Cat-And-Mouse Game: Cherie's Cunning Catfish Teased Her With Clues About His Identity

Take Fifty Shades of Grey, cross it with your preferred heist film and you’ve got the latest episode of Catfish, the very first to feature a straight-up marriage hanging in the balance…kinda.


As segment of the show’s latest adventure, and with the help of Diddy heir and Bad Boy Vice President Justin Combs, the crew took on the case of Cherie, a 26-year-old cellphone sales representative who lived outdoors Baltimore. Cherie explained that she was seeking clarity for a “super messy” relationship that had developed with a 29-year-old named Avion Whitaker, who first reached out by texting Cherie soon after claiming she’d sold him a tablet. Strangely, though, Cherie mentioned Avion made their connection a game of cat and mouse in which he’d give Cherie clues that she’d have to use to unearth his identity.


So, yeah, not usual dating maneuvers. Still, Cherie, who was feeling flirty at the time, mentioned she was “into it.”


Right after extensive texting (Cherie mentioned she’d never spoken to Avion), Avion asked Cherie to meet up at a hotel. Nevertheless he never showed, and Cherie told Nev that the ghosting made her think the complete thing was a prank. And, because she and Avion had exchanged NSFW photographs, she became especially decided to uncover his identity to prevent any exploitation.


Although whenever Cherie attempted to get to the bottom of “Avion Whitaker,” the name didn’t drum up an individual social media profile. Nobody at work knew who he was either, nevertheless Cherie was sure that she must have previously met Avion in some capacity, as he was privy to personalized statistics — like her mother’s real name — that no stranger could know.


Upon meeting Cherie, and immediately after some sleuthing, Nev uncovered a woman named Monica Whitaker, who called Nev and mentioned she was wedded to the man. She mentioned that she’d previously caught her spouse texting a woman named Cherie (yup, the very same!!!) While using the alias “Avion” and fake photos.


And though Monica asked Nev and Justin to meet, she backed out at the last second, saying she wasn’t prepared for her marriage to implode on TV. Without several moves left to create, Nev finally texted Avion from his own phone, and Avion responded by saying he was, at last, willing to meet Cherie.


Soon after some added hiccups, Nev, Cherie and Justin traveled to an address Avion had offered and noticed something totally unexpected, initially described by Cherie as “an old friend of mine who doesn’t know his place.”


The man was named Buddy, and he mentioned Cherie — whom he’d known about five years — owed him cash. Further, Buddy admitted his scheme boiled down to one absolute: He wanted his cash back from Cherie, whom he called a “bad person” he wanted to punish.


Yet Cherie mentioned Buddy had paid her costs without her knowledge and argued she didn’t owe him a thing.


“You know what I owe you? A goodbye and ‘Have a nice motherf***ing day,’” Cherie spat back.


Cherie and Buddy went back and forth about their beginning exchange — Cherie mentioned Buddy had fished for uncensored pictures, while Buddy mentioned Cherie had volunteered them. Either way, Buddy mentioned he never expected the charade to go as far as it did. Still, the damage had been done, and reconciliation didn’t seem to be on the table. So, soon after Buddy assured Cherie that her NSFW photographs had been deleted, the order determined to call it quits.


So: sex, scheming, falsified marriage — this Catfish episode put any Scandal arc to shame, so where do you know it fits into the Catfish pantheon? Share your thoughts, then tune in to the next episode Wednesday at 8/7c!