There's a lengthy previously-on segment covering just about everything of note in the series so far, which is pretty sad, when you weigh three hours against thirty seconds.
A cute semi-redhead delivers a speech to small handful of Wolf Lake denizens. She's discussing an addiction that so interfered with her day, she would leave work three times to "sneak off into the woods and do it." Dude, tell me about it! Lumberjacking is a cruel and impatient mistress. "You're not thinking about bankruptcy and back taxes when you're locked into that incredible hot drive," she says dreamily. "And I miss it...That flash that explodes inside you and blots out everything else..." A bald old man interrupts, "That's how I got run over by the SUV." Oh, this is a support group for shapeshifters trying to suppress their lupine urges. Sheriff Donner is there, suppressing his lupine urges. Nancy, our speaker, continues after the rude interruption. "I'd sit up late at night and think, 'Nancy, that is no way to run a hair salon!'" But then she'd have a rough day, retreat to the forest at night, and "wake up to find four or five squirrels in the lettuce crisper." Donner chuckles, because squirrels are the poor wolf's meat, and sad little Nancy obviously doesn't know the mantra: "Possums are awesome; a squirrel makes you hurl." Nancy blathers that she lost her self-respect, her soul, and her shop's clientele, until this support group turned her life around. With a grand flourish, she thanks Sheriff Donner for "gosh, everything," and kicks off a round of applause. Donner blushes and gives her the Pointed Finger of No, You're Great. He skips onstage and hugs her. There's a gigantic whiteboard behind them that lists the ten steps of Flippers Anonymous, like it's some sort of club for recovering dolphin fetishists. Proudly, Donner says, "The beast within us is very strong, and if you ever feel like you're not up for the battle, remember this brave woman's story. It can be done." Credit Tim Matheson with earning his salary -- he delivers all this with surprising facility. He adds that Nancy has also overcome bulimia. "That reminds me, there's a sheet cake back there," says Warren, the bald troublemaker. Nancy glares at him, ready to go all Teen Wolf on his ass until Donner reminds everyone to use the ten steps and treat flipping like an addiction that must be battled every day. There really is a list of ten things, but fortunately, they're not legible. Donner announces that he's buying the first round, so everyone should hit the bar and booze their troubles away -- in fact, that's probably the ninth step. "If you feel you must flip, instead take a sip!" And then take fifty more.
Nancy unlocks the salon, walks back to her apartment, and kicks off her shoes, putting the covered sheet cake on her table. In the bathroom, she brushes her teeth by vertically scrubbing each one individually. I can just see this actress saying, "Now, what's my motivation? What am I cleaning off my teeth? Wolves scrub up and down, I think..." Suddenly, her attention is snagged by something in the mirror. We see she's bothered by the reflection: she can see the gaunt, green, decaying face of the dead girl on ice in the bathtub. Irritated, Nancy stalks over to it and yanks the curtain shut, then resumes brushing. Sinister music plays us right into the credits.
Willard racks up a nine-ball game and breaks. "Thunderbolt," he crows. Luke, his son, shrugs at the trash talk. Willard apparently sank four balls at once, because the thing he does is call the five ball off the cushion. Father and son banter. Willard sinks it and then smacks in everything but the nine, which is perched like a tease on the lip of the pocket. Luke's eyes dart toward the nearby Sophia, who beams warmly and heats up his trousers. Willard struts over to the cue ball and grins, "It's like a nightmare, isn't it?" Luke nods, and as his father bends down to shoot, he whispers, "Choke, choke, choke." The shot is miscued; Willard has, in fact, choked. He drops to the floor. It's actually probably a stroke, heart attack, or cancer complication; Luke stares agape at his father while Sophia scampers up and rifles through his wallet. No, actually she just tells Luke to run for help. After a second prodding, the shocked boy bolts. Sophia turns her attention to the unconscious man, and the camera pans down to his crotch before fading into the scene. Ah, the crotch fade: a classic technique too often forgotten.
