TV Recap: “Phony” Episode 2 – Sonny Cooke Hires a Private Eye to Find His Real Mom
In the second episode of Hulu’s Phony, Sonny Cooke faces a new challenge: convincing anyone other than a conspiracy-obsessed classmate that his mother has been replaced. Career Day at Delby High gives him a chance to corner a real police officer. What he learns about a break-in at his house while he was in the hospital only deepens his suspicions about Ellen. With nowhere else to turn, Sonny ends up in the trailer of private investigator Sharla. Meanwhile, a new witness stumbles onto something grim by the lake. Here’s everything that happens.
Episode 2: “Crosby, Stills, and Nash” - Written by Nick Paley
As Sonny’s (Sam Nivola) interview with private investigator Sharla (Meera Syal) continues, she asks what happened after the dance. Sonny spent the weekend in his bedroom, feeling hopeless, and trying to find information online. Texting Weldon (Colter Lee) from his laptop didn’t help because the conspiracy theorist suggested the doppelganger is a lizard woman.
On Monday morning, Ellen (Connie Britton) was in a loaned driver’s ed vehicle from the school, honking for Sonny to get in. As he raced out the door, he didn’t notice a broken windowpane on the back door, taped up by the handle. In the car, Ellen hands him their usual breakfast of hard-boiled eggs they shake in a container. Sonny suspects the food is poisoned and has eaten only packaged items all weekend. Ellen won’t drive him until they talk. He points out that the driver's ed class needs the car, and she surrenders.
It’s Career Day, and Sonny is sure someone will notice the change in his mom. Talking to Weldon, Sonny doesn’t want to return home with her and hopes he can talk to a police officer today. As he’s heading to the event, he gets summoned to the Guidance Counselor’s office over the PA system.
Mr. Chang (Kelvin Yu) summoned Sonny and Vogel (Maliq Johnson) to talk about their fight at the dance. Vogel tells him that Sonny already apologized and things are fine. But in front of Mr. Chang, Vogel asks Sonny if he’s still paranoid that his mom is acting different. When Mr. Chang asks for more information, Sonny pretends it was a joke and rushes out before having to share more details.
On their way to Career Day, Weldon tells Sonny that the cops likely won’t believe him, but he knows a private investigator from Front Porch Forum. Sonny assumes they’re a hack and makes for a real police officer.
Chloe (Mahaela Park) intercepts him and asks where he was this weekend. He reminds her he doesn’t have a phone and introduces her to Weldon. When the bell rings, Weldon leaves them alone, and Chloe pulls Sonny outside to read him a letter about how she wants to support him, but she’s distracted by a text from his mom asking where he is. He asks her not to tell him, but Chloe did it so fast he didn’t have a chance to finish.
With time running out, Sonny races to the police desk and talks to Officer Buckley (Wesley Macinnes), who is glad to see Sonny recovering so well. He lets slip that someone broke into his house while he was in the hospital, and when Sonny asks for more information, Buckley dismisses it, saying his mom thinks it was just students messing around.
Ellen can’t go to find Sonny because Vice Principal Mark Carbone (Adam Beauchesne) is indignant that, under a policy Ellen wrote herself about fighting at school, Sonny should be suspended. She argues that Sonny’s situation was different from a typical school fight.
Mallory (Grace Brennan) is embarrassed by her dad (Kurt Evans), who has a Career Day booth for his Seventh-day Adventist Church. He brought donuts that are attracting students, but they have been declining the free prayer cards because the donuts make their hands sticky. He asks Mallory to get him napkins, but she says no, claiming she’s taking pictures of the event for the yearbook. A boy, Shovel (Nation Sage Henrikson), takes a donut and also refuses the request to bring napkins to the booth.
Mallory finds a bunch of her father’s prayer cards scattered around a garbage can and starts to dispose of them properly. Sonny finds her there, helping her clean it up, and asks if his mom has talked to her at all. “I thought she wasn’t your mom,” she counters.
In the yearbook office, Mallory and Sonny use a computer to try to find a real private investigator. They find one who takes online consultations and start a call with Rick Davis (Darren Zimmer), who asks for a photo of Ellen. But when Sonny explains the situation, Rick hangs up. Still, Sonny realizes he should have photos of his mom, so he searches for a P.I. Mallory helps scan and enlarge the Costco photo, then sends it to the printer. The only problem is that she accidentally prints them to the teacher’s lounge.
Sonny races to the Teacher’s Lounge, only to find the plotter empty. Mr. Chang holds the stack of printed photos and asks to talk. In his office, Sonny lies, saying he meant to print one photo to get a new Costco card. “Because you think she seems different,” Mr. Chang repeats what Vogel said earlier. Sonny softens when Chang says he's noticed a difference in her too, but then he waxes about motherhood and how they need to talk more, inspired by an earlier moment when Ellen asked Chang to let her know if Sonny says anything about her.
As Career Day ends, Sonny watches Ellen take the microphone to thank the professionals for coming to the school. She says she found her calling when Sonny was born and gets emotional. It only strengthens Sonny’s resolve, and he asks Weldon to connect him with his P.I. They get on his e-scooter and take off.
That’s how Sonny ended up in Sharla’s trailer while Weldon played with her tracker dogs, Crosby, Stills, and Nash. She concludes he simply doesn’t have a case and that none of this is real evidence, but he begs her to help. When he reveals that he has some money saved from a dishwashing job, she agrees to help.
Sharla’s voiceover questions Ellen’s motives as we see her alone in her office, transferring money out of her bank account.
“There’s no way a person disappears without a trace,” Sharla continues as we see a group of teens being pursued near the lake by cops for shoplifting. Among them is Shovel, who gets separated from them by the lake, where he sees what looks like a dead body in the marsh. He freaks out and runs away.
“Somebody saw something,” she concludes, as we see the beaver watching the SUV load up the body and drive away.
Next episode: “Reverse Cuckoo Situation," streaming Tuesday, October 27th, on Hulu.
Sonny is forced to stay home with Ellen, so he sets a trap to catch her in her lies. At school, rumors spread that Shovel saw a dead body, and Mallory and Chloe grow closer. Meanwhile, Sharla tails Ellen to a meeting with a menacing stranger behind a bar.
Songs Featured in This Episode:
- “I Am the Fly” by Wire
- “I Remember” by Molly Drake