‘Dirty John’ Episode 6 Recap: “One Shoe”

“A lot of people knew something was up with John Meehan.”

That’s what one of Dirty John‘s rare good guys tells Tonia Meehan once he’s finished the investigation into her ex-husband—the one she asked for after turning over a pile of his stolen narcotics to the Ohio police. A lot of people knew John Meehan was a bad guy; a few questions directed toward most anyone who’s crossed his path would prove that. Because John Meehan thinks he’s a charmer; thinks he’s an apex predator; thinks he’s entitled to everything and can get away with anything. But that’s not true. In a sea of people who can plainly witness the evil seeping out of his pores, John finds the one person who can’t see through his masquerade.

And to his credit: John is good at finding those people.

Debra was chosen precisely for her vulnerabilities: her unfortunate romantic history that left her desperate for love, her overbearing family that might rift easily, her unbearably forgiving nature. It all opened her up to be sucked into John Meehan’s toxic orbit…

But a conman is nothing without his victim. And finally—finally—in Dirty John Episode 6, Debra Newell is tired of being a victim. And just as importantly, she suddenly finds herself surrounded by people who are willing to do something about the clear fact that John Meehan is a dangerous dirtbag. In the same flashback quoted above, after Detective Lucan lists the dozens of hospital administrators, police officers, doctors, nurses, and pharmacists who crossed John’s path while he was manipulating and lying to Tonia, he adds: “So, yep—a lot of people knew something was up with John Meehan; the bad news is, a lot of other people kind of decided it wasn’t their problem.”

The first rule in any kind of manipulator’s handbook is to separate their victim from the people who ground them and keep them strong, and John’s skilled hand has managed to put a wedge between Debra and her family the size of Debra’s bank account. But in Episode 6, the lies and crimes of John Meehan face off against entities that aren’t so easily stopped: empathetic lawyers, dedicated detectives, and the unavoidable truth.

And it’s about damn time. If this were the Dirty John podcast, Episode 6 would be our final destination, but expanded out to eight episodes, the series explores a little further than its source material just how Debra was able to muster the strength to escape her husband’s oppressive grip. It’s exciting to see that the series is capable of being a little more creative, a little more daring when drawing a narrative of its own. Thanks to some timeline trickery, this is certainly the most riveted I’ve felt—and the most fearful I’ve felt—for where the story of Debra and John might be headed.

From the opening scene, it’s difficult to tell exactly where in time and space this episode is taking place. John has become a visual consistency in both past and present, so when a lawyer in a wide-knot tie comes to meet him in a dim waiting room, I assumed this was a part of one of John’s early cons. John tells the lawyer that his wife is running late, but when she comes walking in…

She is—unfortunately, painfully—Debra Newell, meeting her husband at John Gialo’s law office. Last we saw Debra, she was discovering that John is still using drugs and keeping them in the luxury condo that she pays for, and it seemed like she might have come to a breaking point with her dirtbag husband. But now, here she is, speaking to a lawyer about how to battle the many, many charges in John Meehan’s past (those women were actually stealing from him, stalking him, threatening him, you see).

At least, that’s what John is most interested in applying the $25,000 retainer of Debra’s money toward; Debra seems most interested in finding a way to legally prove to her family that John isn’t just after her money, so they might be more comfortable with their marriage. Gialo—played by Alan Ruck with a perfect balance between honest warmth and a little bit of cunning to match John’s own—recommends a post-nup agreement since Debra cruised right past the possibility of a pre-nup. He explains that they’re a little less reliable than pre-nups in court, “But if they’re reasonable and honest and done in good faith, they can.”

REASONABLE AND HONEST AND DONE IN GOOD FAITH, YOU KIDDING ME BRO???

That’s basically detailing every characteristic that John lacks completely, but Gialo doesn’t know that yet. That is, until he glances from Debra over to John while explaining the post-nup, and John is absolutely seething: shaking with anger, pursing his lips, seemingly trying to will Gialo to stop talking with the silent force of his rage.

The moment is made all the more disconcerting by the casualness of the camera cut revealing this startling moment of recognition between Gialo and John. There are three people in the room, but only two are clued into the full scope of what’s happening.

Debra sits there with her doe-eyes and her gorgeous hair and her millions of dollars at stake, seemingly clueless to who is trying to help her and who is trying to hurt her at any given time. Gialo, completely confident and competent until this point, begins stuttering through his explanation, but he doesn’t fold to John’s silent threats completely. Gialo tells John he can tell he’s not loving this conversation, “But it’s clear from just this one meeting how much this woman loves you, so whatever I can do to smooth things over for this family, I can do that for you too—not to be the bad guy, but to the help.”

John briefly stops seething to spit, “To me, it just seems like a lot of wasted time and money when there’s literally no chance of changing anything with her family, so.” Y’know, just the most hurtful thing he could say to his wife who’s desperate not to lose her family! John storms out of the law office, but it seems that Gialo still takes them on as a client. As he later tells his assistant, “I think she needs some protection; things aren’t great with her family because of him, so this office is going to try to protect her.”

My screams of, SAAAAAVE HEEEEEER, are interrupted by Ronnie calling her mom to ask for her birth certificate. She does this with her standard Ronnie-charm, meaning, like a brat. But given what her mom has put her through, it’s a little understandable. Debra doesn’t see it that way though, hanging up and saying, “She’s unbelievable,” to a previously unseen John. The camera swings over to show that others might be trying to protect Debra, but she still doesn’t seem to understand that she needs to protect herself.

