TV Recap: “Phony” Episode 5 — Sonny Cooke Discovers His Mom Has a Secret Relative

In Episode 5 of Hulu’s Phony, Sonny Cooke skips school, and his day off with Mallory turns into a clue hunt. Private investigator Sharla connects a name to the mysterious man taking Ellen’s money. A visit to a memorial for lost dogs stirs up memories of the family pet that disappeared. And while Ellen tries to trace Sonny’s burner phone, Sonny finds a journal entry that changes what he thought he knew about his mother’s past. Here’s everything that happens in “House of Dog.”

Episode 5: “House of Dog” - Written by Ali Liebegott

Sharla (Meera Syal) starts her day at an AA meeting, where she tells her peers she’s back to work as a private investigator, helping a teenager who has every right to be terrified. “The case just keeps getting bigger, and I think there’s more than one bad actor,” she reveals, fearing that she’s going to let her client down. When she spots Weldon (Colter Lee) in the room listening, she gets upset and storms out.

Sonny (Sam Nivola) wakes up at Vogel’s to a text from Sharla saying they need to talk. When he arrives at her place, she shows him grainy pictures she took of the mysterious man receiving money from Ellen. Sonny doesn’t recognize him. Sharla tried to follow the van and lost him, but ran the plates, and the van is registered to a woman named Tracy Marks. The name means nothing to Sonny. They’re interrupted by Weldon, whom Sharla tries unsuccessfully to kick out.

Sonny finds Mallory (Grace Brennan) parked outside Sharla’s. Weldon signals her to leave him behind, and Sonny asks for a ride, though he says he’s not going to school. Mallory is reluctant to skip since she has a test, but when Sonny says he will just walk around all day, she gets an idea.

At school, Ellen (Connie Britton) confronts Vogel (Maliq Johnson) in the halls when she realizes Sonny isn’t there. Vogel tells her Sonny is okay and tries to scare her out of going to find him with a story about a gorilla in a zoo that attacked his biggest fan, who always smiled at him. Ellen shows Vogel the burner phone she found and asks if he’s hanging with a bad influence. The sight of the phone seems to make Vogel nervous, who rushes away without giving her answers.

Mallory takes Sonny to the Church of Dog, a memorial that her dad wouldn’t let her visit. Sonny gets a text from Ellen: “Tell me you’re safe.” He tells her he is, as he and Mallory go inside, not noticing the blue van pull up outside. We see a yellow antenna topper with music notes on it.

The inside of the Church of Dog is covered with photos and letters from families to their lost dogs. Sonny wonders if this is where his mom put up a memorial to their dog, Tucker, who ran away last year. They set out to find it together as Mallory talks about the believer’s baptism she’s getting ready for, questioning whether she even believes in God. She finds a picture of a dog that looks like Tucker, and there’s no note attached. She reveals a joint she got from Shovel, asking Sonny to smoke it with her. 

As they exit the Church of Dog, Sonny gets texts from his girlfriend Chloe. He ignores them. Mallory notices the blue van and wonders if Vice Principal Carbone is out trying to catch students skipping school. Sonny doesn’t seem worried, especially as the van drives away. 

Meanwhile, Ellen shows the burner phone to Jason Chang (Kelvin Yu), suspecting Sonny of doing drugs. Since he’s bragged about being a tech whiz, she asks him to help trace the number since Google wasn’t helpful. He signs up for a year of a phone lookup service, only to find the number is registered to “Claude Rains,” the actor who played The Invisible Man. The connected address is also fake, with Street View showing vulgar graffiti of the Michelin Man. Vice Principal Mark Carbone (Adam Beauchesne) opens the door and sees them sitting together with that image on a laptop.

Stoned, Sonny and Mallory freak each other out by covering the bottom half of their faces and scrunching their foreheads upside down to create a second face. Mellowing out, Sonny dreams up a future where he runs away to Monterey and opens a bookstore. When there’s a lull in the conversation, he tells Mallory that he had sex with Chloe, and the vibe shifts. She sobers up and drives him home.

Weldon tells Sharla that he’s been going to AA meetings because his parents caught him with marijuana, which is why they moved him closer to his pastor uncle. Sharla makes the case that Weldon isn’t an addict, and when he says the meetings help him be more trustworthy, she confides in him that her thermos is actually full of gin, which is how she lost the van she was tailing. She lies in every meeting when she says how many days she’s been sober. Weldon offers to be her sponsor, which makes her laugh.

As Sonny gets out of Mallory’s van to grab some food from home before heading back to Vogel’s, he notices his mom’s coffee thermos in the driveway, remembering how she left it on the car the morning of his accident. 

Sonny sits on the floor in his mom’s room, looking through her diaries. He finds an entry where she talks about feeling more forgetful lately. In another, she mentions how sweet Sonny was by decorating and baking her a cake for her birthday. Further back, an entry on the one-year anniversary of Tucker’s disappearance, worrying about how Sonny still optimistically thought their dog would return home. 

Then he finds an entry from when Ellen’s dad died, something Sonny previously mentioned her keeping from him. It’s the day Ellen went to pick up her father’s ashes. “Tracy got there first.” Sonny’s alarm bells ring as he reads on.

Calling Sharla, Sonny reads her the last entry in his mom’s journal: “Someone broke into the house. I told the police I thought it was probably just kids, but I think it was Tracy.” He reads more about how Tracy had been acting scary and erratic since the funeral. Sharla is confused. Sonny explains, “My mom has a sister!”

Next episode: “I'm Right Here,” streaming Tuesday, November 17th, on Hulu.

Sonny’s discovery about his mom's past leads him to ignore Sharla’s warnings as he charges forward into a potentially dangerous search for answers. Meanwhile, Ellen’s problems at school come to a head.

Songs Featured in This Episode:

• “Sound and Vision 2013” by David Bowie