Apple TV+’s Before Season 1 Episode 1 Recap: Before is a psychological thriller with a story that will keep you on the edge of your seat. This American drama miniseries, which was written by Sarah Thorp, stars Billy Crystal, Judith Light, and Rosie Perez, among others. The show is about Eli, a child psychologist who just lost his wife and is trying to deal with his grief while still doing his job. But things go badly when he meets his next client, a troubled boy named Noah (Jacobi Jupe). Noah has a strange connection to Eli’s past that starts to reveal secrets and mental pain.
Before Season 1, Episode 1: “The Imposter” What Happens in Episode 1?
| Eli wakes up from a disturbing nightmare. Eli sees his late wife— Lynn’s ghost around the house. A boy named Noah appears with blood-stained hands. Eli starts therapy to deal with his wife’s death. Eli is assigned to work with Noah, a troubled child with violent tendencies. Noah’s strange visions begin to manifest, leading to an aggressive outburst. Eli discovers a chilling link between Noah’s visions and his own nightmares. |
Before Season 1, Episode 1 Recap
Eli, the main character of Before, wakes up from a bad dream at the beginning of the first episode. In the dream, he stumbles through an empty swimming pool and hurts himself on the diving board. There is blood on the floor from previous attempts to get out of the dream. The image is unsettling— setting the mood for the psychological unease that will follow right away.
Eli is still upset about the death of his wife Lynn and keeps seeing her around the house. She is very missed, but he keeps her memory close. At one creepy point, he is looking at a picture of a farmhouse that is stuck to his fridge. He can’t place it, but it looks familiar, so he throws it away. Later, he finds it again, which shows that the picture is bothering him.
When a boy named Noah shows up at Eli’s door, he scratches it badly and has blood on his fingers. Things start to get stranger. An air of fear fills the room as the boy runs away before Eli can ask who he is.
Eli starts therapy because he is having a hard time dealing with Lynn’s death. His world seems strange, like a “Dali painting,” and he talks openly about many things, but he won’t talk about how he really feels about his loss. His life seems to be falling apart, and he’s losing interest in his job as a child psychologist. His coworker Gail goes to him with a new case: a young boy who has been kicked out of several schools for violent behavior in the past. Eli isn’t sure what to do, but the intrigue is clear.
That night, Noah comes back and this time goes into Eli’s house. The boy gives Eli a hug and leads him to his apartment, where his mother hits him in the face because she thinks he is a stranger. In the middle of all the chaos—Noah gives Eli a sketch of his own house that looks very strange. The boy has a strange effect on Eli’s life that starts with this scary encounter.
Things get scarier with Noah’s behavior, especially after Eli starts having scary visions of a black, oozing figure crawling over Noah’s walls. It’s becoming clear that Noah is either having horrible hallucinations or something more sinister. Jackson, Eli’s friend, tries to help by saying that there might be a spiritual link between Eli and Noah. This is especially true when Eli learns that Noah is the child he was sent to help.
Things get worse during their first meeting. Noah has a strong reaction to a drawing Lynn made— seeing scary images of tentacles coming out of a pool. Using a foreign language and a lot of force, he attacks Eli. Eli writes down what the boy says, which makes him confused and worried.
As Eli digs deeper he feels more hopeless and his mental health is breaking down as he struggles with feelings of not being good enough. He starts to believe that he is not a real psychologist and that he can not help other people. His nightmares get worse after he has a scary vision of Lynn’s dead body in the bathtub.
What finally breaks Noah is when he stabs a classmate with a pencil because he sees tentacles around the boy’s neck. This violent outburst makes Eli even more determined to learn more about Noah’s mind. Eli makes a discovery when he translates Noah’s outburst and finds that the boy is pleading from the 1600s: “I’m scared, save me. Save me, please. Eli is completely shocked by the news especially when he sees that the cabin in Noah’s drawings looks a lot like the picture on Eli’s fridge. This makes him think that there must be a much deeper, more mysterious link between the two.
At the end of the episode— Eli is left wondering about reality, his relationship with Noah, and whether he can still make sense of his own broken life. Eli has to deal with both his patient’s scary visions and the dark secrets from his own past that are coming to the surface.
Check out tvacute.com for more stories with twists and turns in Before!
