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Awful. Just awful. Is it really a surprise that I got it in my head this was an NBC show?
Okay, so White Vincent the Nazi Apocalypse Antichrist Terrorist Mercenary shows up at the Nazi Submarine where we discovered the corpse of Anthony Edward's Nazi Priest Apostle twin, during the search for his wife, a Clock Whisperer. It's kind of awkward, because he has kidnapped Goose's wife and previously blew up the FBI lady's husband. Instead of arresting him, shooting him, or asking him to explain this stupid show, they opt for uh, letting him just chill, letting him blow up the Nazi submarine, and letting him escape across the tundra.
Oh, and there is a Nazi watch, I guess now there are watches also. Twelve watches that lead to twelve constellations that point the way to racism and AIDS jokes. White Vincent thinks about dissolving Jacinda from The Real World with about a million buckets of lye he happens to have around just for dissolving ladies, but then remembers she is very good at fixing Nazi watches.
FBI lady is in trouble, since she not only did not do her job but in fact did the opposite of her job, and Goose gets very mad at her for not wandering around screaming WHERE ARE MY DRAGONS every five seconds like he is doing. Back at their dumb magazine, we learn that Charles S. Dutton survived having his throat slashed, the better to explain made-up things that make no sense whatsoever, with hilarious conviction. "Some people think AIDS is a Biblical plague! I myself do not believe this, but some people do!"
The same way that sentence tries to have it both ways -- to be both exactly as racist and hateful and dumb and awful as it is, but also tell you it's not doing those things -- the show and episode only get awfuller and more inane from there. They talk about Apocalypses for about a million years and then just abruptly decide that Apocalypses are stupid and they don't want to talk about them anymore, they would rather talk about this Nazi watch that Goose took a picture of, which is also a constellation of stars, which is also a place in India -- such is the way of things, on this show -- so he goes to India.
But not before he randomly remembers to tell his protégées about how he is a man who is also a clock who is also a corpse who is also an Apostle that is a secret. They are interested in these facts, and want to find out more about a journal that FBI Lady stole from New Bartholomew's Nazi sub, because maybe it will tell them more about what it is like to be a Nazi saint clone. Girl Skeptic goes to FBI lady's house, which is like an "artist's loft" from a '90s movie, and they talk about FBI lady's tattoos because she has a million tattoos.
Guess what, each of her tattoos is also the location of a clock that contains a diamond that has a treasure map that leads to a corpse that has a watch that has constellations on it that leads to a treasure map that leads to a diamond that is inside a clock that is also a tattoo. Just kidding. FBI lady gives her the journal of New Bartholomew, which proves that a face is not the only thing the two men share: Old New Bartholomew also wouldn't shut up about WHERE ARE MY DRAGONS.
Because yeah, when you're just making shit up anyway, you could be a secret Apostle of the Catholic Church but also be a Nazi, or married to a lady, or full of clocks, or even a Hindu lady. Yeah, sometimes a Hindu lady can also be a Christian saint at the same time. You know, like how a racecar could also be a wedding cake, or the word fllobnatz also means "a tiny bird perched on my arm, singing a gleeful tune." Fllobnatz.
Oh sorry, were you not aware that's how concepts and words work?
Hank does his best to get mugged in India, mainly by just Hankin' up a storm everywhere he goes, but FBI lady randomly shows up and saves him, so they go meet New Thomas, who is just this Hindu lady whose magic power is: Standing around. They call her Standing Woman, for cryptic reasons, and her thing is that she will never, ever sit down. After about five minutes of Hank's bullshit, she sits down. Why was she standing there?
A clock. She was standing on a clock, obviously. Gotta catch 'em all. She says some shit about how she was buds with Nazi Goose and over in his journal he says some shit about how "in that moment" they weren't Indian and white, or Hindus or Nazis: Just people who were secretly Christian saints. Just people, you know, who had that in common.
