In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.
Olivia and Gavin throw their annual Halloween party, which is as subtle and restrained as everything else they've done on this show. Which is to say: not even a little.
So. It turns out that the smoke man who came out of the suitcase is Jane's great-grandfather, Peter Kramer, who lived in the Drake with his wife and daughter. On Halloween 1929, he murdered his wife with a hatchet, and his daughter is the spooky ghost child Jane has been seeing, and she's also wearing Jane's grandmother's necklace. When Peter sees Jane wearing the necklace, he tries to kill her with his trusty hatchet, but the starlings Jane so nicely didn't massacre back in episode two save her.
Gavin is being menaced by a mysterious man who first tries to run Olivia down with an SUV and then drugs and kidnaps her before cutting the power to the Drake and ruining the Halloween party. He also nearly kills Tony, but what he was really after was an intricately carved box that was in Gavin's safe. Olivia is fine, but the box goes missing.
Brian and Louise Leonard's marriage continues to be tested by Brian's lust for Alexis, and also the fact that Louise is a pill-happy junkie. To get her fix she's zeroed in on hot fourth-floor resident Dr. Scott, who is warm for her form but also savvy to how she's a pill-happy junkie. I hope he sticks around.
Henry makes a TV appearance about his Gracie Mansion heroism, which attracts the attention of an oddly persistent media consultant named Laurel, who is way too interested in Henry's marital status and also in making him a giant celebrity. Jane is too busy avoiding getting hacked to death by her great-grandfather to tell Laurel to step off, but hopefully that will happen week and involve hair pulling.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Previously on 666 Park Avenue: Kandinsky tried to shoot Henry, but Nona's vision saved him. Alexis broke into the Leonards' apartment and aggressively hit on Brian. Jane discovered a fraternal order used to hold its meetings in the basement of the Drake, she's seeing a creepy ghost child, and a man made of smoke came out of the suitcase she hauled up from the cellar.
Is it really necessary to do a Halloween episode on this show? The whole series is nothing but cheap scares and bumps in the night and bogeymen! Ugh, whatever. We start on Halloween, 1929, so the Drake is only a few years old. In the lobby, a man is reading a newspaper about the Wall Street panic that happened a few weeks earlier. The smoke man from last week, wearing a fedora, gets on the elevator with another man, who addresses him as Peter, and says they need to discuss the ritual they performed to make themselves rich. "It was a sham," the nervous guy says. "Oh, how I wish that it had been," Peter replies. The other man says there's blood on their hands, and goes to the ever popular, "What did we do?" Peter matter-of-factly replies, "We invited evil into our homes."
In Peter's apartment, the little ghost girl is his living, breathing daughter. His wife greets him, but Peter is being all quiet and distant. She asks what's wrong, and he says it was a bad day at work, that they had to close down the firm, but he thinks he's found a way out of it. And then he gets really weird and tells his wife, "In heaven, you will be truly happy." Peter's left eye starts twitching, but in a side-to-side, Peter-is-a-Terminator kind of way. Peter's wife asks what's wrong with him, and he reaches down and picks up an axe.
Peter's daughter hears her mother screaming from her bedroom (as Peter, presumably, chops off pieces of her). She hides under the bed. Mom comes into the bedroom, dripping blood, and falls on the floor. She pulls off her necklace and hands it to the daughter, saying, "Keep it safe. Keep it in the family. I love you." The necklace, of course, is the one Jane inherited from her grandmother.
Present day. Olivia is giving instructions to the caterer and the decorators about Halloween at the Drake. Jane gets off the elevator and Olivia asks her if she can pinch-hit because Olivia has to go meet Gavin. But Jane is off to watch Henry tape his first TV interview, on First Cup New York. And I immediately deduct points because the show didn't bother to get Pat Kiernan. Jane is wearing her necklace again. She says Henry is enjoying his moment in the spotlight, since he's the Gracie Mansion Hero. Olivia says she thinks it'll probably be more than a moment. Jane compliments the lobby decorations and rushes out. And then Peter walks in. He does not look impressed by how beautifully the crown molding has been preserved.
