Safe episode 2 recap: who is the mysterious man from the bar?

Tom looking worried at a train station in Safe episode 2 on Netflix
Tom's concern for Jenny grows as his hunt for her hits a dead end. (Image credit: Netflix)

Safe on Netflix is a twisty-turny thriller adapted from a bestselling Harlan Coben book of the same name, and despite it landing on the streaming site back in 2018, fans of Fool Me Once are revisiting the series after watching the Fool Me Once ending

The story follows a pediatric surgeon and single father to two teenage daughters called Tom (Dexter's Michael C Hall), who is struggling after the death of his wife a year ago. But while Tom has a successful career, a new relationship starting and lives in a beautiful house in a prestigious gated community, his life is thrown into chaos when his eldest daughter disappears in mysterious circumstances. 

Episode 1 saw Jenny vanish after going to a party one night, while her boyfriend, Chris, wound up dead in a pool. But as Tom's hunt for his daughter hit countless dead ends, he was starting to wonder who he could really trust. 

Here's everything that happened in Safe, episode 2...

The episode opens back at Sia's party that we saw in episode 1, however, this time we see the evening from a different point of view and discover how Chris ended up dead and in the Marshall's chest freezer. 

When Sia escapes the party and goes outside to smoke, she is horrified to find a body floating face down in their pool. After calling her parents, who are away on a romantic break for their anniversary, she throws everyone out of her house, and pulls the body from the water, realizing that it is Chris and he is dead. 

Sia is relieved when her parents get home, and they comfort her. But while Lauren wants to call the police, Jojo is adamant that because there were drugs at the party and Sia was selling them, they can't call the police or she will end up in prison and their family name will be tarnished forever. 

Instead, they put Chris's body in the freezer, and we see the moment that Tom goes to question Sia about her party again the next morning, the same scene that was in episode 1, but this time we know that Chris is dead in the family's garage and they're all lying through their teeth. 

Sophie and Tom looking at a phone in Safe on Netflix

Sophie is helping Tom find his daughter.  (Image credit: Netflix)

The episode then moves on to day 2, with Tom trying to track down his best friend Pete after discovering that he was the one who collected Jenny from the party, and therefore is the last one to have seen her. He goes to his house, and although his lights are on, he doesn't answer the door.

Sophie tells Tom that statistics show that most people who go missing are taken by people they know, but Tom is adamant that Pete is a good friend and wouldn't hurt Jenny.

While Emma goes to Zoe Chahal's house with a warrant to search, Sophie goes to work and tracks down Pete by searching for his reg number and works out he is at a budget hotel. Emma arrives back at the station and has barely got out of the car before Sophie tells her they're going to track Pete down. 

As they arrive at the hotel they see his car leaving and soon a chase starts as they follow him. Eventually, he pulls over and gets out of the car, and of course, he knows Sophie and asks what is going on. He seems surprised when Sophie tells him that Jenny is missing and calls Tom from the back of the police car and tells him, along with Sophie and Emma, that he collected Jenny from the party because she called him asking for a lift, and that he dropped her home at the gates of their estate. 

The whole time they're talking, it is clear that Pete has no idea who Emma is, but she is pretending that she doesn't know him and seems surprised when he tells her that he doesn't have any inappropriate interest in Jenny because he is gay. 

While waiting for Pete to come over and help him find Jenny, Tom finds a receipt in her room for a bank transfer to someone in China. He searches for him online and messages him pretending to be Carrie, and it turns out he sells fake IDs. 

When Pete arrives they go speak to the security guard at the gates and ask to see his CCTV. Pete's claims that he dropped Jenny home at 11.30 at the gates are proved right when she's seen on the CCTV, but instead of going home, she walks in the opposite direction and to a neighbor's house called Eric. Eric confirms that Jenny was in his garden the night before, and when he shouted at her to get off his grass she ran around the back and through the fence that leads to the Chahal house. 

Jenny looking worried in Safe on Netflix

Jenny has vanished and Tom is on a mission to find her.  (Image credit: Netflix)

Tom sneaks into Eric's garden and goes through the fence and into the Chahal's garden but finds nothing. He later takes Pete with him to the front of the house and knocks on the door to speak to Chris's dad, Neil. 

Meanwhile, Emma is questioning Zoe with her lawyer there and she denies that the naked photos on the UBS are of her, claiming they have been photoshopped, however, the woman in the photo has a scorpion tattoo and so does Zoe, meaning she is lying. 

As Tom and Pete chat with Neil, he doesn't seem in the slightest bit worried that Chris hasn't been in touch, completely oblivious to the fact his son is dead and in the Marshall's chest freezer. They find some train times on his computer in his room, while Neil also confirms that his motorbike is missing. 

Zoe, who has been released on bail, gets home while Pete and Tom are still there and there's a very strange atmosphere between her and Neil... and later we see her calling Chris but getting his voicemail before then calling another mystery person and leaving a message to call her back as they 'have a problem'. 

While Tom and Pete go to the train station to see if anyone has seen Jenny, they spot Chris's motorbike in the car park. Then Carrie calls and says Chris has just put a photo of him and Jenny online, so they must be together and Jenny is safe. 

However, Tom's relief is shortlived because he later works out that the dress that Jenny is wearing in the photo isn't the one she went to the party in, and when he checks her wardrobe it is still hanging up, meaning it must be an old photo. 

As everyone questions why Chris is posting old pictures online, we are taken back to Sia's house where they get Chris's phone which is full of pool water working again by putting it in some rice, and then defrosting his finger with a hot water bottle and using his dead thumb to unlock his phone and post the picture. 

The family then goes to the police, trying to stay one step ahead of them, and make a statement about the party, not mentioning Chris at all. But their plan backfires when Sophie's colleague Darren phones the hotel Jojo and Lauren were staying in and finds out they checked out early. 

Determined to get rid of Chris's body from their chest freezer, Sia's family wraps him up in some tarpaulin, but while they are halfway through the grim job, a neighbor pops over with a delivery and Sia hits him over the head with a wine bottle to stop him seeing the dead body. So now they have a dead man and an unconscious one in their house! 

Meanwhile, Tom has gone to an 80s bar in town called Heaven, thinking that could be what Jenny was referring to in her messages to Chris. All the staff and the manager claim they have never seen her, but later we see the mysterious manager at Jenny and Carrie's mum's grave and laying flowers. So he does know the family, but how? 

At the end of the episode, we see Pete acting strangely and sneaking through a fence, while Emma is at work, searching for Pete's car registration number in the system...

All eight episodes of Safe are available to stream on Netflix now. 

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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.