he finally confesses his story.

Riki adores his younger brother, Adi, a genius who needs a special school that their family can’t afford. Riki is trying to make enough money to bring Adi to the US and pay his tuition. Seeing Adi become increasingly depressed and frustrated, he answered an online advertisement to write a bot app for $25,000. The bot was designed to scam the NFT market by driving Marshall’s prices up and other vendors’ prices down. Marshall only paid Riki $1,000 and told him if he kept demanding full payment, he would turn him in. The night before the murder, Riki followed Marshall to a restaurant and punched him in the face. When he heard Marshall died, he feared he’d given him a concussion. However, Vera assures him that he doesn’t have enough upper-body strength to kill Marshall with one punch. She crosses Riki off her suspect list, leaving only Oliver and Julia.

Vera is pleased to have made progress and matchmade Riki and Sana. At the beach, she hands Sana a stick and tells her to draw something in the sand; Sana doesn’t have to worry about whether her drawing is good or bad because the tide will erase it. While she draws and Riki helps Vera clean up the picnic, Vera tells him that Sana is one of the artists cheated by Marshall. He is horrified to realize his part in her lost confidence.

Oliver and Julia continue to fix Vera’s shop. Julia asks Oliver how his father is doing after Marshall’s death. He admits that he hasn’t seen his father since the funeral, and Julia suggests they visit him. Oliver, Julia, and Emma take a bag of groceries to Oliver’s father and ring his buzzer, but he tells them to go away and not come back. Oliver understands why his father doesn’t want to see him but can’t understand how he could refuse to see his granddaughter.

Every morning, Sana goes to the beach and draws in the sand, slowly regaining her confidence. Vera and Emma come most days, and Emma helps her draw. Teaching Emma how to overcome mistakes gives Sana the courage to embrace her own. Today, she and Riki go on a hike. They discuss Marshall’s death, bond over having been cheated by him, and share a kiss.

One day, while Vera and Emma are out, Julia hears a noise in the house and finds a window open in the master bedroom. Dismissing the window as an oversight, she notices Oliver’s draft on Vera’s bed. She reads enough to realize that the story is based on Oliver’s relationship with Marshall and feelings for her. Julia feels used, and the last thing she reads before the doorbell rings is the protagonist’s decision to get rid of his twin for good.

As the doorbell rings, Julia shoves the draft under a couch cushion and opens the door to Officer Gray. Officer Gray has additional questions, as she learned that Marshall had an insurance policy with Julia as the beneficiary—which Julia forgot. Julia’s neighbors reported having heard shouting on the night of the murder, and Officer Gray remembers seeing trash bags by Julia’s door the next morning. Julia admits that the bags contained Marshall’s belongings, as they fought over his intention to leave her. Suddenly, Officer Gray notices Oliver’s draft. Julia tries to dismiss it as unimportant, but Officer Gray takes it.

Vera loves living with Emma and Julia and dreads the thought of returning to her lonely room at the tea shop. She and Emma stop by Alex’s house to check on him, but he won’t answer the door. When they return home, Vera notices Julia looking distraught. Julia confesses to finding Oliver’s draft and it being taken by Officer Gray. Vera decides to assemble her suspects for a dramatic reveal.