Okay, I think I've already tossed out most of the theories I had last week. And replaced them with new, crazier theories. There's one I'm pretty attached to already, but I'm going to wait and see if it actually lasts a week. There is one thing I'm sure of, though: Scudder's dark. Or evil. Or whatever. Because Ben thinks he is, but he's not, and Justin thinks he isn't, but he is. See now?
I swear, before the season is over, I just want one email from Knauf telling me I'm getting warm.
We open to the soothing tones of Brother Justin's radio broadcast, as he tells us that he can sense our presence. Okay, not so much "soothing" as "creeptastic." The radio in question is the one in the prison. Varlyn Stroud's in his cell, listening, when Justin hisses his name and says, "I need you." The warden fiddles with the dial as static interrupts the broadcast. When he turns back, Varlyn is standing in front of him. The warden hears Justin menace, "Release my apostle. He is a good man." The warden obediently hands over the keys to Varlyn, and then leans back as Justin adds, "He is my archangel made flesh." Varlyn slips a shiv out of his sleeve and quickly slices the warden's throat. There's surprisingly little arterial blood spray, especially compared to Ben's throat-slitting escapade last season. Do these people know they're on HBO? Justin instructs Varlyn to find Henry Scudder. As Varlyn heads for the door, we return to the broadcast, which is interestingly heretical: "The Bible tells us we were made in the glorious image of our maker; we are no less perfect than he. And yet we look to him for absolution when instead, we need only look into ourselves." The funny thing is, he still makes more sense than Janet Parshall.
Another helpful sign transitions us to St. Dymphna's Convalescent Home, in Albuquerque, NM. Blessed are the signmakers, for they shall give comfort and aid to the recapper. Inside, a nun is trying to help Ben to locate Devon Kerrigan. Ben offers to go find Kerrigan himself if she'll just give him the room number, but apparently the nun isn't too keen on letting yokels wander around her hospital unsupervised, so she tells him to have a seat and brusques off. Ben defiantly loiters about, but then hears Brother Justin's voice in the echoey distance. Ben starts up a staircase, and I get very excited because the arched ceiling looks familiar to me. I think this is the same building that turned up on The Greatest American Hero and Simon & Simon and probably a bunch of other shows around that time. It's quite distinctive.
At the top of the stairs (the stairs Rick saw in his recurring nightmare about shooting A.J., remember?), most of the frame is obscured by an out-of-focus shot of a candle, and I have to say that when half of the picture is a giant blur, you have ventured beyond artsy and into self-parody. We reverse to see Justin kneeling at an altar, reciting the Hail Mary prayer. As Ben gets closer, he sees a statue of Mary holding the Christ child. But Mary's eyes appear to have been scratched out, and then Jesus tilts his head up to gaze at Ben, which is a pretty fucked-up thing for Jesus to do. A nun suddenly gets Ben's attention and says that he can see Kerrigan now. Ben looks back at the altar to see that Mary's eyes have been restored, and that Jesus is looking down again. Oh, and Brother Justin is gone.
As the nun leads Ben down the hallway, she expositions that he is one of two people on the list of authorized visitors. Gee, I wonder who the other one is. Ben, and the entire viewing audience, correctly guess that Scudder is the other name. She escorts Ben into a locked room. The walls are covered with crumpled sketches of the Usher. And because you can't have too much spooky muttering, Kerrigan is...well, muttering spookily. Something like, "Cheeks are hollow, skin is withered, long time comes, this life comes to an end. Life, death, life. Words of the crown." Maybe. Closed captioning, aisle five! Ben admires a painting of the Usher as the camera finally finds Kerrigan curled up in a corner, crossing himself as he chants. The nun quickly tells an unhearing Kerrigan that he has a visitor, and gets the heck out of there. Ben holds up one of the pictures and asks, "Who is he? What is he? Where's Scudder?" Kerrigan's too busy to exposition, and gets a little more frantic in his chanting and crossing. Ben finally grabs Kerrigan's hand, and their shared twitching starts a vision.