And, the crotch fade takes us straight to a corpse -- from one dead body to another. The girl, last seen in Nancy's bathtub cooler, is still on the dead side. Lou skips up to the crime scene, decked out in shades and leather and snapping on his rubber gloves. He's ready for some fun with body cavities -- just a standard weekend in his life. Donner anticipates Lou's first thought and groans, "It's not her...It's not Ruby." Lou squats down, stares at fungus corpse, and wonders where the medical examiner is. "Delivering triplets in Elkwood," Donner answers. Lou rolls his eyes at the wanton fertility of it all. He then cracks open Fifty Words For When Your Medical Examiner is Delivering Triplets in Elkwood and figures out that he should say, "Confluent lividity, settled at the lowest point of the body." Donner frets that there's no blood with this corpse. "He probably washed the body before dumping it," Lou says, a little too easily. Molly calls out to them that she's got the girl's purse, conveniently dumped nearby; Donner reveals that the dead girl is Sandy Ellis, whose parents filed a missing persons report a month ago. Lou touches her face and stares at the residue on his glove. "Know what happens when you thaw a frozen piece of meat?" he asks. Oh, quizzes! Um, the answer is...barbecue. "Condensation," Donner trumps me. The men realize the killer iced his victim.
Sherman approaches Willard's house, where armed guards are posted outside. "What's it gonna be, gentlemen?" he asks, pleasantly. "A simple pat-down, or a full cavity search?" The man shakes his head. "Lou's office is the other side of town," he says. Sherman marvels at how "heavy" this is all getting, then cracks that Bob the Guard shouldn't tuck a cocked pistol into his pants -- well, another one, anyway -- because accidents happen. Okay, thanks for that little PSA.
Inside, Vivian is escorting two Chief Care Bears out of the house, thanking them for visiting. "This family is important to all of us," the man says. "I'm a phone call away." Sherman merrily greets the men. "Nothing like the smell of a wounded animal, huh," he smiles. Perhaps the sharks are circling already. Vivian shuts the door and sighs that Malachi -- one of the chiefs -- is a dark bastard, and flat-out says she thinks he's just casing her house to see how his furniture would fit. Sherman quizzes her, and we learn that Willard is in stable condition and Vivian is numb. Luke scampers downstairs on his way out the door, but Vivian implores him to spend time with his father. He fends off her suggestion, claiming he's got things to do and fangs to bare. "Mom, I'm gonna do it, okay? Just not right now," Luke glares, slamming the door. Sharon's eyelash extensions pout. "He's scared to death," she intones. "Or, I've raised a heartless troglodyte." Yes, well, that would make sense -- like begets like. Sherman shrugs. "Don't look at me," he protests. "I just teach the little buggers, I don't head-shrink 'em."
Willard lies weakly on the bed, with lots of machines that go bleep to convey that he is very sick and clawing at Heaven's door. Sherman sits on the bed and cracks, "So, did you really have a stroke, or are you just trying to get out of the rubber-chicken dinner at the Rotary Club?" Willard laughs and winces at the same time. See, he cooks those dinners.
Lou swaggers into the police station just as a gloomy couple skulks out. "What's with Mr. and Mrs. Prozac?" Lou smirks, certain he must write that down for when Ruby comes back, reads his list of "Funny Things I Said While You Were Presumed Dead," and runs right back into his bed. Molly sneers that they're Sandy Ellis's parents, and Lou is appropriately chagrined. She directs him to his desk, not without some wacky trickery: "Take your pick [of desks], as long as it's that one." She hands him the examiner's preliminary autopsy on Sandy, which shows nothing errant at all. Lou is startled at the sparseness of the report, to which Molly primly replies, "That's why they call it preliminary."
Oh, but we knew all along that Molly had something to hide. Elsewhere, she hands Donner the real report, the uncensored version, the one that talks about the...you know...wolf stuff. Sssh. Donner reads aloud that her heart and kidneys were missing, certain signs of predation. "I was afraid of this," he frets. It seems a serial killer terrorized Wolf Lake back in the late '60s, wasting nine people before ending his rampage. No one ever caught him, and the Seattle papers christened him "The Feeder." In that one article someone wrote once that might've mentioned Wolf Lake, or at least the word "lake."
