After a quick-paced and action-packed first episode of Harlan Coben's Shelter, episode two slows everything way down, to give us more time with the characters and their problems.
That doesn't mean there are no new mysteries added here, because the first two hours of the new Prime Video young adult mystery series are chock-full of questions and people we'll likely get acquainted with in the rest of the season.
The show follows Mickey Bolitar, a school child who finds himself adjacent to many overlapping mysteries that may all be connected. Here's how to watch Harlan Coben's Shelter, and the first three episodes landed at the same time on Friday, August 18, so we've got a Shelter episode 1 recap here.
With lots going on, a plot points list is important, so here's our Harlan Coben's Shelter episode 2 recap, and obviously spoilers for it ensue. Just note, we've changed the order of events, so we can present storylines together.
Keeping up with the Kents
After the police were at Ashley's home at the end of episode 1, Mr and Mrs Kent deny knowing her (and she also mentioned having no dad). It was the former, who's also the town doctor, who was being wheeled away in a stretcher after being attacked.
Mickey (Jaden Michael) is let out of police custody after once again being arrested by the town's officer, and the next day at school he talks to his European History teacher about Ashley's disappearance. Apparently, the girl dropped out of school that very day. We also see on the teacher's computer screen an email from one Barry Vollmer, announcing his immediate retirement — and the picture accompanying Vollmer's profile is of the bald bearded man who was stalking Ashley, but then killed, in episode 1!
Along with Arthur (Adrian Greensmith) and Ema (Abby Corrigan), Mickey visits the Kents at the hospital. Mrs Kent retains that she doesn't know Ashley, but does say that the man who attacked her husband had a face-covering octopus tattoo.
The aforementioned teacher remains active. She visits Vollmer's office and finds in his draw polaroids of Ashley after she was kidnapped. The teacher then goes to the Bat Lady House, where she spots the creepy old woman watching her from the window, to whom she asks "is this where you buried him?".
Kitty Hammer is back
Mickey's mother Kitty (Narci Regina) is let out of her behavioral ward. In talking to Ema, Mickey explains that she used to be a tennis prodigy who was afflicted by depression, but since her husband died, the depression has gotten much worse.
Mickey's aunt Shira (Constance Zimmer) decides to stay in a hotel to let the mother and son reconnect without her in the way, and it's suggested that she's harbors some envy at this kind of a mother-son relationship.
After some nice family time between the two, Kitty drops off Mickey at school, after delivering a speech about why he shouldn't feel guilty over his father's death. However after school Mickey goes home, only to find that his mom never returned there, and didn't attend her catch-up appointment at the behavioral ward that afternoon. He panics and calls Shira.
The duo trace Kitty's phone's GPS to some waterfalls, which suggests the worse, however after some searching they find her. She's crumpled up by a park bench crying, because she tried and failed to take her own life.
Shira is important in this episode too. Mickey finds a picture of Dylan Shakes, who disappeared when Mickey's dad was a kid, and Dylan is wearing the same type of Little League hat that is proudly displayed in Mickey's dad's belongings. Shira admits that Dylan and Mickey's father were best friends.
The Taylor family in trouble
When Mickey is being picked up by Shira from lock-up, she talks to the police chief, and it's clear they used to have a relationship. However on her way out she bumps into his current wife, and things are a little awkward, even though they're cordial. Later the aunt is looking through a yearbook which confirms that she used to be friends with the wife, and in a relationship with the chief, though clearly things changed.
Troy Taylor (Brian Altemus) is on the phone with his girlfriend Rachel (Sage Linder) who then hears a noise outside her house. She takes the gun from Ashley's bag and hangs up on Troy, but then his's family returns. He can gather from their interactions that things are tense between them.
There's trouble in paradise for Troy himself, as the next day Sage teams up with Mickey for a class project and invites him around to her house, and she once again blows off Troy.
Later Troy breaks into his dad's laptop and finds that he's been Facebook stalking Shira, which is all the evidence he needs that his dad has been unfaithful.
The episode ends with more drama for Sage though, as she goes to a train locker box using keys in Ashley's bag, and finds in the box loads of money as well as fake IDs and passports. But as she's leaving the octopus-faced man shows up.
Ema's strange tattoo
After it was shown in episode 1 that Ema has a butterfly tattoo similar to the mysterious markings, she desperately tries to scrub it off.
She's about to tell Mickey a secret (presumably about the tattoo) when he notices that the Sunglasses Man (Hunter Emery), who killed Vollmer and has been stalking them all, is nearby. Mickey chases him and shouts off some questions, but the spec-wearer tells him "you're not ready for those answers" before driving off. After that Ema decides against sharing her secret.
Mickey has spent the last episode glumly looking at selfies he and Ashley took (in their approximate six hours of dating?), and notices in one that she's looking alarmed at something off-screen. Thankfully in the background of the image, another girl is taking a selfie too, which was posted online. From this snap they see that, behind a window in the school when this snap was taken, was the octopus-faced man.
Ema takes Mickey and Arthur to a tattooist friend she knows, but the tattooist claims ignorance. Ema talks to him privately, asking why the butterfly she got won't come off (apparently hers are all temporary) and he says that he made it with new longer-lasting ink he's trying out. We also find out the type of butterfly we've been seeing in these symbols: the Abeona Tisiphone.
Later, however, this tattoo artist is looking through his folio, and sees a picture of this octopus-faced man from his past works. He burns the photo.
Sunglasses Man makes one more appearance in the episode. He breaks into Shira's house, finds Mickey's laptop and uploads something onto it using a flash drive. He's nearly caught by Arthur who's dropping off a pie, but hides.