The SkeptiKids go see David Lee from The Good Wife, who -- just like in that show, I've always imagined -- has a huge collection of Nazi memorabilia. Instead of leaving his house immediately or blowing it up, they have tea with him and chat about how the Nazis weren't so bad, like how some of them were even Apostles of the Secret Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Clocks, and they see a movie of Old New Bartholomew that blows their minds because he looks just like this guy they know who already explained that to them. They also find out that Old Dirty Bastard left his Goose-wife back then because he was "a threat to God," which is a pretty bad-ass excuse for leaving your wife.
Old Dirty Bastard, according to Standing Woman -- for whom FBI lady is translating, because not only does she have a million tattoos but she also speaks every language, which is explained in the earlier scene where she foreshadows this development by telling Girl Skeptic, "Did you know I speak like every language?" -- also told her that if she ever saw his face, she should destroy the clock, because he is the harbinger of the Angel of Death.
Then a priest shoots at them and dies, both out nowhere, because sometimes that'll happen. Priests are known to go rogue. I guess this is because the Rosicrucians are not too happy about Goose being the New New Bartholomew and finding all these clocks? So now both sides of the eternal Nazi/Jesus war are coming after him? I don't know. There is simply no way to know.
Hank sees Vincent drive off with his DRAGONS and he and the DRAGONS have a little screaming conversation about things like, "How are you," and "Is the Nazi Antichrist treating you well" and she's all, "He made me fix a watch, which is lucky because that is my main thing! See you later!" and he's like, WAAAAALT.
So apparently yes, Goose is bringing about the Apocalypse by stopping the Apocalypse, so he needs to stop stopping the Apocalypse, which can't be stopped because it is has already started. This bitch really should have sat down sooner, because her blood sugar is clearly not where it should be. He tells her to go stuff herself because WALT and she says, "Okay then, thanks for the Apocalypse," and then they notice that the rivers are running red with blood and fish guts, and then he tells the FBI lady that the Apocalypse is coming and she's like, "I know, I was standing right there for that whole boring conversation, and I even translated it" and he's like, "You keep me honest."
So week, this motherfucking show better be canceled because it is the worst thing I have ever seen. It is worse than Bunheads, and that is not a comparison I would throw around lightly. But if it doesn't, thrill to this scintillating and not-at-all retarded synopsis that was written by an actual person and not, like, Horse_ebooks: "In another face-to-face showdown with White Vincent, Hank begins to realize there is more to this connection than meets the eye -- or in this case White Vincent's eyes."
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Hank's wife was kidnapped after she bought a random clock at the flea market, which was quite the coincidence considering that this particular random clock -- which was not kidnapped along with her, despite being the reason she was kidnapped -- contained a magic diamond that led him to his own dead body in a Nazi sub in Canada. Turns out the Rosicrucians nominated a new set of Apostles in the 1930s, including a Nazi commandant who was also, somehow, Hank -- the better to either start or stop the Nazi Apocalypse through the creation and hiding of clocks, which lead to these New Apostles, who in turn have more clocks (and as we'll see, sundry other timepieces) that lead to yet more clocks and eventually a Thing that is a secret but it seems will "render God irrelevant." At Zero Hour, the Apocalypse will either start or stop -- or possibly it is already happening, clocks or no clocks -- but none of this is very important to Hank, who just wants to get his wife back.
ONE IS THE NAZIEST NUMBER
When we last left Hank and Beck, they were chilling out at the Nazi sub, wondering just what the heck was going on. Beck snags a diary from the Nazi Hank -- but not the watch he's carrying -- as an obfuscatory Rosicrucian voices incomprehensibly over: "One is the number of Man. One is the number of You. But sometimes One is not One, sometimes One is Two."
Hank: "White Vincent! How weird to run into you here, at my dead Nazi body. I'm sure you have business inside that submarine, but first can you tell me if you've killed my wife yet? Apparently, I just have to believe."
White Vincent, verbatim: "So how does it feel to look upon yourself, Hank? It's like the insides of your head sort of break apart, don't they? Understand this, when I execute you, it will be out of mercy."
Beck: "That is very interesting, but I am actually going to be the killer right now. Of you."
Hank: "Beck, stop doing your job! Don't you understand that my problems are much more important than you killing the guy who killed your husband and is starting the Apocalypse, and also is a terrorist and also a highly paid mercenary?"
Beck: "I don't see how that's possible."