First Cup New York studio. The hostess is introducing Henry, saying he saved Commissioner Pike's life (and, amusingly, she says Henry "stopped a gunman from hurting any more innocent people." I guess they've decided that Annie wasn't innocent) at the mayor's house. She asks him to tell them what he was thinking. "Nothing," Henry says. Not the sharpest tack, our Henry. He continues that he isn't a hero and that he did what anyone else would've done. And then the interviewer goes on to point out Henry's lack of wedding ring and call him "aside from Derek Jeter... the most eligible bachelor in New York." When they stop filming, Henry mentions Jane, and the hostess replies, "It makes for a better story if you're single." The show's insistence that Jane lock her shit down is getting kind of tiresome, actually.
Jane congratulates Henry on not wetting his pants and bursting into tears on camera, then comments on the most-eligible-bachelor nonsense, and Henry apologizes for not loudly proclaiming his takenitude on the air. He says, "That's the last interview I'm doing." Jackie from Veronica Mars shows up and says, "And that would be the second stupid thing you've said today." Henry points out that for him that's an excellent batting average, and Jackie introduces herself as Laurel, a media consultant. I like this character better when she's on Thursdays and being played by Kerry Washington.
Henry introduces Jane and asks what the other stupid thing he said was. Laurel says it was when he denied being a hero, that if he wants to be a politician, he shouldn't say anything that can be used in an attack ad. Henry denies he has any political ambitions, and Laurel's all, I thought you worked for the mayor. All those people are power-mad gremlins. Henry says he hasn't given serious thought to it. Laurel says he should think about how she can help him and gives him her card.
Brian and Louise's. Brian walks in the door saying he went to four different stores (and I've been watching so much Weather Channel the past two days that I think he's going to end the sentence with "But all of them were out of batteries and vodka") but he finally found a Halloween costume. Louise is shirtless and reclining on the couch with a gentleman caller, and is quite surprised to see Brian. He's also surprised; if he'd known about the free cheating pass, he'd be glued to Alexis right about now. Louise introduces Scott (played by adorable Enrique Murciano from Without a Trace -- between him here and Eric Close on Nashville, I'm going to cry if Anthony LaPaglia doesn't show up on Revolution soon), who she says is a doctor who lives in 4G.
Brian still doesn't understand the intimate shirtlessness. Louise says she must have overdone it dancing and her ribs are sore, so Scott was nice enough to make a house call. He diagnoses a strained ab muscle and recommends no dancing for a few weeks. As Scott is leaving, Louise starts hinting none too subtly that she'd like some more sweet, sweet Percocets. Scott doesn't take the bait, and just recommends tequila and ice. (One applied topically, the other not so much.) He leaves and Louise says she's going to try and fix Scott and Alexis up at the party. Brian is all, great, so glad Alexis is coming, BRB, gonna pour ice down my pants. Louise goes into the bathroom and pops some pills.
Olivia and Gavin are strolling home (no sign of Frankenstorm, because the Drake is in Zone Imaginary), as Olivia tells Gavin that Page Six already asked for more invites to their party tonight. Her phone rings and she hands off a bag to Gavin so she can talk to the caterer. Gavin crosses the street and gives the bags to the driver, then he gets a mysterious "text from unknown" that says he's going to pay for everything he's done. Gavin looks mildly perturbed, then sees a black SUV speeding toward Olivia (who appears to be standing in the middle of the street). He yells, she jumps out of the way and Gavin rushes over. He gets another text. This one says, "Just thought I'd introduce myself" and the one says, "time I won't miss." Gavin looks constipated.
Jane and Henry's. Jane is nagging Henry about how they're late, and she holds up her red dress, because she's dressing up as a sexy devil. But wait, there are gift boxes on the table! "Looks like we have our very own fairy godmother," Henry says, and Jane snarks, "Yeah, who lets herself in whenever she wants." That has to be against the law, right? They open the boxes, and both of them seem pretty scandalized by what they find inside. From their expressions I was expecting Olivia to have decreed that they dress as the gimp and his dominatrix.
6D. Brian answers the door to Alexis, who is dressed as a sexy nurse. She asks if she surprised him, and he says he's just not used to her knocking. Touché. Brian invites her in, and Alexis says she wants to apologize for getting all psycho, because she "thought we had a connection," but that she likes Louise and needs to keep her job. She gives him back the illicit key she made and says, "Friends?" Brian's like, yeah, but maybe we could have a threesome? He calls to Louise that Alexis has arrived. Louise is in the bathroom, staring at her empty pill bottle.
