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Caleb and Miranda hang around staring at the graveyard until the day, and then head back to the funeral home/mansion, where they are "greeted" by a very unfriendly and widow's-peaked Uncle Raymond Collins -- hilarious, possibly an actual dracula, and kinda hot under the ghoul makeup he's working -- who is a funeral director by day, saboteur and stabber by night, and interested in their bullshit never.
They try to tell him about the mysterious gravestones, but he just calls them pretty little liars and jerkoffs and tells them to get the eff out of Ravenswood because of all the secrets and dangers which are there. The Grunwald, his babysitter even though he is a grownup dracula boy, pretends to toe the line, but secretly she cannot wait to blow his spot up and tell them all kinds of shit.
By the time Caleb thinks to take pictures of the gravestones and prove they are real, it is too late: They have turned into other gravestones that are not nearly so magical. He heads into town to find obituaries for himself and Miranda from their deaths, but the dour newspaper guy seems like a dracula also. His daughter Remy is the opposite: She is flawless in every single way, and rules so hard. She is like what Maya was supposed to be, only good at it. Like imagine if Aria just actually focused her powers for good, instead of on begging to get slapped forever.
Anyway, Remy and Caleb form a bond out of being cool kids in a drag of a town, and before you know it, they're having coffee and she's explaining to him about how the town is known for being super spooky and haunted, and also one time it flooded and that was real weird for some reason, but no matter what, Ravenswood just keeps going because you can't kill it, because it is unkillable and unholy and under at least one deadly Curse.
The other two out of the five, I'm not so sold on. One of them is the Constantly Crying Cousin from the PLL Halloween Special, and he's okay I guess, but his sister is just awful. (Their cousin Princess Girl is nowhere to be found, but maybe we can start a petition for her to come cheer them up or something.) Their names are Luke and Olivia, and their main deal is bitching.
They are the formerly popular, currently outcast, kids of a lady who is believed to have stabbed her husband to death, by everybody but her kids. Or at least, we learn, by dumb old Olivia. Luke's pretty sure she did it. We meet her briefly, and she does seem a little high-strung, but I guess having to wipe the "Black Widow" graffiti off your husband's tombstone every day might do that.
Olivia's main people are Tess, her best friend who might be secretly mean, and Dillon, her boyfriend who is also the hottest guy on the show by like a quarter mile. But they can't save her from getting a slushy cup full of blood to the face during Ravenswood's rinky-dink Founder's Day Parade, of which I guess she was elected queen before the whole murder thing happened. Luke feels bad for her, but not as bad as she does!
Luke is also one of the other things Remy's dad is weird about, because they are in True Love but her dad is not having it, I guess maybe because of the murdering that may run in their family. Remy's dad is more sympathetic than he seems, though, because also his wife has just miraculously returned from Afghanistan and is super PTSD about it, for reasons that are important to the story.
Anyway, after a very loud Miranda fight in a room full of coffins, Uncle Collins eventually softens toward her and Caleb. They have a nice dinner with the Grunwald, which includes him giving Miranda a photo album all about her dead mom, which also contains a letter about what it was like to be accidentally knocked up with Miranda. (I think that Miranda is the key here and that she is psychic and maybe there are no demons or weirdness: Just her, making the Curse come true with her ESP. Or maybe in fact this show is not magical at all, and everything that happens in the entire show is just Miranda acting out for attention. That would rule.)
While she is reading that, Caleb takes off all his clothes and slides into a nice warm bath, but is immediately murdered by a shower curtain. (Of all the mysteries of Ravenswood, this one puzzles me the most: Why would a bathtub that explicitly has no showering capability -- the subject of the Grunwald's funniest line of the entire episode -- need a shower curtain? That is some belt-and-suspenders stuff right there.)
This jibes with Miranda's constant claims of seeing wet demon people lurking around the house and leaving wet puddles of demon ectoplasm and throwing hairbrushes short distances, but Caleb doesn't even think to mention that he was nearly murdered in the bathtub until they're already at the Parade. And even then, he thinks it was Uncle Collins anyway, because the Grunwald would never do that. He spots Remy, and decides that they should get her to talk to them about obituaries some more before they get the hell out of his freaky town.
There is something about how every time a soldier survives miraculously and comes back to Ravenswood, five teenagers die. I don't get any of that part, or why they would be the same teenagers that randomly turn into other teenagers when you're not looking, but my secret greatest hope is that it's like A and the A-Team and Redcoat and the B-Team and Dr. Wren Kingston and it never, ever matters to what is actually going on with the Curse, even on like the most basic level.
So then Uncle Collins goes goblining around their area, and Remy decides it's time to get out of the spooky basement where the obituaries are. On the way home, they pick up Luke (who is crying, because he is literally always crying) and Olivia (bitching) and then they are five teenagers who are about to die because of the Curse. But even though they were just talking about that -- for a really long time; like, not just in passing did they discuss this -- they just blithely drive onto this bridge. Where there is a scary wet demon girl, who scares Miranda into jerking the wheel and sending them all to a watery grave.
And that is the end of this show!