Hank: "Just trust me."
White Vincent: "I trust you. We have a common interest."
Beck: "Uh, no. I'm pretty sure I'm just gonna kill this dude."
But then she doesn't. The whole made-up conflict just goes away, leaving the overheated score to calm itself down. White Vincent grabs a watch from the dead Nazi that Hank had the foresight to photograph in detail and then blows up his own vehicle so that they are both stunned. Making little snow angels on the tundra while White Vincent gets the heck on out of there.
LATER
Beck: "Well, White Vincent killed a whole bunch of other people and stole a plane, so now I look like a dick for not doing my job of stopping a terrorist. I hope you're happy."
Hank: "I just want to find my wife! Why won't you let me do that?"
Beck, verbatim: "I let my heart get in the way of my professionalism!"
Hank: "Oh, is that why? Tell me, would you do anything differently time?"
Beck: "Yes. Your wife is not actually that big a deal compared to the end of the world."
Hank: "I don't want to hear that! My problems are very important! No more finding clocks with me, for you!"
Beck: "Okay, then I guess I'll just go about my business then. Good luck finding your wife with your unlimited funds from your crazy people magazine."
MØDƎЯN SKƎPTiȻ MAGAZINE
Boy Skeptic: "Man, nobody seems to care about Hank's problems. I call the FBI, even Interpol, and they act like this whole thing with the clocks is just inane."
Girl One: "I know. It's really sad how nobody cares about Hank's problems even though he keeps telling them to."
Hank: "Well, I am back. Having fucked up once again."
Girl One: "I am inappropriately and strangely relieved!"
Boy One: "Did you know there are twelve clocks and also the Apocalypse?"
Hank: "I did. But did you know that I am a reincarnated Nazi saint? No? Then I will keep that to myself."
Girl One: "The biggest irony is that we are professional skeptics but just believe the ridiculous conceits of this show without question. Tell us what you currently believe, in a bullet-pointed list."
Hank: "One. My wife is alive. Two. I have to find White Vincent. Three. The FBI does not care about my problems, even though they supersede the survival of our human species."
Boy One, mortifyingly: "Hey, this office is full of 'ninjas'! We're all 'cracked out' on caffeine and we're 'ready to rock'! We 'got zero love' for the FBI or anybody in a pantsuit for that matter, all right? You tell us to jump and we're 'skying' for you!"
Hank: "These ninjas, are they gifted with invisibility? Because I only see two 'crack'-heads 'skying' here, ever."
Charles S. Dutton: "Make that three crackhead ninjas. Turns out I did not die."
Hank: "Finally, a minority who understands how important my problems are."
Actually, it's even more bizarre than that:
Hank, verbatim: "You look like hell!"
Priest: "That's a fucked up thing to say to a priest."
Hank, verbatim: "I mean it, all the same."
...What? What does that exchange actually mean at all? "You look like hell. I mean it." He says it like he was saying, "You're like a father to me." Anyway, Father Roc is back on board and ready to sky. Not even death can keep him from being moderately helpful.
JACINDA
White Vincent: "So here's my thing. I have a six-month lease on this apartment and about a million bottles of lye. I was thinking I would murder you and then dissolve you, and nobody would even notice until Christmas. How does that sound?"
Jacinda: "That does not sound like a fun time to me. How about instead, you take me to my husband and use the lye for another purpose."
White Vincent: "I guess that is another option."
MØDƎЯN SKƎPTiȻ MAGAZINE
Skeptikids: "Let's quickly review the facts of the situation, as though by saying them over and over this show will make sense. What do we know? The Rosicrucians were so worried about Hitler's plans that they created 'the ultimate secret' and then planted clues to it in these clocks, which were entrusted to pretend Apostles and also something about the Apocalypse."
Fr. Roc: "Maybe the Apocalypse is already here. For example, AIDS."
Yeah, because when you're so sheltered and inured from reality that you think Nazis are fun action figures and a saint could be a Nazi (or -- spoiler alert -- a Hindu lady) and nothing is actually anything, then AIDS is just another wacky ingredient you can throw in there if you feel like it. When you don't know anything, everything's up for debate.