Alexis asks about the sexy doctor Louise was telling her about, and Brian gets in a snit about how everyone is exaggerating Scott's hotness. Ahem. No, they are not, sir. Alexis asks if he's jealous, and he denies it. Alexis tells him to relax, that Louise is just a patient and "he's examined her a bunch of times." This is news to Brian, who thought Louise and Scott just met today. Alexis tries to cover, but Brian asks how many times Scott has examined Louise. Alexis says two or three, and says Louise probably didn't tell Brian because she didn't want him to worry. Yes. Of course.
Henry and Jane get off the elevator. She's Tippi Hedren from The Birds, complete with crows sewn to her shoulders, and he looks like Woody the Talking Cowboy. Although he might be Gary Cooper in High Noon. Peter gets on the elevator and stares at them creepily (although he's kind of incapable of doing things in a not-creepy way). He zeroes in on Jane's necklace and stares at it (and at her boobs) for like five minutes before saying sweatily, "I like your necklace." Jane thanks him awkwardly and they get off the elevator in the lobby. Peter stays behind, and after the door closes, he goes down to the basement.
In the basement, Peter pries the grate off an air vent and pulls out a family photograph hidden in there. "I have to finish this," he says. He unwraps his hatchet.
Penthouse. Gavin is telling Tony that a friend from the NYPD told him the texts were probably from a burner and are therefore untraceable. Tony says a man in Gavin's position probably has lots of enemies, and asks if he has an idea who it might be. Gavin says it's someone smart enough not to come at him head-on. Tony says security is screening all the party guests, and he, personally, is packing. Gavin is unimpressed and tells Tony not to shoot himself. Couldn't he just invite Bad Text Guy up to his place and shove him down the elevator shaft? Gavin asks Tony to turn around as Gavin pushes up a painting and opens his safe, telling Tony that he's trusting him with his most prized possession: Olivia. Inside the safe is an elaborately carved box. Gavin tells Tony to stay close to Olivia, because "she's the most valuable thing in the world to me." And there's nothing ladies like more than being treated like things and possessions!
At the party, Henry and Jane find Louise and Brian, who are dressed as Cleopatra and Marc Antony. As Louise hands Jane a drink, someone bumps her from behind and spills the drink all over her Tippi-wear. Jane says this gives her an excuse to change, which is weak. Tippi wore that dress for like four straight days while being attacked by every bird in California! (True story: I watched The Birds on Saturday. RIP Suzanne Pleshette.) Louise offers to accompany her upstairs. Jane declines, and says she'll be just two seconds. As she goes to the elevator, Peter separates himself from the crowd and follows her.
Scott takes two glasses of champagne from a tray and hands one to Alexis, telling her he wishes all his nurses looked as good as she does. She flirts back, saying she's never played doctor with a real doctor before. Just that one podiatrist. Louise watches from across the room, and is happy they're hitting it off. Brian asks what kind of doctor Scott is, and Louise says she thinks he's a surgeon, and giggles about how he's good with his hands. Brian is not pleased, and Louise laughs about how Brian was freaked out when he walked in on them. Brian thinks he reacted pretty well to a stranger with his hands all over his wife, and pushes for an explanation of when they first met. Louise facetiously tells Brian that she's been having an affair with Scott and now that she's done she's going to hand him off to Alexis. Hmm. The last time my friends and I swapped things we were tired of, it was just beauty products. Clearly I need better friends. Louise asks Brian if he really believes she'd cheat on him. He says no, and Louise drags him off to the bar for more painkiller.
Scott and Alexis, meanwhile, have taken the party elsewhere. While they're attempting to count each other's molars with their tongues, Alexis swipes Scott's phone from his pocket and shoves it in her stocking.
Jane and Henry's. Jane changes into her red dress from the symphony, which she plans to wear with a Mardi Gras-style half mask, and when she turns toward the door, her ghost-child grandmother is there, whispering, "He got out." Jane asks who got out. "Daddy," the little girl says. Jane pulls the suitcase out from under her bed -- it's still in her bedroom, WTF -- and opens it (because it's unlocked now). It's empty. When Jane looks back over at Baby Grandma, she's gone. She runs her hands around the inside of the suitcase and begins tearing the lining away. She finds a newspaper clipping tucked inside. The headline is "Family Tragedy: Man Kills Wife. Girl Survives Rampage."
