From TV Series Spoilers: Season 2 Recap

Season 2, Ep. 1: Strangers in a Strange Land

1 — In the Diner, the jukebox plays the song: “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” by Bob Dylan.

Boyd walks along the road ringing the bell. Night is coming. His right hand is trembling due to his Parkinson’s Disease. As a consequence, the bell is frantically ringing faster at the pace of his hand tremors. A storm approaches and quickly rain overcomes Boyd. It is a nightmare. Boyd wakes up. He is trapped in the hole.

[Observation: The hand that has tremors is the left hand. In the dream, it is the right hand. Boyd wakes up in the hole. In Season 1, Ep. 10, he got to this hole because the Boy in White told Sara to survive the Storm by entering the Farway Tree. Sara helped Boyd get through the Farway Tree. Then he landed inside this hole. As I mentioned in the Season 1 summary, later in Season 3 this very scene where Boyd is trapped in the hole will be briefly revisited. In Season 3, there is a chicken and the egg situation where a person's present will interact with Boyd's present in the hole. The rope. However, in Season 3, for the viewer and the Season 3 person -- that's Boyd in the past.]

2 — Elgin is on the bus that arrives in Season 1, Ep. 10. This scene is minutes before the bus arrives in the Town. Elgin is listening to the same song: “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.”

[Intriguing. Could this happen to other Townsfolk? They are listening to the music in their cars, and the jukebox plays it as well right before they find the fallen tree? Just a question to put out there, but this is the first time that the connection is made in the Show. I remember Julie had some sort of iPods in her ears. But I don't recall they revealed what song she was listening to. Now that I think about it, Boyd and Abby were listening to the Boat song before they found the fallen tree. Hmm...]

3 — It is raitninig. Bartender Tom exits the bar to empty his trash bucket on the side of his porch and sees the bus arrive in the town.

4. Something unique happens in the Series. Elgin yells at the bus driver to stop the bus. This means he knows what’s going to happen. Another passenger protests his request. Elgin insists they should turn around. They can’t be here. Randall locks Elgin with his arms to prevent him from reaching the bus driver. Elgin is desperately asking the bus driver to stop the bus. “You don’t understand. Bad things are gonna happen if–” Elgin vomits on Randall’s shirt. Everyone is disgusted.

The bus makes a stop in front of the Diner. The bus comes from Michigan.

5 — Outside the Colony House, Jade and two residents try to save as many CB Radio components as they can from the hard rain. Inside the Colony House, chaos. All lightbulbs are shortcircuiting and exploding. Clara’s right eye is injured. Kristi assists her. Clara has multiple glass fragments impaled around her eye.

6 — Jade carries the CB Radio up the stairs to enter the Colony House, but the wet stairs cause him to slide and fall to the ground. He curses. As he gathers himself and turns his body to stand up, he sees the bus in the town, down the hill.

7 — Inside the Colony House, Julie asks Donna why her father ran out in a hurry outside. Jim had told Donna to take care of his kids. Donna witnessed when the voice in the CB Radio called Jim by his full name and threatened his wife Tabitha shouldn’t have dug that hole in the basement of their house.

Donna asks Fatima to get the kids upstairs. As Fatima gathers Ethan off the sofa to take him upstairs, seconds later a very large lumber plank comes crashing through the window. It would have hit Ethan and possibly hit Fatima in the chest had they not left the area.

All around is chaos, and Donna yells out orders. Donna ignores all the shouts coming from Jade. He is fed up and yells louder at Donna. There is a bus parked outside the Diner. Donna stands there looking at Jade in disbelief.

8 — Jim reaches his house and finds the entire living room and furniture has sunk into the basement’s hole. Jim is not aware of the sinkhole. He screams Tabitha’s name and obtains no reply.

9 — Victor guides Tabitha through the tunnels beneath Matthews’s house, where the monsters sleep in the daytime. Tabitha asks where they are going. Victor replies she shouldn’t talk now. They are close. She is going to wake them up. She doesn’t know who he is talking about. Victor insists and tells her they are beneath the town and this is where the monsters sleep. The Boy in White showed him the way. Victor went through the Farway Tree and then he was beneath Tabitha’s house, awaiting for her arrival as the Boy in White asked him to do.

Tabitha finds a suitcase on the ground.

The suitcase has a sticker that contains the words: “New York Fair 1964” — with a planet Earth and two crossed rings. Tabitha opened the suitcase. It only contained a woman’s gown.

[This sticker might refer to a science fair. I checked the other stickers in a photo editor and rotated the upside down image. Some of the stickers in the suitcase I could see: Las Vegas and Texas. One of the stickers is severely washed out. I can only make "llowstone" which might refer to Yellowstone. "Come again soon." Yellowstone is a national park in the northwestern corner of the state of Wyoming, mostly. The park extends into Montana and Idaho, but mostly Wyoming. The park is known for its indigenous archeological sites, the geysers, and the caldera. A dormant giant super volcano. The park is also known for its fauna -- which includes the Bison. Some partial words can be seen in two stickers -- which I assume stand for Alaska and Arizona.

Whether coincidence or not, the Show is drawing parallels or clues. If this suitcase belongs to someone who went to a science fair in 1964, then there might be a relation to the townsfolk that arrived recently. Jade is not only a software programmer, he knows physics. He quoted Einstein and at least 3 other physicist names recently.]

10 — Donna asks everyone who is not hurt to secure the windows. She requests to bring the shotguns. Kenny protests about the need to bring shotguns. Donna confronts him. That bus might have a lot of people unaware of the shitstorm they landed on. They might react to the news they can’t leave. Boyd picked a hell of a time to go on a safari. If things go sideways, she tells Kenny he better step up. He is the Sheriff now.

11 — The bus passengers are outside the Diner in the rain. Randall announces the Diner doors are locked.

[The rain stops. There are 17 people outside the bus. A view of the back of the bus shows there is nobody else in the bus -- except Bakta (the bus driver), Mari (Kristi's fiancé, a pediatric nurse), Elgin, and this other young man named Brick. I counted 21 newcomers, but in Season 2, Episode 3 (00:15:20), Donna says the bus driver answered the bus had 25 passengers.]

The young guy, Brick, asks Elgin why he screamed like that earlier. Elgin says he had a bad dream about this place. He is interrupted by Randall who came with a guns-blazing attitude on Elgin for vomiting on his shirt earlier.

12 — Julie reaches her house. Ellis comes right behind her but he stops to talk to Bartender Tom who is walking toward the Diner. Based on the question, the Bartender has been in the town longer than Ellis. He asks if he ever seen something like this: a bus with 21 people.

[I don't know if there is a pattern or rule of this place. 14 people died at the Colony House in late Season 1. 21 people arrived now in the bus. What caught my attention is that Kristi's fiancé happens to be in this bus. That doesn't feel like a coincidence. The monsters know everyone's name in this place and know personal details somehow -- as revealed at the end of Season 1 when Trudy asked a monster how she knows her name. They know everyone's name.]

13 — Julie storms down the basement stairs and asks her father if he thinks her mom is down in the hole beneath the pile of wood and furniture. Jim asks her to go find help. He freezes in place, worried about her mom. Jim stops his effort to remove debris and hugs her. Jim tells Julie it is time for her to be strong and look for help. Her mom needs her.

14 — Julie reaches Ellis outside the Diner and says her mom is trapped in the basement. Bartender Tom offers to help Julie. Ellis can help the bus passengers. After all, Ellis arm is in a sling and won’t be of any help to Jim and Julie. Tom tells the bus passengers there is a woman trapped in the basement of that house that needs help. He wants volunteers. Of the 21 passengers, only Randall and Brick volunteered.

15 — Donna, Kenny, and 3 people arrive at the Diner in the Volkswagen van. Kenny will unlock the Diner door and bring all passengers inside. Donna will talk to the bus driver. Before Donna gets to her task, Ellis informs her they have some problems. Tabitha is trapped in the basement, and 3 guys are helping out.

Tom calls out to Jim and he is thankful to hear help is coming. However, Jim startles when he sees two strangers with Tom. He didn’t know a bus had stopped at the Diner. Tom asks if she has talked. Jim says no. Tom asks what the hell she was doing in the basement and this hole. Jim merely says she was digging a hole to find out where the electric wires came from. Tom asks an interesting question. What caused the hole that sunk the living room above them.

They begin to remove debris to search for Tabitha, but Jim warns them to make sure they aren’t removing something that is supporting something else or they might trigger another cave-in.

16 — Victor and Tabitha continue to slowly traverse the underground tunnels toward the exit. Off-screen, the Boy in White gave Victor instructions on how to reach the exit. Victor finds 3 rats chewing on what looks like a crow corpse. Tabitha panics and wants to go back to the sinkhole. Victor says no. The Boy in White said they should traverse the tunnels while the monsters slept. Both must be brave.

17 — Boyd yells. He asks if Sara is out there at the top of the hole. She said they would be safe inside this tree. He laughs. This doesn’t feel very safe to him. Suddenly, Boyd hears a man’s voice at the top of the hole. The man asks if he is real. Boyd responds he is real. Is the man above real? — Boyd asks. The man says he can help Boyd if he helps back. The voice asks Boyd to wait. A few seconds later, a rope is thrown down the hole for Boyd to climb.

[As mentioned earlier, the rope was not dropped by the man above. That man is chained to the wall. A person in Season 3 is revealed to be the one to throw the rope down the hole. That person doesn’t know that Boyd is down in the hole. The old man chained to the wall asked that person to throw the rope down the hole. Boyd did not see nor was aware there was another person up there. But from Boyd’s point of view that person would be from his future — which raises many questions about the Series, this place, and how this tower works. So far it is common knowledge that the Farway Trees can teleport you to different locations. The Tower and maybe the tunnels seem to have their own set of rules — but it is not common knowledge yet until Season 3, and not even I know if it is the tower itself. Another theory is the person who dropped the rope down the hole has the ability to dreamwalk through time while suffering seizures. That doesn’t explain how that person can physically throw a rope in a dreamform while at the same time that person’s body was tended by friends on the other end (being in two places at once in different time eras). At the time I am writing this, Season 3 is barely halfway broadcast on MGM — one episode per week. So I haven’t learned the rules of how this happened.]

18 — At the Colony House, Clara shares with Jade an interesting thought. She asks Jade if he thinks they made something angry. The way the storm came out of nowhere while they were broadcasting in the CB Radio and the way the lights exploded felt like they made something angry — she says.

Jade replies he only has one piece of paper left. So he is getting stoned. (Hmm, I see now what he was cutting down to small pieces. Weed. Rolls eyes.) Clara stands up and leaves. Jade tongues the paper to roll his weed, when suddenly he sees the symbol appear on the wall in front of him. A lucid waking vision.

[This symbol's meaning is revealed in Season 2. Jade will find the source. That's a core reveal to the series and to the place's ancient lore.]

Jade rotates his head to the left, after looking at the symbol. Now he looks at an old and dusty puppet on the next sofa. The puppet opens its mouth and screams. Jade is startled and he screams back (the asshole he is) and the vision vanishes. The puppet is no longer on the second sofa next to him. The symbol is no longer on the wall. Jade hasn’t even started to smoke his weed.

[Interesting. I didn't remember Jade saw this puppet in the lucid waking vision. Victor will search for this puppet in Season 3 to attempt to trigger a long-buried memory of his childhood. The puppet belonged to a person he met in his childhood before the massacre caused after two cars arrived in the town.]

