I thoroughly enjoyed this week’s episode. It was Deb’s turn on the flashback box. After watching the episode it became clear why her backstory episode had to come now.
Everyone is devastated by Cricket’s death. Blair, her best friend, takes it especially hard. He helps Cricket’s parents pack up her things, but stays behind, which surprised me a little.
My first thought when he appeared was I don’t trust him. But I was able to find out what book Joel pulled out of the box when Deb told him about Keith. It was The Dharma Bums, by Jack Kerouac
During that summer, Deb declared that while Keith wanted to travel the world she wanted to save it. She was wooed away from petitioning Congress for legislation to help families to working at a top law firm. She seems to turn away from her mission. She becomes a partner in the firm and is proposed to that same day. This is Fred, whom she divorced just before the beginning of the series. I realized that while her teen romance with Keith is all passion, she and Fred don’t show any passion in their relationship. She accepted his proposal like ‘sure, why not’.
When Keith and Deb meet again, I’m guessing not too long before Deb buys the camp, they’re both unhappy. Keith begs her to come to his hotel. She says no, but he leaves her the key. When she arrives she finds him, lying on the floor.
In the present, Keith coaxes Deb back out to their spot to re-kindle the way they felt when they were teens. Deb laughs as she dances with him. She tells him she shouldn’t be happy given what happened to Cricket. It was about here that I began to wonder if Keith was dead. We soon discover that Keith died in the hotel room. Deb was at Stillwater to spread his ashes when she saw the for sale sign.
The next morning Deb finds her campers, apologizes and helps them to say goodbye to Cricket by having them collect ‘their memories’ and bury them.
Blair decides to hold a séance so that he can say a final goodbye to his best friend. I loved the séance. Ouija boards are universally the wrong thing for a bunch of teenagers to mess with when they’re living in a horror story. That said, it was definitely one of the better séances I’ve seen over the years.
Once Blair latches onto the idea of having a séance, he refuses to let it go. Joel refuses to take part in it. Let’s face it, the guy sees and speaks to ghosts. Smart decision on his part. A Ouija board is the last thing he should touch.
The séance: Blair seems to have considered the idea that bad spirits can hijack a séance. He includes words designed to specifically banish the forces of darkness and evil from the séance. The problem is that Blair’s grief has him in a very unstable place.
In addition, even if his Grandmother has been officially teaching him, he doesn’t have anywhere near the experience to run a séance and handle the unexpected. Every séance I have ever seen in the movies or on television includes the appearance of an unexpected spirit. There’s no way Blair is up to keeping anything from going wrong. I confess, I don’t really want nothing to go wrong. Where’s the fun in that?
Cricket does make an appearance, speaking through Amy. She manages to tell everyone that she was pushed. Then The Tall Man pops in to rub salt in Joel’s wound by announcing that Joel should have killed Amy because she’s the doorway. He tells them to kill her then takes things into his own hands by grabbing a butcher knife (which is it in here, why?), and I will give Blair this, he didn’t start this séance without knowing how to stop it. As The Tall Man tries to use Amy’s hand to kill her, Blair stops the séance. Mostly. Jessie is doing a bit of spirit writing. She’s finally onboard with this whole supernatural weirdness thing.
My like for Jessie was cemented when she said she was going for help. She goes straight for Garrett with what she drew while possessed. Garrett realizes that her drawing leads to the burial spots for the elements needed for a ritual. Jessie got more points from me for sticking with Garrett as he dug up the box containing The Tall Man’s skull. Garrett finally picks up on the fact that there was a something left at points 1 (the man killed in the pilot), 3 (Cricket’s body), and 4 (the box they just dug up). So they head off to see what’s at point number 2. All they find is blood in the soil.
I had a great time with this episode. I feel like the show has hit the potential I was hoping for when I watched the pilot. What did you guys think? Theories on who is The Teacher? (I’m going to guess Garrett’s father.)