Week: Just kidding, they're aren't really dead. Maybe one of them is dead. If one of them is dead, I very much hope that it is Olivia. No offense, I just honestly and sincerely wish her ill.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Last night, Caleb came to Ravenswood to save Hanna and her sisters from a gas-masked monster -- but by the time he showed up, shit was mostly over, so then she asked him to just ... not come home. Ever. They love each other a whole lot and they sure are cute together, but this rando Miranda they'd just met really plucked ol' Hanna's heartstrings, for some reason. Or maybe it was the freaky-deaky tombstones in the graveyard where Ravenswood likes to hold their parties, which seem to be mostly for kids. Two of those kids? Miranda and Caleb. So either they're dead and don't know it, or they are clones, or the whole thing is a Vampire Diaries-style meditation on our shared legacy after the American Reconstruction, or maybe just war generally. Whatever turns out to be going on, I guess it's good thing he stuck around or he would have no idea he was a dead person!
GRAVEYARD
Miranda: "I can't believe we've been standing here all night!"
Caleb: "I guess I just need time to process."
Miranda: "But why?"
Caleb: "Why am I dead? Or why am I alive?"
Miranda: "No, why are we still standing here?"
Caleb: "I just wish this town had a website. I bet these are Questions that are Frequently Asked."
Miranda: "Maybe it's just coincidence that we're both randomly here and randomly dead."
Caleb: "I am from Rosewood, where everything except The Grunwald has a rational explanation. There may be the occasional hyperadrenalized superstate, there are digital simulacrum environments and metric tons of snakes out of nowhere, and Spencer Hastings exists there, but at least there's not actual ghost-magic."
Miranda: "You're a Man of Science and you'll be dead by tomorrow."
Caleb: "That may be. Right now I just want breakfast."
Miranda: "Fine. Let's go hassle my uncle. I'm sure he's a totally normal guy."
"I think it pisses God off when you walk by the color purple in a field and don't notice it," the old saying goes. And it's true, for what it's worth. But in Ravenswood, where there are no colors, what you risk missing is shit like raven weathervanes winging to follow you down the street despite the lack of a breeze, or random statues bleeding from the eyes at you.
Caleb: "Where did your uncle even come from?"
Miranda: "I got a letter from a lawyer about my dead parents, cc:d to my mom's brother. Mr. Raymond Collins, Sawmill Road, Ravenswood. At first I was happy to be less of an orphan, then I got pissed."
Caleb: "That happened to me when I found out my mom was super rich in California. But then A went there and tried to kill her, which cheered me right up."
Miranda stops in front of the house, which we know to be so huge that it contains an entire buried city of creepy things underneath it. Caleb is duly impressed. In the grass there is a plaque that reads, Hinchley, Trumbull & Collins - Funeral Directors. Implying that there is also a shit-ton of creepy stuff at ground level. A hearse pulls around the drive, and they stare like street orphans at it.
Miranda: "I haven't seen him since I was three and only recently remembered that, but from here he looks crazy creepy."
Caleb: "I wonder if he'll get chatty with us right away about our dead versions of ourselves."
The undertaker, Raymond Collins, is kind of like if Ezra Fitz were wearing a vampire costume for Halloween: Three-piece vest, ghoulish pale skin, and a widow's peak that puts Paul Ryan to shame. He does not speak with a Transylvanian cartoon accent, but that's the only thing missing. He is pretty attractive, for being the kind of person who wears an elaborate, ridiculous costume of the undead every day of his life.
Miranda: "Collins? I'm your niece Miranda. You may remember me from being a baby."
Collins: "I really wish you had called first before coming to this witch dimension. I'm very busy, what with people dropping dead all the time."
Caleb: "I'm Caleb Rivers, and I am not impressed with your manners."
Collins: "Oh, am I your mysterious relative too? Or are you just here to film a commercial for Tresemmé conditioner?"
Caleb: "No, I'm here because Hanna told me to. Perhaps you remember me from a tombstone?"
Collins: "This whole town is mainly tombstones, but luckily I am the main guy of them. And I can tell you, there is no dead Caleb Rivers in Ravenswood."
The Grunwald: "Collins, I will take it from here. Miranda, get your shit."
Collins: "Caleb, help me carry this dead body around."
STAIRS
Miranda: "The Grunwald, why is that guy such a dick?"
The Grunwald: "I guess because his whole family is dead."
Miranda: "Except for me."
The Grunwald: "Except for you, I guess. Whatever."
Miranda: "Have you worked here for very long?"
The Grunwald: "I have worked here since olden times. Except for a brief period as a house mother in a nearby sorority."
Miranda: "Your résumé is confusing."
The Grunwald: "No, sorority girls are confusing. Plus psychic parrots kept memorizing my phone number."
MORGUE
Collins: "Thanks for helping with this dead guy. You know what else would be helpful is, if you got my niece the hell out of this town."
Caleb: "Because you are so creepy, that doesn't sound like you're being nice."
Collins: "It's not about me, dude. What part of mysterious gravestones foretelling your murder seems like a good idea?"
Caleb, verbatim: "Miranda found her name, too. And her picture on a headstone, which made me double curious."
Collins: "Oh, did it? Did it make you 'double' curious?"
Caleb: "If you don't tell us what we know, I will totally harass you forever."
Collins: "You're blackmailing me with ... being annoying?"
Caleb: "I learned it from my girlfriend's posse. It is their number one trick."
