SPOILER ALERT: This recap contains key plot points from the fourth episode of “Lady In The Lake.” Read the recaps for Episodes 1, 2 and 3.

Be careful what you wish for.

That’s the lesson Maddie (Natalie Portman) learns this episode. All her big swings are backfiring, big time. We pick up immediately where we left off last week: She is trying to get control of her interview with the sinister Stephan (Dylan Arnold), who is locked up in a mental institution for the killing of young Tessie. He invited Maddie there after she wrote that they have a cosmic connection, but in person, he can tell she’s after a story.

He’s right, of course. She tries to have a normal conversation, but her lack of reporting chops and nervousness make her too obvious. Stephan denies dumping Tessie in the lake, telling Maddie he knows she was familiar with the dumping grounds because “it’s where you used to go with boys.” He knows because he goes to watch. Eww.

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Besides this disturbing revelation, Stephan tells Maddie a story that we see in a flashback of young men with shaved heads being subjected to horrific experiments. Back at the Baltimore Star newsroom, she tells reporter Bob (Pruitt Taylor Vince) that Stephan was one of several conscientious objectors forced to be part of a military program called Operation Whitecoat. Bob does not seem impressed.

Meanwhile, Cleo (Moses Ingram) answers the phone nervously. It’s Reggie (Josiah Cross), the henchman who set her up. He says he’s dreamed of a dark lady, which she interprets from her numerology book as denoting profitable investments. That’s not why he’s calling, though. He tells her she needs to be out of town by Christmas morning for her own safety. On the other hand, Reggie doesn’t want Dora (Jennifer Mogbock), his drug-addicted girlfriend as well as Cleo’s best friend and former singing partner, to leave town to get clean. She can do that in Baltimore with him. Can she though?

Cleo leaps into action, convincing a local hairdresser who plays the numbers to bet the number 366 for a race at Pimlico, which she is sure will hit. When it does, she’ll give the hairdresser 20%. The stylist accepts. Good.

But things are not so good with Ferdie (Y’lan Noel). The police officer hears that there was a woman in a powder blue coat near the assassination attempt of state Sen. Myrtle Summer (Angela Robinson), and we know Cleo has one of those. Ferdie’s partner is shot and killed after a showdown with one of the suspects. It makes the news, which doesn’t make evil club-owning mastermind Shell (Wood Harris) happy. He says they’d better find the third shooter now.

It turns out that Bob ran with Maddie’s Operation Whitecoat story after all. Newsroom phones are abuzz, papers are selling out and the male reporters are pissed that a woman’s having a moment.

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Good news, Bob tells Maddie! She’s hired. But not as a reporter.

She’s the new Miss Helpline, answering dumb community questions. It’s not what she wants, but she sucks it up and accepts. Bob invites her to the Colts Christmas game, but she says she’s going to be with her son, Seth (Noah Jupe). Bob gives her two tickets, but Maddie knows she isn’t Seth’s favorite person at the moment.

Shell summons Reggie to the roof. If you’ve ever seen a ‘70s crime drama, you know that’s very dangerous. Henchmen tend to get thrown off those. Shell tells Reggie he knows that Reggie was the one who sent Cleo to the shooting — and that he needs to get Cleo to the club’s annual Christmas Eve giveaway, and then kill her.

“If Cleo is breathing on Christmas morning, there ain’t gonna be no angel merciful enough to save you,” Shell says.

No! Reggie sucks, but I almost feel bad for him.

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Cleo’s still planning to flee, but Dora begs her not to, saying she still dreams they will sing together onstage some day. Cleo promises she won’t abandon her even if she has to leave. She’ll find Dora, no matter what.

Maddie and Ferdie are still in their ill-advised relationship. He’s been promoted to detective. She’s got a newspaper gig. Hurray, I guess? They try to bond over their good news, but they don’t know how to be normal. He thinks anything he tells her will wind up in the paper.

“You don’t trust me,” she says.

“I trust you to be who you are,” he answers.

Ouch.

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They get to making out, a thing they are more comfortable with than talking, and she has a flashback of Allan (David Corenswet), her high school boyfriend who she recently discovered is the father of little Tessie, groping Maddie in his car. It’s gross.

Back in her present, Maddie invites Ferdie to the football game but he reminds her there’s a law against them being together that he’s paid to enforce. She keeps forgetting they have different stakes in this relationship.

In a voiceover, Ghost Cleo says she could have had Ferdie if she wanted, but acknowledges Maddie’s heart probably wouldn’t break over that revelation. It’s not hearts Maddie’s after. It’s stories and secrets she isn’t entitled to.

Cleo (Moses Ingram), left, and Slappy (Byron Bowers) share a moment in “Lady in the Lake.” (Apple TV+)

Not shockingly, Cleo’s number hits at Pimlico. She makes it to the Christmas Eve party and Shell looks way too smug. Back home, she has a nice moment with her ex Slappy (Byron Bowers) and her family. There’s a lot of holiday partying going on!

At the asylum, Stephan sets one of the guards on fire and escapes in the melee. Meanwhile, Maddie gets a cold reception at a Hanukkah party where a bereaved Allan accuses her of riding his daughter’s murder to a newspaper career.

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“You want to recover your lost dreams and you want to use the body of my dead child to do it,” he says, demanding Maddie leave. He’s not wrong, you know. Maddie’s son Seth says as much, and she slaps him. Seems Maddie is more interested in displaying other people’s secrets than her own.

Slappy and Cleo leave her mother’s and he notices her suitcase. She says it’s a present for Dora. They have a sweet moment, but it doesn’t last. We see Cleo waiting in the park in the dark. Headlights pull up. Uh-oh.

A shaken Maddie returns home from the party and calls out for Ferdie, but it’s Stephan. Surprise!

“You didn’t feel connected to me. You just wanted my story,” Stephan accuses her. It’s Tell Maddie About Herself Day, apparently. A new holiday! He gets very close, too close, and he tells her he was thinking they could run away together, but that was naïve. She offers him a coat so he can escape, which he does as she breaks down.

As the cops search for and find Stephan, we see Reggie dumping something in a body of water. It looks like a figure in a powder blue coat.