A snake sidles along, wishing for nothing more from life than a rock to bask on and the occasional rat, when it is suddenly snatched up by Scudder, who bites its head off. Scudder uses the bloody snake-stump to draw two triangles on the floor which look a lot like the show's logo. This seems like a good time to ask if anyone else is distracted by the fact that the logo shows a star in a rather unlikely position relative to the moon. It bugs me. Scudder places the snake's head in the center of the top triangle, and the body is coiled in a loop in the lower triangle. The camera swirls over to reveal Kerrigan in a corner, naked, and gnawing on something that I'll just assume is his own, more resilient, snake.
The vision over, Ben pulls up the cross hanging around Kerrigan's neck, and places it in Kerrigan's hand. Kerrigan repeats, "Life. Death. Life. The crown." Right-o. Ben takes down one of the pictures of the tattooed man and leaves. I add "robbing crazy people" to his crimes.
Brother Justin is in his room reading The Gospel of Matthias. When there's a knock at his door, he hides the book in his dresser. Iris enters and asks why Justin skipped breakfast, and he insists that he was "lost in prayer." Iris frets that Justin's ego might be getting a little too inflated, and reminds him to beware of false prophets. Heh. Justin smirks, "Dolan?" He wonders if she's feeling jealous, and reassures her that he trusts her much more than he trusts Dolan, before leaving.
Sofie has apparently been mourning the loss of her mother by rolling in a mud puddle. As she numbly walks down the road, a car swerves past her and the driver curses her out. Think she's headed for Phoenix?
A newspaper covering an extra's face announces that Italy has annexed Tripoli. News traveled very slowly in those days. Samson and Stumpy are having an impromptu discussion about the state of the local economy. Or, to put it another way, Samson thinks Stumpy has been holding back some of his take, which Stumpy denies doing. Samson claims to be convinced, and then starts chatting about how Huddings & Fisk have shut down. He oh-so-casually mentions getting a letter from one Clarence Tames. It quickly becomes obvious that Tames is the Stumpy of another sideshow, and he is supposedly looking for work now. Having shared his gossip, Samson starts to leave, but then Stumpy suddenly "discovers" sixteen bucks in his pocket, which he quickly offers to Samson. Samson marches off cheerily, while Stumpy walks the other way, grousing, "Little chiseler."
Gabe and Ruthie walk through the midway, and Ruthie suddenly gasps, "Skeeter Lewis!" upon recognizing an "old fling" working on a ride. She invites him to join her for a drink after the show, and Skeeter grins quietly almost as if he doesn't have any lines. Shouldn't a guy named Skeeter have been around last week? With the moscos and all?
In Lodz's trailer, Lila puts on a record and then hugs Lodz's red jacket to her bosom sadly. Before we're too overwhelmed with sentiment, she goes through the jacket's pockets and pulls out Lodz's wallet. Heh. But it's empty, so she pulls a billfold out from a hiding place under the dresser. It's empty, too.
Ben drives through the desert, then pulls over and stops the car to write down Kerrigan's spooky chant. Why didn't he do that before he left? Ben gets out of the car and goes wandering off into the desert. At the top of a rise, he gazes out onto a flat smooth expanse with hills in the distance. A siren blares on the soundtrack, and maybe that's what excites Ben so much since he dashes back to the car. I assume he just passed the future Trinity site.
Spooky tree. The camera moves over to the other side of the hill where Brother Justin is performing a groundbreaking ceremony for his new church, The Temple of Jericho. Yeah. A building named after Jericho in a state famed for earthquakes. Good plan. Well, I just hope they got a great architect. Dolan, Iris, and a crowd of supporters listen as Justin goes on about his flaming orphans and dedicates the temple to them. He asks the crowd to bow their heads, but after a moment he looks up and gazes at the praying crowd, until Iris meets his glance.
