Which Lady's Working Hardest On Megan's Behalf On The Arrangement?

Megan's reached another milestone in her journey as an A-lister's girlfriend: co-hosting a lavish fundraiser with him! Unfortunately, an artifact from her life before Kyle upstages the event:

MEGAN'S GOT NOODZ. The story of this crisis and how it affects everyone around her becomes the episode's only story. See, before the pics were published, Adam, the head of the studio making Kyle's next blockbuster The Kill Plan -- the audition for which got Megan her contract as Kyle's girlfriend and the role as his leading lady -- has cold feet about giving her the part since she's such a nobody. Terence, who's still cool on Megan in general, but particularly since the events of her trip to Venice, agrees with Adam. Deann backs Megan, and Kyle gives Adam an ultimatum that finally causes him to push her paperwork through and close the deal, moments before the nudes leak. As it happens, Megan's contract on The Kill Plan includes a morality clause that lets the studio fire her if she does anything to damage the project -- like leak the photos for publicity, which rumour has it is what she did....

But DID SHE?! Kyle, knowing Terence was trying to get Megan off the film, suspects him -- and since he had to lock down all her tech two weeks ago, he could have easily accessed them from her cloud. At lunch, Deann and Leslie each accuses the other of having motive to raise Megan's profile and turn her into a survivor in the aftermath. Or is the simplest explanation the likeliest: that Nick, who took them, still knew how to get on Megan's cloud and leaked them out of revenge for her dumping him?

Or, seriously, was it Megan?

Because her reaction to seeing them online seems a bit big. Maybe this show of support from Kyle...

...was something she planned for and manipulated him into?

By episode's end, we learn the culprit -- and along the way, we learn which of the women in Megan's life has her best interests at heart. Let's rank them from Megan's biggest champion to her worst foe.

1. Leslie

   The lovely Leslie locks down Megan's movie deal, comes up with a counterattack plan after the leak without knowing or particularly caring who's behind it, and replies to Deann's query about whether she minds Deann ordering wine with lunch with "Do you mind if I show you pictures of how we're decorating the nursery?"

   

   Deann: "Sparkling water, please." Later, when she and Megan and Deann all get blindsided with the news that Megan's lost her role in The Kill Plan to an Amelia Briggs, Leslie has no compunction saying, in front of Terence, why she thinks it happened -- the ministrations of Amelia's rep, Dan Buckleman: "He's a prick, but he's Institute, so we know how that works." She's ready to march Megan straight out of the live interview she and Kyle are about to do, but Megan listens to Kyle's explanation for why he let this happen -- this way it won't look like Megan got this huge part because of her relationship with him; the studio will now let him direct his next film, which he'll be able to cast her in -- and smoothly handles her business on camera, saying that this whole experience has taught her never to let herself feel powerless again. Leslie's proud of her girl. And maybe should be the star of a spinoff because she's the best.

2. Deann

   Deann seems extremely pissed to have been left on the outside of all the machinations surrounding the casting on a movie she's supposed to be producing, so she goes to Megan's after the interview to let her know where they stand.

   

   "As a woman in this business, you sometimes have to accept things that you don't like because you have your eye on a bigger prize....You know, I really came here to tell you that things aren't always going to be this way for you and me. We're not always going to be the women behind the men. That's going to change. I promise." Oh, SHIT. Is she the one responsible for putting Terence in the path of....

3. Detective Gaffey

   At the episode's end, Terence is visited in his office by the LAPD's Detective Gaffey.

   

   It turns out Det. Gaffey has questions for Terence about a certain Sophie Marchuck.

   

   Sophie is a former Institute student who's disappeared. Does Terence know anything about that? Or, more to the point, does Deann? Did she drop a tip as part of what we now know is a plan to come out from behind her husband? Megan may not know Gaffey exists, but she may soon be grateful for her efforts to start a process of dismantling the Institute.

4. Shawn

   Megan's lawyer friend does Megan the service of pulling her aside at the party and informing her that her nude photos have leaked, which is pretty much the bare minimum any of us should expect if we're ever in Megan's position.

   

   However, Shawn also meets James, who doesn't seem bothered by her joke about getting recruited at this Institute party, since she doesn't know he is, as he cheerfully tells her, an instructor. They continue chatting and flirting until, by the end of the night, he tells her he is going to recruit her. Shawn, no! Megan needs friends on the outside!

5. Hope

   This bitch. First, she gets so embarrassed by her failure to impress Andres, the director of The Kill Plan, that she gets way too drunk and starts yelling that she's "RIDE OR DIE" for Megan, disrupting the party.

   

   Kyle quietly leads her to the door and says his guy's going to take her home...which is when she decides to leak Megan's pics. We don't find that out until the end of the episode, when she tells Shawn that she did it, and why: "Kyle West is not a good guy. I saw it in his eyes. He's fake. He acts sweet, and perfect, and it's bullshit. He's really just a product of the Institute Of The Higher Mind. Which I've also heard terrible stories about. And now he's got his hooks into Megan. She's getting totally sucked in, and it needs to stop, and that was the whole point of the photos." Was it, though? Was the decision thought through with that much analysis when Hope was poured into Kyle's limo? Is it more likely that Hope was just lashing out from jealousy that Megan's getting everything Hope wants for her career? Or will Hope eventually end up being the only one who truly has Megan's best interests at heart?