The Summer of Broken Rules

They arrive at the Moor House to find the front door guarded by several family members with squirt guns. They sneak in through a first-floor window that leads into a bathroom, but Wit is still paranoid about where his assassin might be, which makes Meredith feel guilty for lying about her target, but she knows she cannot take the lie back now. To continue their agreement that they do not directly help each other with eliminations, Meredith plays Monopoly with her friends while Wit hunts for his target. During play, she tells Luli that they need to talk after the games are over, to which Luli agrees. Monopoly ends, and Jake heads to the Annex to get a chess board for the group; when he returns, Wit pelts him with water balloons. Meredith and Luli volunteer to get Jake towels, and Luli is livid at the distraction from the promised talk with Meredith.

Luli stops Meredith from apologizing, calls her selfish, accuses her of giving Wit the same status that Ben used to have: a much higher-priority position than her friends. Meredith denies none of it because she knows that Luli’s accusation is true. She tells Luli that her relationship with Wit will conclude at the end of the week, and Luli tells Meredith that she won’t help fix her friend’s broken heart when the fling is over. Luli leaves to take the towels to Jake, and Meredith escapes to the third-floor attic room to cry. Eventually, Sarah finds her and comforts her while Meredith tells her almost everything about the situation—the only thing she holds back is her affection for Wit. Sarah is quiet and then apologizes for being distant; they both are still struggling with Claire’s death, and Sarah feels guilty for leaving Meredith on her own this week despite the stress of planning for her wedding. The cousins spend some time together in the attic while Meredith pulls herself together.

Sarah then invites Meredith and Wit to get donuts at everyone’s favorite donut place; Meredith tries to refuse, since Sarah and Michael wanted to do this alone, but Sarah explains that “alone” just means without the whole entourage. Assassin is the main topic of conversation, and Meredith can feel the weight of her lie, knowing that Wit is getting closer to finding out who her target really is. They arrive at Back Door Donuts and get in line. Sarah talks to some of the people around them about the wedding planning, and Meredith gets dragged into a conversation about the origin of one of the donuts. Eventually, the four place their order. They buy a multitude of donuts, but Meredith feels incapable of eating any. Just as surely as she knows that her time with Wit is ending, she also knows that she has fallen in love with him.

After a few days, Meredith finally returns to join Rachel’s meditation sessions. When Rachel asks about her absence, Meredith tells her about hiding from Ian, who is gunning for her in the game of Assassin. In return, Rachel reveals that Ian isn’t her assassin because Julia eliminated Ian, and the card that Julia received has Luli’s name, not Meredith’s. The two of them meditate, and then Meredith takes the information to Luli, warning her that Julia is after her. Meredith then apologizes for the past 18 months, letting Luli know that she appreciated all of Luli’s attempts to reach out, that Luli didn’t deserve to be ignored, and that no matter what Meredith feels, Luli did nothing wrong. Luli thanks Meredith for the apology but asks her to leave because she needs some space.

Meredith gets breakfast with her friends, who help her gain perspective about Luli’s feelings and promise her that Luli will come around eventually. She then makes her way to the Big House to talk to Wink, who asks her whether her target knows that he is her target. She explains that she lied and can’t back out of it now because he’ll feel betrayed. Wink doesn’t tell her what to do but reminds her that only one person can win the game.

Before she goes to meet Wit, Meredith scrolls through Sarah’s Instagram posts and discovers that Wit knew Claire. When he arrives, she confronts him about the fact, and he justifies hiding his acquaintanceship with Claire by saying that he thought she already knew but didn’t want to hear him say it. Distracted by the argument, Meredith gets sprayed in the back and eliminated from the game by her assassin, Brad. Knowing that she will have to relinquish her target card, she warns Wit to run and reveals that his name is on her card—his real name, Stephen.

She hands over her target card to Brad and then goes to the pond, sulking at her failure to win Assassin for Claire and regretting that she let relationships with boys come between her and her friends. She falls asleep and wakes up when Wit grabs her ankle. He asks why she broke their pact and didn’t tell him about having him as her target; if she had, they could have made a plan to get them both to the finals. She explains that that was her plan all along, but he tells her that by keeping the information from him, she went about it the wrong way. He leaves for the wedding rehearsal but promises that they will talk later.

The bridal party is late to the rehearsal dinner because of an Assassin incident that requires a ruling from Wink. Meredith finds Wit and sees that his black eye has magically vanished; he explains that the mothers of the bride and groom covered his face with a ton of makeup to make him look presentable. He sits with his family and tells Meredith that they’ll talk later. During one of the first rehearsal dinner speeches, Rachel goes into labor. Meredith goes to get Honey and Wink, and they all help Rachel leave while interrupting the proceedings as little as possible. Julia and Rachel head to the hospital. Meredith suddenly realizes that Luli is holding her hand and hopes that it is a sign that all is forgiven. Wit and Meredith give the final speech of the rehearsal dinner together, reading a poem that they wrote for Sarah and Michael.

Meredith leaves the after-rehearsal dinner party early to help her mom babysit Hannah and Ethan while their parents are at the hospital. Meredith and her mom have a heart-to-heart conversation about the past few days, and how hard everything has been after Claire’s death. Meredith’s mom tells her daughter that she misses Claire every day, but that being back at the Vineyard has lessened the grief and has helped Meredith to be more like herself again. Her mom doesn’t tell her what to do about Wit but does advise that she end things on good terms.

Back at the Annex, Wit reminds Meredith that they still have to complete the dare to walk down the darkest street without lights. She tries to get out of doing it, but he doesn’t let her. Wit says that when he did meet Claire, all she did was talk about how amazing Meredith was and how Wit wanted to meet her. They eventually broach the possibility of starting a long-distance relationship, and Wit says he hasn’t thought about it because the Vineyard makes him feel like time doesn’t exist and that summer will last forever. Meredith tells him that she cannot commit to a long-distance relationship, and she isn’t ready to go to New Zealand with him. In the end, they agree to pretend that time doesn’t exist, at least for their last day together.