19 — Tian Chen Liu (Kenny’s mother) is cleaning the lightbulb debris from the floor and sofas in the Colony House. Ethan gives her a dust pan he found to help. Ethan says there is a lot of broken glass. She asks him to be careful. Ethan asks if she thinks the people who ran away in a hurry are okay and return soon. Tian says he shouldn’t be afraid. She will protect him. He replies he is not afraid. Well, maybe a little. “Sometimes a quest can be scary. And when it gets close to the end, that’s when it gets really scary.” — he says.

Jade comes downstairs and says he guess they are going to sleep here in the Colony House tonight. Jade walks outside, sits by the porch, and lights up his weed to smoke. Ethan comes outside after him and annoys Jade. Ethan informs him that smoking is bad for him. Jade replies it is not [that type] of cigarette. Ethan asks what’s wrong with him.

Jade chuckles and replies: “Gee, I don’t know. Maybe I just spent the last week thinking we might actually get out of this shit box, only to see our entire plan come crashing down around us. Literally.” (asshole lol)

Ethan responds: “So? We try again. Maybe we can try something else. Whenever the Cromenockle failed, he always found–“

Jade: “What the fuck is a Cromenockle? No. I don’t care. You are friends with Victor, right? Do you know which room is his?”

20 — In the underground cave tunnels, Victor and Tabatha reach a cave room with a 1920-60s wheelchair, a 1920s-style bicycle for an age 8 girl or boy, a bird cage probably the same era, and the frame of a child’s cart. In the other image, I can see a baby stroll, a sewing dummy, two tall storage trunks on top of each other, and above them is the puppet,

There is also a very old TV with antenna and two more storage trunks. On top of one of them are 5 dusty books.

Victor discovers one of the monsters sleeping behind the old TV.

To the left, Victor finds one of the male monsters sleeping. Then points the flashlight to an old tower-style clock. It stopped working at 9:12.

Finally, Victor finds the puppet and recognizes it. Victor dropped the flashlight and ran scared — leaving Tabitha behind. She grabbed the flashlight from the ground and searched for Victor. He can no longer see where he is going in the dark. So he sits on the ground, scared. In a trance.

Tabitha asks Victor which way to the exit. He replies he doesn’t know. He got scared. This isn’t the way the Boy in White told him to go.

21 — Back at the Colony House, Jade is desperately looking through Victor’s furniture drawers searching for his crayon drawings. Ethan scolds Jade. He shouldn’t be here. Victor wouldn’t like that. Jade snaps at the boy and says Victor is likely dead. They are silent for a few seconds. Jade apologizes. He shouldn’t have said that. Ethan responds it is ok because he is wrong. Victor is alive. Wherever he is, he is doing his part. Jade asks: “His part of what?” Ethan responds: “The quest.” Jade is confused.

Ethan says: “That’s what this is. It’s a quest, and everyone has a part to play. Even you. Why do you care so much about Victor?”

Jade explains to Ethan that every time he sees something really weird, he sees this symbol.

Jade says he didn’t draw these symbols. It is a notebook he found in the Diner’s storage room. It’s a very old notebook and whoever the notebook belonged to kept drawing the same weird symbol he sees in his visions. The other night, he noticed two pages stuck together. Within, he found this photo of an old man. The child with the lunchbox in the edge of the Polaroid photo is Victor as a boy. Ethan doesn’t know what a Polaroid is.

Jade asks Ethan what does he see in the photo. Ethan notices the old guy is holding the same notebook with the symbols. Jade asks him to continue looking at the photo. What else? Ethan notices that’s Victor’s lunchbox. Jade tells him that the boy is Victor.

Ethan determines if that boy is Victor, then he might know what the symbol means. Now he understands why Jade is in Victor’s room and why he wants to talk to Victor.

Ethan says symbols are important. Especially on a quest. But Jade needs to figure out if they are good symbols or bad symbols. Jade is confused. What do bad symbols mean? Ethan says bad symbols might make people do bad things. Jade says he is a creepy little kid.

22 — Mari helps Elgin out of the bus and stands at the front of the bus to breathe. Donna is explaining to the bus driver, Bakta, what is going on in this town. Bakta asks if she is out of her mind. Donna warns the bus driver if these people leave on her bus when the sun goes down, they will all die. The bus driver is skeptical. She is done.

23 — In Matthews’s basement, Randall, Brick, Tom, and Jim continue to remove furniture and debris from the hole. Jim can now see there is a chamber underneath the hole. They startle when some more debris crashes down from the living room above them.

24 — At the front of the bus, Mari places Elgin’s arm around her neck and helps him walk toward the Diner. However, few steps away from the bus Elgin collapses into seizures. Mari screams for help. Kenny and Julie come to assist her.

[There is a pattern here. Whoever is luring people to find the fallen tree and the crows to arrive to this place is not bringing random people. Ethan's talk is not merely a child's imagination. Ethan talked to Jade about a quest and that everyone has a role to play. Think of archeotypes: caster, warrior, etc. So far three people have had seizures: Ethan, Sara, and now Elgin. Each of them seizure when voices talk to them as a method of communication. In Season 3, Julie also seizures. That's a bit of a spoiler. Other type of people have visions but no voices: Jade and Tabatha. However, later in Season 3, Elgin and Fatima have visions as well. Both see the same mummified spirit in a kimono dress. There are many people that are sensitive to visions, dreams, and such. None of them have died so far. They are part of whatever game or quest is going on in this place. You will learn some interesting stuff in Season 3. Especially, Tabatha and Julie.

As proof of concept, as Elgin's seizures continue merely a few feet away the Matthews's house collapses and traps Jim, Tom, Randall, and Brick.]

Ellis manages to find Randall and helps him out of the crumbled house. Kenny, Donna, and Julie are trying to find a way into the rubble to help the remaining survivors. Kristi and Kenny help Randall sit down nearby. Jim is stuck beneath debris. Tom as well. Brick is unconscious.

25 — In the underground cave tunnels, Tabitha and Victor find another chamber. This one has a strange monolithic tower made of Jenga-like positioned stones. A round ball is thrown by an unseen something. It rolls along the ground and topples the monolithic structure. This disturbs the sleeping monsters far inside the cave tunnels beyond.

The ball rolled from this hole. It seems like some kind of makeshift jail cell.

[Recap: So far we know this place has people-like monsters. We know Sara's voices that commanded her to kill Tobey and Ethan -- their deaths would have helped everyone and also the voices escape this place. Those voices are likely spirits. However, there is another voice that Sara heard that sounded different and allegedly that was Abby's spirit (Boyd's wife) helping them get away from that distant part of the forest. We also know that Boyd saw Abby's spirit in the webbed tree near the Lighthouse. So far between Season 1-2, we have knowledge about 6 different factions in this place: Monsters. Voices. Abby. Giant Spiders. Boy in White. Old guy chained to walls in a tower that doesn't exist in the present. Now we see the introduction of a 6th: this jail-like area in the cave tunnels is probably where the children spirits are trapped. The ball rolling from there means it was a child. Later, in Season 2 and 3, you will discover that Tabitha is able to see children spirits while she is awake. They want her help. Jade will not interact with the children spirits, but in one of his visions he will see their deaths. The symbol is tied to these children spirits. You will learn more soon in these summaries, when I get there.]

Victor finds another monster sleeping. This one likely is in a deep slumber, because the toppled monolith didn’t even bother it.

Tabitha approaches the jail-like cell and a girl spirit shows herself through the bars. Tabatha screams and pants. Victor scolds her. She shouldn’t have screamed. One of the monsters wakes up. As they walk away, Tabatha wonders where the water on the ground is coming from.

The monsters stand up and slowly walk after Tabatha and Victor. Both run away from the chamber in search of the exit.

26 — At the Matthews’s collapsed house, EMT Kristi finishes checking on Randall’s well-being and as she is putting away her tools inside her backpack, she crosses eyesight with Mari, her fiancé, across the road — aiding Elgin outside the Diner.

27 — At the tower ruins, Boyd climbs up the hole thanks to the rope thrown to help him escape.

28 — Tabitha and Victor find the exit and escape the underground tunnels where the monsters sleep during the daytime.

29 — Bakta, the bus driver, asks everyone to go inside the bus. The passengers protest. They are helping the people trapped beneath the house debris. She says they will alert rescue services in the next town. Donna warns that if all passengers don’t enter the Diner right now when the Sun comes down in a few minutes, everyone will die and that will be her fault. The bus driver ignores Donna. Donna walks to the Volkswagen van to grab her shotgun. She shoots the front wheel of the bus. Some people run away scared of Donna. Kenny shoots his gun in the air as well and asks everyone nearby to walk inside the Diner right now. Fatima runs after the people who ran away.

30 — Jim, trapped underneath debris in the basement, tells Julie they must leave them beneath the debris until the morning. To be strong.

31 — Boyd finally reaches the top of the long hole and lies on the ground to rest. The voice says he finally made it. That was such a long climb. Boyd is startled and points his gun. Boyd discovers an old man chained to the wall.

The old man asks if what Boyd is pointing at him is a gun. His eyesight is not what it used to be. The old man says it will make it easy then and asks Boyd to kill him.

Season 2, Ep. 2: The Kindness of Strangers

1 — The old man chained to the wall demands that Boyd fulfill their deal to kill him. Boyd points his gun around the room. He discovers two skeletons chained to the wall. Boyd asks where they are and who chained him to the wall.

The old man asks Boyd if he is from the town. He also says that he always thought the town was the worst part, and then he went through the tree. “Did you go through the tree? You go in one place, come out another. Sometimes you get stuck. Sometimes you get trapped. Now that’s when they get you. You have a kind face. What’s your name?”

Boyd shares his name with the old man who responds his name is Martin.

[This is intriguing. The old man Martin doesn't recognize Boyd, nor knows his name. In Season 3, in the chicken and the egg scene I alluded earlier, linked to who drops the rope for Boyd's escape from the hole -- Old man Martin recognizes the person and calls the name. My theory is that this person will meet Old man Martin in one of the time-dreamwalking seizures at some point in Martin's past before he is chained to the wall. We'll see if that theory pans out.]

Boyd asks how long Martin has been chained to this wall. Martin replies it’s been a long time. He used to count the days, but he couldn’t bare to count the years. It’s been long since he has seen kindness. That’s why Boyd needs to leave before they come back. Boyd says he won’t leave without Martin. As Boyd inspects the shackles holding Marting’s left hand, he rolls down Martin’s sleeves and sees a military tattoo.

[The tattoo says: "USMC" -- which stands for United States Marine Corps. I rotated the image of his tattoo and identified the Marine insignia: An anchor with an eagle. The 4 stars means that Martin is a General in the US Marines Corps.]

Boyd asks if Martin is a Marine. Martin replies: “Semper Fi.” Boyd says: “Leave no Man behind. You help me, I help you. That’s the way it goes. You got it?”

Martin says if he wants to help him, kill him. Please.

2 — In the Diner, Donna guards the door with her shotgun. Bakta, the bus driver, says Donna hasn’t done anything yet she can’t undo. Donna warns her that if anyone leaves she has no idea what’s waiting out there. Donna says she knows everyone is upset, but they are not the enemy. The enemy is out there. Donna starts to explain about the fallen tree they saw on the road. Bakta asks how she knows about the tree. No one has told her they did. Donna replies everyone sees the tree.

3 — Night has come. Tabitha and Victor as deep in the forest. They can hear the monsters shrieking in the distance. Victor says they are too far from the town. Victor points to an abandoned truck. They will hide there until morning.

