Good Cop/Bad Cop season 1 episode 8 recap: Who killed Tommy Buché?

The Good Cop/Bad Cop season 1 finale pulls back the last veil of Eden Vale's darkest secret and finally answers the question that has haunted the series: Who murdered Tommy Buché? The definitive answer is Gladys, the hometown waitress who, as a teenager in 1987, unintentionally murdered Tommy during an altercation over her grandfather being swindled.

But the real reason so many people lied— including Police Chief Hank Hickman — is all the more horrifying. Instead of turning her in, Hickman and others conspired to cover up the crime to save their skins and reputations, tying them all together in silence for almost four decades. This horrific reality paves the way for a climax that is full of tough decisions and irreversible results.

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Good Cop/Bad Cop season 1: A crime that began decades ago

The Good Cop/Bad Cop season 1 episode begins with a jarring flashback to 1987, where a group of teens are huddled over a severed body. Each one of them agrees to leave a piece behind — a horrific agreement designed to make sure no one ever speaks. It's a dark introduction that leads into the revelations ahead.

Today, detectives and brothers Henry and Lou Hickman of the Eden Vale Police Department continue to investigate the macabre remnants found throughout town. They identify the victim as Tommy Buché, an ex-bus driver with a questionable past. Tommy was associated with Reverend Laramie Lyall and was probably participating in a scam to bilk elderly townspeople out of donations to Lyall's ministry.

As the case continues to unfold, more of Tommy's body parts turn up — this time in a river, potentially dumped there quickly once news spread about the case being reopened. Further digging into Lyall's finances shows shady grants amounting to almost a million dollars, channeled to his ministry by the Eden Vale City Council.

When Lou and Henry try to confront Councilman Rick Vernon about the funding, he does not deny it. Rather, he tells them to back off, suggesting that their father, Chief Hank Hickman, will be fired if they continue digging.

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Good Cop/Bad Cop season 1: A second murder

The pressure builds when Reverend Lyall is discovered dead with a bullet in the head. Surveillance drone video brings the detectives to Gladys, a waitress at the diner.

When questioned, Gladys makes a dual confession. She says she murdered Tommy in 1987 after catching him cheating on her grandfather, and she murdered Lyall because he had been blackmailing the city council based on his knowledge of her previous crime.

Gladys asserts her grandfather assisted her in dismembering the body to conceal the crime and that Lyall's authority over the council came from this secret they shared. With her confession, the case seems solved. The Hickmans are hailed as heroes, and Chief Hickman personally presents his children with medals for solving both cases.

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Good Cop/Bad Cop season 1: A phrase that changes everything

But the truth starts to unravel over a family dinner. Chief Hickman explains Gladys' actions in a chillingly precise phrase: "sectioned him like a deer." It's the same odd phrasing Gladys used in her confession — something Hickman wouldn't have known unless he'd heard it from her first or had been brought in at the beginning.

Suspicion builds rapidly, and Henry and Lou begin to construct much more sinister evidence than they could have ever thought possible.

The scene ends with Lou and Henry accosting Nadia, their father's fiancée, and asking her where Chief Hickman is. They have learned the truth now — their father was not only complicit, he was at the center of the cover-up. They have a horrific moral dilemma: reveal the corruption, which will send their father to jail, or remain silent and allow Gladys to take the fall.

Good Cop/Bad Cop season 1 finale thus closes the case but leaves many stones unturned.

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Catch the latest episode of Good Cop/Bad Cop season 1 streaming on The CW.