The dead body starts twitching around, dropping Caleb's cute grin to the linoleum, and the fact that Collins doesn't even care at all -- "spinal cords, dork!" -- sends Caleb scampering back into the house. You can only do so much negotiating on the other guy's turf, and once the corpses start moving it's probably best to fall back.
BEDROOM
Miranda is sitting on a bed being weirded out when an earthquake happens and the bed starts bucking around.
Caleb: "Hey, why are you being weird in here?"
Miranda: "Did you feel that earthquake?"
Caleb: "What are you talking about?"
Miranda: "Nothing, I guess. I guess that was just no big deal."
Caleb: "Well anyway, on closer inspection, your uncle is a dick."
Miranda: "I guess I should have pressed harder when we were downstairs."
Caleb: "Yeah, bothering him is a great idea. We should stick with it."
He goes to the window, where ravens do raven stuff and the sky is forever gray and there is a lady in a string of pearls and cashmere separates going to town on a tombstone. What is that lady doing? Cleaning off some graffiti that says:
BLACK WIDOW!
The lady is the mom of Olivia and Luke, whom we met last night as Crying Cousin at the Graveyard Party. Every night, we'll find, is some kind of Ravenswood party, which is a trope I can get behind. I just wish they weren't all centered on dead people and horrible history and massacres and whatnot. Or maybe that makes it better, I don't know. I just wish they would all come worship the giant white angel like that one time with Shana. That shit was bananas.
Olivia: "Mom, stop scrubbing that tombstone! Let's just call the cops!"
Mom: "The cops are the ones that told everybody I stabbed your dad to death, dummy."
Luke: "Olivia, why is Mom getting so hardcore on that tombstone? I thought we told her to knock it off."
Mom: "I really don't think that's a workable strategy, kids."
They discuss how this murder has ruined their lives individually and collectively, and then Luke locks eyes with Caleb, up in the window -- because of course this is happening on the mansion's lawn, due to the lawn being a graveyard, due to Ravenswood being a total graveyard everywhere -- and then for some reason he rides angrily off on his bike, like he can't even believe somebody was watching this trainwreck go down.
By the time Caleb and Miranda get downstairs, the whole dumb family is gone.
Miranda: "That was interesting!"
Caleb: "Not really. If I had a dime for every person in Rosewood who was ostracized for a murder they didn't commit, I could literally buy Rosewood. Come on, let's go take pictures of our tombstones."
Miranda: "What good will that do?"
Caleb: "I don't know. I guess we can just be like, Take that! And then then your uncle will be less cocky about his skill at memorizing tombstones."
Except the Caleb Rivers one is gone, replaced by a "Carl Ridgley" who does not have nearly the amount of hair.
Miranda: "How does that work? Now you're dead, and alive, and Carl Ridgley?"
Caleb: "I feel like we're getting gaslighted. But no worries. We can go into town and look up our obituaries at a newspaper or library."
Miranda: "I think I should stay here and yell at my uncle some more."
Caleb: "Cool but don't get followed by any wet demon girls with bad manicures that nobody else can see."
This last one, she does not quite accomplish.
REMY!
Remy: "Okay, today it's a parade, so remember not to park on Central Avenue. This has been me, a teenage girl, calling you, a random person, to give you parking advice. Farewell."
Caleb: "I need to talk about obituaries."
Remy: "That sucks for you, sorry."
Caleb: "Not like that, exactly. I need to find my obituary. It's from olden times."
Remy's dad is dour as shit but as we'll see, he has reasons.
Dad: "Actually, little boy, we don't have obituaries today. Come back tomorrow for obituaries."
Caleb: "What on Earth do you mean?"
Remy: "Yeah, Dad. I know exactly where they are."
Dad: "I'm sorry, but it's Tuesday. There's an old ordinance going back to ancient times that we can't have werewolves in the obituary morgue on Tuesdays. Also I don't like kids poking around in my documents. Go to the county office and get a date of death and then maybe I will help you. PS, I still will not help you."
#CREEPYCOLLINS
Miranda: "Oh, were you just fussing with a dead body in here?"
Collins: "Death is no excuse for slovenliness. Who are you again?"
Miranda: "Nice try! Still your niece. Are you some kind of funeral director?"
Collins: "Yeah, and my dad, and all the way back to before dying was even invented."
Miranda: "What about for my parents? Remember how they are dead?"
Collins: "Yeah, I was just a kid when that happened, which is why I'm so young now. Certainly not because I suck people's blood instead of eating food."
Miranda: "I am pissed as hell at you for existing."
Collins: "That makes sense. I still don't really care."
Collins: "Look, I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings by ditching you for the foster care system and pretending you didn't exist. But it seems like that's been working so far..."
Miranda: "This is ABC Family. There are no good foster families."
Collins: "Not true. Perhaps Caleb can locate a nice interracial lesbian couple for you."
The fact is that Caleb knows a shit-ton of interracial lesbian couples -- he's practically part of one -- but the field is not exactly full of ideal placement opportunities. Paige is planning on too many cats, for one thing, already. God knows Maya was old enough to adopt children, but she's dead now. And the only other one that comes to mind is a bisexual, time-travelling blind rapist in an open relationship with a violin-playing unemployed Halloween enthusiast, which simply would not fly with the authorities.
