The Crowded Room Episode 3 Review

The Crowded Room Episode 3: Murder 9.5/10

Spoiler warning as this review dives into the details of the episode.

Episode 3 of The Crowded Room continues to delve into the events leading up to the shooting at Rockefeller Centre. This episode begins with Rya showing the police officer from the first episode some of Danny’s drawings. The cop recognizes the drawing of Ariana as the girl who was at the shooting based on the description. Danny then tells Rya what inspired him to get the gun. We then learn a story from Ariana of one of the reasons she is “messed up” as she was abused by a friend of her father’s when she was a kid.

This reveal isn’t the most surprising, but I think it does give us good insight into the character of Ariana and her trauma. It helps us to better understand her and also could explain the connection to Danny as they have both had disturbing experiences in their pasts.

To try and help his new friend, Danny decides to buy Ariana a gift so they can both be “happy”. With the help of his friend Jonny, whom we saw in the first two episodes, Danny returns to the drug dealer who nearly killed him in the first episode and asks to buy a gun. The dealer says he does have a gun, but he wants Danny to perform a sexual favour in exchange for the weapon. Much to Jonny’s dismay, Danny agrees. This shows how far Danny is willing to go and how quickly he has become attached to Ariana. This might be a reflection of Danny’s relationship with his family that he became so connected to Ariana in a short time that he is willing to go to this point to get a gun.

So after agreeing to the drug dealer’s terms, Danny is given the gun and is about to perform the sexual act when Jonny steps in and knocks the dealer out and they escape with the gun. After this, Danny hangs out with Annabelle which leads to them making out on his bed until the drug dealer busts into the house looking for Danny where he takes Annabelle hostage as Danny tries to give him the gun back. Luckily Yitzhak steps in and beats up the dealer and threatens to shoot him.

Having broken Yitzhak’s rules Danny is kicked out of the house and told he has to leave the next day. The next day Ariana goes into Danny’s room and says that she wants to use the gun to scare the man who abused her. This finally takes us to the shooting as we see Ariana and Danny at Rockefeller Centre. This time we get to see the target of the shooting and why Danny looked so startled and that’s because it’s his stepfather Marlin! Upon returning to the house Yitzhak gives him a passport and money and tells him to look for his father in London.

This was easily the best episode of the season so far. With multiple things revealed and set up, it feels like the show has wrapped up one chapter of the story but we have so much more to delve into! It finally gives us all of Danny’s perspective leading up to the shooting. Plus the twist with Marlin reframes the entire show and Danny and Ariana’s relationship. The connection between Yitzhak and Danny’s father was surprising. Overall it makes me more excited for the next episode!