Picnic at Hanging Rock episode 5 review: de Poitiers investigates Sara’s disappearance
To say that Appleyard’s college is falling apart would be an understatement. Parents are pulling their daughters out of the school, teachers are quitting and now a detective from Scotland Yard will be coming to town to investigate things further. Add to this Sara snuck out of the school at night to go to Albert’s work in hopes of finding him before he heads out on an adventure with Mike, but did she get to him? We heard Appleyard’s voice before Sara was reunited with him and we fear the worst. How will things start to wrap up in the second last episode of Picnic at Hanging Rock? Let’s dive in a find out.
So what happened with Sara? Appleyard claims that her guardian came to collect her and she’s no longer at the college, but when Mademoiselle de Poitiers finds the Valentine that Miranda gave to Sara left behind she starts to wonder what really happened to her. She knows that Sara carried that picture with her everywhere she went and would never leave without it. de Poitiers starts to dig deeper learning that no one actually saw Sara’s guardian come for her and no one saw her in the morning at all.
Through out her snooping though she is given a letter from one of the former teachers that was meant for Sara. The letter tells Sara that if she wants to leave the school that she can come and stay with her and to have de Poitiers arrange it since Appleyard is not to be trusted. She brings the letter to the local detective and explains her fears – that something horrible might have happened to Sara and that she’s not actually with her guardian. Without very much in the way of evidence the detective sends her on her way.
She goes to the clockmaker and spends the night with him, using him as a distraction and alibi. Knowing that Appleyard may find out about her visit to the detective, de Poitiers feels that a scandal should help divert the attention, but unfortunately it ends up falling on Dora as her brother pulls her out of her teaching job at the college because of de Poitiers night with the clockmaker. Is this going to be enough or does Appleyard know everything already?
After all the girls leave for the Easter holiday it is just de Poitiers and Appleyard left at the college alone. Appleyard starts the conversation off by talking about how she’s going to do a clean sweep of the school, rename it, rebrand it and only get the top quality girls in it – students and teachers. de Poitiers tries to say that she is marrying the clockmaker, but Appleyard fires her anyway saying that it has nothing to do with the scandal and everything to do with the fact that she lost the girls at the picnic. Later that night when Appleyard starts wandering the college alone with a gun having hallucinations, de Poitiers runs out of the college.
We saw Albert ride off in the morning without Sara so it’s safe to assume she never made it to him and since we all know she’s not with her guardian and she’s not back at the College or the orphanage, we suspect Appleyard did something to her.
Related – Check out our finale review of Picnic at Hanging Rock.
CarterMatt Verdict
For a story that is supposed to be about the missing women at hanging rock the past few episodes have felt way less about them and more so just about everyone moving on. While we are getting some flash backs from the ladies, the mystery of what happened to these women is why many have tuned in. With there only being one episode left, we don’t expect to know exactly what happened to the remaining women, but we do hope that they are going to circle this story back around in some shape or form in the finale.
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