'Based On A True Story' Season 2 Recap (Episodes 1-8): Who Was The Copycat Killer?

The first season of Based on a True Story was centered around the titular podcast that was co-created by the married couple, Ava and Nathan, and the plumber-cum-serial killer, Matt, also known as the Westside Ripper. All three spent most of the show’s runtime keeping this whole arrangement a secret, ensuring that this project became viral, and keeping Matt from committing any further crimes. This of course led to a whole array of complications, but the one that lingered throughout the last few episodes of the show was Ruby’s discovery of the relationship between Ava, Nathan, and Matt. She died pretty unceremoniously, and it was assumed that the Westside Ripper had murdered her and dumped her on the doorstep of Ava and Nathan’s new house. While cleaning up all evidence of this incident, the deceased Ruby’s husband, Simon, showed up, thereby putting the couple in an extremely tight spot. The second season of Based on a True Story is all about Ava and Nathan facing the consequences of their actions, while Matt spices things up with Ava’s sister, Tory. To make things even more interesting, there’s the emergence of a copycat killer as well as a murderous individual from Matt’s past. So, let’s talk about it.

Spoiler Alert

Matt Didn’t Kill Ruby

Season 2 of Based on a True Story started off with the revelation that Ava and Nathan were never held accountable for Ruby’s death, because her body was never extracted from the depths of the pickleball court where she was buried by the couple. Ava went into labor and, hence, the couple didn’t have to answer Simon why there was a pool of blood in their new home. Soon after that, Matt falsely framed (apparently) Simon for murdering Ruby and then went away to Mexico to get some kind of therapy for his anger issues. You’ll probably remember that Matt and Tory hit it off at the end of the last season, and instead of pursuing her law degree, she went away with Matt to “connect with her inner self” at the aforementioned therapy center in Mexico. Meanwhile, Ava and Nathan’s marriage was falling apart. Since Ava was trying to stay away from true crime and focusing on being a mother to baby Jack, she was finding it hard to connect with her old friends. On top of that, the guilt and sadness over Ruby’s death were taking a toll on her psyche, thereby hindering her breast milk production and making her feel like an inadequate mother. Nathan was giving private tennis coaching lessons to a rich kid, but the taunts leveled against him regarding his financial status were making him feel inept as a man. To exacerbate their insecurities, the revelation that Matt was with Tory dropped on their heads, and Ava ordered Nathan to immediately head over to Mexico and bring Tory home.

Nathan got busy working on his feelings of emasculation with Matt, while Ava decided that she should meet up with Simon, who had been set free on bail and placed under house arrest, to talk about Ruby and hopefully relieve themselves of the pain they were feeling after her death. That was when Matt revealed to Nathan that he hadn’t killed Ruby. I mean, he did want to kill her, but by the time he got to her house, Ruby and Simon were already in the middle of an argument, and the latter, in a fit of rage, stabbed her to death. When Simon went out to get the stuff that he needed to get rid of Ruby’s body, Matt stole it and dropped it on Ava and Nathan’s doorstep so that they’d be aware of the fact that he could frame the couple any time he wanted. After that, Matt “framed” Simon for Ruby’s murder and sent him to jail. Ava made a narrow escape from Simon’s clutches thanks to a timely text from Nathan as it prompted her to use her breast milk to trigger Simon’s ankle monitor (because it was activated when it came in touch with any kind of liquid) and keep him from taking any drastic actions.