Victor tells Tabitha they must be quiet inside the truck. There is no talisman here. Tabitha asks whose stuff this is. He says this is his stuff. There are two truck seats, two tables, a cooler, golf clubs in its bag, a bowling trophy and other stuff. Victor says he comes here sometimes. Some parts of the wall have crayon drawing papers. There is food in the truck.

4 — Mari and Kristi talk in the Diner’s storage room. Mari is upset. “How could you? We were about to have lunch. Have you been here the whole time? It’s been six months. You never called, you never– you know, your parents and I, we came to the police. This whole time you’ve been less than two hours away, with these people. With shotguns. With that fucking woman (Donna). It’s like you’ve joined some fucking cult.”

Mari gets upset and says she needs to leave. Kristi blocks the doorway to prevent her exit. Kristi starts to describe this place and its rules.

5 — In the collapsed Matthews’s house, in the basement, Tom asks how Jim is. Jim responds he thinks he busted a rib. It’s getting hard to breathe. Brick wakes up. He’s trapped under debris. Things don’t go well, as he is one of the bus passengers and doesn’t know the rules of this place. The evening is here now. Brick panics and starts to talk loudly. Jim asks Brick to stay quiet. Brick can’t breathe. Jim says if he is talking, then he can breathe. Nice and slow.

6 — In the Tower ruins, Boyd searches for something to break Martin’s shackles. He tells Martin they have a doctor in the town. Martin says even if he manages to set him free, he can’t walk. Too weak. Boyd offers to carry him on his shoulders. Boyd shows him one of the talismans. We can be safe in the Town. Martin looks at him concerned. “You think that those things that come out of the forest at night chained me here? They are just the tip of the spear.”

[This revelation means there are many factions or groups of monsters in this place the viewer is still not aware of.]

Boyd wants to change subject. Asks where Martin is from. He is from a small town. Millbrook. Boyd slams the shackle with a rock. Martin says he is wasting time. Boyd is startled when he hears a music box starts to play nearby. Martin says: “They are coming. You don’t have time, Boyd. There is darkness in the forest. Nightmares you can’t even begin to imagine. Things we were never meant to see. You have to get out before the music stops.”

Boyd finds a ballerina music box on the ground in a room nearby.

7 — In the Diner, Julie is desperate looking outside the window. Kenny asks her to stop looking at the toppled house. This could draw the monsters’s attention to their house. Her dad’s best chance is to stay where he is until the morning. People used to hide underground all the time before Boyd found the talismans.

Donna sees Randall talking to two guys by the Diner tables making suspicious finger movements as if giving instructions to the guys.

8 – Two of the guys that ran away earlier, find the Gas Station (Tom’s Bar) and enter to take shelter. They still don’t know about the monsters.

9 — A black guy and a woman hide behind one of the abandoned old vans. Fatima can be heard calling out to the people that ran away.

Fatima and Ellis can’t find any of the bus passengers that ran away. Fatima yells to any of the runners that can listen to her voice to run. Ellis yells at Fatima, but she ignores him. Two monsters slowly walk toward them. Ellis forcefully pulls Fatima inside the Post Office (Sheriff’s Station).

Fatima hits the window with force trying to catch the passengers’ attention to no avail.

Hearing their screams breaks Fatima. She can no longer keep doing this.

10 — In the Matthews’s basement, Brick hears the screams. He asks if that’s the monsters they have been talking about. He panics and wants to get out of the debris. Jim and Tom try to calm down and ask him to stay quiet to not draw attention. He continues to talk loud and suddenly he spits out blood. Internal bleeding. This panics him further.

11 — In the Diner, Randall’s patience is over. He stands up and heads for the door. Kenny jumps at him and pushes him off the door. Randall says there are people out there, and the ones trapped beneath the toppled house. They have guns. They should go help. Donna says the guns don’t matter. Someone screams in the streets, and Kenny looks that way. Randall turns around and grabs Kenny’s gun and points it at Kenny’s face.

Donna points her shotgun at Randall and warns him he has no clue what he is doing. Randall wants to open the door. Donna warns him that if he does, he puts everyone in this room at risk.

12 — In the Tower ruins, Boyd breaks one of the shackles. Martin is almost free. The ballerina music box continues to play. Martin says: “You ever wonder if Abby was right? What if it’s all just a dream?” Boyd opens his eyes wide. He never told Martin about his wife or her name. Martin reels in pain and goes to the ground with his left hand still chained to the wall.

Boyd aids him back up, but as he grabs his right arm, he can see 9 long worms navigating back and forth underneath Martin’s skin. The ballerina music box stops playing. Martin yells they are out of time. He scratches Boyd with the shackle on his right hand. As Boyd bleeds, Martin places his own bleeding wrist against Boyd’s injury. “My blood is your blood now.” Martin collapses to the ground, lifeless.

Boyd is in a lot of pain. His left shoulder is bleeding. He leans on the wall and pulls a torch from the wall socket. Then walks past a door. Suddenly, the tower is gone. Boyd is in the forest among ruins. where the tower once stood.

Boyd can’t believe the tower is gone. He collapses to the ground and holds the torch steady seeking to balance his weight. He hears a bark and looks in the dog’s direction. It is the same dog Victor saw in his childhood and later in the present. The dog comes to Boyd and smells his hand. Then it runs away as if expecting Boyd to follow it. Boyd stands and follows its direction.

13 — In the Diner, Kenny fills a tea pot with water and places the pot on the stove. Mari walks past him followed shortly after by Kristi. She asks Kenny what he is doing. He is doing tea. She asks how he’s doing. It’s a difficult question to answer right now — he says. He asks if that’s her fiancé, and she confirms it. Kenny says he should go after her. It’s a long way to sunrise.

14 — In the Gas Station (Tom’s Bar), the two passengers, Kelly and Brian, wonder what the shrieks are. Kelly thinks it might be a coyote. Kelly says that’s not an animal. He says he grew up on a farm. He knows what an animal sounds like. They are interrupted by the knocking on the door. Brian hears a couple who ask for help. They arrived on a bus and need shelter. Brian goes to open the door ignoring Kelly’s plea not to.

15 — One of the monsters, opens the bus’s door. He caresses the head of the driver’s seat, then sits down and plays with the Steering Wheel. It seems this monster used to be a bus driver. He turns on the bus lights. This startles someone who is hiding in the back. The monster turns his head to look. Then smiles.

A couple of old people were hiding in the bus when they heard the screams. They think the monster is a normal person.

16 — In the forest, Boyd calls the dog “Gus” and asks him to slow down. He can barely stand. Boyd hears a shriek nearby and puts out the torch. Four monsters disguised as humans walk past Boyd without noticing him.

17 — In the truck, somewhere in the forest, Tabitha asks Victor about the Boy in White who told him to wait in the tunnels. Victor says the boy is his friend. For a long time the boy went away, but now he’s back. Tabitha asks how long he’s been here. A long time, but he doesn’t want to talk about how he got there. Victor offers chocolate chip cookies. He says he’s gonna look for some Pretzels he remembers seeing some time ago because the cookies are stale.

Suddenly, they hear a noise outside. Someone approaches. They hug together as the truck’s backdoor opens. It’s Boyd. Victor asks him to close the door. Boyd says it is okay. He takes a talisman from his pocket and shows it to them. Elgin asks for help. Boyd turns around and points the gun at the stranger. Behind Elgin, 3 monsters chase him. Elgin says they are killing people. Boyd signals him to come inside quickly. They close the door, and Tabitha places the talisman on the door.

Elgin apologizes. He should have stayed at the Diner. He was scared. Boyd points the gun at Elgin again. Who are you? He shares his name and says he came from the bus. Boyd is confused. What bus?

18 — In the Matthews’ basement, Jim asks Brick if he likes pancakes. When the sun comes up, Brick is gonna have the best pancakes he ever had. Tom says a joke. Jim laughs but his broken rib hurts. Brick begins shouting in pain. He keeps shouting louder. After a while, his mouth expels more internal blood. Brick dies.

Brick’s shouting caught the attention of one of the monsters before he bled to death. Tom turns his head to the side when he hears a wood tension noise. Tom is killed by the monster.

19 — In the Diner, everyone hears Tom’s scream and recognizes his voice. Julie cries and attempts to run to the door. She knows her father is in danger. Kristi holds her in time.

20 — In the truck, somewhere in the forest, Boyd asks Victor what he is drawing. He says it is good to draw things when one sees them. The puppet. So even if you forget, pictures remember. Victor sees beneath the truck door. The morning is coming up.

21 — At the Diner, the jukebox starts playing: “Who By Fire” by Leonard Cohen. The music wakes Julie. She opens the window curtain and sees the morning is here. She runs frantically out of the Diner toward her toppled house.

Julie finds Tom’s corpse in the front yard.

Jim Matthews is still alive, trapped beneath debris in the basement.

22 — Bakta, the bus driver, boards the bus and finds the old couple.

[The production was cheap here. Usually, corpses have a big empty hole from chest to belly. Their organs missing. Their back rib cage and backbone exposed inside the hole. The old man here still has his shirt buttoned up. On the seat, you can see a book titled: "Crumbs" by Jane J. Baker. The book doesn't exist in real life, but the author wrote books and episodes for Doctor Who -- including Trial of a Time Lord. Funny considering we later find out in Season 3 there is some timetravel shenanigans in the "From" TV series.]

23 — At the truck, in the forest, Boyd, Victor, Tabitha, and Elgin leave the truck. Boyd asks how many people came in his bus. Elgin is not sure: 20 – 25. The answer is 21. Elgin says the lady with the shotgun tried to get people to stay in the Diner, but once the house collapsed — Tabitha interrupts Elgin and asks what house. Elgin replies to the one across the Diner. This is Tabitha’s. She panics and asks Boyd what direction to the Town. He points at where the Town is.

Boyd tries to stop Tabitha, but he looks at his right arm, the one with the bleeding tourniquet, and sees two long worms crawling around inside his skin. Same as Martin.

[The truck side wall has a logo that reads: "Clairey's Canned Goods." This doesn't seem to reference anything in real life. But that explains where some of the canned Peaches in the Colony House come from.]

Season 2, Ep. 3: Tether

1 — Boyd is back at the Sheriff’s Station. In the bathroom, he inspects his arm searching for the worms under his skin. He sees nothing. Minutes later, Boyd is explaining to his son Ellis what happened to him in his journey with Sara. Ellis asks about this entering a tree and appearing someplace else thing. Ellis asks if he means as in teleportation. Boyd says he doesn’t know. Maybe. When he says it like that it sounds fucking crazy. Ellis asks about Sara’s whereabouts. Boyd doesn’t know. She said she was gonna be right behind him. He doesn’t know if she is still alive. Ellis tries to start from the beginning and asks what happened next after he teleported. Boyd did not disclose anything about the hole, Martin, or the tower. Boyd said he teleported back to the forest near the town. Ellis grew upset because he could smell his father was hiding something from him. Ellis said all he knows is that his dad went on a journey to find answers and find a way home, and now he is back with nothing to show for it.

Ellis explains that some people who make it in this place still hold on to that part of themselves, but last night things got bad. He thinks he saw that part of Fatima that she holds on to start to slip away. Boyd responds that Ellis must become that part of her she holds on to that this place can’t take away. That’s how they get through this until they get back home. This place won’t win.

Ellis says he will now go check on Kenny to see about those traps for animals. Boyd tells him to skip that and go straight to Fatima. Ellis thought while he was out there on that task he would bring some of those wild flowers she likes. Boyd smiles and lets him go after a joke. About replacing that wire ring doodad. He should do something about that. Ellis should be better than that. Both chuckle.