At the post-dedication tea party, Dolan munches a cookie while questioning a worker bee named Eleanor about who was in the church the night it burned down. Eleanor cheerily says that the only person who wasn't killed in the conflagration was Iris, who always came by to tuck in the kids. I wait for someone to say, "The world is quiet here," but no dice. Iris suddenly appears, and Dolan quickly escorts her away to be photographed for the paper.
Justin stands in a small group of people, but then spots a blonde ingenue standing by herself. The soundtrack fades out as they look at each other, and the blonde looks hypnotized and starts to undo her blouse, then rips it away and scratches her nails over her chest, drawing blood. Boobies! And then she's dressed again, and she looks down at herself with some confusion and starts to cry. Justin walks over to comfort her, and as he hugs her Iris glares at them both.
Varlyn arrives at a gate separating nothing from more nothing. But wait! A sign that has fallen to the ground identifies some of the nothing as the remains of the Hawkins Farm. Maybe they should graduate from signs to the squiggly font of exposition. Varlyn moves on while some vultures pick at the bones of symbolism. I hope we keep adding layers to this, so that eventually there's someone working for Management chasing Varlyn chasing Scudder. It's the conga line of the apocalypse!
Skeeter works on the ferris wheel.
As the Cooch family sits down to supper, Stumpy gripes about his encounter with Samson. Libby wonders if Stumpy should help search for Sofie, but Stumpy doesn't see much point: "Samson and Jones's crew got [all the roads] covered." Rita Sue and Libby wonder where Sofie could have gone, and why. Rita Sue starts to exposition about how Sofie was Libby's first real friend, but she finally gives up in favor of helping Stumpy to thread a needle or something. I think we're supposed to care about what on earth Stumpy is making during this conversation, but I can't imagine why anyone would.
Ben's still driving along when he sees the Usher walking down the road toward him. Before he can pull over and offer the the Usher a lift, the Usher turns into Sofie. Ben calls to her and stops the car, but Sofie keeps on keeping on. Ben puts the car into Reverse and keeps pace with her for a minute, and then finally gets out and keeps calling her name. Standing directly in front of Sofie finally puts a stop to her zombie walk, and she meets Ben's eyes slowly. Then she starts to sob and flails her arms at him until he stops her. And finally we go to the expected crying and hugging. I swear, even the nervous breakdowns on this show are slow-paced.
Suddenly it's nighttime and the carnival is in full carnivality. The crowd is delighted when a giant puts his cowboy hat on a kid from the audience. It was a simple time, you know. A contortionist contorts. A woman in the audience calls, "I bet he can lick himself like a dawg." The rubber boy retorts, "If you'se the alternative, I sure as hell hope so." The cooches...cooch.
In the Gay Paree tent, Stumpy goes through a long pitch about how he's selling something like those little souvenir photos in tiny boxes that you get at Ocean City or wherever, only these supposedly have pictures of Mae West engaging in naughtiness. But they're really dice. Or something. Basically, Stumpy made some things. Three scenes later, he sold them to rubes. I do think they could do with some standalone B-stories, but this isn't what I had in mind.
Ruthie is getting coffee when Ben drives up and gets Sofie out of the car. The carnies gather and stare as Samson asks where Sofie was. Ben says that Sofie got lost, and she stares at the ground and whispers, "Sorry." Samson leads Sofie away while Jones and Ruthie stare at Ben, for lack of anything else at which to stare.
As they walk through the camp, Sofie tells Samson, "I can't pay my way. I can't read the cards." Samson chuckles that nobody can. Sofie insists that her mother could. A shiny nickel says that line goes in week's "previously"s. Samson quickly changes the subject and advises Sofie to rest up and let someone else take care of her. Ben obligingly reappears and takes Sofie's arm as Samson adds, "Management's orders." Ben leads Sofie into Lodz's truck as Samson expositions that she can use it, since Lodz is gone.