Hank: "Okay, so AIDS. What's the sign of the Apocalypse? Is it clocks? Oh my God is it clocks with AIDS?"
Fr. Roc: "No, it is rivers running red as blood."
Hank: "One thing I am not skeptical about is apocryphal Christian mysticism. Look at this picture I took of a watch."
Fr. Roc: "Well, right away I can tell you it's marked with the symbol of Doubting Thomas, so probably it leads to New Thomas."
Hank: "Weirdly, it is not a watch that tells time, though. It was created by either a very cruddy watchmaker or it contains a clue on the dumb level of a magic diamond."
Boy Skeptic: "Maybe it is a constellation? One of those watches that is also a star map?"
Moments: Pass.
Hank: "Good call. This watch we found on the dead body of a Nazi clone of myself who is also a saint is also a constellation you can only see from India. So I'm going to India."
Girl One: "Okay, but before you leave, did anything weird happen in Canada?"
Hank: "I wasn't going to tell you this, but the Nazi was me."
Skeptics: "There has to be a rational explanation!"
Hank: "Don't tell anybody that part, okay? Put that knowledge 'inside a doughnut.'"
Skeptics: "That's certainly a saying that people say. It is common to the vernacular that sometimes you sky for a person inside a doughnut."
BECK'S HOUSE
Is an artist's studio, because her dead husband was an artist. Since the episode started with breaking up Hank and Beck for valid reasons, but ones which sort of ruin the entire premise of the show, Girl Skeptic goes to Beck to reestablish the connection with her by asking about the Nazi saint's journal she ganked. Perhaps this journal will contain words that will explain the situation better -- or perhaps it will contain a topographical map of somewhere in Mexico, where there is a clock being guarded by a large white heron or a pair of British Knights high-tops, because did you not know that a heron or some shoes can be an Apostle of the Lord?
Beck: "Sorry FBI, I let my heart get in the way of my professionalism."
FBI: "Well, pull it together. This one is for all the clocks."
Beck: "You know that I am skying for you."
Girl Skeptic: "Hey, can we hang out? I have diary questions about that Nazi."
Beck: "How did you locate my home?"
Skeptic, horribly: "My generation's got 'skillz' when it comes to the Internet."
Beck: "See all these paintings? My husband made them before he was blown up. Did you know I have 'skillz' too? Like how I know that Hank plucked you out of an orphanage and gave you a home and a job?"
Really? First of all, how creepy and weird. And secondly, this is characterization on this show: "We have no way of demonstrating that he's weirdly their dad and it makes zero sense, but by having some other character just randomly refer to it, it's like it was always true."
Skeptic: "Mourning your dead husband is a character flaw. You shouldn't let your heart interfere with your professionalism, which is what would have happened either way things went. I have just noticed you are covered in tattoos."
Beck: "Let's talk about my 'ink.' It's in lots of different languages. My husband and I learned a lot of different languages, because we were stupid liberals who thought other cultures were worth understanding. Now I know better. Now I know that killing people is much more important than anything else, if you have a personal vendetta."
Skeptic: "Very interesting but could you randomly pivot to the real storyline about a white guy's problems?"
Beck: "As you know, the FBI is constantly turning over whatever it finds in an investigation to random people. So here is that diary."
Skeptic: "Now technically this is inside a doughnut -- if you're familiar with that saying, as most people are -- but can we dish about how he is a Nazi clone?"
Beck: "I thought that was pretty weird too. Hey, while we're skying inside this doughnut, why don't you tell me all of Hank's plans? That way I can join back up with him like the whole first act of this episode never happened."
CHENNAI DOWNLOAD
Hank: "Father Roc, tell me some things I already know about India."
Fr. Roc: "Well, Chennai is where St. Thomas was martyred, and they built a church there, the holiest site in all India if you are a Christian, but not really important if you are literally anyone else on earth."
Hank, verbatim: "...And at this moment, is exactly where I'm headed."
Fr. Roc: "Then why did you call me internationally and ask me this?"
MØDƎЯN SKƎPTiȻ MAGAZINE
Boy Skeptic: "...So, probably AIDS."