Miranda: "At first I was afraid of you because of how over-the-top spooky you are, but then I was just pissed at you. But I'm over that now too, and we need to get bonding."
Collins: "I'm done talking to you now. Peace."
Miranda: "That is not how conversations work!"
The Grunwald grabs her as she's stomping out of the viewing room after him, really pretty harshly: "Learn to read a room, idiot. You stirred up all kinds of serious shit coming back here, he's gonna need a second."
Miranda: "What do I gotta do, crawl into one of these boxes?"
The Grunwald: "If you're mainly after attention, that might work. It would also make you look like an idiot, so. Something to think about."
COFFEESHOP
Barista: "Get off your fucking phone."
Caleb: "Hang on, I have to just leave this voicemail for my girlfriend telling her I'm not going to leave a voicemail. It's too weird in this town to explain in a voicemail."
Remy: "Are you seriously drinking two entire coffees?"
Caleb: "No, one of them is for Miranda. But do you want it? You are the coolest person I have ever seen in my fucking life."
Remy: "So this is your dead version of you. It's just a random picture I somehow found even though there is no related paperwork. Basically I took a bottle of Adderall and then zoomed the dusty haunted microfiche looking at every picture of every person who ever was."
Caleb: "Kinda like that movie Limitless, where the guy becomes limitless."
QUEEN OLIVIA
Tess: "Anyway, it's sad that your father got stabbed to death and nobody seems to care who did it, but on the other hand, isn't it cool that you're queen of this goat rodeo bullshit parade later?"
Olivia: "Yeah, I can't wait to be in a line of six or seven cars, waving at people who hate me, in a dress from Forever 21."
Tess: "You're real emo lately, just like your stupid crying brother I might be in love with."
Olivia: "Honey, I am so much worse than my brother. Although we are both under the same ridiculous curse that makes zero sense."
Tess: "I know, because secretly I am only friends with you as a joke."
Olivia: "I wish there was like one good thing about me. Besides my awesome house."
Dillon: "...Did somebody say my name?"
Gals: "Oh hey, Dillon. Account for yourself."
Dillon: "When Olivia was popular and had two parents, dating her was the obvious choice. Now I just feel sorry for her."
Olivia: "I don't even want to be the queen of this sad sham parade. I don't want anything. I want to wear sweaters and walk around this graveyard witch town all alone."
Dillon: "But I rented this convertible Corvette for it! Let's go for a ride. You can forget your pain in my utter hotness."
Tess: "Okay, see you guys later! I have to go plan a horrible downfall. Or maybe have a secret crush on Luke."
COFFEE
Caleb: "Are you really not impressed by this bleeding statues and haunted phone booths and underground necropolis story?"
Remy: "I am kind of a hipster, it's true. But mostly, uh, have you not noticed that Ravenswood is mainly shit like that? Constant fucked-up things along those very lines?"
Caleb: "I know, I just have a hard time thinking it through. I'm a man of science."
Luke enters. Everybody looks at everybody else in various weird ways. The Five have a way of vibing with each other, always, but also Luke and Remy have a feeling of romantic love mixed in with their Curse vibes. Maybe that is why her dad is so weird, among all the ways and reasons her dad is so weird. If my daughter were as awesome as Remy and wanted to date a crybaby like Luke, I'd really have to work on that.
"When I was eleven, I went to sleepaway camp. And one night, all of us kids were sitting around the campfire telling ghost stories. One kid talked about a haunted house in Ravenswood. And the kid talked about a ghost in the Ravenswood movie theater. And then I finally said, Hey, I live in Ravenswood, that's my town. And they all got really quiet."
Remy: "That was the first time I was burned at the stake. Just kidding, that was when I realized I was a creep from a creep town, and decided to enjoy it."
Caleb: "But why is it so creepy here? I mean like it is really noticeable."
Ten or so feet up the wall, Remy indicates, is the water line from a famous flood that she says was in 1896. The reservoir burst, water spooshed through town like a freight train, and they were quote "pulling bodies out of trees for six months."
Remy: "They rebuilt. And it's beautiful. And I love it here."
Caleb: "Even though it is total graveyard everywhere and..."
Remy: "It's part of who we are. Some small towns have apple festivals, some are known for their pumpkin or butter carving. We are known for being surrounded by death, seeing it at every turn, and worshipping strange idols in the town square that bleed from their eyes."
Little-known fact, that was actually Ravenswood's tourism tagline for like a year back in the '80s. Anyway, a boy named "Springer" is activated by Luke's presence and turns into a meanie with no real characteristics.
Springer: "I bet your sister will not be queen of our dumb parade! If she loses I also bet that she will stab the judges with a knife!"
Luke: "Ugh."
Springer: "Get it? Because of your mom stabbing your dad to death recently."
A fight begins, but it is a pussy one. I wonder if part of the overcast weather system of Ravenswood is somehow also making everybody so low-key with their shitty, unwelcoming behavior. A miasma of meanness. Maybe Ravenswood just has Seasonal Affective Disorder, collectively. You know, like how Silicon Valley is high-functioning autistic people breeding with each other, only with bummers. Think about it: It's a witch dimension that only magic cars can go from or to, so you have a stable population, and then if you add in the reincarnation factor, honestly maybe you're just looking at like a population of twelve unique models, iterating, interbreeding over and over and over, until everybody is just always sucky to be around, genetically. Although that still doesn't explain the weather. Or why Rosewood is 100 percent perverts.