Nancy scarfs chocolate sheet cake, listening to a self-help record that tells her to visualize a time when she felt safe and warm. Blah love thyself blah snore don't fret about tomorrow yada yak blah relax. Inspired, Nancy bolts for the bathroom and purges. Staring at herself in the mirror, she sighs, straightens her clothes, and trembles, "Well, that happened!" She whirls around to leave, then runs back and screams at her reflection, "You fat piece of poo!" "Poo"? Is this the Saturday morning cartoon hour? Is this show like that Family Circus cartoon, where the writers' kids fill in when the writers are too hung over to type? Nancy lifts up her shirt, examines her flat belly, then scoffs at her perceived fatness and flees.
Panting, she grabs a Tupperware container labeled "Sandy" from the fridge and cracks it open to reveal a human heart. Rabid, Nancy sniffs the heart and sighs with ecstasy. Then she frantically chants her way through some of the steps. "One, I am powerless. Two, I believe that a power greater than myself will restore me to my sanity," she wails. "Three, my will and my life are in your care. Four..." Nancy freaks because she can't remember four. "I have made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself!" she exclaims. This soothes her. I don't know. Sniffling, she pokes herself in the nose and simpers, "Don't be a bad girl!" The actress has got to be hammered. Inside, she's all, "What does a wolf do when she's ashamed? She goes for the nose! The nose!" Then Nancy gets up and chucks the heart down the disposal. This makes me cringe every time I see it -- so, twice -- because although we don't see it get chopped, we know it's happening, and I don't deal well with organs of the internal variety. Pipe organs, obviously, are fine.
Luke grabs Sophia at the diner and invites her out on a date, but she's more interested in hearing what's happening with his father's health. Luke is reluctant to talk about it, but grudgingly mentions that it was a minor brain-stem event and probably unrelated to his cancer. Sophia figures he should go check it out, but Luke would rather go light fires and suck on people, so he makes plans to pick her up at 8:30. She grins, thrilled.
A little blond imp sits in her parents' pickup truck outside a modest suburban house. Lou makes nicey-nice with her, until her father runs out with a dog to sic the sick pedophile grinning sugar at his baby girl. His hand forced, Lou introduces himself as a detective from the Seattle-Wolf Lake police departments and offers sympathy for the family's loss. His pup, meanwhile, whimpers with joy as Lou pets him. "That's a first," PapaSandy observes. "They don't like dogs, and dogs don't like them." For anyone out there who thinks Lou is secretly a wolf, this exchange may dissuade you. Not that anyone was losing sleep over the quandary. MamaSandy trots out and chokes that they don't mean to make trouble, but they just want to bury their daughter. Lou doesn't know what she means. "They burned her," sniffles MamaSandy. They wanted a proper burial, but evidently the morgue cremated her and delivered the ashes inside an aluminum can. And they thought it was soup powder and just added water, and dinner was so good until they realized, and oh, it got ugly from there. MamaSandy gripes that she didn't get a proper urn for her child. Lou looks sad.
At her salon, Nancy blathers that Paul Newman and Robert Redford are the hottest blue-eyed bad boys in the whole world. She figures that if she'd been in the movie, she'd have nailed them both without a second of guilt. Then she smiles at her client, Sophia, and tells her not to listen. And then she describes Donner as a "mouthwatering hombre. "He's like a monument or something," she gushes. Eh? Sophia is equally startled and wishes Nancy would shut up and sex up her hair so that Luke can mess it up again while they grope in the back seat of his car. Which, by the way, is a Dodge Challenger, and not a Mustang. That's what I get for thinking I'm clever with cars. Sophia whips out a magazine so that Nancy can copy the hairdo inside.
Luke puts on his jacket and prepares to leave home, but Sherman stops him. "Must be rockin' out there," he jollies. Sherman is like Santa -- a walking bowlful of jelly. He whips out a hundred-dollar bill and waves it under Luke's nose, explaining that Willard thought he might want a little "walking-around money," which sounds to me like, "Son, buy yourself a big-boy blowjob." Luke is ashamed to have avoided dear old Dad, and peeks around into his sick room. A machine beeps bad health. Luke stares uncomfortably at Sherman and bolts, leaving the old man still holding the cash. "Guilt just doesn't work like it used to," Sherman laments.