Ava’s Return to True Crime Solving

Matt and Tory got engaged with the intention of marrying each other in the future, thereby making the Westside Ripper an unavoidable part of the Bartlett household. That affected Ava and Nathan (who we’ll come to in a bit) in two very different ways. Ava wanted Tory to pursue her studies instead of settling down with a serial killer, and Tory was willing to do that if Ava made new friends. After a few failed attempts, Ava befriended a fellow mom named Drew, and the two got along really well, thereby prompting Tory to go back to college and finish her law degree. Coincidentally enough, this was the time when a copycat killer emerged. So, in addition to being Jack’s mom, Drew’s friend, Nathan’s wife, Tory’s sister, and Matt’s sister-in-law, Ava took on the role of Murder Bunny to unveil the identity of this copycat killer on TikTok. Things were going relatively great on all fronts. Ava was exploring her kinks with Nathan, Tory was building a good future, and Matt was staying away from the knife. But as soon as it seemed like Ava and Drew were building a beautiful friendship, Ava’s amateur investigation led her to the revelation that Drew wasn’t actually a simple mom; she was actually a homicide detective looking into the case of the Westside Ripper. Now, given how Ava had attained this information through some shady means (she broke into the apartment of one of the victims of the copycat killer and saw Drew sifting through the crime scene), and she didn’t want to reveal that she was indeed Murder Bunny, she continued her investigation into solving the case of the copycat killer. Due to her popularity (which didn’t last very long), this copycat killer actually got in touch with Ava and sent her a cipher that’d give her the clue of the next victim. Ava, with the help of Matt and the Bible, managed to get to the bottom of it, and she finally decided to go to Drew and share her findings on the copycat killer. That was when she found out that Drew wasn’t actually Drew, and she didn’t have anything to do with any kind of law enforcement authority or detective agency. So, yeah, even though Ava didn’t find the copycat killer, she did unveil the fact that there was an imposter amongst them.

Nathan’s (failed) Attempt at Becoming a Tennis Star

Nathan found a friend in Matt because, well, both of them were men, and since they had been severed from their primary vocations (Nathan from his tennis academy and Matt from murder), they weren’t feeling right. The Mexican therapy session that they participated in didn’t actually motivate either of them to do better and tap into the positive side of masculinity; instead, it pushed them to be more and more toxic. In the case of Nathan, it did give him a momentary win as, after being coaxed by Matt, he confronted Kristin, the mother of the kid he was coaching, Jayden, regarding her classism. Kristin wanted to get rid of Nathan because he was poor and he wasn’t her type (she had a habit of having sex with her son’s coaches), but seeing Nathan fight for Jayden and his dream, Jayden stood up to his mother and continued getting coached under Nathan’s watchful eye. Since Jayden won, Nathan felt that he was on the right track and needed to be more and more assertive. That was why he wagered his family savings on a charity match with his archnemesis, Danny Merrick, so that he could reacquire all his former glory. When Ava learned about this, she was infuriated. However, instead of backing out of this deal (I don’t know if a wager can be refunded), Nathan doubled down and went ahead with the match against Merrick.

Of course, Nathan lost his cool after seeing the man who had ended his tennis career, and even though Nathan was winning, he went off on Merrick because he was taking it too seriously. Ava actually gave Nathan the opportunity to walk away from the mess that he had created, but Matt egged him on until Nathan tried to choke Merrick to death and he got arrested. Matt wasn’t toying with Nathan for the sake of it, though. As mentioned before, Matt was having trouble living a crime-free life. He was irritated by the fact that a copycat killer was stealing his thunder. He attended AA meetings to see if pretending to be a former alcoholic would allow him to speak about his feelings, but that didn’t work. He met Chloe Lake’s daughter with the aim of seeking forgiveness, but that backfired. Hence, he tried to derive some satisfaction from Nathan’s acts of violence. In addition to that, he was preparing Nathan as his fail-safe program.

The Fake Drew Was Actually Matt’s Wife

As mentioned before, the fake Drew wasn’t actually a homicide detective; her real name was Olivia. That said, she was looking into the murders happening in Los Angeles and keeping track of the activity of the Based on a True Story podcast in order to get to Matt, who was actually her ex-husband. From what I could gather, there were two reasons why she wanted to find and kill Matt: firstly, to stop him from murdering people, and secondly, to prevent him from ruining more lives. I guess she had sort of failed on both fronts because Matt had already entered the Bartlett household with his fake traumatic backstory and he had killed a bunch of people. Well, Olivia wasn’t a saint either. Apparently, she was a serial scamster and a master manipulator. So, in order to get to the Westside Ripper (her ex-husband), she got into a relationship with the real Detective Drew and stole the case files on him to get a better understanding of what Matt was up to, which led Ava and Nathan to believe that Olivia was the copycat killer (she wasn’t). When Matt got a whiff of the notion that a certain Detective Drew was on his tail (Olivia gave Drew’s card to Tory and she passed it on to him), he went to his house and killed him, thereby falling into Olivia’s trap.