Random Employee: "I am all cracked out on caffeine! Tell me more."
Boy Skeptic: "And then the rivers of blood, so we should watch out for those."
Girl Skeptic: "Hey, Girl Scouts! It's funny because being a woman is degrading."
Ninjas: "You got us! Oooooh. Show us that Nazi's diary."
Boy Skeptic: "Good thing I know German, unlike last week when I didn't know German."
Girl Skeptic: "How do you suddenly know German?"
Boy Skeptic: "I learned it to impress a German girl in my quote Freshman Badminton class."
Nope. But anyway, the Nazi Commandant's name is Korbin Sturm, which Boy Skeptic finds homoerotic for some reason and they notice that his diary is missing a page that would have been dated the same date and time as the constellation in the watch that led Hank to the Basilica he just used to razz the priest... the one he just arrived at!
BASILICA
Indian Priest: "Hey, can I help you with anything?"
Hank: "Yeah, have you seen my wife? Probably White Vincent would have brought her to India by now. Or else dissolved her flesh."
Indian Priest: "Hot white lady like that? I'd remember. Show me her abductor? Oh yes, he was here. In fact he just went into the slums a second ago. We're skying for you, bro. Just watch out for the poor people in those slums, they are the worst. I'm the kind of priest who hates poor people more than anything. And also acts real sketchy when you're not looking."
MØDƎЯN SKƎPTiȻ MAGAZINE
Girl Skeptic: "I just got off the phone with the Nazi War Criminals Library."
Boy Skeptic: "The what?"
Girl Skeptic: "It's a thing! And they said that Korbin Sturm was married, had no children, and was a scientist at the University of Bonn. They did not say he was secretly a Rosicrucian, but he was part of the Nazi project called Zero Hour."
Boy Skeptic: "Which is what?"
Girl Skeptic: "Nobody knows. Not even the Nazi War Criminals Library. But they did hear of a reel of home video called that, which is in the private collection of a total creep."
TOTAL CREEP'S HOUSE
Creep: "Like most of your magazine's bafflingly large readership, I am a crazy person. I feel like I'm meeting famous people right now!"
Skeptikids: "So you're the good kind of Nazi memorabilia collector. Got it. Do you have anything with ZERO HOUR written on it?"
Creep: "Sure, right over here. Would you like some Brazil nuts?"
He says this also, for no reason: "I just can't force myself to digitalize this stuff, you know? Like you kids say, music is purer on vinyl, so too an image is more resonant when seen projected through celluloid."
There's not a huge paper trail on Zero Hour, because of how the Nazis destroyed all the records once the shit was coming down, but the facts are that Nazi High Command sent an expedition to India which was called Zero Hour and which conspiracy theorists claim was a search for "the secret of life... and death." On the image resonating through the celluloid, as the kids say, we see Nazi Hank torturing dudes with mental probes and various cuckoo technology, which gives the Skeptics pause!
Creep: "Here you see him doing science to a little girl named Sri Trailanga, who was rumored to communicate with the dead. That trail went cold, though."
Girl Skeptic: "What happened?"
Creep: "It's so weird, but once you get to 'experimented on by Nazi scientists' she doesn't really turn up after that."
Skeptics: "Probably that story has a happy ending."
THE SLUMS
Hank glimpses White Vincent menacing an old lady, but the colorful human props that exist as the set dressing for this showdown between two rich white men just won't get out of the way! He tries to go around, but ends up cornered by some thugs. Finally, he is saved by Beck, who speaks every language and also the language of violence!
Beck: "Look, I just flew here to India to apologize for letting my heart get in the way of my heart getting in the way of my professionalism. I let my dead husband trump your white wife, and that was really disrespectful of all your problems."
Hank: "I don't have any problems! Because my wife is still alive! The power of believing!"
Beck: "Yes. The power of believing."
Hank, verbatim: "So now she finally understands me."
Beck: "Ugh, that is one of the worst things. Also, I want to reiterate that you are probably going to get killed by White Vincent, so maybe you should think about letting me sky for you."
Hank: "As long as you don't let your heart get in the way of your professionalism."