Apparently, Ben's idea of "taking care of Sofie" consists of helping her climb a few steps, because once she's inside, he closes the door and departs. Yes, the abandoned car of a dead mentalist is a good spot for the freaked-out girl. Good idea. Ben returns to Samson and hands over some papers, saying, "He gave me this." Samson looks at the paper and sneers, "Poems?" I guess the papers are Ben's scribbled notes about what Kerrigan said. Ben says that Samson should ask Management what they mean, and also shows him the picture of the Usher. The music gets menacing. As Samson heads for Management's cabin, Ben orders, "Tell me what he says."
Sofie puts on one of Lodz's jackets and prepares to climb into bed. Pulling back the covers, she finds a deck of tarot cards. On top, face up: the nine of swords. Which signifies cruelty and despair. Bummer. Ben knocks and enters, asking if Sofie's "squared away." Sofie quickly covers up the cards and asks why Lodz left. Ben non-answers that Sofie will be okay. Sofie says she didn't know she was lost till Ben found her, and asks if he could stay till she falls asleep. Ben takes a seat, and Sofie curls up on top of the bedcovers.
Lila berates Samson for giving away Lodz's trailer, and Samson blithely says that Lodz can have it back if he returns. Oh boy, are we going to do the monkey's paw again? He adds that Management last saw Lodz on the night of the fire. Lila thinks that people should be more concerned about Lodz's disappearance. Samson shrugs that off, and Lila stomps away.
Casa de Creepy. It looks like they're having a small reception following the ground-breaking. Iris introduces the blonde with the boobs as Celeste Watkins, their new maid. Celeste nervously admits that she doesn't know what brought on her crying spell earlier. Iris explains that Celeste is an orphan who heard Brother Justin's radio broadcast and came down from Oregon to see him. Iris asks someone to take Celeste up to her room. Justin puts on his coat as Iris says, "It's such a shame. A lovely girl like that with no one else in the whole world" Justin yeahwhatevers and gives Iris a kiss goodbye before leaving. Iris looks grumpy, and turns back to question Eleanor about her chat with Tommy Dolan. Eleanor grins, "He asked me so many questions," and Iris casually sniffs, "Did he?" Dun dun dunnn.
The carnival has shut down for the night, and Ben still sits by the bed as Sofie sleeps. Jones walks up to Libby and says, "At least she's alive." Libby agrees, "Somethin' all right." Jones sits at her table, and they do that thing where they both start to talk at the same time, and then they both stop. Oy. They agree that they don't want to talk about it. Jones says he won't say a word about how Libby likes girls. "It's between you and me. And her, I guess." Libby says she appreciates that as Stumpy approaches to tell Libby that there are some men waiting for her. Then Stumpy admires the stars, and wanders off.
The Chinese woman ties up her hair while letting her robe hang open. This episode has an unusually high breast count. The camera swings around to reveal Brother Justin lying on a futon, naked except for the small towel covering his crotch. The woman walks over and sits down on top of him. But not the way you think. Although you're supposed to think it is the way you think right now.
Varlyn goes through papers in a desk somewhere in the world.
The woman blows on a tattoo pen. Justin makes little grunts that, if you're still thinking what you were supposed to be thinking before, might sound as if he's enjoying himself. Until we pan down past even more breasts, and see that the woman is tattooing Justin. The old-fashioned way. Which means beating a needle into your skin over and over manually. Good times.
Varlyn opens some letters as he continues going through the desk. Then he pulls out a postcard from Scudder to Becca Donovan, so we finally find out that he's in Tipton. The postmark is from Babylon, dated July 24, 1921. The message on the card is "Thinking of you." The picture on the card is of a dusty road. Varlyn slips the card into his pocket.
More tattooing. For a guy into flagellating, this shouldn't be too big a deal, I guess.
Varlyn puts a gun in his holster.
Tattooing.
