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| Category | Details |
| Originally Aired | December 19, 2024 |
| Network | Apple TV Plus |
| Director(s) | Jet Wilkinson |
| Writer(s) | Sarah Thorp |
| Character | ACTOR’S NAME |
| Eli | Billy Crystal |
| Noah | Jacobi Jupe |
| Sophie | Rebecca Ruane |
| Denise | Rosie Perez |
| *Dutch Girl in Brown (Lynn) | Delaney Bike, Danika Bike |
| Lynn | Judith Light |
| *Dutch Girl in Red (Noah) | Emma Fagerstrom |
| *Dutch Boy (Eli) | Walter Mulroony |
| Jane | Hope Davis |
New Characters Have An Asterisk *
Storyline Recap
Going Back To Our Childhood, Lifetimes Ago – Eli, Noah, Jane
As you can imagine, Jane is freaking out about Eli kidnapping Noah, but what can she do? When anyone realizes anything, he is already out of the city, within 20 minutes from the farmhouse. Additionally, neither wants to hear the person out, so Eli decides to cut the conversation.
With that, he gets to the farmhouse, and as he takes in being back at the site, despite all Noah was going through previously, that’s over. He is now standing up, walking without issue, and Eli guides him into the house, which seems sturdier on the inside than it does outside. But no sooner than they are looking around do they see that shadow move about. As Eli stares, Noah hides and somehow gets a weapon.
When Eli decides to get Noah, he finds him at first, but then Noah runs off, and Eli eventually ends up outside and learns how he, Noah, and Lynn are connected.
If There Is An After, There Is A Before – Noah, Eli, Dutch Boy, Dutch Girl In Red, Dutch Girl In Brown, Lynn
Here is what we learn:
Noah, Lynn, and Eli have been in each other’s lives for generations, including when the Dutch settled in and around New York. In a previous life, Noah was a girl who was friends with Eli, a boy, and Lynn, who was still a girl in a past life. After Noah, in the past, disturbed a hive of bees or a similar flying insect, Eli knocked him into the ice by accident, and it seems the initial fall knocked them out, if not cracked their skull. From there, they drowned as Lynn in the past called for Eli to save Noah, but he ran away.
This is the past Noah kept referring to since it seems that death, that sense of betrayal specifically, has haunted his soul. But, as for what lives Eli, Lynn, and Noah shared since they were Dutch children, that isn’t made clear. However, the day Lynn decided to commit suicide is fleshed out from beginning to end, in addition to explaining how Noah is connected to Lynn and Eli.
As established, Eli has never been the type of support Lynn needed or wanted, especially in the final year of her life. She was in pain, vomiting, and tired, and Eli wanted to preach hope, perseverance, and new cures. Lynn was physically at the point where living for Eli’s sake was too much. So, after he decided to avoid and abandon a conversation she wanted to have with him again, she took things into her own hands and attempted suicide.
Unfortunately for her, it wasn’t a quick death and may not have been painless. Also, despite how long Eli spent trying to avoid her and the conversation, she was still alive when he returned, and it appears she begged for death. Now, Eli didn’t choke her as we saw in a previous episode, but it does seem he was there in her final moments, and similar to what he did in his past life, he took part in someone’s drowning. It’s just that rather than it being Noah in a past life, it is Lynn in his current one.
But to be clear, his hands were around her neck, but only because she held them there. So, at best, he may have pressed down, which made her go underwater, potentially drown, but as for doing something that could leave a mark? Eli didn’t do that.
Months Later – Eli, Noah, Denise, Sophie
Despite Eli kidnapping Noah, he seems to be better than ever, and charges were not imposed. Instead, he experienced five months of residential treatment, during which time he seems to have studied the entire experience. This leads Eli, who was formerly vehemently against the idea of something that can’t be explained by science, to find himself forced to be more open to the possibility that something beyond current human understanding happened.
The answer may raise an eyebrow, but it is good enough for Eli to return home, be around Sophie, and accept the idea Lynn speaks through her. He still deals with worm hallucinations, but at the very least, six months after the incident, we’re shown that Noah is now a normal kid, being raised by Denise. While there is a court order keeping Eli from Noah, at least he can say his final case, case number 423, was a success.
New Character Descriptions
Dutch Noah (Emma Fagerstrom)
Dutch Lynn (Delaney Bike or Danika Bike) 
Dutch Eli (Walter Mulroony)
The Dutch Girl (Lynn)
It seems Lynn has been drawn to Eli in multiple lifetimes, and it was no different when they were kids of Dutch descent. Upon seeing Eli near the lake, she got a bit bashful, and they talked as Noah entertained himself – or herself at the time.
The Dutch Boy (Eli)
Eli was a Dutch boy who had two friends. One was Noah in his previous life, and the other was Lynn, and they played together. As time grew on, Eli focused more on Lynn, and when it came to Noah, she still would seek out Eli to play, but he showed himself to be not the most reliable friend, especially when it counted.
The Dutch Girl (Noah)
Noah, in a past life, saw Eli as one of their closest friends, alongside Lynn. They joined her on adventures, and being that she was very curious about things, they were often drawn into situations by her. Unfortunately, the last time they played together, things became deadly as they ended up running from bees, hornets, and some type of flying bug. Eli accidentally knocked Noah into a frozen lake, and between falling and potentially cracking their skull and going under the ice, Noah died.
Review
Trajectory (79/100): Climbing
To me, “Before” ended on a high note that largely compensated for the multiple frustrating episodes we sat through. From having a good payoff regarding the situation with Noah to giving us Lynn’s last day, I’m satisfied. Now, do I believe the buildup to this point was great? Not at all. While some aspects of it did help the finale, I think a lot of it would justify people not sticking with “Before” up to the finale.
On The Fence
The Show Got In Its Own Way
I feel like what we got was a good finale with an inconsistent buildup. To me, there should have been more of a focus on these shared delusions in showing that, in multiple lives, Eli has somehow killed Noah. We got to see two of them through Benjamin and when Noah was a girl, and I think another could have been added through seeing Noah, Eli, and Lynn be friends at a pool. For with how often we were transported to a pool throughout the season, it seems like another example of how these three were connected was scrapped.
Does all of this go against how aggressively Eli has been against spiritualism? Yes. However, if the show had pushed Eli to go on a journey where Sophie was able to push more that Lynn still existed, how interconnected everyone is, like how Noah remembered something about his past life as an older brother, I think “Before” could have come off better.
Yet, instead, it got in its own way by including that weird ghostly thing, the worms, and in a push for a sense of fantasy or madness beyond what it needed, it lost the heart of the story it seemingly wanted to tell. That of friends of a past life still holding trauma, yet despite knowing what the other has done, in some vague way, they remain drawn to one another, and somehow, maybe at least once in a lifetime, they seek and find one another. Sometimes, it is just by instinct, as Noah did when he found Eli at the beginning of the series. Other times, fate pushes them together, like when Lynn met Eli the day Benjamin died.
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