Tell Me Your Secrets - 1 ª Season

Convicted for covering up for Kit Parker, her serial killer lover's, crimes, Karen Miller is released from prison. But, because of the nature of the murders she was associated with and because she eventually gave evidence against her boyfriend, she is released into witness protection and given a new identity: Emma Hall. Her protection officer Pete Guillory promises to guide her through this new life but warns her to live quietly here in the Louisiana bayou where her new home will be. He warns her not to draw attention to herself and above all, to never ever involve herself with young women - her boyfriend's choice of victim. However, she panics on her first night alone and ventures into the local town where she defends a girl against her tormenters. A strange friendship grows between the two until this troubled girl is later found dead. It triggers in Emma, previously locked, traumatic memories of her boyfriend's crimes and she starts to wonder whether she did more than just provide her killer boyfriend with an alibi. Meanwhile, Mary Barlow the grieving mother of Theresa, who she firmly believes is one of the victims of Kit Parker and his lover Karen Miller, receives a visit from John Tyler, a sexual predator desperate for redemption, and who proposes he use his dark crimes for good in the form of safety advice to women via the foundation Mary Barlow has set up in her daughter's name. But, triggered by the release of Karen Miller, Mary instead blackmails him to hunt down Karen Miller and bring her to the justice she appears to have escaped.

Emma is in turmoil after the suicide of her lover, Kit and the death of Jess. She confides in Pete and takes him to the site of Jess' murder: but the body has gone. Pete worries Emma is becoming unstable again, and that she has hallucinated the murder of Jess and the crazed man in the bayou. Emma wrestles with doubt over what she saw while also experiencing horrific flashbacks that suggest she was involved with one of Kit's murders. The discovery of a hook in a sore on her leg, festering since her escape from the bayou shack, convinces her that she didn't imagine the horrors of last night. She begins to research the "swamp monster" Jess mentioned to her and discovers a dark mythology in the bayou. She makes a promise to herself to find the truth about Jess and the strange town of Saint James while once again crossing a red line in forming a strange connection with another young woman, Rose Lord, the bully of Jess. An unsettling question begins to form: if the memory of Jess is real then are the memories of the murder with Kit real too? While questions also form about Pete as he reveals a strange connection to the group home Jess disappeared from. Mary Barlow holds a vigil to raise awareness that her daughter, Theresa, is still missing believed dead at the hands of Kit Parker and his lover Karen Miller (now Emma) who is living free in witness protection. The vigil brings forward another grieving parent who believes his daughter was a victim of Kit Parker. John Tyler tracks down Karen/Emma's mother in a bid to glean information about where her daughter is. Instead he finds a fractured relationship led to Karen/Emma being fostered in Minnesota and learns that it is this foster mother who Karen/Emma was closest to. John believes the information is enough to have Mary release him from this twisted contract but she refuses to release him from her blackmail and John moves further from the path of redemption he so desperately seeks.

Pete claims not yet to have followed up on Jess at Saint Jerome House. He's a stranger, it's difficult to ask those kind of questions without drawing Emma into it. Instead he drills down into the blackspot in her memory, a period of several days in Minnesota, before she was found with Kit and arrested. He thinks she's projecting that trauma onto the "death" of Jess. However when Emma learns, through her growing connection with a local cop, that Pete worked at the Saint Jerome House, the group home Jess lived at, she becomes wary of him and the increasing control he has over her life. Unsure who to trust, Emma makes contact with her past. But a chilling memory of her with Kit, and an unconscious Theresa, gives a whole new view of Emma. Mary receives a visit from Van Walker, a father of a missing girl he believes was also a victim of Parker. The girl disappeared at a festival in Minnesota, the same way other girls disappeared. Mary promises to help him and claims his daughter's disappearance has been overlooked because of racial bias. But Van's wife, Kamala intervenes and asks Mary to stop contact with Van who suffers with bipolarity and is unhealthily obsessed with Kit Parker, revealing that she has heard the truth from Kit herself. But to get his confession she had to give him a confession of her own - her infidelity. She allows Mary to listen to a recording of their meeting to satisfy her own obsession with Parker. But Mary picks up on Kit's suggestion that there is someone worse than him still out there and Mary uses this private information to further her own case that Karen Miller is his accomplice. But in doing so reveals Kamala's own secrets and begins to cross her own moral lines, bringing herself into conflict with her beloved son, Jake. John Tyler meanwhile is getting closer to who Karen/Emma used to be when he finds the vulnerable foster mother of Karen.

Emma in freefall at her growing distrust of Pete. She changes the locks, avoids his calls. We see a flashback to how they met and the deal Karen made to gain witness protection. Their relationship disintegrates when she learns Pete lied about who the cabin belonged to and that it is his. When she finds an intimate picture of him with a young girl from his time at Saint Jerome House she fears for her own safety and moves into the storm shelter outside - where she finds items that hint at darker aspects of Pete's nature. Her growing paranoia derails the burgeoning connection with Tom who begins to ask about her life before coming to the town. While two key men in her life fall away, her connection to juveniles in the town intensifies as Emma digs deeper into the bayou mythology and the mysterious Abel through a friend of Jess' at the group home. Her relationship deepens with Rose who is secretly falling in love with her and hints at dangers in the town. A violent encounter over the cat she has stolen leads her to reach out again to Esther and learn of her death and then to flee the town in a vehicle she steals from Rose to get to Minnesota. We learn that Pete is married to the girl in the picture Emma found and that she was once his patient. John mines a growing intimacy with Esther as he draws out details that help him set the trap for Karen. Mary escapes the fallout of her exploitation of the Walkers and descends on Minnesota, surprising John on his mission. We see the beginning of a shift in the power dynamic of this relationship with John banishing Mary from contact with Esther but Mary sickened to learn that John has let Esther's confused mind believe he is her husband. Mary realising she has put this woman in possible danger goes to her to apologise. But her desire for answers leads to a terrible event, one secretly witnessed by John.

Emma arrives in Minnesota. She retrieves a photograph of a couple and an address from a lockup of Esther's. The address takes her to a house in which a four year old girl plays and as Emma secretly comes face to face with the girl we see they have the same unusually colour eyes, one blue one brown. This girl is her daughter, Freja. This is the secret Esther has kept. Pete and John attend Esther's funeral to wait for Emma who doesn't show. Emma and Pete confront each other over their suspicions of what the other has done and reach a new accord. Pete explains away the photograph and the eerie items in the storm shelter and there is renewed trust between them. Emma is forced to make an agonising decision - to leave her daughter in Minnesota and to try and win her back through completing her rehabilitation. Pete promises he will support her and piece back the memories she can't unlock from before Freya's birth. Mary rocked by guilt at what she's done loses herself in illicit sex with her younger lover but cannot escape what she's become. A murderer. John begins to exert a new control over her, secretly knowing what she did to Esther. When Mary chastises John for the failure of his plan to find Karen he drops chilling hints about his past. It leads Mary to discover a traumatic rape for which John has never been caught. Realising he has lied to her about the extent of his crimes Mary is driven to find her own protection against John. Rose hurt at Emma's abandonment goes to the cabin to take comfort in this space of Emma's. Instead she finds evidence of Emma's relationship with Tom and the truth about her former identity: Karen Miller. John's meticulous research on Karen sees him spot the telltale sign of her presence at Esher's grave and it leads him finally to her. But instead of alerting Mary, John keeps this secret and we sense he's going rogue and is on his own dark path.