2 — At the clinic, Kristi finishes up the stitches on Jim’s face. Tabitha, Julie, and Ethan are near the bed. Jim tries to stand up, but Kristi holds him back to the pillow. Jim has 3 cracked ribs and probably a bruised lung. Kristi asks Tabatha if she is okay. Heard she had a pretty rough night. Ethan says her mom was on a quest with Victor.

Jim asks the kids to leave them alone for a bit. Tabitha says Donna will let them stay at the Colony House. Jim interrupts her. That’s not important right now. He wanted to tell her that he thought she was dead. She apologizes. Jim says he can’t lose Tabitha. They kiss.

Tabitha reveals what she found while digging the hole in the basement before the sinkhole opened up. The wiring is not connected to anything. The wiring was just dangling from the ceiling. Tabitha asks how they have electricity if the wiring is not connected to anything. Jim says they have so much to talk about, but changes the subject. Asks how the kids are. She will take them to the Diner to eat something. Jim says he loves her and she reciprocates. Both kiss again.

3 — At the bus, in front of the Diner, Donna scolds Randall because he is not listening to her. Randall says he is but tells her to fuck off. Donna points at his rifle suitcase and says that’s not gonna do anything against those monsters. All he will accomplish is to make people more nervous. Randall counters her argument with it is okay to start shooting at the bus wheel because that made people real fuckin’ calm.

Boyd approaches the bus area and throws a bunch of “whoa”s at all the cussing he is hearing. Randall asks who the fuck he is. He answers Boyd Stevens. The Sheriff. Randall thought the Asian guy, Kenny, was the sheriff. Donna responds they are just having a little disagreement about firearms. Boyd says residents do not carry guns. That’s the rule. Randall asks whose rules are that. Boyd replies: “Mine.”

Randall says the rules change and starts to head out with his rifle suitcase. Boyd stands on the way and says he has had a bad week and he is usually more patient. If Randall doesn’t like the rules. Great. You take your rifle with you and go live in the woods and make whatever rules he likes there. See how long he lasts. Now if he wants a roof under his head when those monsters come out, (Boyd shouts harder than usual and angry) then he should put the fucking rifle down and you listen to the lady. Randall smirks at Boyd’s cojones, and drops the rifle suitcase to the ground. Boyd says that’s a good choice.

Boyd picks up the rifle suitcase and tells the passengers, grabbing their bags from the bus’ cargo bay, that he will have time to talk and answer their questions, and they will get through this together.

4 — Inside the Diner, Ethan asks his mom, Tabitha, if they can go see Victor. She says they won’t. Victor has had a rough few days. Ethan says he hopes Victor is not mad at him. She wonders why he would be mad. Ethan and Jade were in Victor’s room. Jade was looking for clues about how to get home (back in the world). Ethan asks if they might be able to get their stuff back from the toppled house. Norman is still down there.

Tabitha stands up and asks Tian Chen Liu (Kenny’s mother) if she could allow her to look around the Diner’s storage room. All their belongings were in the house, now beneath the rubble. They no longer have any supplies or clothing. Tian says you come to stay in our house. Mothers help together.

5 — Outside the bus, Boyd and Donna talk. He wants to know how their supplies are doing. Donna says no good. The storm wiped half of their crops. They need to get serious about rations now that the bus people are here. Donna says the bus driver reported 25 passengers, but after the monsters killed a few, there are now 22 surviving passengers to feed. Donna scolds herself for shooting her shotgun at the bus wheel. Those who died ran away after that. Boyd cut her some slack. Some were going to die anyway. Lets focus on the ones that survived the arrival. Donna asks what happened to him during his journey in the forest.

6 — IN the woods, Kenny is inspecting the animal traps. Ellis is too busy cutting wildflowers. Kenny scolds Ellis and asks for his help to find the rod that keeps the trap armed. Ellis notices the attitude and tells Kenny that he understands that he is shaken up about Kristi and Mari. He doesn’t finish the thought and says nevermind. Suddenly, they hear music: “Wake up, little Susie, wake up♪”

They investigate. It is a cellphone’s wake-up alarm. They find the young woman who was at the Gas Station (Tom’s Bar). She has the animal rod stuck through her head against a tree. Kenny stops the alarm clock and tells Ellis they must bring her back to town to bury her. Kenny inspects the body. The rod went through her forehead and came to the other side impaling the tree. Her skull is pinned to the tree.

The young woman, Kelly, starts to breathe. Kenny and Ellis fall to the ground on their butts. Ellis asks Kenny to bring Kristi for medical attention. Kelly asks for help.

7 — Victor finds his bedroom upside down. He doesn’t know Jade and Ethan were here earlier. Clara sees his door open and comes in. She is glad he is alright. Victor asks who was in his bedroom. Something that was hidden beneath his bed is missing. Clara says she saw Jade and Ethan here the night before.

8 — In Kenny’s house, Jade is playing a violin. He is emotionally deep into his performance. Outside, Victor approaches the house and hears the violin. Victor knocks hard on the door. Jade stops playing the violin to check the door. Jade sees Victor. “Oh, you’re back. Holy shit. This is great. This is great.”

Victor points at the violin. “That’s mine. Give it back to me.” Jade says he thought he could play it for a little while longer. Victor shouts louder in anger. Jade returns the violin. Victor says that’s his bedroom. No one goes into his bedroom. Victor leaves back toward the Colony House. Jade grabs the notebook and storms after Victor and apologizes. Jade thought Victor was dead. He’s been searching for him all over the place. There is a symbol that he keeps seeing. There is this notebook that Kenny’s mom gave him. Some guy kept drawing the same symbol and there is a Polaroid photo. “Would you please just fucking stop! Look at this.”

Victor stops and turns his head to look at the notebook.

“There is gotta be a reason I’m seeing this everywhere. This guy must have seen it too. And look, right in the back. That’s you. Right? Maybe in some fucked up way this could be the key to getting the hell out of here. Don’t you want to go home?”

Victor looks meditating for a while then his mind trails away and snaps at Jade: “The violin is not yours. Stay away from me!”

9 — In the clinic, Mari is holding a rock painted with a heart and other stuff. EMT Kristi enters the room and tells Mari the paint got a little faded. Seems this is a memento she kept from before she found the fallen tree. The first time Kristi arrived at this place she carried it with her and held it when she slept. Sweaty palms, she guessed, faded the paint. Kristi compliments Mari’s blonde hair. Looks good on her. Kristi tries to get closer, but Mari rejects her. Mari says maybe she should stay with the bus passengers. People died last night and that’s the rock Mari painted for Kristi sitting there like if it was your nightstand at home and Kristi is just standing there like everything is just fine. Mari needs some time.

Kenny storms into the clinic shouting for Kristi. It’s an emergency. Kenny grabs her emergency kit backpack. Kristi says she has to go. Asks Mari to not move out of the clinic yet until they talk.

10 — In the forest, Ellis sits next to Kelly. She says it doesn’t hurt. They share their names. She asks where they are. He says they are in the woods not far from the town. She wonders why she is in the woods. Then she starts to remember.

They were in the bar. Some people knocked at the door. Then Brian opened the door. These people came inside the bar. Brian was screaming. The monsters dragged them out and made Kelly watch. The monsters said they wanted to play with her.

Kelly and Kenny arrive. Kristi introduces herself to Kelly and informs her that she will take a look at her. Kristi looks at the back of Kelly’s head and sees the rod exited the rear and impaled the tree behind. Kristi’s eyes signal it doesn’t look good for Kelly.

11 — In the clinic, Jim is alone on the bed. He tries to sit up. Then slowly stands up. He can see the exit sign above the door flickering. He pulls a chair and slowly drags his body along the door frame to climb up atop the chair. He reaches out at the Exit sign.

Tillie enters the clinic looking for Kristi, and finds Jim on the chair. Tillie says you are the guy that was rescued from the toppled house. You were with Brick, the young guy who was sitting across the aisle from her seat. Tillie announces she will leave him alone to resume what he was working on. Jim asks Tillie where were they heading to before they found the fallen tree on the road. She replied the racetrack. She was going to bet on the ponies. She’s been visiting racetracks all across the country.

Jim asks if it was a charter bus. She gives a silly answer. It was a bus like any other with wheels and a door, and tickets you had to buy. Jim asks what’s in the purse she is holding. She snaps back that he is asking a lot of questions. He says he has one more question — but as he lands off the chair, he drops to his knees and holds the chair for support. Tillie tries to help. Mari comes from Kristi’s bedroom to Tillie’s shout for help.

Mari helps Jim to sit on the chair. Jim’s manners aren’t great today. He asks who the hell is she. She replies her name is Marielle. A pediatric nurse. She goes away for an aspirin or something. Tillie stays with Jim and says can you imagine coming to this place and finding out that your fiancé is here? Jim is confused. Tillie says Kristi and Marielle. They are engaged. Jim’s face shows he is trying to understand. Possibly looking for a connection to what’s going on in this place.

12 — Elgin and Fatima walk outside the Colony House. Part of the radio tower is on the ground after the storm. The townsfolk are collecting the pieces and moving them away. Elgin asks Fatima how long she is been here. She replies she just had her first anniversary. Elgin is lost looking in the horizon. Fatima asks what’s wrong. Elgin asks if there is water nearby… like a lake or a pond nearby.

Fatima responds there is a place nearby they call the Brundles not far from here. Elgin wants to see it. At the Brundles, Elgin asks why they call it that way. She says it was named that way already when she arrived in the town. Fatima starts to ask how he knew about this– Elgin interrupts and responds: “I saw it.”

Fatima asks if Elgin is the one in the bus that had the dream. He confirms with a nod. Fatima says those dreams happen sometimes. People have all sorts of strange reactions to this place — she says. Dreams, nightmares, weird premonitions. But they don’t know why or what it means. Why it happens to some people and not to others. This one girl, Nadia, she used to say that it was like this place is calling out to us, but only some of us were listening closely enough to hear it.

13 — Kristi, Kenny, and Ellis stand a few yards from Kelly to consult. Kristi says if they were in the real world, this would normally be at least a 15-hour operation. Ellis says Kelly is literally talking sitting there. Kristi answers Kenny that Kelly could be here hours or days alive while her skull is impaled to the tree. She is not suffering right now. No pain. But Kristi doesn’t know how long that’s going to last.

Kenny says those monsters will be here in the night. Tellis says they need to get her out of the woods. Kristi says they don’t understand. It is even a miracle that Kelly is still alive. Kristi says she doesn’t have anything strong enough in her emergency kit for the pain it might cause to pull her out of the rod impaling her skull. They need to pull out the rod.

Ellis wonders if her possible death, pulling the rod out of her skull, would be peaceful. Kristi doesn’t know. Kenny provides an option. Without listening to what the option is, Kristi figures it out and says no. She is not having her last moments be with a gun to her head.

Kelly calls out Kristi. She can read in her expression that she is not okay. Kristi is sincere and confirms it. Kelly asks if she is going to die. Kristi says yes.

14 — Tabitha and Julie look through a bunch of clothes in the Barn’s storage room. Julie complains Ethan has spent the afternoon with Kenny’s mom checking out toys while she is here browsing through creepy clothes that belonged to people who might have died. Tabitha says this is no different than visiting a Thrift Store (secondhand stuff and antiques for sale).

As Tabitha and Julie leave the Barn and walk toward the road, Tabitha stops walking and sees two dead children standing on the road. Julie looks in the same direction her mother is, but she sees nothing there. She is concerned for her mom. Tabitha says she didn’t see anything. Let’s go home.