A burly bodyguard named Clyde bellows, "Ruby, you have a visitor." Tyler oozes through the door with groceries and smiles at her. Ruby is being kept in a house on a hill, by the way, in case we haven't covered that yet. "I see you got your old job back," snarls Ruby. "Delivery boy." Tyler grins and says he thought she deserved a home-cooked meal -- a double rack of venison, slow-roasted and glazed with sour cherry sauce, a side of asparagus and bread pudding in whiskey sauce for dessert. Ruby doesn't care, though, and flounces off into her bedroom, petulantly slamming the door. Tyler isn't fazed, interpreting it as a door-slam of uncontrollable lust.
Hours later, Tyler plates the main course and drizzles cherry sauce on the top. Except the meal looks like old boot leather covered in baked beans. "Cherry sauce is an epiphany," Tyler sighs happily to perpetuate the illusion. Shouting through the locked bedroom door, Tyler tells Ruby not to reheat the asparagus, or else it'll turn into hemp. Right now, Woody Harrelson is cheering and trying to weave a tunic from lukewarm leftover veggies. As soon as Tyler leaves, Ruby brats out of the bedroom and invites Clyde to eat the meal, which would explain how frighteningly bony she looks.
Lou tells Donner that he might have found another case involving Sandy Ellis's killer. Apparently, across the county line in Elkwood -- that's a show on ABC about elk-people -- a girl called Carolyn Duvall was found in a hotel room. Everything about the death was exactly the same, except Carolyn's heart and kidneys had been harvested. Lou then raises a brow and wonders whether the Sheriff is hiding anything from him; Donner pretends he isn't. We see a photo of Carolyn's corpse lying in a bathtub of blood. Lou challenges him about why Sandy Ellis got cremated; Donner plays dumb. Lou challenges him about why Carolyn and Sandy's deaths are so similar; Donner has no answer. Lou challenges him to hand over the case; Donner shrugs. Basically Lou is going to out-cop the sheriff.
Night. Lake. Fire. Music. It's another teen party in Wolf Lake. Half the attendees are lying on the ground making out half-naked, and the others are swimming half-naked. It's like they divided all the clothes evenly between two groups. Luke hops out of the water and struts, dripping, toward the camera, and CBS totally just got its money's worth on this show. He's a hottie. Sophia awkwardly stands to the car, dressed in a down-home pink and blue off-the-shoulder dress with two tiny pink spaghetti straps. Her hair was not worth the cash -- basically, the top half is in a ponytail, but swept straight across her forehead. She looks like a Walton. Luke hands her a bottle. "It's not for holding, it's for drinking," he teases. She grimaces and chugs a bit of tequila, while he chuckles at her timidity. "What's wrong?" he asks. Sophia kicks the ground and then admits that she didn't think they'd end up at the crack-whore garden party. Just then, Luke's pal Randy appears and tactfully says, "Didn't think you'd be here tonight! I thought you'd be holed up with your Dad, changing bedpans and drinking string beans through a straw." Luke casually punches him in the mouth. Randy grins and resets his jaw with a crack. "Point taken, dude," he says cheerfully, leaving. Pammy sluts over to Luke with a lime in her mouth; and he takes the lime with his and sucks on it. She's in a black leather bra. Regarding Sophia sharply, Pammy sneers, "Did we miss prom?" Sophia smiles and replies, "Yeah, it was right after the Planet of the Apes reunion." Luke chokes and doubles over with mirth, while Pammy saunters away.
Luke then decides to go swimming again, grabbing Sophia's hand and dragging her toward the lake. She is reluctant, but he starts taking off his shirt, and that's enough convincing for her. Slowly, she unbuttons her dress. Hey, remember those tiny spaghetti straps? Yeah, they're bra straps, actually. I'm deeply disappointed that she is white trash. Luke grabs her face, calls her beautiful, and plants one on her. She pulls away, not ready for this. "No one's ever ready before," he coos. "It's like a paradox. You get ready afterwards." Nice line, dipshit. He strokes her and then employs more peer-pressure logic: "Come on, Sophia, everybody's watching." Freaked, Sophia instead bolts the party. "Your loss," Luke says, then drinks.