Jane recognizes the little girl in the picture; her name is Jocelyn. And then she recognizes Peter, just as he comes into the bedroom behind her.
Henry is sitting down at the party, and a masked woman comes up to him and asks if he's the Gracie Mansion Hero. He says yes, but it's not a big deal, and she insists that it is. She sits down and takes off her mask, and it's Laurel. Henry asks what she's doing there, and she says her New York office always gets invited to the Doran Halloween party. She advises him again not to downplay what he's done because it will make him look weak. She also provides some gratis psychoanalysis, saying that behind his aw-shucks Midwestern appearance, she's sure there's a driven climber just like Gavin. Henry's much more polite than I would be in this situation, because seriously, lady, leave the guy alone.
Laurel asks where Henry's fiancée is. He says she had to go change, and Laurel continues being a pushy nudnik when she asks if it isn't time for Henry to take the step before he really is New York's most eligible bachelor. It's too bad there isn't a word for a dude spinster, because that's what everyone seems to be calling Henry. He says he and Jane are fine with how things are now, and Laurel says, "Spoken like every man who's ever lived with a woman and had no intention of proposing to her." Henry says he definitely wants to marry Jane, and Laurel's all, "She doesn't?" She advises that Henry seal the deal now, "before the concrete jungle drives you apart." She says New York changes people, and this is such contrived bullshit. Go away, Jackie. You were never good enough for Wallace.
Louise finds Scott in the crowd and comments on how well he and Alexis were getting along, then clutches her ribs in agony. She says she thinks she tweaked something. "Tweak" being the operative word there. Scott asks if she took anything, and she says just aspirin, that she needs something stronger. Scott says he'll take a look and escorts her to the elevator. Where Brian sees them as the doors close, with Alexis watching predatorily from behind him.
Olivia brings two ladies to see apartment 5F, which is where Peter Kramer murdered his wife with a hatchet. One guest is freaked out and runs downstairs to her husband. The other says she's not scared, and Olivia bets her a spa day she won't last five minutes in the apartment. She takes the bet because: spa day! Olivia opens the door and shuts her inside. When Olivia turns around, a man in a gas mask sprays something in her face that knocks her unconscious. Her mask hits the floor as he grabs her.
Down on the third floor, Jane is tapping away at her computer, searching for "Peter Kramer Drake." Nothing comes up in UselessGoogle. She hears a noise behind her and turns, calling out to Henry. She turns back to the computer and hears the creak again, then jumps up, armed with a pair of scissors. She walks toward the front door and there's no one there, of course. So she backs toward her computer, and that's when Peter jumps out. He starts choking her, and Jane gasps, "You're Peter Kramer. You're not real!"
Gas Mask, who grabbed Olivia, goes into the stairwell and cuts the power to the building. Scott and Louise are trapped in the elevator, and Gavin, at the party, starts getting worried. In her apartment, Jane smashes a lamp into Peter, breaking free of his grip, and runs for the front door. Out in the hall, she runs into another partygoer, who's dressed as a devil, and asks to borrow his phone. She calls 911, and then Peter comes out and kills the good Samaritan with his hatchet. Jane runs, screaming.
At the party, Henry is worried. Laurel runs into him in the dark, and she asks if he thinks the blackout is intentional. He doesn't think so. Gavin's phone rings, and a man tells him, "I have your wife, Mr. Doran." Gavin tells him to name his price, and the man says he doesn't want money; he wants to show Gavin how it feels to have his life in someone else's hands. Gavin starts to threaten the guy, but the man on the other end says it's up to Gavin if Olivia gets hurt. He hangs up, and Gavin tells Tony to go up to the penthouse to see if Olivia is there.
Brian asks Alexis what is going on with Louise, and Alexis plays dumb. Alexis says she's sure everything is innocent, but after Brian wanders away, Alexis texts Louise (from Scott's phone?) "Meet upstairs. Want U now."
In the elevator, Louise is starting to panic, as you would if you were trapped in an elevator only weeks after an elevator went all Christine on you. Scott tries to calm her down, and Louise asks if he can call 911. He can't find his phone. She starts to freak out some more, and Scott interrupts, saying that the way she was pounding on the door, it doesn't look like her ribs are bothering her. He calls out her drug seeking.
Brian walks into his apartment, calling for Louise. He finds a flashlight and then sees Louise's phone on the kitchen table. On it is the message "from Scott." He drops the phone.
