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After a traumatizing event in ABC‘s Alaska Daily Episode 7, Eileen Fitzgerald, played by Hilary Swank, was more than ready to move on in episode 8. So she threw herself back into Gloria Nanmac’s case, and with the help of Roz Friendly, they tracked down one suspect. Read on for our recap of “Tell a Reporter Not to Do Something and Suddenly It’s a Party.”

[Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers from Alaska Daily Episode 8, “Tell a Reporter Not to Do Something and Suddenly It’s a Party.”]

Eileen returns to work in ‘Alaska Daily’ Episode 8

Following the hostage situation in Alaska Daily Episode 7, Stanley Cornik forces Eileen to start attending therapy before returning to work in episode 8. But, knowing Eileen, she just wants to get back into the newsroom. Unfortunately for her, the therapist believes she might have PTSD, so Eileen opens up about her panic attacks.

The journalist then comes clean about why she chose this profession — she cares about the truth because her parents lied to her. Unfortunately, Eileen doesn’t elaborate (but we’ll likely learn more about her past soon).

Back at the Daily Alaskan, Yuna Park, Austin Teague, and Claire Muncy are recovering from their trauma. Eileen returns (much to Stanley’s dismay), and they all welcome her back with open arms (figuratively and literally in Yuna’s case). Meanwhile, Gabriel Tovar is taking time to process being held hostage by the Concerned Citizen.

Eileen wastes no time and jumps back into Gloria Nanmac’s case with Roz Friendly. Roz has made a lot of progress and informs her partner that their most recent person of interest — pastor Reed Gallahorn — runs a church called New Zion. The police arrested Gallahorn six years ago for a felony assault. But the charges were dropped, and they didn’t take his DNA.

But that’s not all. A reporter named Max Hansen investigated the death of Randy Martin, a teenager found behind Gallahorn’s previous church in Nebraska. Max tells Eileen and Roz that the medical examiner ruled Randy’s death accidental. However, Max believes Gallahorn is to blame since he had a motive — the reporter was investigating Reed for “extreme practices” (aka physical abuse), and Randy was his source.

Since Stanley doesn’t want Eileen to go to Meade, she and Roz split up in Alaska Daily Episode 8. Roz will travel to Meade, while Eileen will stay in Anchorage and report on Alaska’s broken DNA system. They want to pressure the state to test Gloria’s and Gallahorn’s DNA.

Is Conrad selling the ‘Daily Alaskan’?

Eileen goes to the medical examiner’s office in Alaska Daily Episode 8 and learns that the state only tests DNA when a death is ruled a possible homicide. But only the Public Safety Commissioner’s office can change the status of a case. So, Eileen visits Commissioner Haynes.

Eileen tries to convince Haynes to test Gloria’s and Gallahorn’s DNA, but the commissioner claims the case is too old. And Haynes then drops a bomb on the reporter — Conrad Pritchard is selling the Daily Alaskan, so Eileen’s thinly veiled threat to write a story on the state not testing DNA doesn’t scare her.

Meanwhile, at the Daily Alaskan, Aaron Pritchard and Stanley brainstorm budget cuts. Eileen calls Aaron and confronts him, but he has no knowledge of his father’s recent business ventures.

Later, Stanley has Claire do some digging, and she discovers that Conrad’s office requested financial reports and sent them to Horizon Capital in New York. Apparently, Horizon has been buying up newspapers around the country and gutting them. So Stanley calls Aaron and gives him helpful information to use against his father when fighting for the paper.

In Meade, Roz’s half-brother Derek picks her up from the airport (they’re working on their relationship). He drives her to Sylvie Nanmac’s house, and Sylvie denies that Gloria attended Gallahorn’s church. She raised her in the Presbyterian church, but Sylvie admits that Gloria started to pull away. So Roz goes to New Zion to ask Alice, Gloria’s friend, herself.

She doesn’t get much out of Alice, especially since when Gallahorn appears, he escorts Alice out of the room. Roz starts asking the pastor questions and learns he saw Gloria the night she disappeared. Gallahorn claims that Gloria fought with her mother and wanted to run away from home. So he tried to help her with “the spiritual tools to protect herself, but she couldn’t escape the darkness.” That’s not ominous at all.

Roz returns to Sylvie, who admits she fought with Gloria about going out the night she went missing.

Elsewhere, Eileen meets with the executive director of the Justice Council for Alaskan Natives in Alaska Daily Episode 8. She informs the reporter that the nonprofit lobbied for a $2 million grant for DNA testing a year ago. But the state claims the budget is still in process, so Eileen gets her hands on the Department of Public Safety’s budget. And she discovers that they used the $2 million for something other than DNA testing.

DNA leads to a surprising suspect in ‘Alaska Daily’ Episode 8

Roz discovers that Gallahorn has a son, Chris, in Alaska Daily Episode 8. But he disappeared from the church’s website six years ago (around the same time the police arrested the pastor for assault). So Roz sends Eileen Chris’s address in Anchorage so that she can investigate further.

There, Eileen learns that Chris was the victim of the assault charges, but he signed an NDA. So Eileen compromises and says she’ll pin whatever he tells her on a former member of New Zion.

Chris reveals that Gallahorn broke his jaw because he told his father he was an atheist. Chris also corroborates the physical violence rumors and claims that Gallahorn is a sadist. The pastor makes his congregation fast and quickly escalates to whipping and hitting them with paddles. Chris even shows Eileen his own scars.

Alice finds Roz and Sylvie in Meade and opens up about Gloria’s experience with New Zion. Alice says that Gloria told Gallahorn she would expose his physical abuse on Facebook, and Alice has messages between her and Gloria to prove it. So Roz and Sylvie confront Gallahorn, and he shockingly agrees to submit his DNA.

Eileen laters writes an article titled “How Alaska’s Broken DNA Collection System Betrayed Gloria Nanmac.” As a result, Haynes reclassifies Gloria’s death as a homicide and tests the DNA.

Conrad admits to selling the paper when Aaron presses him, so his son brings up Conrad’s recent land purchases. As a result of direct threats to make these purchases public, Conrad sells the Daily Alaskan to Aaron. It looks like Aaron has a backbone, after all.

Unfortunately, Sylvie’s health declines, and Eileen and Roz learn that the DNA testing matches Toby Crenshaw, not Gallahorn. The police are issuing an arrest warrant for Toby. And to end things on another sad note, Gabriel informs his colleagues that he’s not returning to the Daily Alaskan.

There is much to unpack from Alaska Daily Episode 8, but we can only focus on the fact that we might lose Gabriel. We have never shied away from expressing our love for Gabriel, and we won’t start now. He is a breath of fresh air in Alaska Daily, and we hope Gabriel changes his mind before season 1 ends.

Alaska Daily Episode 9, “Rush to Judgement,” airs Thursday, March 16, at 10 p.m. ET on ABC.

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