MØDƎЯN SKƎPTiȻ MAGAZINE/CHENNAI
Girl Skeptic: "I have one more coincidence to report! We just saw a video of your Nazi self hanging out with a little Indian girl and you are looking for a chick in India, so what if she's New Thomas? That would probably explain why she disappeared after the Nazis experimented on her. It's probably the most logical explanation. She is in the doughnut."
Hank: "It was always happening that the Catholic Church was nominating little girls to be Apostles. As in the Revelation of Hannah Montana, for example."
Boy Skeptic: "You may not remember this from when you were a Nazi, but just be on the lookout for like an 80-year-old lady with a birthmark on her face. She will probably be doing something weird and blatantly noticeable."
Beck: "Wait, one of the Apostles of Jesus Christ is a little Hindu girl?"
Hank: "That does seem stupid as hell."
Beck: "Or is it groundbreaking television? Maybe somebody would kill about it, because it is too awesome for people to accept."
Hank: "Like how The Da Vinci Code was about Mary Magdalene, which is an actual thing, but with little made-up Hindu Apostle girls, which is not an actual thing."
Girl Skeptic: "How would a Nazi scientist in India become a corpse in the Canadian tundra?"
Boy Skeptic: "Most likely, he would travel by submarine."
Girl Skeptic: "I just wish we had that one missing page from that journal."
Boy Skeptic: "Oh, here it is. In the journal."
Girl Skeptic: "So not only did the FBI miss that page that was folded up and stuck elsewhere in the journal, but also Beck did and then we did? None of us should have these jobs we have."
While Hank remembers literally every second of footage from the pilot in which Jacinda appeared looking morose and lonely and sad, the Skeptikids read the page, which is a letter from St. Nazi to his wife.
"I am writing to you officially as a soldier, my dearest wife. A man of gun and uniform, a bringer of death. For that is what the Nazi party has trained me to become. But you alone have known the real me all these years. A man not of hate, but one of faith. Dark things are upon us, love, in so many ways. But I have searched for those that would stand against it and in the least expected places, I have found them."
Skeptikids: "Some Nazis were really nice guys, it turns out."
"He was a holy man, he was a noble man, he was a Nazi officer." -- This show, last week. The most amazing thing I have ever heard on a television show.
Hank: "Based on no information whatsoever, I have decided that those muggers were actually trying to keep me away from an 80-year-old female Hindu-but-also-Christian saint."
Beck: "Works for me. I'm just going to follow your lead on this one."
Thugs: "Please do not bother Saint Little Girl. Her dogs are barking."
Hank: "Did you not hear me? I told you it's okay for us to go in there. Me, a white man. Don't make this harder or more racist than it needs to be."
Thug: "Oh, sorry! Right this way, sir."
Beck: "Seems she vowed seventy years ago to never sit down. So they call her Khardi Amma. Literally translated, Standing Mother. Because she just stands there, I reckon."
"We were neither Christians nor Hindus in that moment, only people with a common aim. To keep the species alive."
Ugh. Confirmation at least of the gross perspective this story is coming from. Only a Christian would find that concept lovely, in the same way that only a racist thinks reverse racism exists. In the same way that "color blind" is synonymous with "white," and "gender" is only a concern if you're a woman, the prevailing privilege here is simple: When you're on top, of course you think everything is equal. Why do minorities always make such a big deal out of everything, when things are fine from where I'm standing? Why are feminists so screechy and complain-y, when women get everything they want all the time? Why can't we all just get along, under the big Christian umbrella? Why is everybody so bad at being a straight white guy?
Hank: "Hey, St. Thomas Lady. Let me just wipe this dumb Hindu stuff off your face so you can be a Christian saint like me. Remember when we were best friends? Me, the Nazi torturer and you, the little girl who talks to ghosts? And do you have a clock?"
Sri: "I do, but you told me 70 years ago that if I ever saw you again to destroy it. Also, I can totally understand everything you're saying in English, but have to talk in Hindi back to you. Don't overthink it."