15 — Boyd sits on a rock to visit Abby at his wife’s graveyard. Boyd talks to the graveyard. He’s got news. There will be a marriage soon. Maybe you know that already. Boyd hesitates a while. Maybe none of this is real. Maybe you and Ellis are sitting at a hospital bed waiting for me to open my eyes up. How is it that an old man chained to the wall in a tower that is no longer there knows your name? How can that be real?

16 — In Kenny’s home, Tabitha and Julie argue. Julie insists on asking what happened outside the Barn. What did she see? Tabitha asks Julie to take all the clothes upstairs. Julie shouts louder and decisive: “Mom, talk to me! Do you know what I spent the whole night thinking about in that Diner? How I was gonna have to take care of Ethan by myself, ’cause I thought you were dead. And I sat there waiting for those monsters to find Dad and rip him apart. So don’t tell me you’re fine, and don’t tell me it’s nothing.”

Tabitha feels Julie’s pain and swallows deep. “Yes, I saw something. Something that wasn’t there. It’s not the first time that’s happened. After Thomas died, for months I could still hear him crying. Sometimes I would even go into a room, and I would see him there. Just for a second. It always felt so peaceful. Like he was letting me know he was okay.”

Julie asks if this is what just happened now. Did she see Thomas? Tabitha says no. This was different. Tabitha saw two children standing in the middle of the road staring at her. But this didn’t feel peaceful.

17 — In the woods, Kelly asks if Ellis is still there. Kristi is sitting next to Kelly. Ellis approaches and kneels before Kelly. She says hi to Kenny. She says they are so nice and ask for her phone. She wants to talk to her mother on the phone. Kristi says phones don’t work here, but she can use her phone to record a message and if they ever leave this place they can show it to her mom. Tell her I love her and that she’s sorry she didn’t give her mom a hug. She wanted one but I was mad when I left. They had this fight about Brian, and she didn’t hug her, so tell her that I’m sorry.

Kelly begins to scream. She feels the pain now. Kristi says the longer they wait the more she will suffer. Boyd was coming back from the graveyard when he heard the scream. She sees Kelly for the first time. Ellis says she is from the bus. The monsters left her like that. Boyd asks Kenny and Kristi to go back to town. Kristi refuses, but Boyd says he is not asking. Kristi won’t leave no matter what. Kristi holds Kelly’s hand. Boyd takes hold of the rod in Kelly’s forehead. Boyd pulls the rod with all his strength. The screams stop. Kelly’s hand falls from Kristi’s grasp.

Season 2, Ep. 1: Strangers in a Strange Land

1 — In the Diner, the jukebox plays the song: “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” by Bob Dylan.

[Observation: The hand that has tremors is the left hand. In the dream, it is the right hand. Boyd wakes up in the hole. In Season 1, Ep. 10, he got to this hole because the Boy in White told Sara to survive the Storm by entering the Farway Tree. Sara helped Boyd get through the Farway Tree. Then he landed inside this hole. As I mentioned in the Season 1 summary, later in Season 3 this very scene where Boyd is trapped in the hole will be briefly revisited. In Season 3, there is a chicken and the egg situation where a person's present will interact with Boyd's present in the hole. The rope. However, in Season 3, for the viewer and the Season 3 person -- that's Boyd in the past.]

2 — Elgin is on the bus that arrives in Season 1, Ep. 10. This scene is minutes before the bus arrives in the Town. Elgin is listening to the same song: “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.”

[Intriguing. Could this happen to other Townsfolk? They are listening to the music in their cars, and the jukebox plays it as well right before they find the fallen tree? Just a question to put out there, but this is the first time that the connection is made in the Show. I remember Julie had some sort of iPods in her ears. But I don't recall they revealed what song she was listening to. Now that I think about it, Boyd and Abby were listening to the Boat song before they found the fallen tree. Hmm...]

3 — It is raitninig. Bartender Tom exits the bar to empty his trash bucket on the side of his porch and sees the bus arrive in the town.

The bus makes a stop in front of the Diner. The bus comes from Michigan.

8 — Jim reaches his house and finds the entire living room and furniture has sunk into the basement’s hole. Jim is not aware of the sinkhole. He screams Tabitha’s name and obtains no reply.

Tabitha finds a suitcase on the ground.

The suitcase has a sticker that contains the words: “New York Fair 1964” — with a planet Earth and two crossed rings. Tabitha opened the suitcase. It only contained a woman’s gown.

[This sticker might refer to a science fair. I checked the other stickers in a photo editor and rotated the upside down image. Some of the stickers in the suitcase I could see: Las Vegas and Texas. One of the stickers is severely washed out. I can only make "llowstone" which might refer to Yellowstone. "Come again soon." Yellowstone is a national park in the northwestern corner of the state of Wyoming, mostly. The park extends into Montana and Idaho, but mostly Wyoming. The park is known for its indigenous archeological sites, the geysers, and the caldera. A dormant giant super volcano. The park is also known for its fauna -- which includes the Bison. Some partial words can be seen in two stickers -- which I assume stand for Alaska and Arizona.

Whether coincidence or not, the Show is drawing parallels or clues. If this suitcase belongs to someone who went to a science fair in 1964, then there might be a relation to the townsfolk that arrived recently. Jade is not only a software programmer, he knows physics. He quoted Einstein and at least 3 other physicist names recently.]

11 — The bus passengers are outside the Diner in the rain. Randall announces the Diner doors are locked.

[The rain stops. There are 17 people outside the bus. A view of the back of the bus shows there is nobody else in the bus -- except Bakta (the bus driver), Mari (Kristi's fiancé, a pediatric nurse), Elgin, and this other young man named Brick. I counted 21 newcomers, but in Season 2, Episode 3 (00:15:20), Donna says the bus driver answered the bus had 25 passengers.]

[I don't know if there is a pattern or rule of this place. 14 people died at the Colony House in late Season 1. 21 people arrived now in the bus. What caught my attention is that Kristi's fiancé happens to be in this bus. That doesn't feel like a coincidence. The monsters know everyone's name in this place and know personal details somehow -- as revealed at the end of Season 1 when Trudy asked a monster how she knows her name. They know everyone's name.]

They begin to remove debris to search for Tabitha, but Jim warns them to make sure they aren’t removing something that is supporting something else or they might trigger another cave-in.

[This symbol's meaning is revealed in Season 2. Jade will find the source. That's a core reveal to the series and to the place's ancient lore.]

[Interesting. I didn't remember Jade saw this puppet in the lucid waking vision. Victor will search for this puppet in Season 3 to attempt to trigger a long-buried memory of his childhood. The puppet belonged to a person he met in his childhood before the massacre caused after two cars arrived in the town.]

Ethan responds: “So? We try again. Maybe we can try something else. Whenever the Cromenockle failed, he always found–“

Jade: “What the fuck is a Cromenockle? No. I don’t care. You are friends with Victor, right? Do you know which room is his?”

There is also a very old TV with antenna and two more storage trunks. On top of one of them are 5 dusty books.

Victor discovers one of the monsters sleeping behind the old TV.

To the left, Victor finds one of the male monsters sleeping. Then points the flashlight to an old tower-style clock. It stopped working at 9:12.

Tabitha asks Victor which way to the exit. He replies he doesn’t know. He got scared. This isn’t the way the Boy in White told him to go.

Ethan says: “That’s what this is. It’s a quest, and everyone has a part to play. Even you. Why do you care so much about Victor?”

Jade explains to Ethan that every time he sees something really weird, he sees this symbol.

Ethan determines if that boy is Victor, then he might know what the symbol means. Now he understands why Jade is in Victor’s room and why he wants to talk to Victor.

[There is a pattern here. Whoever is luring people to find the fallen tree and the crows to arrive to this place is not bringing random people. Ethan's talk is not merely a child's imagination. Ethan talked to Jade about a quest and that everyone has a role to play. Think of archeotypes: caster, warrior, etc. So far three people have had seizures: Ethan, Sara, and now Elgin. Each of them seizure when voices talk to them as a method of communication. In Season 3, Julie also seizures. That's a bit of a spoiler. Other type of people have visions but no voices: Jade and Tabatha. However, later in Season 3, Elgin and Fatima have visions as well. Both see the same mummified spirit in a kimono dress. There are many people that are sensitive to visions, dreams, and such. None of them have died so far. They are part of whatever game or quest is going on in this place. You will learn some interesting stuff in Season 3. Especially, Tabatha and Julie.

As proof of concept, as Elgin's seizures continue merely a few feet away the Matthews's house collapses and traps Jim, Tom, Randall, and Brick.]

The ball rolled from this hole. It seems like some kind of makeshift jail cell.

[Recap: So far we know this place has people-like monsters. We know Sara's voices that commanded her to kill Tobey and Ethan -- their deaths would have helped everyone and also the voices escape this place. Those voices are likely spirits. However, there is another voice that Sara heard that sounded different and allegedly that was Abby's spirit (Boyd's wife) helping them get away from that distant part of the forest. We also know that Boyd saw Abby's spirit in the webbed tree near the Lighthouse. So far between Season 1-2, we have knowledge about 6 different factions in this place: Monsters. Voices. Abby. Giant Spiders. Boy in White. Old guy chained to walls in a tower that doesn't exist in the present. Now we see the introduction of a 6th: this jail-like area in the cave tunnels is probably where the children spirits are trapped. The ball rolling from there means it was a child. Later, in Season 2 and 3, you will discover that Tabitha is able to see children spirits while she is awake. They want her help. Jade will not interact with the children spirits, but in one of his visions he will see their deaths. The symbol is tied to these children spirits. You will learn more soon in these summaries, when I get there.]

Victor finds another monster sleeping. This one likely is in a deep slumber, because the toppled monolith didn’t even bother it.

The monsters stand up and slowly walk after Tabatha and Victor. Both run away from the chamber in search of the exit.

27 — At the tower ruins, Boyd climbs up the hole thanks to the rope thrown to help him escape.

28 — Tabitha and Victor find the exit and escape the underground tunnels where the monsters sleep during the daytime.

30 — Jim, trapped underneath debris in the basement, tells Julie they must leave them beneath the debris until the morning. To be strong.

The old man asks if what Boyd is pointing at him is a gun. His eyesight is not what it used to be. The old man says it will make it easy then and asks Boyd to kill him.

Season 2, Ep. 2: The Kindness of Strangers

Boyd shares his name with the old man who responds his name is Martin.

[This is intriguing. The old man Martin doesn't recognize Boyd, nor knows his name. In Season 3, in the chicken and the egg scene I alluded earlier, linked to who drops the rope for Boyd's escape from the hole -- Old man Martin recognizes the person and calls the name. My theory is that this person will meet Old man Martin in one of the time-dreamwalking seizures at some point in Martin's past before he is chained to the wall. We'll see if that theory pans out.]

[The tattoo says: "USMC" -- which stands for United States Marine Corps. I rotated the image of his tattoo and identified the Marine insignia: An anchor with an eagle. The 4 stars means that Martin is a General in the US Marines Corps.]

Boyd asks if Martin is a Marine. Martin replies: “Semper Fi.” Boyd says: “Leave no Man behind. You help me, I help you. That’s the way it goes. You got it?”

Martin says if he wants to help him, kill him. Please.

Mari gets upset and says she needs to leave. Kristi blocks the doorway to prevent her exit. Kristi starts to describe this place and its rules.