Fade up on a deserted street. Sophia walks home alone, through the woods, late at night, bent on proving that people who wear glasses are not always smart. WolfCam watches her walk. Suddenly, headlines light her path and a car screeches to a halt. "Sophia," Nancy says, shaking her head. "Honey, hop in, I'll give you a lift."
Bing! Lou hits a reception-desk bell at the motel in Elkwood where Carolyn Duvall's body was found. The receptionist is playing his Inexpensive Gameboy Equivalent, probably the "Blintendo Lametoy" or something. Lou wants room seventeen, and the kid tries to charge him $100 despite a sign that advertises rooms for almost a quarter of that price. Lou gets all fierce up in his face until the kid forks over a videotape of the crime scene, filmed before the cops cleaned it. That's just gross enough to get Lou hot and bothered, so he takes the tape.
Luke is passed out on the diner's pool table, until Donner rages in and shakes him awake, fuming that he doesn't know where Sophia is but knows that five witnesses saw them together. "I told you she was trouble, man," Luke slurs sensitively. Donner, grateful, throttles the kid. "I'm not a morning kinda guy! Don't try my patience!" Luke sneers that she's probably in the woods, flipping and exploring her inner beast. Donner looks terrified, especially when Luke confesses that he has no clue where Sophia went.
Nancy opens her pantry door and gazes sadly at the bound and gagged Sophia. She's pissed because she botched the front of Sophia's hair, despite having in fact screwed up the whole thing. Nancy feeds Sophia some water through a hole in the duct tape, then swoons over her captive's eyes. She then babbles that she never understood animal lovers. "Why worship lowly beasts of the earth when you can revel in the glory of being one of the most supreme and exquisite of all creatures?" Nancy marvels, and you know, I'm totally going to miss this show when it's cancelled. Oh yeah, I said "when." Nancy has hijacked Sophia's glasses -- and they're magic! When you look through them, you see the colors of teen angst! Teen angst is mostly orange, by the way. Who knew? By the time Nancy has finished her insanity plea...er, her "speech," she gets up and tells Sophia not to look so scared. "I'm the one who's gonna have the nightmares," she reasons.
At the Cates house, Willard and Ty are conferencing. We miss the part where they discuss tail clipping season and lupine dentistry, but we get there just in time to hear Willard say, "And the item: my daughter. I take it you've been to see her." Has he ever. Ty calmly notes that, technically, he and Ruby should be married right about now, funk-soul brother. "Circumstances have taken a considerable turn since I made that promise," Cates intones. Ty scoffs that their union wasn't to be about romance; Willard wants Ruby to have a protector, and Ty wants to climb up the food chain with a wife from the First Family. "You and I have always butted heads on practically everything...except for your taste in furniture," Ty smirks, fingering the wooden desk. "And women," Willard snorts pointedly. Ty's interest is piqued. He knows Cates is referring to something between Ty and Vivian. "You are a wise and fortunate man," he says smoothly. "Nobody will ever fill your shoes." Cates isn't stupid enough to think his side of the bed won't be filled eventually, and he says so. Tyler tries a new tack, arguing that Wolf Lake needs a leader who will not only urge the pack to do what's right, but will do whatever it takes. "I remember when I had that kind of clarity," Willard says. "I don't miss it at all." Tyler finally whips out the big gun, pointing out that Cates isn't long for this world. "The idea of marrying you is what made Ruby run in the first place," Willard argues, but Tyler begs for a chance to pitch her the idea of a political union. Willard is silent. "You won't regret your faith in me," Ty promises, his hair swept up into an enormous cowlick that sits on his head like a crown. Willard rubs the bridge of his nose and looks upset.
