In this review of Neighborhood Watch #4, we learn more about why Jill was planning to leave Willow Haven.
Neighborhood Watch #4
Writer: Sarah Gailey
Art and Main Cover: Haining
Variant Covers: Liana Kangas, Haining
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: 7/1/2026
This review contains spoilers
We start off Neighborhood Watch #4 with Aurora pressing Bianca for information on her mother’s whereabouts. Feeling that she deserves to know, Yves takes Aurora to where Jill currently is. She and Val fill her in on what happened, as Bianca takes a moment to just be there for Jill. And that’s when Aurora brings up a likely suspect: her father.
While this feels like a bombshell revelation to Bianca, Val remembers how odd Cassie was acting after a raid. While Yves and Aurora are in with Jill, Val tells Bianca about the post-raid behavior. Cassie had been very upset, talking about how much she hates copes with Liam. He brings up that he hates what they do…the escalation, the abuses…but wouldn’t wish harm upon the people behind the badges.
In that flashback, Val talks to Cassie about the stats she’d learned from Liam, and in the present, wonders if she could have been more sensitive about things. But now, Bianca definitely understands why Jill wanted to leave, but wishes she’d have told her.
While Val makes dinner, she reveals that she’s found Jill’s phone and tells Bianca to take it and drop it off somewhere. And later on, while at home, Bianca’s scroll through Jill’s phone is disrupted by…Jill’s husband dropping by.
Over drinks, he vents about losing contact with his kid and then reveals that the body cam footage from last issue’s raid revealed 1) where said kid is living now and 2) that Bianca had been there, as well. And now he wants answers. Meanwhile, Val’s trying to get in touch with Bianca…Jill’s woken up.
So, I would be very shocked if it turned out that Jill wasn’t shot by her husband. I’d been suspecting him for a while, but when Aurora confirms that, yeah, he’s an abuser, it’s all looking pretty damning. And seeing his interaction with Bianca at the end doesn’t help his case at all. He keeps referring to Aurora under her dead name, and it feels like he definitely played a hand in why she left home and went no-contact with him.
Aurora’s nothing but concerned for her mom’s safety, but her biggest worry about her dad is that he’s still out there. And that he was responsible for her mom’s apparent disappearance.
The scene with “Cassie” illustrates Jill’s feelings about her husband and her situation at home quite well. All that anger and frustration about being treated like crap by someone she thought loved her, it only makes sense that she might come off as a teensy bit extreme with her venting. But other members of Open Arms, like Val and Liam do agree with how they do horrible things and that nobody deserves to be subjected to that, but also know that murdering them won’t help at all, plus the fact that it’d weigh on their conscience.
Bianca’s gaining further awareness of the world outside of the safe shelter of Willow Haven. She’s seen how cruel it can be when her husband was murdered in (according to Jill’s husband) a mugging. But the region she lives in is all White Picket Fences and wine, where, until very recently, the police were nice and helpful.
Speaking of Bianca and police, I really dig the way the entire scene with her and Jill’s husband is set up. The way it’s written is incredibly tense, the visual framing feels like something one would see in a horror movie, and the dot tones for the shading? Very nicely done, and I’m loving it.
One of the last pages in Neighborhood Watch #4 shows the cover for issue 5. While this is technically a comment for issue 5, I’ll throw it out there now, because this installment told the story of Jill’s abuse under her husband. But that cover shows Jill with her husband, and the most distressed look on her face. They made it abundantly clear, and it’s done quite well.
I definitely look forward to seeing how things go in this next installment, especially with Jill having woken up.
Final Thoughts
Jill’s motivations come heartbreakingly to light in Neighborhood Watch #4, and it’d be quite a twist if her husband DIDN’T have anything to do with her being shot. It really does an excellent job of showing what domestic abuse can do to someone, without it giving the overly dramatic vibes of a Lifetime movie.