Caleb: "Do I even have to break up this fight? You guys both look like you're one slap away from curling up on the floor for naptime."
Springer: "I am going to be mean to you, too! After my nap."
Caleb: "I hate this motherfucking town!"
That EMT from Grey's Anatomy that wanted to marry April Kepner -- who is absolutely the most awful person on television by a mile, the most annoying person who has ever existed on TV, no offense Olivia -- pops up out of nowhere.
EMT: "Luke, let your haters be your motivators."
Luke: "I'm outta here. Remy, come have conflicted romance with me in public."
Caleb: "Who the hell are you?"
EMT: "I am a teacher with inappropriate relationships with my students and their families. My name is Ezra Fitz, just kidding, my name is Benjamin Price."
Caleb: "I don't have time to get into your stuff right now, good day."
Like my notes literally read -- and I have no idea what this means, but I love it -- They smile. And whatever. I am not going to know where to stand for a few hours, I think, because what is this show even about?
c.f., for e.g., Pretty Little Liars: The paradox of how sexual paranoia and solitude go hand-in-hand when you're a young person. That's just the show: Everybody is gross, because everybody appears, feels, gross, when you're still negotiating the edges of your blocky, unsophisticated early socialization: That your body -- that bodies -- are in some ways taboo, and that every person you come across is a possible abuser. Which means you are alone, and everyone is looking at you and wanting things from you, and guess what: That's the rest of your life. And Rosewood becomes an external place for us to explore those internal states, a dreamlike environment where the faces are always changing.
But since everybody else is doing the same thing, regardless of their age or who they are to you, it's also about the hard truth that being a sexual object is never as useful as you think it's going to be, but it's also never going to go away, so you have to make your peace with the fact that no matter how many people want to fuck you, that's not what will ever make you feel less alone. The Liars wanted and hated, were attracted and repulsed, by Alison because she knew this secret, and wanted desperately to tell them about it, and even in death that's all she ever seemed to be doing. And so on.
But that means the only real people on that show have to be teenage girls, so right away this show is about something else: Naked Caleb is not the same thing as, say, Naked Emily. They are neither subject nor abject to the same forces. So then what? What's the rich loam here? You have the war stuff, you have the orphan and family and community stuff, you have the mental and spiritual problems of at least three of the kids. You have several untrustworthy authority figures, men, but none of them are sexualized, really, at all. Ben Price maybe -- Uncle Collins if you freaky -- but that's it, so far. If in Rosewood we are inundated, surrounded by sexual danger, suffusing, soaking into everything, it seems like in Ravenswood the equivalent would be, so far, immutable mortality. The unavoidable, inescapable, memento mori certainty of death.
Which isn't the whole story, but it's on the right track I think. If the question is, what else is as fascinating to young people as the threat of sexual violence, it can't just be that ticking clock, because the myelin sheathing the nerves that connect the frontal lobes to the rest of the brain is still developing: Teenage immortality is a physiological fact. So what else goes with the death? I won't hesitate to hazard some guesses as we proceed, but this week I got nothing. Maybe something about the self-sacrifice that PLL enjoys so much, where they're always having to weigh out their loved ones against their secrets: The hardline here is death, an unbreakable Curse, at which we throw ourselves headlong, over and over. But that's not the whole story either.
I'm not stressing about it. I don't necessarily need the map to get invested in the journey, and I am already fascinated, in love with the lush look of it, and I like most of the actors a great deal. Plus you got The Grunwald, which is about as much goodwill as a show on what's essentially its third pilot hour should need. Either way it's the thing I'm most excited about, really, with any new show whether I'm recapping it or not: Figuring out, or feeling out, the shape of it. What it wants to tell you.
TOWN SQUARE
Remy: "Are you okay? Why are you power-walking away and crying?"
Luke: "Because my dad died and your dad said my mom killed him in your newspaper."
Remy: "I know, but she probably did and anyway, why does that make you a dick to me?"
Luke: "You're right. Let's talk instead of how your mom just got back from Afghanistan, but we still kind of have in common that our moms are trainwrecks."
Remy: "Cool and then we can rub our foreheads together right here in this public park in the middle of town where absolutely everyone can see us."
Her Dad: "I can absolutely see you! Remy, come away from that boy's forehead."
HOME
Miranda is sitting in an armchair in her bedroom, which is chock-full of creepy dolls because hello, she's wearing fingerless gloves and looking at pictures of the flood victims: Body bags, cars floating away. No bodies in trees, but maybe she looked at those first. Then two things happen, which are treated with equal weight: A hairbrush falls off the vanity of its own accord, and the wet demon girl peeks out from behind the curtains, then vanishes, leaving only what I hope is demonic ectoplasm.
Miranda: "Why am I the only person around when this shit happens? I wonder if I have poltergeistism."
Caleb: "Well, whatever the puddle was, it's gone now. But you know what, maybe it was just old pipes or whatever. Like last night, when blood dripped on Spencer and everybody just kind of shrugged because whatever, it's just blood coming out of the ceiling, no big."