In the motel, Lou watches the video of the night Carolyn died. There's blood all over the wall, a trail of it on the carpet leading to the bathroom, and her corpse sits in bloody water. There's palm prints near the sink, smears on the walls and mirrors, and vomit in the toilet. Grimly, Lou flicks his switchblade and seizes this chance for a cheesy reenactment. He decides Carolyn was killed near the door, makes a slicing motion through the air with his knife -- such a necessary prop; perhaps he should've obtained a body, too -- and backs into the bathroom. Then he stands and stares at the tub, getting mental flashes of what it looked like That Fatal Night. He sees the prints everywhere. He deduces that the killer, hands coated in crimson fluid, dumped Carolyn in the tub and then rushed to the sink, studying his or her reflection in the mirror -- thus accounting for the palm prints. As Lou stares at himself, blood appears on the walls. He is in the moment. We're through the looking glass, here, people. "What are you thinking?" Lou barks, ostensibly at the killer but also at CBS. Then he recalls the prints on the toilet seat, and grimly tries to crack that mystery.
Phones ring madly at Donner's office. Everyone is searching for Sophia, and Donner screeches that he wants an army of people out there combing the woods. Nice to have abusable connections. Vivian slinks inside and drools, "Matt." He considers her, then escorts her into a cell -- the cell, actually -- so they can chat in private, because no one is in jail today. "You said you wanted an army," she whispers. "Well, there is an army, Matt. I know how you feel, but this is Sophia we're talking about. You're our blood, no matter what you say, and so is she!" Donner, stricken, chokes, "No! Not her." He chides himself for not sending her away as a baby. "No, what you should have done," Vivian pants, "was have your children with me." Donner's eyes flicker yellow, wolf lust and longing pumping through his veins -- one specific vein. Vivian wetly sidles up to him and heaves, "Let us help, Matt. We want to help." He exits the cell without addressing her, leaving her eyelashes alone to wilt.
Molly calls Donner to line three, at the other end of which is Nancy. He tries to hang up on her, but she tearfully explains that she's having an experience. "The silver daggers of light are back in my eyes, and I want to run," she purrs. Halfheartedly, Donner reminds her that she can fight the urge. "Urge...URGE," she weeps, washing her hair. He tries to pawn her off on Sheet-Cake Warren, but she understandably hates that idea. "I don't want to do this again!" she whimpers. Donner tells her to breathe and be strong. "I understand," Nancy snorts. "I'm on my own." She hangs up and writes "SOPHIA" on a Tupperware container that's just big enough to hold a heart. That sounds like a country song.
The doorbell rings. Nancy opens it to see a leering, drunk Luke waving a tequila bottle. "Party time," he slurs seductively.
Sophia weeps in the pantry while Nancy pours Luke some coffee and sits him in a salon chair for some tough love. Luke wants to take her upstairs and bang her blue, but Nancy fends him off by claiming this is a terrible night for it because she's catching up on "all the this-and-that's [she's] been putting off all week," like, say, harvesting people's innards. That backs up on me a lot. Nancy tries to send him home. "I can't, not like this. My dad will kill me," Luke grouses. "If he hasn't kicked off already." Wow, crude. Nancy sympathizes with him. "It's awful. I know how you feel," she says kindly. "And you love your Dad. The nicest thing my mom ever said to me was, 'You need more makeup.' This from a woman who weighed 300 pounds and had breath like a grave." Trying to be blasé, Luke insists that Willard will beat the cancer. "We're going hunting at semester break...You should see him, he's really something," marvels Luke. "Powerful, fast...I learned a lot watching him." A tear trickles down his face, which sets off a flood. Nancy strokes him and lets him cry.
Donner charges into his office, but stops limply when his deputy has nothing to report. Molly shrugs, too, but tells him Lou called and left a cell-phone number.
Lou's mobile rings as he's clearing stuff off the motel bed, ready for full-on two-quarter magic-fingers massage. When he hears Donner's voice, Lou informs him that he's got a hunch about the killer: it's a woman. Donner is shocked and doesn't quite believe it. To prove his theory, Lou tells him that Carolyn's killer puked at the crime scene, leaving remnants of a partially-digested brownie in the toilet bowl. "She checked herself in the mirror and threw her guts up in the bowl," sighs Lou. "I think she's bulimic." Donner, aghast, drops the phone and sprints for the door. Apparently, there is only one bulimic in town, and she's yakked her last cake.