Given how this was Matt’s first kill after he had promised to his fiancé, Tory, that he was done with his life of crime, Olivia had proven to the Bartletts that he was beyond repair, and he should be put down like the dog he was (RIP McEnroe). That’s why Olivia barged into Matt and Tory’s shotgun wedding ceremony to stop the marriage (which Tory had proposed to keep her from ever testifying against Matt) and kill the Westside Ripper for good. However, since Tory was deeply in love with Matt, she ended up killing Olivia. Matt was distraught, and he wanted to call off the wedding, but Tory said that she wanted the spousal privilege that she was willing to give to Matt so that he wouldn’t testify against her. Tory knew that his sister and brother-in-law wouldn’t report to the police about this incident, and with Matt in her pocket, she was totally in the clear. Well, not totally, because the Bartletts had to get rid of the body in the middle of their house. After the marriage, Matt and Nathan took care of Olivia’s corpse, but while burying her, they got into a fight, and Nathan abandoned Matt in the middle of the forest. Matt left a cryptic message for the copycat killer and the police and returned to civilization, hoping to find some form of normalcy. That’s when Tory pulled off yet another twist by coming up with the plan of leaving Los Angeles with Matt and Ollie (Olivia and Matt’s son).

Chloe Lake’s Sister Was The Copycat Killer

Ava’s amateur investigation into the case of the copycat killer brought her to the conclusion that the perpetrator was taking out people associated with the pharma industry in any fashion possible. So, after deciphering the copycat killer’s last puzzle, she logged into her Murder Bunny profile and wrongly predicted the murderer’s next victim. Whereas, the killer was actually talking to the Westside Ripper through the cipher. Anyway, Ava’s factually incorrect video blew up, and she was compelled to post an apology, and that’s when her Murder Bunny face filter glitched and exposed her real identity. Since Ava’s location was doxxed, she had to drop Jack at Serena’s house and make a run for it with Nathan. The couple was cornered by the Lipinski sisters and forced to talk about their experience with the Westside Ripper on their podcast or face jail time. Ava and Nathan obliged, but the podcast was interrupted by the copycat killer, who was the sister of Chloe Lake (the girl who was murdered in the first episode of the first season of the show). Lake started what seemed to be Ava and Nathan’s last podcast with a questionnaire about serial killers. Soon, Ava turned the tables by using Lake’s questions to figure out the motivation behind her killing spree: Lake was killing those who profited off of the true crime genre. Ava and Nathan were in her crosshairs because they had made a podcast with her sister’s killer instead of giving him up to the police. I don’t think I’ve got to explain why Lake wanted to kill Matt, right?

Okay, at this point in Based on a True Story Season 2, Ava had come to the realization that Lake not only wanted to kill the people who made money off of real-life crimes, but she also wanted to tell the world about the real Chloe, whose whole life had been boiled down to her identity as one of Matt’s victims. In the meantime, Matt deciphered Lake’s message (which was in response to the cipher at Olivia’s grave) and came to Ava and Nathan’s rescue. While Lake was distracted, Nathan managed to free himself and knock her out. Matt decided to put an end to his life of crime by surrendering himself to the police. That was a lie, though, because at the very last moment, Matt ran away with an unconscious Lake and left Nathan and Ava to face the music. Everything from Nathan’s locker to the evidence on Olivia’s dead body as well as the weapon found at the scene where the Lipinski sisters had been killed made it seem like Nathan was the copycat killer; hence he was arrested. Matt had left his son, Ollie, with Tory, but given how Matt was taking too much time to come back to her, she told Ollie to go to the police so that they could send him back home or at least put him in the care of Child Protective Services. Where did she go? My best guess is that she wants to stay far away from society to deal with the demons forming in her head after killing Olivia. Where’s Matt? He’s at a nondescript location with Lake, as he probably wants to deconstruct her mind and understand how she managed to thwart him for so long, and then maybe he’ll kill her. And, well, that’s where the show ended, and I can’t wait for Season 3 of Based on a True Story to arrive soon so that I can enjoy more of these characters’ crazy shenanigans.

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