This second installment of the Apple TV Plus thriller, entitled simply II (Roman numerals for 2), came out at the same time as the first on Friday, October 11.
It continues to show us the story of a successful journalist who receives a book chronicling secrets from her past, as well as the man sending these secrets and the events that transpired 20 years prior.
To ensure that you haven't missed any story beats, this Vendetta episode 2 recap will go through everything that happened, to simplify things. I've largely kept things in the order we see them, but have combined a few elements for brevity.
Of course, spoilers ensue so if you'd like to watch the show first, sign up for Apple TV Plus in order to check it out.
Searching for Stephen
The episode begins where the last one left off: Jonathan (Louis Partridge) is taking pictures of a young Catherine (Leila George) on the beach in Italy. She asks him about the pictures and he seems nervous. When Nicholas asks for food they begin to leave, and Jonathan chases them and catches up. He offers to carry Catherine's belongings and seems very at ease with Nicholas.
In the present day, current Catherine (Cate Blanchett) wakes up in the morning. Downstairs her husbands Robert (Sacha Baron Cohen) is arguing with someone on the phone about work. In her inner monologue, she's happy that she didn't tell him her secret, and she seems more flippant about the book she received.
We now get a flashback to a recent event we heard about in episode 1: Stephen (Kevin Kline) visits Nicholas (Kodi Smit-McPhee) at his work, pretending that he wants to buy a vacuum cleaner. Nicholas gets impatient quickly with the older man and, while Nicholas is looking away, Stephen slips a copy of his book onto the counter.
Catherine goes to work and tells her work rival that someone is making a movie adaptation of her recent documentary. This is a lie. She makes a list of all the people who could know her secrets and write the book, and Nancy is one of the people on the list.
We see a flashback to 10 years prior, shortly after Jonathan's death, when Catherine met up with Nancy (Lesley Manville). Nancy is upset that Catherine skipped Jonathan's funeral and pretended to the police that they didn't know each other. She's dying of cancer, and wants to meet Nicholas, but Catherine refuses. Nancy implies that Nicholas owes his life to Jonathan.
The trip in Italy
In the modern day, Catherine finds out that Nancy is dead and quickly decides that her husband Stephen could be behind the book. She also seems to think Stephen is a paedophile. Now that Catherine has decided who the culprit is, she finds herself more at ease.
At the same time Stephen makes duplicates of the raunchy pictures he discovered of her. He goes to Robert's office and drops off a parcel, and you can guess what's in it. Robert opens the packages to receive the book and the photographs. He recognizes the hotel from the snaps: it's one from an Italian vacation 20 years ago, from which he had to return home early.
Catherine goes to a grocer's to buy ingredients for dinner that she's cooking that evening. It's for a dish from her and Robert's past, that she always cooks when she wants them to reconnect. While cooking, she has a phone call with her mother, who's beginning to forget things.
Robert skips out on their dinner date and ignores calls from Catherine, instead phoning Nick to arrange to have dinner with him. He visits his son's flat and reflects that he's disappointed that the 25-year-old didn't amount to more, and he thinks it's because of how Catherine treated him.
Over dinner Robert gently asks Nicholas about the Italian trip, but he doesn't remember much, but he does seem touchy on the topic. Robert also offers Nicholas money to take his girlfriend on a trip, generosity which is against Catherine's rules normally.
Only when it's dark outside does Robert return home, and Catherine is worried. He shows her the pictures and is enraged about the affair, not giving her a chance to explain what happened, though she does tell him that it's his fault for leaving their holiday early. Eventually she tells him that Jonathan is dead and she thinks his father wrote the book but Robert won't listen, and he storms out of the house to drive away.