Sophia fidgets in the pantry, trying to fray her rope handcuffs by rubbing her wrists against the laundry basket. Nancy is perched on the arm of Luke's chair, holding his head to her chest. "Fear, that's all it is," she muses. "Twenty-four hours a day of fear, interrupted by moments of basic cable." Except I've watched TNN, so I'm pretty much afraid of basic cable, too. Luke sobs that he's not ready for Willard to kick it. "What the hell am I supposed to do if he's gone?" he wails. Sweetly, Nancy suggests that he go ask that very question of Willard. He sighs, but rises. Nancy kicks him out, forcing him to walk by snatching his keys. "Hey, um, I know you've always been, like, this incredible sex machine," Luke says sheepishly. "But um, you're actually a really good person." Nancy, visibly touched, still kicks his ass out the door and charges after the strumpet she's going to flay.
Donner brakes hard outside the salon and bolts toward the door. Nancy stands before Sophia, raises a gigantic knife aloft, and hacks it downward...into a bag of ice. Aw, dang, ya got me! I thought she was wolf food. Nancy dumps the ice into the tub. Outside, Donner hasn't been able to force the lock open, so he shatters the glass door, draws his gun, and sprints toward Nancy's living room. She isn't in there. "Sophia?" he yells. She kicks the bathtub ice by way of response. He runs in there and cuts her rope, allowing her to tear off the duct-tape gag. Distraught, she clasps her father, who puts a coat around her shoulders and lifts her out. WolfCam watches this happen. Suddenly, a shadow dashes past the open door and out into the street. It's Wolf Nancy.
In a strange, blurred, and jerky effect, Donner scampers outside and tries to find her. We see Wolf Nancy growling underneath a building. He telepaths, "Nancy, I know you're there. Don't do this." And so the show begins its shame spiral. Nancy, in a voice that sounds like she's six and playing haunted house, voice-overs, "Forgiiive me, Matthew! I've faaaaailed you!" He insists she hasn't. "Heaven is closed to me now!" she continues howling. "My soooul is a black house filled with pity, abomination! I can't live like this anymore, Maaatthew!" Donner begs her to reconsider. "Don't blame yourself," she whispers stupidly. "I'm behind youuuuuuuu." He turns, she pounces, he shoots, he scores, she drops, she dies. It's like this show is trying to get cancelled, part of some experiment to test just how long a program will last if the director takes a crap on every tape before airing it. Nancy lies naked and dead on the street. If all wolves reappear as naked humans, then why did Vivian have her clothes on two episodes ago, when she finished chasing Lou? She didn't have enough time to get dressed. Whatever. It's not worth worrying about, really.
Cates stares out the window. "How ya doing, Luke?" he says without turning. Luke fakes that he's been studying, and Cates regards him with glowing pride. His son hurries over there and envelops his father in a bear hug, crying. Vivian watches. Moving on.
Clyde loads his gun and aims it at Tyler. He's conferencing with Ruby during the daytime, for once, out near a gorgeous lake. The location scout for this show deserves a raise. "Just for the record, we're not talking about love, here," he clarifies. Ruby looks pale, bony and very Goth with her long black hair and ethereal eyes. Tyler deems it a win-win situation. "And I'm supposed to find that offer attractive?" she sneers. "Convincing, hopefully," he says. Ty's theory is that Wolf Lake will derail without a strong family at the helm. Ruby looks extremely skeptical, but Ty grins that her parents seem sure the community will rally behind him. She icily corrects that Vivian is her stepmother, not her mother...ha! I had that pegged two weeks ago when I noticed a different name on the gravestone. I'm so good. And pathetic. Tyler rationalizes his shady past by insisting it was all in service of her family. "Oh, right, Tyler, you're a soldier," Ruby spits. And now Ty gets his first Monologue of Manure. "I'm also a dreamer," he says. "That one day, we can throw off this dark cloak, step out into the light, plug it in for all to see, and stop hiding like animals, and start living like gods!" Ruby won't look at him. He steals up behind her and licks her ear, recalling a sweeter time in their relationship. Clyde's trigger-finger twitches, but Ruby wrestles Tyler away and growls, "That was another life," before fleeing back to the car. Tyler threatens that she'll never outrun him.
week, Ruby's given a choice: She can leave her prison, but if she does so and runs to Lou, her safety will not be guaranteed. Ruby is vexed. Sophia gets her first taste of shapeshifting.