Abhiroop Das
Prime Video’s ‘The Girlfriend’ follows two characters, Laura Sanderson and Cherry Laine, as their paths cross in a battle for control. Laura leads a perfect life as an art-realtor and family person, but when her son, Daniel, introduces his new girlfriend, Cherry, things quickly go south. While the latter seems perfect on the surface, the mother suspects that something deeper is brewing within. Cherry’s unique ability to blend lies and truths together leaves the family entranced, forcing Laura to get her hands dirty to protect her son. His lover is not one to back down from a fight either, and a ruthless game of chess ensues. However, this entire narrative is warped by a sense of distrust and paranoia, with both sides making a case for themselves. In such a scenario, Moses the cat comes as a breath of fresh air, but is soon engulfed in the larger shenanigans. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Moses Survives the Show and Safely Returns to its Owners
Moses, the Sanderson family’s pet cat, is one of the first characters introduced in the show. From the get-go, its mischievous nature takes center stage, as it goes around breaking a vase and giving its owner, Laura, a scare. This, in turn, foreshadows the eventual predicament the cat finds itself in. Shortly after Cherry’s dinner with Daniel and his family, Moses goes missing, and an alarmed Laura puts up missing-pet posters all across the neighbourhood. However, this turns out to be a fruitless endeavour, and Moses disappears from the plot for much of the show’s duration. This choice is intentional on the creators’ part, as with the pet cat, the last remnants of the Sandersons’ cheerful nature go away as well, and what replaces it is cold, calculating family politics. Fortunately, in the end, Moses is confirmed to be alive and well.
Moses and its absence are intimately tied to the larger mysteries of the show, as when the events of the date are rewinded, this time from the perspective of Cherry, we learn what actually happened to the cat. As it turns out, Cherry and Daniel had snuck into the house prior to their dinner meeting, and she was nearly caught by Laura, save for the cat unintentionally creating a distraction with the fallen vase. The connection runs even deeper, as we learn that, on the night of their date, Moses made his way to Cherry while she was in the washroom. In a shocking reveal, we see Cherry get annoyed by the cat playing with her, which prompts her to scoop it up and throw it out of the window. Her lack of any feelings for the cat foreshadows the twisted ends of her character, while also contextualizing the pet’s disappearance.
Although all hope seems lost for Moses ever returning to the Sanderson household, the cat eventually finds its way back in the penultimate episode of the season. While Laura has no way of knowing what Cherry did to the cat, things nonetheless play out in her favour, even past her eventual fate. In the finale, Daniel finds his cat playing with a cabinet, specifically poking under it. This piques his curiosity, and he soon discovers that there is a phone lying underneath. This discovery recalls Laura and Cherry’s fight, where the phone slipped out of the former’s hand and landed there, but Daniel has no knowledge of this. However, he does end up finding his mother’s video, which shows proof of the secrets that Cherry has been keeping from him. As such, Moses the cat plays a crucial role in unraveling one of the major plot threads of the show.
Moses’s Disappearance Might Have a Symbolic Layer of Meaning
Although Moses is not an explicit parallel to any one element in the story, some abstract meaning can be extracted from its presence and actions. In particular, the cat appears to be inextricably linked to Cherry, and her behaviour towards it serves as a springboard for a deeper dive into her character. However, this link goes even deeper, and the cat can even be interpreted as an analogue for Cherry’s father. The fact that Cherry pushed Moses out of the window vaguely resembles how she pushed her own father out of the building. In both cases, she claims to have a valid reason for her actions, and in Moses’s case, it is displeasure. However, the similarity between the two events serves as a microcosmic representation of the larger flaws within Cherry’s psyche and how they can come out in harmful ways.
Moses’s connection to Cherry’s father can also be extended to the finale, as it is the cat’s actions that lead Daniel to the full truth. Notably, the video recording he finds involves Cherry’s mother, Tracey, hinting at the truth of what happened to her husband. This, in turn, puts the cat’s involvement in a new light, bringing its potential correlation to the father full circle. Additionally, Moses’s survival also serves as a reminder that Cherry’s plans are not necessarily without failures, and there can always be missing links that come back to haunt her. This is exemplified by the videotape, and although she is not aware of it yet, the Sanderson family is likely heading towards a new wave of chaos and malice, with their pet cat, Moses, bearing witness to it all.