"Nothing in the world matters but love. The smallest things... how one cooks... how one sleeps... and you don't realize how beautiful they are... until you stand to lose them forever. We have intruded on God's grounds, my love. I have seen unspeakable things. What I know now makes me a threat, not only to man but God. Because of that, I must leave all that is sacred in my life. You."
All of this interspersed with shots of his sexy Nazi wife and then also Hank continuing to flip out about his dumb old wife.
Hank: "Don't dick me around, old lady. You dumb old saint. Now you and I both know how important it is for me to find my wife."
Sri: "How do you even know I have anything to do with this?"
Hank: "I can feel Jacinda's presence in India. I just believe it! Do you not know about the power of just believing things?"
Sri: "Literally you, yourself, came to me on this spot and said that if you should back up, it would quote 'prophesy the coming of the Angel of Death.'"
Just in case you were following any of this, that last thing is accompanied by White Vincent walking around India dressed like Tom Wolfe, presumably coming to kill New Thomas.
Sri: "So just to reiterate, you're traveling the world to find Jacinda?"
Hank: "Yes, it's mostly what I talk about."
Sri: "Death stalks you, and yet still you come."
Hank: "I am very heroic."
Then, pandemonium. A guy in a white suit sneaks up and starts shooting at Beck and Hank, so she shoots him. But then it turns out to be the Sketchy Priest from the Basilica, who is a secret Rosicrucian. While they are dealing with this, Actual White Vincent shows up and without even saying anything, New Thomas steps off the spot she's been standing for 70 years, so he can snag that clock that is obviously what she was standing on. Because when people of an entirely different faith from yours do things that don't make sense to you, like vowing to stand in one place as a gesture of vague protest (which is literally the only explanation we are given for the standing-around thing), most likely it's to protect sacred relics from your own religion, which is the real one.
"That's why I left: to save you, to save all of mankind. I only wanted to save you but have I killed my own heart in the process? I chose the world over you, my love. But if I had to do it again, I'd choose you over the world."
So I guess since a Nazi decided it's best to put your own interests ahead of everyone else's, Hank is right to also do this. (You know who else let their heart get in the way of their professionalism? HITLER.) Shots ring out, so Beck and Hank -- who've just been standing over this dead priest this whole time, looking confused -- go running around the slums at random. As luck would have it, Hank gets stuck behind a gate exactly where he would need to be in order to see Jacinda getting driven away in a random car. They scream and scream and scream. He runs back to Beck, who is hanging around watching Standing Mother croak.
Beck: "I'm not about to actually save her or administer medical treatment, but I did want her to stay alive long enough to tell you how great and important you are."
Sri: "I was wrong, the Angel of Death tonight wasn't you. Also, the darkness of the coming Apocalypse is now upon us. You alone hold the key. If you continue on your quest, it'll bring about the end of the world."
Hank: "But my wife, though."
Sri: "I get it, trust me. I just gave the Nazi Antichrist a magic clock because my feet hurt."
Beck: "Today was bonkers! Hey, what's this about the end of the world? I mean, it's all we ever talk about, but I'm kind of dumb."
Hank: "Well I guess maybe the world is already ended or is in the process of ending or it has to do with clocks. Or AIDS. Or clocks with AIDS."
Beck: "Maybe it has to do with those fishermen pouring red stuff in the river so that it looks like blood? I mean, a thing that happens all the time every day in this culture, but because you're here to see it, it becomes the Apocalypse? Sure."
Hank: "Maybe. You just can't tell. All I know is, finding these clocks is going to kill everyone on Earth. So that's what we gotta do."
Beck: "I am right here to sky for ya, bro."
WEEK
Couldn't care less, frankly. I guess Einstein was a Nazi? Or a Rosicrucian? Sure, whatever. Go for it. It's going to be awesome either way, if you like crazy things, and I do like crazy things, so why bother piecing together that which cannot be pieced?
JACOB CLIFTON is a freelance writer and critic based in Austin, Texas. He currently recaps The Good Wife, Deception, Zero Hour, and Pretty Little Liars for TWoP. Jacob can be found online at jacobclifton.com, on Twitter, and on Facebook. IRL work appears in BenBella's SmartPop series of anthologies, and a novelette, "The Commonplace Book," appeared this fall on Tor.com.
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