Episode 5 of Happy Face ended with a shocking announcement by DA Calloway: After the discovery of Heather’s DNA on Keith’s pipe wrench, Calloway had decided that Keith and Elijah had murdered Heather together.
Melissa calls her dad from the rally, and Keith tells her he absolutely did not work with Elijah. Heather’s mom Denise asks to speak with Keith, and he admits he killed her daughter, and acted alone. When Melissa takes the phone back he asks if she got the photo of her ex, in which he was badly beaten.
Denise agrees to be interviewed by Ivy and Melissa, and she does a bang-up job. She introduces herself calmly, and then says the DA is a liar. Good for her!
Meanwhile, Hazel is hiding out again at school, and Josh finds her. She shows him the drawings Keith sent her of his victims, and tells him that Keith told her about hiding his victims’ jewelry and things in the air vent at a specific motel room. Josh gets all excited about it and wants to go there after lunch tomorrow.
The next day, Hazel runs out expecting to see only Josh, but he has the mean girls with him too. She’s not happy, but gets in the back seat, and the group sets off to visit the motel.
Denise shows Ivy and Melissa a pic of Heather’s grandmother Lorelai. She goes through more photos, very melancholy because this week is Heather’s birthday. One of the photos of Heather is dated and labelled “Ziggy’s Basement.” Heather was a singer, and it looks like she may have performed there. Gabriella calls and tells them Elijah is getting another hearing in two day.
Slimy Calloway pays Keith a visit in prison, bringing him a sandwich. Keith eats it, but is ticked that Calloway told everyone Keith is a liar…which is not true. Calloway gets down to business. He wants Keith to sign a new confession, stating that he and Elijah worked together. If he refuses, he will be extradited to Texas, where his death sentence will be put off for decades. But he will only have this one chance to amend the confession, then the “deal” is off the table.
Keith picks up a pen to sign, and then…nope. He asks Calloway about his own daughter, to which the DA tells him to leave his family out of this. Keith grins his serial killer grin and says, “You put the wrong man away, and you know it.”
Hazel and her pals go to the motel, only to consider that it is out of business. But she knows the room number, and they are able to retrieve the key from the office after breaking a window to get in. They find nothing in room #17, so they split up to check out the other rooms, and Hazel and Josh end up together. He is puzzled, why does Hazel seem like she is mad at him? She wants to know why he brought Summer (who he claims is his EX-girlfriend). He apologizes, and they kiss.
When they meet up with the rest of the gang in the parking lot, Summer claims she found a bag of jewelry in a locker in the office, and Hazel runs in to get it. She finds a locker with the word “slut” written on it, but no bag of jewelry. Then she hears the tires squeal as her so-called friends take off without her. Hazel tries to call them, but they hand up on her. In tears, Hazel calls Keith and asks for help.
Poor Ben. His boss comes into his office and breaks the bad news to him: the promotion to regional manager is off. The higher-ups aren’t happy with the press attention due to Melissa’s interview, and they honestly want him gone altogether.
Ivy, Melissa and Tyler pay a visit to Ziggy’s Basement, where they meet Ziggy himself. They show him a photo of Heather, but he doesn’t remember her. He keeps videos of the performers at his place, and searches for Heather’s with no luck. The they check under the name “Lorelai”, and bingo lollipop! There’s a video of Heather singing. Better yet, it’s the night of the murder, AND she sings the song Elijah has always claimed was her. And even better than that, the time stamp on the video backs up Elijah’s alibi. He couldn’t have killed her.
It’s dark at the motel, and a car drives up to pick Hazel up. That’s pretty messed up, because Keith sent a man named Ennis to pick up his stranded granddaughter?? Ugh. The creep tells her she should get back at her friends for ditching her, and claims he is writing a book about Keith. He shows her his manuscript, gives her a card and says he wants to interview her and Melissa for the book.
Hazel runs into the house in tears, refusing to talk to Ben, and he hears her crying in her room. She accidently drops the card Ennis gave her, and Ben picks it up. Later, he calls Ennis and threatens him, but Ennis says fine, next time, he will just leave her at the side of the road in the dark.
Ivy and Melissa are interviewing Joyce again, she says she doubts Calloway will do the right thing, referring to him as an innocence denier. Melissa finds a lipstick in the guest room, and recognizes it as being Jillian’s, so she confronts Joyce, who admits that Keith called her and confessed three months earlier. He told her that Melissa would need her help.
Jillian visited Joyce to set everything up so she Keith could call her, and she asks for case files and photos. Joyce admits to Melissa that she carved the happy face on the tree at the river, and even made it look aged. She says her brother knows nothing about any of this. Melissa wants to tell Elijah’s attorney Gabriella everything, but Ivy talks her out of it. After all, they have 100% proven that Elijah didn’t kill Heather.
It’s time for Elijah’s hearing, and Gabriella presents her facts. That video shows a time stamp of 9:33 p.m. on February 18, and Heather’s time of death was established as between the hours of 9:45 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. A recording at Elijah’s work place shows him starting his shift from two hours away, and proves he worked until 9:00 a.m. the following morning. Combined with the DNA evidence implicating Keith, that proves that Elijah could not have committed the murder.
Gabriella asks for a re-trial, and Calloway agrees. But the judge instead says he wants to dismiss the charges and immediately release Elijah. Surprisingly, Calloway agrees with that as well, and just like that, Elijah is free.
Melissa approaches Calloway afterwards to thank him for doing the right thing. Calloway says he is withdrawing from the next election, and has no plans to re-prosecute Keith.
Ben goes through Hazel’s phone records, and calls a number he doesn’t recognize, only to have Keith pick up. He quickly hangs up, then doesn’t answer his phone when it starts ringing.
Ben calls Melissa and tells her Hazel has been talking to Keith, and that’s where this episode ends.