Friends in Low Places
Episode 6 of Inventing Anna starts with Vivian and Jack meeting Todd and Mags at dinner. As they look into Anna’s past, and specifically an expensive trip to Morocco where Rachel paid most of the expenses. But how? And why? Well, to find out we shift perspective again and this time turn to Kacy and see her side of what’s happened. During a workout, Anna receives a call from Alan about her incoming loan. With things heating up, she suggests heading to Morocco and invites Kacy to join her and Rachel. So naturally, the pair agree and the action turns to Africa for this chapter. They bring along a videographer called Noah too, with Anna deciding to film everything after finding inspiration from a Khloe Kardashian video. Specifically they find the spots that she posted from and take selfies there too. So for the next 15 minutes we get a series of massages, drinking, eating and general tomfoolery. That is, until Kacy ends up getting sick from the food. She’s the only one but believes this is a sign from the universe to protect her from what’s about to go down. At home, Kacy receives a call from Anna, telling her she’s been mugged and asking her for money for a plane ticket… and even has the audacity to ask for it first class too. With Kacy back in the US and spending quality time with her partner, Anna keeps ringing, claiming it’s an emergency and needing help. She even asks to stay on Kacy’s couch too. Kacy refuses though, until she threatens to commit suicide. That obviously affects Kacy a lot but when her partner Martin finds out, he’s not exactly happy and ends up leaving. Now we see the real Anna, including how she took advantage of her hospitality, berated the dress Kacy gave her and drinks the last of her water. As Vivian listens to this whole story, she’s shocked and taken aback by this turn of events. And as we soon learn, that incident that was filmed in Morocco included security showing and demanding Anna pay up. Of course, she doesn’t have the funds and even refers to Morocco as a “dirty country.” Wow. In the wake of all this drama, Rachel diffuses the whole situation by offering up her card for the trip. Shell-shocked, Rachel is clearly worried but Anna nonchalantly shrugs it off, deciding to leave a 1 star review on Tripadvisor instead. She doesn’t even bat an eyelid or say thanks to Rachel for covering her. After an expensive trip to the gardens, Rachel is in even hotter water, with only her work card to use. Anna is left on the periphery of all this while Rachel is the one caught in the crossfire. Rachel’s card is declined and she struggles to get through to American Express. Meanwhile, Anna manages to get her loan through just in time… but she also needs to have an investigator sent over to search through and verify her assets. Of course, that’s not going to work and Noah senses something afoul, especially when he finds a drunk Anna batting balls in the tennis court and fumbling her story about the loan. When he catches up with Rachel, he convinces her to pack up and leave. Given Rachel paid for all of this on her personal and work hard, finding out that Anna’s money won’t be wired in for “a few days”, she takes Noah’s advice and high-tails it away. This puts her plight and why she won’t see Anna at Rikers into perspective. Despite leaving, Anna stayed at the hotel for another week and in that time, maxed out Rachel’s personal card and charged her Amex to the grand sum of $62000. Wow. Of course, Neff has a different perspective on this and claims that Rachel offered up her card and was happy to splash out. So who’s telling the truth? In order to find out, Vivian leaves leaves a flurry a voicemails for Rachel, trying to get through to her and learning her side of the story.
The Episode Review
This episode finally sees Anna made out to be the fraudster that she is, with some horribly tense scenes involving Rachel’s card being rejected. Given the fact that Anna didn’t even say thanks to her using the card to cover the charges, it speaks volumes about what this woman thinks. And to be honest, it matches her arrogant attitude and demeanor that we’ve seen portrayed across the season. Finally Vivian is seeing the real story of what happened with Anna and her earlier quips about Anna being misunderstood are surely going to be rolled back now! Anna is finally seeing how Anna scammed so many people and for such a long time too. However, this episode is still longer than it needs to be, with a good 10-15 minute period here with Anna and co. flexing their financial muscles and showing how flashy they are with dinners and pampering. We’ve seen that a lot this season but here it just feels like padding in the season as a whole. Despite those gripes, this feels like a much more consistent and driven episode compared to what we’ve seen. Hopefully that’s a sign of things to come for the remaining episodes.
