Dolly de Leon’s Agnes’ first psychedelic experience on Nine Perfect Strangers pulls back the curtain on her nun days and ends with a trip to jail.
Warning: Spoilers below from Nine Perfect Strangers season 2, episode 3.
During the Wednesday, May 28, episode, Martin (Lucas Englander) takes eight of the nine retreaters on a “field trip” into town to officially start Masha’s (Nicole Kidman) protocol. While Masha stays behind and tests illusive ninth guest David (Mark Strong), Martin gives the rest of the group their first dose of psychedelic tea.
Most of the group experiences fun hallucinations; Peter (Henry Golding) and Imogen (Annie Murphy) dance around as fictional Swiss characters Peter and Heidi, but Agnes (de Leon) goes deep.
The former nun hears church bells and flashes back to a traumatic experience where she was also a nurse. Agnes follows the bells to a nearby house of worship and reveals that her “guilt” stems from not saving a pregnant woman and her child.
According to the flashback, Agnes told her mother superior that something was wrong with the pregnancy, but the head nun instructed her to “pray for her soul” and let God’s will be done. Agnes blames herself for their deaths and during her trip seeks forgiveness from God but receives no answer.
A distraught Agnes is later found in a confessional booth smashing her head into the wood which leads to her arrest. “No one was there. No priest. No God. Just me. I was talking to myself,” she tells Martin when he comes to bail her out.
Martin apologizes for not being there to protect her during the trip, blaming Masha for leaving him on his own, but Agnes isn’t upset. “I am responsible for what happened to me,” Agnes says.
Once the group is back at the retreat, Agnes seems to be back on solid ground. She decides to sleep in her bed — and not on the floor, which she usually does as a form of discomfort and punishment for her sins. After looking at herself and her scars in the mirror, she finally settles into a deep sleep.
The rest of the group also settles in for the night, but Imogen and Peter’s hookup is interrupted by his father, David. Masha purposely put him in Peter’s room as a “joke” after he passed out during their cold plunge earlier that afternoon. (Masha and David spent the day together since he was late for breakfast and missed the day trip.)
After the awkward exchange, Masha calls David asking why he was “rattled” seeing his son, which he claims isn’t the case. As Masha starts to peel back the layers of David’s father-son dynamic she drops their call.
David then notices Masha is watching him from a camera at the bar and flips her off. “Oh, well, f*** you too,” she says with a smirk before sipping her own psychedelic tea.
Nine Perfect Strangers airs on Hulu Wednesdays.