Penthouse. Gas Mask opens Gavin's safe. Tony walks in, calling for Olivia, and pulls his gun when he thinks he sees something.
Jane is still fleeing down the stairs and into what looks like an industrial kitchen. Peter follows. Jane pries open a dumbwaiter and climbs inside. She starts pulling on the ropes to raise it. Peter hears the noise she's making and opens the door. Jane somehow gets out of the car on the upper floor and drops the dumbwaiter down, almost taking Peter's head off.
Gavin calls to Olivia in the penthouse and finds Tony hanging by the neck in his office. He grabs a chair for Tony to stand on, and maybe this is why you should have real security. Gavin asks Tony where Olivia is, and Tony just says that the guy got into Gavin's safe. Gavin opens the safe and sees the gas mask, but the carved box is missing. Tony asks Gavin if he should call the police. Gavin says no, just as he sees Olivia lying on a chaise out on the terrace. He sends Tony down to check on the guests, then goes outside and wakes Olivia. She doesn't know what happened, and Gavin asks the last thing she remembers. She says she was with her lady friends, and then it's foggy. He doesn't tell her about Gas Mask, and says everything is fine. Olivia has a hell of a chloroform hangover and they go inside.
In the elevator, Louise is telling Scott how she used to be addicted to speed but she went to rehab, and was off pills 'til lately. She says Brian doesn't know and she doesn't want him to find out. Scott says it's not just her injury causing her relapse, and she asks if he thinks she's self-medicating to deal with her hectic life. He asks how her marriage is, and she says it's fine. Scott offers to be her someone to talk to, then leans in to kiss her. Louise rebuffs him, which will make the rest of the time they're stuck in that elevator super awks.
Jane is still fleeing, barefoot now, from Peter. Henry walks into their apartment with Laurel trailing behind him. He sees the broken lamp and his phone rings. It's Jane. She's on the fifth floor. He tells Laurel to call the police and runs out.
Jane's in an empty apartment (probably 5F?) and the doorknob is rattling. She backs away from the door and finds some sort of weapon, a wrench, maybe, or a screwdriver, on the floor, wrapped in a piece of bloody cloth. The door flies open and it's Peter. Jane tries to flee, but there's only so far she can go, even in a huge Park Avenue apartment. She pleads with Peter not to kill her, and he tells her not to be afraid. She asks why he's doing this, and he says he has to save her. Peter tells her in heaven she'll be truly happy, and as he advances with the hatchet, there's a scratching sound. Jane ducks out of the way as he chops the wall, and then the birds (THE BIIIIIIIRDS!!!!) come pouring out of the wall and swarm him.
Jane runs into the hall and directly into Henry's arms. She cries and he kisses her head and says that it will be all right.
At the party, the police tell the guests that Con Ed is working to get the power back on and everyone should go back to their apartments. Jane is telling a cop about the man in the devil costume who gave her his phone. He asks for a description of Peter, and she says she didn't see his face, because I don't think the NYPD respond well to "My great-grandfather who used to live here 80 years ago jumped out of a suitcase and tried to hatchet-murder me."
Alexis is trying to calm Brian down, telling him that she's sure Scott meant the text as a joke. Behind them, the elevator dings and Louise and Scott step out. Brian socks Scott in the face and storms off. Louise starts to go after him, but Alexis grabs her arm and tells her to let him go cool off.
Gavin, in the penthouse, tells the man on the phone that he has no idea what he's stolen, that he needs to return the box he took from Gavin's safe or else. The guy tells Gavin that will never happen, and Gavin says, "I'm coming for you."
The police are still mopping up the party. Tony looks pretty good for a guy who almost asphyxiated to death earlier. Jane and Henry are on a couch, still looking rough, and Louise is moping in a corner. Two cops get on the elevator. In 5F, a single starling sits on the end of the handle of the hatchet, which slowly sinks into the floor. Likewise, the guy in the devil costume also sinks into the floor just as the cops get off on the third floor. In the penthouse, Gavin watches Olivia sleep and turns the gas mask over in his hands. He puts it back in the safe. Henry and Jane lie in bed, him sleeping, her staring at the ceiling and clutching her necklace.
time: Someone has Gavin's box. A man tells Olivia that Gavin took something from him and he wants it back. Jane confides in a scruffy blond cop about Peter.