Black Rabbit Episode 5 Recap: Burning Down the House

Black Rabbit Episode 5 tightens the series’ focus on the Friedken brothers’ cash-flow crisis as a looming criminal payout reshapes their decisions. The episode revisits the flash-forward from Episode 1, in which VIP revelry collapses into a violent armed robbery, and uses that memory to heighten the tension around what Jake and Vince are willing to risk next. Anna, the Rabbit’s VIP bartender, becomes the episode’s central tragedy when she is killed in her apartment after a break-in by Junior and Babbitt; she makes it to the bathroom before slipping and hitting her head on the tub lip. The would-be cover-up unfolds as Campbell and Ellen Seung, investigators, begin piecing together who was seen leaving the scene.

With Anna’s death as a catalyst, Jake and Vince lean further into crime to settle their debts to Mancuso. Vince voices the idea of staging an electrical fire at their mother’s house to trigger an insurance payout; a bent building inspector and fire marshal are part of the plan. The plan hinges on luck and nerve: a million dollars in the Rabbit in two nights’ time, with minimal security; if they go in and take it, it would be theirs. While the adults discuss the job, Jake and Vince retreat to their mother’s house, smoke a joint, and reflect on their father Richard, known to family as Big Dick, whose flaws they’ve inherited. Jake tells Vince that they are both degenerate, and fake; the moment underscores how the siblings’ arguments swing between blame and recognition that they share the same bad decisions.

Estelle, unsettled by Wes’s volatile relationship with Jake and by her own breakup with him, moves to take control of the Rabbit’s future. She wants to buy out Jake’s share and enlists Wes’s investment to do so, hoping to turn the romance into a business opportunity. In a tense confrontation, Estelle makes clear that she has stopped trying to be good for them; she notes that Wes is good, while she is not. The exchange highlights how personal and financial pressures collide as the series edges toward a potential deal that could redraw loyalties at the Rabbit.

Meanwhile, the Friedkens stage a celebratory night for Hunter at the Rabbit, stacking the party with a Barclays Center–themed cake, ballet tickets, and family moments as Gen re-engages with Vince and the idea of a future at the bar. But the event quickly runs off the rails as Junior and Babbitt pressure the brothers into leaving with the goons. The pair are dragged at gunpoint toward the river, a brutal reminder of how far they have fallen and what is at stake if the police trace Anna’s death to Mancuso’s circle. Jake, pressed by the threat and the new Ben Baller connection, improvises a gamble that flips their cash-out plan on its head. There’s a million dollars in the Rabbit in two nights’ time, with minimum security; you walk in, you take it, it’s yours. The line signals that Jake is willing to take a bigger risk to stay afloat, even if it may jeopardize the Rabbit and everyone around him. The pair survives the intensity, but the brothers’ relationship fractures again, with Jake insisting that Vince’s choices have repeatedly ruined his life even as they acknowledge they are mirrors of each other’s worst impulses.

Interspersed with the criminal plotting are quieter, if still resonant, cultural touches. At their mother’s house, the brothers listen to old recordings on vinyl and discover their band’s original name, Black Rabbits, a riff on the Playboys and the rabbits logo. Before the arson plot, Vince is shown with drums, and the pair rescue a box of cassette tapes to pass to Hunter as a birthday gift. The episode also revisits Vince’s Death to the Pixies T-shirt—one of his recurring wardrobe motifs—before Junior and Babbitt strip them and toss the shirt into the East River along with their other clothes, symbolizing the erasure of their past identities as they chase a dangerous future.

Taken together, Episode 5 deepens the show's ongoing exploration of how ambition, loyalty, and self-destruction collide in a New York setting where a failing bar and a web of debts define the family’s calculus. With Anna’s death looming over the investigation and the arson plan pulling the Friedkens deeper into criminality, Black Rabbit continues to blend character study with high-stakes thriller plotting as it moves toward a reckoning that could redefine the Rabbit’s fate and the brothers’ futures on Netflix.