5 — In the collapsed Matthews’s house, in the basement, Tom asks how Jim is. Jim responds he thinks he busted a rib. It’s getting hard to breathe. Brick wakes up. He’s trapped under debris. Things don’t go well, as he is one of the bus passengers and doesn’t know the rules of this place. Evening is here now. Brick panics and starts to talk loud. Jim asks Brick to stay quiet. Brick can’t breathe. Jim says if he is talking, then he can breathe. Nice and slow.

6 — In the Tower ruins, Boyd searches for something to break Martin’s shackles. He tells Martin they have a doctor in the town. Martin says even if he manages to set him free, he can’t walk. Too weak. Boyd offers to carry him on his shoulders. Boyd shows him one of the talismans. We can be save in the Town. Martin looks at him concerned. “You think that those things that come out of the forest at night chained me here? They are just the tip of the spear.”

[This revelation means there are many factions or groups of monsters in this place the viewer is still not aware of.]

Boyd finds a ballerina music box on the ground in a room nearby.

Donna sees Randall talking to two guys by the Diner tables making suspicious finger movements as if giving instructions to the guys.

8 – Two of the guys that ran away earlier, find the Gas Station (Tom’s Bar) and enter to take shelter. They still don’t know about the monsters.

9 — A black guy and a woman hide behind one of the abandoned old vans. Fatima can be heard calling out to the people that ran away.

Fatima hits the window with force trying to catch the passengers’ attention to no avail.

Hearing their screams breaks Fatima. She can no longer keep doing this.

Donna points her shotgun at Randall and warns him he has no clue what he is doing. Randall wants to open the door. Donna warns him that if he does, he puts everyone in this room at risk.

A couple of old people were hiding in the bus when they heard the screams. They think the monster is a normal person.

Elgin apologizes. He should have stayed at the Diner. He was scared. Boyd points the gun at Elgin again. Who are you? He shares his name and says he came from the bus. Boyd is confused. What bus?

Brick’s shouting caught the attention of one of the monsters before he bled to death. Tom turns his head to the side when he hears a wood tension noise. Tom is killed by the monster.

19 — In the Diner, everyone hears Tom’s scream and recognizes his voice. Julie cries and attempts to run to the door. She knows her father is in danger. Kristi holds her in time.

Julie finds Tom’s corpse in the front yard.

Jim Matthews is still alive, trapped beneath debris in the basement.

22 — Bakta, the bus driver, boards the bus and finds the old couple.

[The production was cheap here. Usually, corpses have a big empty hole from chest to belly. Their organs missing. Their back rib cage and backbone exposed inside the hole. The old man here still has his shirt buttoned up. On the seat, you can see a book titled: "Crumbs" by Jane J. Baker. The book doesn't exist in real life, but the author wrote books and episodes for Doctor Who -- including Trial of a Time Lord. Funny considering we later find out in Season 3 there is some timetravel shenanigans in the "From" TV series.]

Boyd tries to stop Tabitha, but he looks at his right arm, the one with the bleeding tourniquet, and sees two long worms crawling around inside his skin. Same as Martin.

[The truck side wall has a logo that reads: "Clairey's Canned Goods." This doesn't seem to reference anything in real life. But that explains where some of the canned Peaches in the Colony House come from.]

Season 2, Ep. 3: Tether

The young woman, Kelly, starts to breathe. Kenny and Ellis fall to the ground on their butts. Ellis asks Kenny to bring Kristi for medical attention. Kelly asks for help.

Victor stops and turns his head to look at the notebook.

Victor looks meditating for a while then his mind trails away and snaps at Jade: “The violin is not yours. Stay away from me!”

Kenny storms into the clinic shouting for Kristi. It’s an emergency. Kenny grabs her emergency kit backpack. Kristi says she has to go. Asks Mari to not move out of the clinic yet until they talk.

Kelly calls out Kristi. She can read in her expression that she is not okay. Kristi is sincere and confirms it. Kelly asks if she is going to die. Kristi says yes.

18 — Kristi enters her bedroom at the clinic. Marielle asks if everything is okay. Kristi is in a bad place. Tearful. She asks Marielle to please stay. Kristi is freaked out and cries. She asks Marielle again to stay. Kelly’s death and suffering affected Kristi, but she doesn’t say anything to Marielle.

19 — Outside the Rotten Cellar, Kenny tells Ellis he plans to go to the Church to see if Father Khatri had anything there that they can read at the funeral service.

20 — Ellis enters the Diner. Fatima is lost in her thoughts drinking tea. Fatima asks Ellis to promise it won’t be like this always. Asks him to lie to her if he needs to. Ellis proposes to get married. He knows that Fatima wanted to wait until they left this place and returned to the world, but Ellis doesn’t want to wait. He doesn’t want this place to dictate when they can be happy. Fatima accepts. A smile returns to her face.

21 — Ethan is outside Kenny’s house, putting together a Jenga-like structure with pieces of wood. Ethan says he found the pieces in Mrs. Liu’s storage closet. She said he could have it. It’s a puzzle. Tabitha kneels on the ground next to Ethan. Tabitha wants to talk to Ethan. She knows he likes to see everything as a challenge or a quest. Ethan interrupts her: “I know it’s dangerous here. I know it’s not like things are all just make-believe, and I promise I’ll be careful.” Tabitha smiles and approves.

Ethan finishes the last pieces and completes his puzzle. Tabitha looks at the structure and this triggers a vision. The memory of when Victor and Tabitha were in the underground tunnels and found a similar structure.

After Tabitha’s flashback in her mind, she came back to reality and sees the dead children again outside Kenny’s house.

Tabitha asks Ethan to stand up right now and pulls him inside the house, closing the door behind them. The dead children are still standing there after the door closes.

22 — Donna is busy in the greenhouse near the Colony House. Checking on the crops. A large pot of what looks like Kale or something else crashes to the ground from her grasp. She curses and gets angry. Crops are dwindling and there are 22 new people to feed. Now this.

Boyd enters the greenhouse. He informs Donna there was this girl from the bus out in the forest. Kelly. Those monsters dragged out there, and they took a metal rod from one of the traps and stuck her right in her head and into a tree. The kid was still alive. Donna asks if he had to kill her. He nods. Donna is sorry he had to do that. Boyd says: “Ellis said she was traveling with her boyfriend, Brian. The monsters got him. Kelly said the monsters made her watch what they did to Brian. Funny thing, though. My first tour in Iraq, I was driving a few guys from my unit back to our command center. We drove over an IED (a makeshift bomb). Standard-issue jeep. The fucking thing blew right through the jeep. First two guys, dead on impact. But there was this kid from Winsconsin, we used to call him Smuckers, because the kid fucking loved jelly. Anyway, the shrapnel from the IED ripped right through. He died in my arms. He was crying. Begging. First time I ever watched someone die. Corporal Brian Kelly. How about that? That’s a pretty big fucking coincidence, don’t you think?”

[Hmm. Whoever brought Brian and Kelly to this place had a funny way to stick it to Boyd for what he did at the Tower Ruins. Boyd is seeing here a pattern.]

Donna puts things together in her mind and is blunt: “Boyd, what happened in the forest?”

Boyd says he got to go. Donna protests: “No, no, no! You do not get to walk in here and dump a load of shit like that and then just walk away! You don’t want to tell me? Fine. You talk when you feel like talking. I just need to know that you got your shit together. I tried doing what you do, okay? And I just got a bunch of fucking people killed. No, I don’t need a goddam pep talk! I just need to know that you are back! Because these people can’t take a whole lot of more of this. Fuck. Im not sure how much more I can take.”

23 — At the Church, Kenny is searching through Father Khatri’s belongings to see if he finds something to read at the funeral service. He can’t find anything. He takes one of the lanterns and lights it up with the match. Kenny goes down the stairs toward the basement but he hears noises. Kenny asks if there is someone down there. It’s too dark. Kenny keeps walking down the stairs with his gun ready

Kenny sees a bunch of books all scattered atop furniture, a chair, a table, and a bookshelf. Kenny scouts the basement turning the lantern around the room to illuminate every corner. There he finds Sara.

Season 2, Ep. 4: This Way Gone

1 — [Flashback] Kenny, Bing-Qian Liu, and Tain Chen Lieu arrive in the town. Kristi tours them through the Clinic rooms. Kenny and his father are carrying the chessboard and a bag of chess pieces. His father doesn’t like this room. Too sunny. Kenny insists this is a nice room. He sits by the table and asks his father if he wants to play chess. His father asks if Kenny will stay to live here with him. Kenny hesitates to answer. Kristi leaves to let them talk privately. Kenny says he and his mother will be across the street, but he will stay here in the clinic. It is important for them that he stays at a place where he can’t open the door at night. What happened last night — it’s safer this way.

Kenny walks outside the clinic and finds Boyd. Boyd says he heard they had a scare last night.

Kenny says the monsters were knocking at the door, and his father was convinced that his brothers were outside. My mom tried to stop him, but my father pushed her.

Boyd puts a hand over Kenny’s shoulder. It’s hard. First time seeing your parents struggle. There is not a lot holding this place together. Everyone is scared and confused, but a thing I learned in the army, it always helps to have people to look to. People who seem like they know what the hell they are doing. That’s really all I’m trying to do here.

Kenny says he is doing a pretty good job.

Boyd says he could use some help. I wouldn’t mind having a deputy watching my six. What do you say? Kenny nods yes.

2 — [Present] Kenny runs down the road past the Diner and the bus. He finds Boyd near the Motel sign. Boyd says he is busy doing– Kenny interrupts. No. I have to show you now.

3 — In Kenny’s house, Tabitha is looking out of the kitchen window lost in thought. Julie offers tea, but she’s fine. Julie asks if it happened again. Tabitha ignores the question and asks Julie to watch Ethan for a while. She needs to go to the clinic to talk to her father. Tabitha responds yes, I saw something. But don’t worry. I just need to talk to Daddy. I’ll be right back.

Ethan asks where their mom is going. Suddenly, Jade enters Kenny’s house. He is rude and asks if they have moved into Kenny’s home, too.

Ethan says their house collapsed. Jade is rude again and says at least you had one, it is not his fault they broke it. Julie scolds Jade. Jade says they finally got rid of those 3 hippie Colony House people and now he has to withstand the Matthews family under the same roof. Jade goes upstairs to his room.

Julie asks Ethan if he still wants to see Victor. He does. Both leave Kenny’s house and head uphill to the Colony House.

4 — Kenny and Boyd enter the Church and take the stairs to the basement. Kenny shows Boyd he found Sara in the Church basement. He cuffed her to make sure she stayed here until he could bring Boyd to see her.

Boyd asks Kenny to leave him and Sara alone to talk privately. Sara is glad Boyd is alright after she pushed him through the Farway Tree. Boyd says, yea, it is debatable. I’ve got a thousand questions for you. What happened to you after you pushed me in that tree?

Sara stepped into the Farway Tree right behind him and then she landed in the Church basement. Boyd asks if she has been here since that night. She didn’t know where to go. Everyone in the town thinks she is dead. Without Boyd in town, they would put her in the box.

Boyd asks how did Sara know what that tree was. A little boy told her. He was standing on the ridge wearing all white. He said that Nathan was right. That we made this place angry but that we would be safe in the tree.

Boyd asks if that little boy was one of the voices she hears. Sara said no. This was different. Sara thinks the Boy in White is trapped here just like they are. That the boy wants to help, but he’s not sure how.

Boyd says he is glad Sara is back. But Sara being in town, that’s a shitstorm waiting to happen. We need to figure out how to handle this. Sara says he knows what to do. She knew it was always going to end like this (She means the box). Boyd tells Sara to wait here. He will talk to Kenny.