Miranda: "No big, huh?"
Caleb: "No, I mean, let's get the fuck out of town. Remy is the coolest person here, and even she was pretty straightforward about how shitty and creepy it is here."
Miranda: "Fine. I hate my stupid vampire uncle anyway. This whole show was a bad idea."
The Grunwald: "Collins wants you for dinner."
Kids: "AAHHHH!"
The Grunwald: "No like I mean, get dressed and come down for dinner in an hour."
Caleb: "Can I take a shower first? Showers are a big part of my whole deal."
The Grunwald: "There's a bathtub free for your use."
Caleb: "But I like showers."
The Grunwald: "I said bathtub, bro."
Miranda: "I'm so sure Collins wants us. It's probably her idea."
Caleb: "First of all, I'm really not understanding why you think she's a good guy. She doesn't really seem to be much more into you than he is. And second of all, can we maybe take a break from acting like street hoods for like one dinner? He'll probably tell us some weird stuff if we're chill with him."
OLIVIA & LUKE'S HOUSE
Is gorgeous! I might like it more than Hanna Marin's house, my favorite house of all time.
Liv: "Luke, will you come tonight to my sad parade?"
Luke: "No, I hate parades and I hate the populace. Plus I got a lot of crying to do."
Liv: "I wish our mom would eat food and not sleep all the time, but depression is a harsh mistress. But since she's not around, that means you have to come."
Luke: "Uh, you know they're going to slushie you with blood, right? You understand something like that is definitely happening?"
Liv: "It's not the whole town, just the defacers of our father's tombstone and the haters you are not turning into your motivators. I mean, I got Dillon and I got Tess..."
Luke: "Dillon is fucking fantastic, I'll give you that. But Tess is a bitch."
Liv: "Excuse me?"
Luke: "She's only dating you as a joke. And maybe to get close to me."
Liv: "Okay well I am definitely doing this now. Thanks for the shitty pep talk."
COLLINS DINING RM (FORMAL)
Is also amazing, in a Dark Shadows-y kind, huge, red-velvet Technicolor kind of way. I love every single frame of this show, it's such a beautiful world; I was really looking forward to seeing the actual sets and they do not disappoint. I can't wait for people sitting by fireplaces, all the shadows and spooky things that will happen then.
Caleb: "Why are you freaks always having parties in this dumb town?"
Collins: "Because we love having fun, obviously. Because there is so much to celebrate, in Ravenswood."
Miranda: "Did my mom, your older sister, grow up in this mortuary mansion? Am I living in her bedroom, perchance?"
The Grunwald drops a utensil and it's so loud maybe she dropped it into a blender.
Collins: "She thought it was super creepy and like being dead and hated every second. Maybe she was right to run away. Here's a random photo album."
The Grunwald: "See? He's doing his best. It's not his fault his best is still pretty shitty."
REMY'S HOUSE
I do like parts of it, especially the high-vaulted den that feels like a cocoon or a blanket fort, but it's overall a little cozy for me. I wouldn't say shabby chic, because that's pejorative in this context, but it's just... There are a lot of colors and textures, which is not my bag at all.
Never have been one for those things; even when I was a kid it was all about Brutalism, concrete, travertine. What I like to call "tasteful and functional," and what my friends like to call "Contemporary Persian McMansion." If you're really feeling wild and flamboyant maybe you could talk me into some like, beadboard wainscoting, but between you and me, honestly even crown molding I'm just like, "Did we really need to take it so far? Do we really have so very much to prove?"
Remy: "Here's a list of the most boring things that ever happened at this stupid parade."
Mom: "That story took longer than it took me to get back from Afghanistan under mysterious circumstances! I better reheat my dinner I just ignored for that long."
Dad: "I will do that!"
Mom: "Fucking leave me alone, bro. I can work a microwave."
It is stressful! But at least you see how Dad's control issues are a universal, and why.
Dad: "While she's in there operating the microwave, supposedly, let's talk about Luke and how you need to preserve the distance I forced in between you."
Remy: "Yeah, I'm not really on board for that plan? He's the same kid I grew up with, that you used to adore."
Dad: "Well, I have more to say on that subject, but for now I will just flatly decree that you are not to see him. The end."
COLLINS
Caleb: "I wonder why he just gave you that random album."
Miranda: "But you saw, right? The Grunwald thing I was talking about? She's really into my plight."
Caleb: "Maybe? She still makes me feel like I'm being skinned alive by her crazy eyeballs."
Miranda: "She knows more about my family than I do... Oh, this little girl might be my mom."
Caleb: "Well, here's an adorable grin before I leave you to be sad. Wish me luck with my bath."
While she's finding and reading a letter that her dead mom wrote to her before she was born -- "I can't say I was thrilled to get pregnant, but I bet you're going to be pretty awesome" -- Naked Caleb is getting strangled in the bathtub. Which has a shower curtain and a shower spigot around it, which I know I already mentioned but it's still on my mind, 24 hours later. Why is there is a shower curtain here, for a clawfoot bathtub that is incapable of showers? The shower curtain and rod are the ugliest, dumbest part of any bathroom, why would you leave them around -- especially in this huge, beautiful bathroom -- if you didn't have to? For killing Naked Caleb, apparently.