Because she’s, uh, living with a maniac. A maniac who shows up to Gialo’s office and screams in his face. “Listen to me,” he hisses: “You work for me, you crook. You work for me, and you’re fired. And I want that $25 grand retainer back in full or I’m going to file a complaint with the bar.” Though he’s rattled, a few threats from a conman don’t stop Gialo from trying to help a vulnerable woman. He writes Debra a letter and hand delivers it to her office detailing his firing by her husband, and making sure that it’s what she wants. So Debra…

Delivers the letter to John at home, UNOPENED. John reads the letter and tells Debra he fired Gialo because he wasn’t doing any work on the proposed lawsuits and he doesn’t need to pay someone to send Debra love notes. Connie Britton gives a giggle that sounds suspiciously like one of Debra’s fake-laughs, but only a cut of her eyes as she watched John open the letter betray that anything else could possibly be out of the ordinary here.

Completely ordinary to the John we know, however, is him calling Gialo and acting like a big bad mob boss, mockingly reading Gialo’s letter to Debra back to him, ending it with a slight edit: “I just want to make sure you know I got fired for being a dickless old sack.” After John threatens Gialo, suggesting that he might just be right outside his office door, scaring Gialo so badly that he drops the phone and sprints to lock the door, we’re treated to a scene of Debra sleeping soundly in bed, and John cuddling in next to her.

Enter the aforementioned flashback: “A lot of people knew something was up with John Meehan.”

In this episode, the flashbacks of Tonia working with Detective Lucan to expose John serve to show just how much of a dangerous and deceitful criminal this man is. Previously, we’ve mostly heard what John Meehan is capable of, but not seen much proof of it. But to see him be caught with a duffel bag full of stolen drugs in his ceiling; to see him skip a court date and fake an overdose to earn sympathy; to see him jump out of a moving ambulance to escape the law…

To see him kick a police officer in the face and threaten to kill Detective Lucan’s family—that’s all very real. And it makes an already disgusting act like sending a video of himself spitting on Ronnie’s birth certificate all the more foreboding. But between the protective care of John Gialo and the fierce quest for justice from Detective Lucan, something finally starts to emerge in this story of Dirty John that hasn’t existed before: hope.

And damn if I didn’t hoot and holler when that cloud of hope finally cracked open to revel the truth I’d been missing.

Debra calls Ronnie from an unknown number and tells her she has a new phone and she needs to speak to her at a restaurant they’ve never been to before. When Ronnie arrives, she finds Debra in a brown wig and plain clothes: “I’m sorry, I just have to be so careful—I don’t want John to know anything until I’m ready.” The episode quickly flashes through scenes that have already passed, showing us the real meaning behind them: Debra listening skeptically to John explain that a blister popped on his foot the morning after she found his drugs; Debra dropping a cup under her car and discovering a tracking device; Debra reading Gialo’s letter and resealing it to give to John; Debra watching all the cameras in her office carefully and slipping into the bathroom to call Gialo and ask for a criminal lawyer recommendation.

We see Debra park her tracked car at a fabric showroom, leave her phone inside, walk a few feet, and get in a different car. There waits one more person who’s ready to take on the task of John Meehan: Debra’s new lawyer, Michael O’Neill. Debra tells him she’s scared and humiliated, and with the assurance of expertise, he tells her, “You know how many times on average a woman goes back to a situation like yours before she gets out for good if she ever does?”

It’s a lot more times than one. This journey with Debra has been frustrating, yes, but it is not uncommon. And she’s not to blame. “I know all about this guy,” her lawyer tells her. “He thinks he’s a real shark … he thinks he’s entitled to eat whatever he wants, but he isn’t and also”—and this is my personal favorite part—”he’s not a shark. He’s a big fat seabass, and I’m gonna get him in our boat and club him until he starts moving.”

However many metaphors it takes to get Debra Newell away from John Meehan, I’ll take them. And after hearing the nasty threats and images he’s sent Ronnie’s way over the past few weeks, Debra seems just sad enough to hand O’Neill the club he needs to take John down…

Debra arrives home to find John waiting for her in the dark: “Why’d you withdraw so much cash today?” Debra informs him that it’s her money to do what she wants with. “That’s what you think?” John snarks. And suddenly he knows: the jig is up. Debra darts to her closet and packs a bag. “For once in your holier than though life, listen to me,” John spits, sounding nothing like the smoothie-making, doting husband he’s been playing since he met her. “You think I’m gonna let this happen? No more nice-Deb, is that what you want? Because the last thing I want to do is break you.”

They stare at each other. Debra tells him she’s leaving and she wants a divorce. John tells her to hit him: “Hit me and I’ll make sure you never move again.”

Debra tells him to move; she tells him to move again; and she books it out of the house. Because John Meehan isn’t a shark. He’s just a big, fat seabass who found some willing prey.

Well…formerly willing.

Jodi Walker writes about TV for Entertainment Weekly, Vulture, Texas Monthly, and in her pop culture newsletter These Are The Best Things. She vacillates between New York, North Carolina, and every TJ Maxx in between.

Watch Dirty John Episode 6 ("One Shoe") on Bravo TV