Trama

With Anna giving her the cold shoulder, Vivian hunts down sources who can fill in the blanks: Anna's ex-boyfriend Chase and wealthy entrepreneur Nora.

At Riker's, Vivian has an unpleasant confrontation with Anna. All Anna wants is for Vivian to keep her promised visit times (and she claims that pregnancy isn't an excuse because some people have babies in fields); (2) to deny the depth of her relationship with Chase; and (3) for Vivian to bring her some posh underwear from Bergdorf because the prison panties stink. Anna claims that Chase never helped her with the ADF, they were together and working on their own business ideas in parallel, without working with each other. Following that, Vivian turns to Nora Radford for an interview, courtesy of the customary inspiration from her Scriberia staff.

Nora, who agrees to speak with Vivian only off the record and without a recording device insight, is extremely helpful: She tells Vivian she doesn't like Chase or Anna, but when we flashback to 2014, just after the Ibiza trip and Anna and Chase's battle with Val in Paris, it's evident she's lying. Anna and Chase lived with Nora on and off, as they were together between 2104 and 2016. Meanwhile Chase is helping Anna by setting up meetings with designers, PR firms and others to set up for launch of the ADF and to attract investors. But the response she gets is "Who the fuck is Anna Delvey and why should I care about her?" .. Nora was all in on Chase and his software, Wake, which she used to introduce him to investors all across town. Anna figures out that to be taken seriously, she needs Nora on board with ADF. In the present, Nora speculates that Anna was with Chase only because she felt he could introduce her to the right people. Nora first treated Anna as Chases's assistant as has nothing but contempt for her. when Anna visits Chase's office, during one of his trips to Berlin, she finds that the programmers haven't been paid for months.

Why would Anna deliberately ruin Chase's relationship with Nora in order to gain access to the coveted mentee position? So, what motivates Anna to do the things she does? in this case, the answer is a mix of resentment toward Chase for keeping her in the dark about Wake's financial struggles, his own background, his trip to Berlin (He says he was going to speak at Open Air, but later finds that Open Air was canceled that yr), and so on; her own ambition around the Anna Delvey Foundation / social club, which she's pushing full steam ahead with; and probably a little bit of rage at Nora's repeated dismissal and errand-sending (though she also charges a ton of stuff on Nora's credit cards). Whatever her exact mix of reasons, Anna gets what she wants, and it's exciting to see her really start to delve into her devious ways - now we can see what Vivian means when she tells her Scriberia coworkers that Anna fascinates her. Anna eventually tracks Chase down to his parents in Ohio and confronts him about Wake. Chase admits that Wake ran out of money. Chase says that the $3 MM investment was mostly spent on Anna. Chase begs Anna not to say anything to Nora as her friend is on the verge of investing $ 2MM that would save Wake.

Vivian takes charge of her reporting and, in a risky move, plays the best card she has at the moment: persuading a number of people (all of whom have opposing accounts of Anna) that speaking with her for the article is the only chance they'll have to get their side of the story out there. For eg, In order to gain further money, Chase is fabricating portions of his past as well as the possible impending success of Wake.

Vivian speaks to one of Wake's programmers and finds that Chase is staying in a hotel in Dubai and working for the sheikh, while Anna is imprisoned at Rikers Island. Vivian then tracks down Chase's mother in Ohio and finds that Anna visited Ohio with Chase. Vivian thinks Anna loved Chase. Vivian finally gets Chase on video, who narrates the rest of the story with Nora.

Nora warms up to her after Anna "let slip" that Chase and Wake were in serious financial trouble. Nora takes Anna under her wing for a brief period of time, makes some critical introductions, and all of a sudden, the bigwigs who turned Anna and ADF down left and right when she originally pitched them are almost running up to get part in her foundation. Chase finally realizes that it was Anna who revealed the financial issues of Wake to Nora.

Chase confronts Anna and threatens to reveal her Russian origins. Anna also says that Chase has been living a complete lie. These two impostors may be made from the same cloth, but Anna ups the ante - if she's a copy of Chase and his playbook, she's a "gold-dipped fucking copy," as she puts it. Chase demands 40% of ADF. Anna walks away from both Nora and Chase. This perplexes Vivian She investigates further and finds that Nora considered filing charges against Anna when she found that Anna had been using Nora's cards (she spent $400K) to upgrade herself. Anna runs away as soon as she finds that Nora knows. To safeguard her good name and reputation, Nora is pretending she wasn't taken in by Anna and Chase. She doesn't file charges.

The Anna we witness in Nora and Chase's interviews and memories is a smart young woman who knows how to plan her way up the corporate ladder. Anna is monetarily, directionally, and emotionally on the precarious ground at the start of this episode's flashback (the breakdown she has when she learns Chase lied about Berlin bounces between unhinged and contrived).

But by the end of it, she's amassed an advisory team, has her eye on a historic and exorbitant location for ADF (thanks to Nora's connections), upgraded her wardrobe (thanks to Nora's credit cards) and positioned herself as such a formidable force that Nora and Val react as if she's sent them a bomb when a package arrives and they realize it's from her. It was a stuffed parrot.

Finally, Vivian persuades Todd to "allow" her to look at some of his case files and evidence discovery, and when she shows Landon and Paul what she discovers, she is given a few more weeks to tell the story. She also purchases some underwear for Anna, though not from Bergdorf. Anna has a slight advantage! Anna asks Vivian to see the business plan she made with her team. Vivian asks Todd for the same. Vivian has a big win and gets 2 more weeks from her boss Vivian's husband, Jack, has a harder time setting up their baby's nursery because of Vivian's increasing Anna Delvey-a conspiracy wall. Because residences in New York City are small (unless you run in Anna's circles), the nursery has to double as an evidence room on occasion. And there's a place where you can FaceTime with Dubai. And there's the storage room for stuffed peacocks.