Oh, and the taps turn themselves on, which is the first weird thing we see that Miranda isn't around for, so possibly there is more afoot than her being the Curse. But I still think it's her, in some way.
CENTER SQUARE
Miranda: "Do you even know where we're going?"
Caleb: "No I'm just wandering around this awful haunted town in the middle of the night because we have got to get the fuck out of here."
Miranda: "I found a letter from my mom. Not really groundbreaking stuff, but sweet."
Caleb: "Okay while you were doing that, I was being strangled naked by your uncle."
Miranda: "Pics or it didn't happen. Also, are you certain it wasn't my wet demon girl?"
Caleb: "Your uncle exists a lot more than your wet demon girl."
Miranda: "You think this is to scare us out of town, huh? You still think he switched the gravestones, even?"
Caleb: "I'm telling you, I will Scully your ass until fucking doomsday actually comes."
By-passing Celebrant: "That's not until April!"
REMY
Remy: "Why are you making a bed here in our lovely den? Is it because of your night terrors?"
Mom: "Yeah, your dad really hates those. I guess he got used to sleeping alone while I was in Afghanistan. Well, alone and undisturbed by the screams of a traumatized soldier."
Remy: "Then once this stupid parade is over I'll come downstairs and be close by."
Mom: "Then I'll just scare you!"
Remy: "No, we can talk. I want to be available to you, like you were when I was a kid."
Remy: "Topic Two. When you are you going to open a clinic?"
Mom: "Never. I am not ready for that. Plus we have a town doctor already."
Remy: "Dr. Frankle is so old he coughs dust. You'll come around."
Mom: "Maybe but probably not."
Remy: "What the hell happened? What can I do?"
"I just need some time to figure it out, okay? Everyone else in my unit is gone. I don't even know why I'm here. It doesn't make any sense that I'm the only one that survived the attack."
Remy takes off in her amazing outfit, and Mom settles down to be frazzled some more on the couch, after telling her -- kind of randomly -- to say hi to Luke. I don't know if they're conspiring or the mom doesn't know about the dad's decree or what, but it brightens Remy's night so I'm good with it.
COFFIN SHOWROOM
Collins: "Just doing some paperwork surrounded by coffins, looking ridiculous like usual. What's going on with you?"
The Grunwald: "I decided you're going to live across the hall from your niece now."
Collins: "I doubt they're going to be here for much longer, since they noticed immediately that it is the worst. Plus, they are about to fully die."
The Grunwald: "It's not too late to fix this."
They stare at each other for a while. I guess she means family-wise, but the staring makes me think it's both: Not just Miranda's shitty life that is his fault, but also maybe how she is almost certainly going to die in a few minutes because of the Curse, which probably, as a pillar of the community, our resident deathmonger might want to address.
TOWN SQUARE
Miranda sees the wet demon girl in her reflection, and then the wet demon hand touches her! But suddenly it's just Caleb standing there, and finally she's like, "Okay, well, the wet demon girl is pretty much happening all the time now."
Caleb: "That's very interesting I guess. Hey, let's go ask that Remy girl if we can look at a bunch of documents."
Miranda: "Aren't we leaving town like, imminently?"
Caleb: "Yeah sure, but this part affects me so we're doing it."
So far behind them I don't even think Miranda can see it, some writing on some window says, LAST CHANCE! With a handprint also!
MORGUE (NEWSPAPER)
While the sad lame parade -- officially tonight is the Ravenswood Historical Society Celebration -- goes by outside, with cheerleaders and a brass band even, those three crazy kids look at various documents.
Remy: "An article about a soldier that returned to Rosewood under mysterious circumstances and then five teenagers died. Hmm, guess I'll worry about that later."
Caleb: "Hey, this is Miranda. What are you looking at?"
Remy: "Just this weird Curse that has to do with my mom and some teenagers that look like us who keep dying all the time, no big deal."
Remy and Miranda do the Five Vibe at each other, and are a little too salty for politeness, but I guess that's the kind of fun you have in Ravenswood. Caleb and Miranda tell their story about the gravestones for like the tenth time, and once more their audience is just like, "In Ravenswood that is not even in the top five of weird things that happen on a daily basis."
Caleb: "Okay, even if you don't think it's weird in itself, don't you think it's weird that somebody is trying to keep us from finding out about it?"
Remy: "You're right, that part does get my goat. Let's do some haphazard research."
LAME PARADE
Olivia's temporarily loving life in her convertible whip: Everybody is clapping and waving like she isn't the daughter of a black widow but her formerly "cool" self. Even that pair of red-coated twins, one young and one little person, from last night's party. She is coasting for a fall. On the upside, it'll give her and Luke something new to bitch about.
As Remy finds like the hundredth article about this dead kids situation and all that, and maybe starts discerning a pattern in it, somebody slushies Olivia with blood or red paint, and goes running off into the crowd, and everybody turns on her. Even the balloon-twister chick thinks she's lame, which is like the ultimate insult. She gets out and runs in slow-motion to the shadows, with slow-motion Dillon valiantly chasing afterward, and there's Luke, who I guess was just waiting for the horrible thing to happen and wanted to see it.