Sara stops him briefly from going upstairs. She asks if he didn’t tell Kenny what she did that night at the clinic. Boyd says no.

[This is going to be bad for Boyd. He knew that Sara opened the Clinic door, causing the monsters to kill Kenny's father and Gina. This might lead to Kenny giving up his deputy status and not to talk to Boyd anymore -- among the least of things waiting to happen with the Townsfolk, Donna, and the Colony House.]

Boyd goes upstairs, to the Church, and talks to Kenny. Sara is uniquely connected to this place and communicating with this place. Kenny asks how. She hears voices. I know how it sounds — says Boyd. When Father Khatri–

Kenny interrupts him. Father Khatri knew about Sara? Boyd says Father Khatri locked her up in the basement. Apparently, Nathan had come to him and he was worried. Khatri thought she might do something to hurt someone. So Father Khatri questioned her and what he found proof of is that something here is talking to her. Using her like–

Kenny interrupts again and completes the word Boyd was hesitating and searching for: “A pawn.”

Boyd says that Father Khatri figured if something here is using her, if she really is connected to this place, we can use that to understand what this place actually is.

Kenny analyzes what he’s hearing and asks what, Sara has been hiding here since Father Khatri died?

Boyd says no. He took Sara with him to the forest during his journey to explore the boundaries of this place.

Kenny gets angry and is unable to compose any words — walking back and forth, and tossing around his arms as if wanting to punch someone.

Boyd says that Sara was the reason he made it back alive. Sara saved his life and he knows she did bad things. Horrible things. But this place can make you think that you are doing things for good reasons.

Kenny says she killed her own brother. She tried to kill a 9-year-old kid (Ethan).

Boyd says he knows. Kenny accuses him of being a liar. He lied to everyone. Boyd apologizes. Kenny is saying the truth. Here Boyd messes up and concedes that Sara killed [those] people. Kenny interrupts him. Wait, Sara only killed her brother. Boyd caught himself in the lie and couldn’t fix what he meant.

Kenny still doesn’t know that Sarah opened the Clinic door and caused his father’s death. Kenny asks Boyd what he is going to do when Ethan’s family finds out that he harbored the person that tried to kill Ethan. Kenny says Sara is dangerous. She belongs to the box. Boyd says well, she is not dangerous anymore. She is not going in the box. Kenny keeps pushing Boyd and Boyd snaps and yells: NOBODY IS GOING TO THE BOX.

This lying, breaking his own rules, and covering up the death of Kenny’s Dad breaks Boyd. He looks like he is about to faint. Possibly his Parkinson’s Disease is kicking in in overdrive. A deafening sound is heard to represent Boyd’s state of mind. As if a grenade exploded near him and his ears were ringing. Boyd drags his steps out of the Church. Disoriented. He looks at his hands, and suddenly sees the worms crawling under his skin. Boyd falls to the ground, confused.

5 — Inside the Colony House, Julie delivers Ethan to the bottom of the stairs and sends him off to go visit Victor. Fatima sees them enter the Colony House and greets Julie.

Julie congratulates Fatima for the engagement. Fatima says in that case she might want to be one of her bridesmaids. Julie is confused. Fatima says Ellis doesn’t want to wait. They are going to get married. Julie accepts to be one of the bridesmaids, and Fatima thanks her kindly. They say this in a playful way and both giggle.

Julie says she saw the new guy outside, Elgin. Fatima says he’s having a rough time. Julie volunteers to talk to him. It was nice when people did it for her when she arrived.

6 — Victor is drawing a dark monster with razor-thin teeth. Ethan knows at Victor’s bedroom door. Victor says what do you want. Ethan says he was worried about him. He’s glad Victor is okay.

Victor says he is not very happy with Ethan. Ethan asks if he can come in. Victor snaps back: “I don’t know. Are you gonna steal anything else?”

Ethan says he told Jade not to. That you wouldn’t like it. Victor replies he should have said it to Jade louder.

Ethan says his mother, Tabitha, told him that Victor helped her in the forest. Victor responds she’s a nice lady. You are lucky to have a mom like that.

Ethan is curious about what Victor is drawing and asks what he is drawing. He can’t see from his viewpoint. Victor says new stuff. Stuff we saw. Ethan asks stuff you and my mom saw? Victor confirms. Ethan asks where both went. Victor replies Ethan should go now. He is pretty busy. Ethan tries to speak but Victor insists louder: “Please, just go!”

Before leaving, Ethan says he found these in the storage closet. He thought Victor would like them. A bunch of magic markers. Different colors. Victor doesn’t look or says anything. Ethan stands there a few more seconds and says in a soft voice that he is sorry to have made him mad. Victor replies Okay. Ethan says Bye and closes the door.

7 — Julie exits the Colony House and visits Elgin on the porch. Elgin sits on a barber chair. They introduce each other. Elgin asks how Julie’s Dad is. She replies pretty beat up. Kristi is tending to him at the clinic. Julie offers to talk if he feels he needs to talk to someone. He appreciates that.

The entrance door slams behind Ethan. She turns around and asks him what is going on. She thought he would be with Victor. Ethan doesn’t let her finish the thought. Ethan wants to go home. Julie tells Elgin she things that’s her cue. It was nice meeting him.

8 — At the clinic, Kristi is checking on Boyd. She exercises Boyd’s hands to treat his Parkinson’s Disease. Boyd protests and says he’s fine. He just needs to rest. Kristi is sarcastic: “Oh, given your vast medical training I guess there is nothing to be worried about, then.”

Boyd rolls his eyes, shrugs, and extends his hand in the air for her. Kristi places her hand on top of his and asks Boyd to push hard against her hand as far as he can.

Boyd asks Kristi to check on his spider bites. He said he got spiders on him when he was out in the forest. Kristi picks a little flashlight from her emergency kit backpack. Boyd opens up his shirt to show a bite in the lower left of his belly, and another in the top-right area of his clavicle. Kristi says they are not swollen or inflamed, which is a good thing. Kristi wants him to talk about the large gash on his right arm.

Boyd turns defensive and doesn’t want to talk about it and that he’s fine. He lies and says he scratched it on a tree branch. He says it is not infected but to keep it clean. Kristi asks if the tremors on his hand had worsened or noticed any symptoms other than the shaking such as visual impairment, muscle stiffness, and depression. Boyd looks at her seriously. Kristi. Everybody here is depressed. She chuckles.

Boyd says that his Dad, the Parkinson’s started to mess with his mind at the end. Kristi says he has nothing to worry about. Cognitive impairment with Parkinson’s doesn’t happen until way down the line, if at all. He needs to rest. In his current condition, he shouldn’t put more stress on his body right now. Boyd laughs at Kristi hysterically. He laughs a straight 10 seconds. The idea that anybody in this place can avoid any extra stress on anything is just comical. Boyd apologizes and she smiles.

Boyd tries to stand up and falls back to the clinic bed on his butt. Kristi helps him land softly. She asks him to remain on the bed a while longer. He makes a guttural complaint.

9 — At the Diner, Tian Chen Liu gives Kenny a large sealable container with food. She says in Cantonese that he should rest and eat this. He is working too hard. Kenny says the food is not for him. He says the food is for Boyd. He’s not feeling well. She says both work too hard. Boyd is too stubborn. She doesn’t like that. Kenny will make sure Boyd gets the message.

Tian holds Kenny. Asks if he has spoken with Kristi. Kenny replies he knew she was engaged. He just wants her to be happy.

10 — Bakta, the bus driver, is sitting in Tom’s Bar. Drinking some of the potato vodka piss water. Jade enters abruptly into the Bar and complains he can’t find a place where he can be at peace. He looks at her and says oh you are the bus driver. Sorry. It’s been a bad day. Stay as long as you want, I’m just going to be in the back.

Bakta is looking to be in a bad place. Serious face. Eyes lost. Bakta starts talking. That boy. He said to me turn around. He begged me. She didn’t listen.

Jade asks when did he ask you to turn the bus around? Was it before or after you saw the fallen tree on the road? She replies: “After.” Jade says: “Oh, well, you were already screwed. Apparently, it’s once you see the tree, that’s when everything — you know. (blows raspberry) Yea, I wouldn’t spend too much time kicking yourself for that part.”

Bakta says those people got on her bus. It was her job to get them where they were going. Jade asks Bakta if her pity party comes with music.

[Asshole]

Jade says it is not her fault. if you want to feel like shit, fine but feel like shit cause your life is fucked. Don’t carry around a bunch of guilt thinking that you ruined anybody else’s.

Jade sits next to Bakta and takes some of the vodka. “Besides, no offense, they were riding a bus. Their lives couldn’t have been that great to begin with.”

Bakta gives Jade the evil sideways look. Jade: “

Jade: “It’s a bad joke. Sorry.”

Bakta starts laughing out of the blue. She wasn’t even supposed to be driving that day. She took that job to pay for her degree. Last month she finally paid her full tuition. She was all set to hand in her resignation notice and she thought why not stay a few extra weeks? Put aside something extra so she can treat herself. Take a little trip and celebrate. She deserved a little reward. Is this place what she deserves?

Jade says he sold his company right before he arrived to this place. Finally achieved the one thing he worked his whole life for. Jade offers his cup to toast. To getting what we deserve. Bakta clashes her cup with his. Both drink. Both make a disgusted face. Piss water. lol

11 — Tabitha enters the clinic to visit Jim. No one answers. Tabitha explores the clinic rooms searching for Kristi. She surprises Marielle who seems to be raiding the medicine cabinet in search of oxy or opioids. She is a junkie.

Tabitha asks who Marielle is. She introduces herself and says she was on the bus. Don’t worry, I’m a nurse. I was just helping Kristi inventory the supplies. Tabitha says she was here for her husband. Marielle replies he left a little while ago.

12 — Tabitha finds Jim. She scolds him. He should be in the clinic, resting. Jim says they need to talk. He shows her the collapsed house. He laid down there in the basement with the debris pinning him down to the ground and he was thinking he was going to die, and he just kept asking why. Why did that road lead them here? What the fuck is the point of all of this?

Jim asks Tabitha if she knew that Kristi’s fiancé was on that bus. She is surprised. Jim: “And what you said about the wires not being connected? That’s not possible. When we design a rollercoaster, we design it to do things that seem impossible, because the more impossible it seems, the stronger the reaction you get from the people riding it. I know how this sounds, but what if… what if all this was designed just to see how we react? I mean, what if this is all some kind of fucked-up experiment? The radio worked. We made contact with someone.”

Tabitha asks then why is everyone else just standing–

Jim interrupts: “Because they don’t know. Right as the storm was coming in, I heard a man. That’s why I came running back here. He warned me, Tabitha. Or threatened me. I don’t know which, but he knew my name, and he said you shouldn’t be digging, and then just like that, our house collapsed.”

Tabitha asks if he thinks someone is watching them. Jim says all he knows is that somebody got on the end of that radio and talked to him. Tabitha asks if anyone else heard the voice on the radio. Jim thinks about it.

[Unless he was the only one hearing the voice, Donna was right there with him holding the umbrella above the CB Radio. When the voice on the radio threatened Jim, he asked Donna to take care of his kids, before he stormed out running toward the Matthews's house.]

13 — Boyd is at the Sheriff’s Station washing his face in the bathroom. He walks to the desk and finds Father Khatri on the chair in front of a chessboard. Father Khatri says it is his move, but his options don’t look great. Boyd is confused. Father Khatri died in his arms days ago. This isn’t real. You aren’t here.

