A Good Girl's Guide to Murder episode 2 recap: who was in the woods?

Emma Myers in a blue jumper and white shirt stands in the woods as Pip in A Good Girl's Guide to Murder.
(Image credit: BBC/Moonage Pictures/Joss Barratt)

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder is a new teen drama series based on the hugely successful mystery thrillers by Holly Jackson. The series follows Pip Fitz-Amobi who becomes determined to solve the murder of a local schoolgirl after growing convinced that the police had pinned the case on the wrong person. Here is everything that happened in episode 2... 

The second episode opens with Pip going to see one of Andie's best friends, Emma Hutton. But despite Emma being happy to talk about Emma while she works, Pip suggests that the things she is saying don't add up, and Emma takes offense and storms off, ending the interview before it has started. 

Pip and Ravi then meet to talk about the case and he jokes that she should have told him about interviewing Emma as they are trying to crack the mystery together. 

Later, Pip promises her best friend Cara that she will keep Cara's older sister, Naomi, out of her questioning (after upsetting her in epsiode 1) but Naomi overhears them and talks about Andie and Emma's best friend, Nat, revealing they were always hanging around as a three and that Nat wasn't very nice. 

Naomi says she doesn't see Nat anymore, but Cara reveals she is playing her in a tennis match in a few days, so they agree to go and watch the game. 

At the tennis courts, Cara is playing really well and Nat storms off when she loses. Pip follows her into the changing room and she doesn't know where to look when she comes out of the shower naked. Nat tells her it isn't like people haven't seen her naked before, referring to some nude pictures that were sent around school around the same time that Andie was killed. 

Pip says she hasn't seen the pictures and Nat softens towards her, asking what she wants to know about Andie. She tells Pip that she was a great friend, but things take a turn when Nat lets slip that Andie was sleeping with someone, and it wasn't her boyfriend, Sal. As soon as she realizes she has said more than she should, Nat makes a speedy exit warning Pip that she doesn't know what she is getting herself in to. 

Pip tells Ravi that Andie had another man on the go that wasn't Sal, and he is shocked that his brother was being cheated on. To do more digging they decide to message Emma from Ravi's phone, pretending to be Nat. They get her talking and they talk about 'Secret Older Guy' suggesting this is the person Andie was sleeping with before she died. 

Pip and her friends head off camping for the night for Cara's birthday, and they're having a great time drinking and swimming in a lake. But when night comes they decide to do an ouija board and they scare themselves by apparently communicating with Andie who 'tells' them that she is buried in the woods they're in. 

When Cara needs a wee in the middle of the night, the girls all go together as it is safety in numbers. However, they see a torch in the distance and when they go towards it, the person runs off without them seeing who it is. 

Back at the tent, they are totally freaked out, but soon calm down and somehow get back to sleep, but when Pip gets in her sleeping bag she finds someone has put a note in there that reads 'Stop digging Pippa'. Pip is terrified, but who put it there? 

Zain Iqbal in a dark jacket as Ravi in A Good Girl's Guide to Murder.

Ravi is helping Pip work out who killed Andie.  (Image credit: BBC/Moonage Pictures/Joss Barratt)

The next morning Pip is quiet as they pack away their tent and head home, Cara asks her what is wrong and she pretends that she doesn't want their summer to end or anything to change as it won't be long before they are all having to go off to collage. 

As Pip drops Cara home she sees Max Hastings in the distance, arguing with Naomi in the car. 

When Pip gets home she finds a note on the table in her empty kitchen which has been folded exactly like the one she found in her sleeping bag. She is terrified, but luckily it just turns out to be a note from her mum saying she has gone shopping. 

In her room, Pip looks at her evidence board and notices that one of the policemen in a photo from the media conference that they held with Andie's parents when she vanished is familiar. She does some research and finds out it is Stan Da Silva, Nat's older brother. Wondering if he could be helping her to hide something, she adds Nat to her list of suspects. 

Showing her evidence board to Ravi he is bemused to see that social media photos that she has printed out of Andie, Nat and Emma aren't in chronological order. Once she rearranges them you can see that the pictures are just of Andie and Emma, and Nat has vanished from the friendship group. But why? 

The pair use Ravi's phone again to lure Nat to the train station pretending to be Emma again. Once there Nat is annoyed that she has been tricked and they tell her that they think Andie was the one who sent her nude photos around. Nat is adamant it wouldn't be Andie but admits that Andie changed in the weeks leading up to her death, saying that she was seeing a nasty guy - who turns out to be none other than Max Hastings. 

Cara (Asha Banks), Pip (Emma Myers), Lauren (Yali Topol Margolith), Zach (Raiko Gohara) and Connor (Jude Collie) walking in a group

Pip and her friends go camping, with horrible consequences.  (Image credit: BBC)

Despite the fact Max told Pip that he had never spoken to Andie before, it is clear that someone is lying so Pip goes to his house that night to ask him more. Once there, his dad lets her in and she goes straight up to his room, but Max is in the shower. She uses this opportunity to search his room quickly while his back is turned and she finds a photo of Andie in her underwear pinned to the back of a group photo of Max with friends.

As she is trying to take a picture of the photo, Max catches Pip and demands to know what she is doing in his room. But we sense that he quite likes the fact she is uncomfortable, especially as he is wearing only a towel after getting out of the shower.

Pip asks who he has a photo of his dead best friend's missing girlfriend in his room and he denies sleeping with Andie and says he just appreciates her female form - ew. Pip shows him the messages from Sal's phone that show Sal and Andie were fighting before she died and Max says it was because she was dealing drugs and Sal didn't like it.

Max reveals she was working for someone at the Calamity Club in town, and suggests they will have to go there if they want to find out more. Who is the mystery man at Calamity?

All episodes of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder are now available on BBC iPlayer in the UK and in the US the series will be released as a box set on Netflix on Thursday, August 1.

Claire Crick
Assistant Managing Editor at What To Watch

Claire is Assistant Managing Editor at What To Watch and has been a journalist for over 15 years, writing about everything from soaps and TV to beauty, entertainment, and even the Royal Family. After starting her career at a soap magazine, she ended up staying for 13 years, and over that time she’s pulled pints in the Rovers Return, sung karaoke in the Emmerdale village hall, taken a stroll around Albert Square, and visited Summer Bay Surf Club in sunny Australia. 

After learning some tricks of the trade at websites Digital Spy, Entertainment Daily, and Woman & Home, Claire landed a role at What’s On TV and whattowatch.com writing about all things TV and film, with a particular love for Aussie soaps, Strictly Come Dancing and Bake Off

She’s interviewed everyone from June Brown — AKA Dot Cotton — to Michelle Keegan, swapped cooking tips with baking legend Mary Berry backstage at the NTAs, and danced the night away with soap stars at countless awards bashes. There’s not a lot she doesn’t know about soaps and TV and can be very handy when a soapy question comes up in a pub quiz! 

As well as all things soap-related, Claire also loves running, spa breaks, days out with her kids, and getting lost in a good book.