Olivia: "Please don't say I told you so."
Luke: "Why would I do that? Why are you such a bummer all the time? Here, take my jacket and let's just go home. The I Told You So can wait."
MORGUE (NEWSPAPER)
The three start noticing how five kids keep dying all the time, all the same age, all high school seniors. Remy's like, "If you go back to the week I bet there will be a POW or something that got home under weird circumstances. A strange murmuring makes you feel weird, but also like Remy is about to figure something out. It is the same thing she has figured out multiple times already, so it's not a huge problem that they are interrupted by a zooming monster goblin who runs around the place and scares them all into leaving the Morgue for the night. You can tell it was a real person because a lightbulb is left swinging by his or her passage.
Outside, Uncle Collins lurks around for a while to make sure he interrupted their Curse-related train of thought, and then scampers off into the shadows. It was a given that The Grunwald would be the best part of this show, but I must say the inscrutable Uncle Collins is making for an impressive challenger.
SOME CREEPY ROAD
Olivia: "Mr. Price from that coffeeshop earlier? He is concerned about me, as only teachers in Rosewood and Ravenswood can be. He says the two hardest things in life are knowing what you want, and being able to say it out loud."
Luke: "How is that relevant to your situation?"
Olivia: "Maybe I wouldn't be crazy if I could do those things. So I know what I want, it is to get out of this shitty creepy town. But not because of the usual reasons of it being a horrible witch dimension, but more that I can't handle not being popular. And now I have said it out loud. Done."
Luke: "Please let me know if I have contributed to your pain in any way. That way you get to whine, and I get to cry about it. Our two favorite things."
Olivia: "You are kind of a lasher-outer lately. But I have suffered in silence!"
Luke: "Oh, is that what you've been doing?"
Olivia: "Why are we like this, Luke? Why so deeply unpleasant?"
Luke: "I don't know about you, but for me it's mainly my belief that our Mom totally did stab our dad to death."
Olivia: "Twist!"
Luke: "Yeah. You can see why I would feel weird about bringing that up."
SAME CREEPY ROAD
Remy: "Do you guys like my effortlessly cool music in my stunningly cool car that I drive while being and looking utterly flawless? If Aria Montgomery ever met me, she would lose her fucking mind."
Caleb: "You are truly fantastic. Tell us your theories."
Remy: "My mom said earlier the exact same thing as that POW in that one article, about how she shouldn't have survived but she did and then came back here."
Kids: "[Normal, considerate things you would say at this point.]"
Remy: "Yeah yeah, thanks. But the point is, the thing that happens is five teenagers are going to die. Probably tonight."
Miranda: "How many times has this happened? Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. That's from Goldfinger."
Remy: "That is the first thing you've said that was cool enough for me to acknowledge."
Caleb: "Good thing there are only three of us!"
Immediately we come up on the twins, who are shambling miserably down the foggy road and kicking things and generally being total downers.
Luke: "Gross, it's that guy who stopped a bunch of douches from beating me up."
Remy: "Get in the car and quit your gritchin'."
Nobody: (Does the math.)
Luke: "Protip, I am angry because you were on a coffee date with him."
Caleb: "I have a girlfriend, she's fabulous, and I have no interest in anybody in this gross awful town. I have quote an 'uneasy feeling in my stomach' and I want fries, where is the nearest diner?"
Remy: "Just over that bridge with the wet demon girl on it. Hey, how did the parade go?"
Olivia: "Ugh."
Luke: "Hey Remy, could you turn up the radio? They're playing that Civil Wars song that was on all the ads for this show."
Collins drinks some scotch and thinks about how he probably just killed three-to-five children merely by skulking around, and whether The Grunwald will be cross with him in the morning, or just passive-aggressively call up one of her parrot friends to chat about it.
They all sit in the car being thoughtful about the Civil Wars song in different ways, like they are a pack of Alanises about to be murdered on their own TV show by a wet demon girl... And then they are! You live, you learn.
I'm not sure if any of them see her on the bridge besides Miranda -- which would support my theory -- but she sees her hard enough that she grabs the wheel and drives them off the bridge and into the water and they all die. The wet demon girl looks at the screen and maybe she screams! Up close, she looks like Planescape: Torment. She looks like Regan MacNeil crossed with The Ring, so I guess if you put them together that means anybody that watched this episode has seven days before we're all sucking cocks in Hell. Or since I'm turning this in Wednesday night, only like five and a half days.
But the best part is how after the splash and struggle and Sadako looking you in the eye, the car floats back up to the surface and the Civil Wars song is still playing, muffled by water. Very spooky, cool way to end it.
WEEK
Somebody's going to die, but I bet it's not even Olivia. Miranda has weird moments with her mom's portrait, Caleb is still all wet from dying when a mirror explodes around but not on him and later he runs around the (actual) morgue, Mrs. Olivia's Mom has creepy history with Uncle Collins, Remy and her mom team up to fight something, The Grunwald takes an accusatory tone, Luke starts shit with Caleb and saves somebody from something, and Remy continues to be perfect.
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Good Wife, Homeland, Hostages, Ravenswood, and Masters Of Sex for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, Twitter, and Facebook, as well as a regular column for Tor.com, Geek Love.