Varlyn puts on what appears to be Sheriff Butterfield's old jacket. And then he pulls a watch off of what is almost certainly Sheriff Butterfield's dead body. I guess that means nobody would help the widow's son. Varlyn fastidiously wipes the blood off of the watch and leaves.
The tattooist rinses off a bloody towel.
Samson knocks on the door of Lodz's cabin. Ben comes out, and Samson says, "About that poem. We need to find an old lady in Ingram, Texas." He says that the "poem" was written by someone named Charles James Ingram. Samson adds that Management wants to see Ben personally about the picture of the the Usher. Wow, Management's claim that he wouldn't speak to Ben personally lasted a whole day!
Ben enters Management's trailer for this week's set of vague clues. Management hisses, "You've seen the Usher." Ben grumps that he's seen him quite a lot, actually, and asks who he is. Madam Management answers...oh, nuts. Management answers by saying a few names. It sounds like, "Sauhiem, Necritus, Kabet, Lord of Shadows." I've looked in my books, and Googled my little heart out, trying different spellings and looking at lists of names, and I can't find anything close to any of those, so maybe the closed captioning will help and everything will become clear as an azure sky of deepest summer when this airs. Bets? I just think it's mean to have a character say something that makes me go all, "Ooo, a Clue!" and then I spend half the night trying to look something up and there's nothing to be found and if those names turn out to be more anagrams I'm going to cry, because I hate anagrams. I bet Kerrigan went nuts because of anagram. Argh.
Sorry. Anyway, Management continues: "A thousand names in a thousand books" -- although not any books that I can find, not that I'm bitter -- "but they all mean the same. The Usher. He who escorts us to our seats, and hushes the teenagers in the back row." Oh, sorry. It's actually the Usher of Destruction. Management says, "He is flesh. It means the end times are not near, Hawkins. They are upon us. You will never be prepared in time. We are lost." Management's awfully panicky for a Russian. So, that "He is flesh" part implies...something. Right? Management didn't think the Usher would be corporeal yet, but he is. This show is making me crazy. Ben suggests that maybe Management could stop managing and try some actual doing: "You're strong. You know what to do." Management flutters a hand through the curtains, and moans, "Impossible. I'm dying." Ben offers to heal him, but Management says that would be an abomination. Ben insists that it's the only way, and reaches forward to part the curtains. Management reaches out a withered old hand toward Ben, but suddenly jerks it away and orders him to get back. He gets all guru-tastic and says, "You must walk your own path. But with haste, boy!" Management orders Ben to "goooo," and he dooooes.
Samson is serving himself dinner from a flask as Ruthie wanders by, all gussied up. She asks if he's seen Skeeter Lewis, and grumbles that he's standing her up. Samson says that Skeeter is dead: "I saw him put in the ground five years ago, come July." Samson figures it was just someone who looked like Skeeter, and offers to escort Ruthie into town. Hey, coming back from the dead gave Ruthie spooky powers! Good for her. But all things considered, I think that she should stay away from Lodz's trailer.
The morning, the carnies are packing up the tents. Man, being the set designer on this show must be so repetitive sometimes. Sofie sits watching while a cute doggy noses past in the background. I love these long, atmospheric sequences. I should make a macro for "Then nothing happens for a while." Sofie suddenly jumps up and starts to pack up the carousel, which on any other show would fall under nothing happening, but for us it's a dramatic event. The carnies get perturbed about having a girl work with them, but Jones says he's not going to stop her.
The caravan starts up, and Samson tells Jones that they're going to Ingram, Texas. Jones describes it as a "shitspot." I hope that's in the promo for week's show.
Off go the trucks. Sofie stares at the burned-out van as they leave. It's hard to leave the nest.
The tattooist puts her payment in a box and nods to Justin, who is now wearing a long robe. He stands up in front of a mirror, and she pulls the robe off to reveal the spooky tree tattoos covering his torso and back. And we add one bare behind to balance out the breast count. Fade out.
week: The vision from the nuthouse will make more sense, and praise the lord, I'll have captions again.