Father Khatri taunts him. He wants to talk about what can and can’t be real? That’s the part you wanna focus on?

Boyd says he doesn’t know. He’s got a little mystery boy sending people through magic trees in the forest, my hand’s not shaking anymore, but now I’ve got fucking worms underneath my skin. So yeah, maybe that’s the part we should talk about!

Father Khatri: Or how about we talk about what’s really on your mind? How exactly are you gonna tell Kenny that Sara killed his dad?

Boyd: Sara didn’t kill him.

Father Khatri: She opened the door. Potato, pot-ah-to.

They have an interesting conversation about the consequences of telling the truth to Kenny about Sara and his Dad, or continuing with the lie.

Boyd decides he will tell Kenny the truth. Father Khatri counters him with a blow to the face in the shape of what he told Ellis about Fatima. Boyd told Ellis to become the thing she holds on to. With Kenny’s Dad dead, Boyd is now the Dad Kenny needs to hold on to. Once Boyd tells Kenny the truth about Sara and his Dad, that hold will be gone. This will break Kenny. Broken people don’t survive here.

14 — Jim arrives to the Colony House and confronts Donna. She knows why he is there for. Donna asks to thank her for looking after his kids when you ran off like an asshole?

Jim confronts her about the voice on the radio. He knows she heard it. Donna turns blue and looks to both sides of the hallway. Donna asks Jim to follow her to talk privately.

Donna says she is gonna put this as delicately as possible. How fucking stupid are you? You wanna know if I heard something? Yea, I heard it. I heard some spooky motherfucker warn you about your wife 20 minutes before your house collapsed.

Jim says that means there are people out there who can see us.

Donna rebounds with what part of you thinks that’s a good sign? Do you realize what happened here after you ran off? The fucking lights exploded. One of my people almost went blind. If there really are people watching us, they sure as shit aren’t helping us. What do you think they will do when they know we know about them? And that is assuming that was a person on the other end of the line. There are things here around us that walk and talk like us, until they walk up to you and rip your fucking guts out. How do you know it wasn’t one of them? I am not saying ignore it. But you already got people’s hopes up with your tower. Keep your fucking mouth shut until we know more.

Jim asks where is the radio.

Donna breathes heavily in anger, as if he just ignored her long speech, but she replies it is in the back of the house, a bit busted after the storm. Don’t do anything until I tell you.

Donna hears Randall cuss out one of the residents. Randall pushes a guy hard and he crashes through a decoration that shatters on impact and kicks him in the ribs while down. He warns the guy not to touch his shit. Donna starts with if this is gonna work–

Randall cuts her off. If this is gonna work he needs to stay the fuck out of my shit. Period. He went through my bag.

Donna says they have a way of doing things here.

Randall is a force of nature just like Donna: “That’s good for you. I got a way of doing things, too. You touch my stuff, I will smack the fucking shit outta you. We clear?”

Donna breathes deep. The stare contest begins.

15 — In the Church basement, Sara is eating from the container Kenny brought her. Kenny says Boyd told him Sara saved his life in the forest.

Sara said she didn’t save him, it was… it’s hard to explain. (She refers to the Boy in White but doesn’t know how to explain that without sounding crazy).

Kenny says he was told that she hears voices. He said that that’s why you tried to kill Ethan, and how you ended up killing Nathan. How does a voice inside you convince you to do something like that? Explain it to me, because I want to understand why Boyd believes you. I want to be able to back him up. People are going to freak out when they find out about you. That doesn’t just hurts you, that hurts Boyd’s reputation. I can’t let that happen. So help me understand. Please. I always thought of you as a friend, and my mom adores you as the daughter that she never had. Convince me that you don’t deserve to be in the box.

Sara can’t. Boyd gave her a chance that she doesn’t deserve. Kenny tries to defend her. That if she explains the voices, they can make the townsfolk understand and to forgive her. Sara doesn’t want his help. She has something to confess.

16 — In the Colony House, Donna leans on the sink looking to the ground at the large hole she made with the axe when Jim and Jade were looking for wood supplies for the CB Radio tower. Fatima enters the kitchen. She heard about the fight with Randall. Fatima says it will be ok. They always come around. Donna says, not this one. She knows his type. Everything is a personal attack, a battle.

Fatima says maybe they can change the rules a bit. Just ease up on the communal sharing. Donna cuts her off: Maybe we give him an entire wing of the house. Fatima resumes her thoughts, but Donna won’t have it. Donna goes to the closet and grabs the axe. She heads straight to Randall. Fatima is confused but walks after Donna.

Donna asks Randall to get up from the sofa. Axe on hand. Get your shit. You don’t like the rules here, you can live somewhere else.

Randall says to get the fuck out of here.

Donna raises the axe in anger and slams the wall next to the sofa. Debris was about to hit the pillow he was seconds before. He moves the fuck out of the way.

17 — Donna walks toward the bus in the town downhill. Randall follows her with his bags on both shoulders, and his backpack. Bakta moved the bus to the side of the road. Donna shows Randall his new living quarters: the bus. Welcome to your new home. Randall is confused. Hop on up!

Randall enters the bus and sees the blood stains on the floor, and hesistates. He chooses the front seats to unload his bags.

Randall now has his own domain and can make his own rules. Donna only provides one rule, handing him a talisman from the Matthews house. They won’t be needing it anymore. What you would want to do is hang the talisman on the window and make sure it stays there because if it falls down during the night and those things get inside, it doesn’t matter if you have a dozen rifles.

Randall asks if she is done swinging her dick around. You made your point.

Donna says she hasn’t. He might not like people looking through his shit, but she won’t stand by and let him hurt her people. She says he doesn’t get what this place is even after all he has seen. Now he has his own domain with no shades to cover the windows. He has a front-row view of what the monsters do at night and wishes him luck.

18 — Outside the Sheriff’s Station, Tillie introduces herself to Boyd. He tries to brush her off. He needs to talk to his deputy Kenny. She says he won’t find him there. She just saw him walk toward the clinic.

19 — Inside the clinic, Kenny is staring at the boiler room’s wall where he found his father’s corpse. It seems Sara confessed off-screen that she opened the door the night the monsters killed his father and Gina.

Boyd approaches behind Kenny, and begins to talk. Kenny interrupts him. Before his family arrived to this place, he never saw her mother cry. He’d see her angry, stubborn, or frustrated. And now every single night he can hear his mother sobbing in the other room, because she’s convinced that it was her fault. That if she had been here with my Dad, that he wouldn’t have gotten out of the basement to open the door to let those monsters in. But my father didn’t open the door, did he?

Boyd answers no.

Kenny said Boyd knew. Boyd responds he knew the night before he left to explore the forest boundaries. Boyd said he was going to tell him. Kenny doesn’t want Boyd to touch him and asks when exactly he was planning to tell him. Kenny whispers that she is going in the box. Boyd replies no. Kenny insists. His father was torn to pieces and he fucking knew it was Sara.

Kenny removes his deputy badge and throws it to the ground: “You watch your own fucking six.” Kenny leaves the clinic basement. Boyd kneels down to pick up the badge. Stands there in silence.

Season 2, Ep. 5: Lullaby

1 — It is nighttime. Randall is on the ground of the bus trying to sleep. The monsters continue to knock at his door nonstop to get him to open the door. Randall can’t take it anymore and stands up. He heads to the door to open it, to punch one of them? — but he stops.

Gradnma monster: Are you comfortable in there?

Randall goes Wolverine on them. They don’t scare him. Continues to taunt them. They grow tired of him and leave in different directions. Randall gets angry because they leave him behind talk to himself.

2 — Jade drinks a vodka bottle in Kenny’s house. He is watching the Polaroid Photo. Suddenly, he sees a vision. The guy in the Polaroid photo stands at his bedroom door holding wide open the notebook with the symbols. The symbols begin to bleed. It is not a nightmare. He is awake, and the vision vanishes before his eyes. He stands from the bed and searches the area around the door. The guy is nowhere to be found. Jade shouts out loud twice in anger and frustration.

3 — Boyd is asleep on a large comfy seat, alone, in the church. Someone wakes him up with loud knocks on the door. Sara calls his name from behind. Boyd asks her to stay downstairs in the basement. He will handle this.

Boyd opens the door and Tabitha rolls through demanding where Sara is. Jim follows behind. Boyd asks Tabitha to calm down. Jim has something to say about that. Boyd says there are a lot of things about this that both don’t understand. Tabitha says “Really?” as if he is mansplaining to her face. What? That she hears voices? That she is important? Kenny told them. She is a monster. How could he hide this info from them?

Boyd says she won’t hurt anyone anymore. Tabitha doesn’t care about what she will do, but that she tried to kill her son Ethan.

Jim asks if they are to pretend like nothing happened. What about Boyd’s rules?

Boyd says things have changed. Jim asks how. Boyd responds: “How? Someone put a tower, on Colony House, and told everyone they were going home! Now they’re all looking at me, wondering why I didn’t come back with all the answers! We got a busload of people we don’t have resources for, and a fucking house fell for no goddamn reason! So, yea, if she can help us figure out what’s going on here, she stays out of the box! Period!”

Sara shows up behind Boyd. Tabitha says she wants to talk to Sara. Boyd scolds Sara that he asked her to stay down in the basement out of sight.

Tabitha asks Sara to listen carefully. If she ever comes near her family again, she will kill Sara. Say that you understand. She yells that a second time.

Sara says she does. Boyd says he gives his word that Sara– Tabitha rudely says she doesn’t care a fuck about his word, and leaves. Boyd tries to talk to Jim, and he says doesn’t even try. Then leaves. Boyd is left there with his mouth open. Then slams the lectern in anger. His reputation is ruined. No one trusts him anymore.

Boyd asks Sara to close the door behind him and lock it. He is going to the Colony House to talk to Donna.

4 — In Kenny’s house, Ethan is on the ground in the corner of his room. Julie is knocking at his door asking to let her in. Tabitha and Jim walk up the stairs and ask Julie what’s going on. Julie says that Ethan heard them talking about Sara last night. Now he won’t come out of his room.

Tabitha knows at the door and tells Ethan that she promises no one is going to hurt him. Jim reassures he and his Mom won’t let anybody hurt him. It is like the Chromenockle. When she’s afraid to go inside of the cave.

Ethan stands up and opens the door. Ethan demands to see Sara.

5 — Sara leaves the Church and walks along the road to reach her old house. She finds Nathan’s sweatshirt on a chair and smells it. Two of the bus passengers, Reggie and Paula live in this house now. He says that’s his sweatshirt. Reggie tells Paula that the girl that killed her brother is in the house. Paula asks Sara to leave, this is no longer her house. Sara apologizes. Reggie wants the jacket back. Sara says this is her brother Nathan’s jacket. Paula says it is not his anymore. Put it down and get the fuck out.

6 — At the Gas Station (formerly Tom’s Bar), Jade uses dozens of alcohol bottles to simulate the shape of the symbol that obsesses him. Victor enters the Bar and says Jade doesn’t look good. Victor asks Jade what he is doing. He replies he is trying to figure out the symbol that Victor refuses to help him with. Despite the fact that Victor clearly knows something and is not telling him.

Victor says he will tell Jade what he can, but Jade needs to do a favor for Victor.

Jade goes oh so you want me to do something for you now. So first off, fuck off. Secondly, fuck off. Victor says it’s okay and leaves. Jade rolls his eyes and grunts and asks Victor to wait. Jade asks what Victor needs. Victor opens the door behind him and pulls his violin resting outside on the wall. Victor wants Jade to play the violin for him.

Jade says what the fuck is wrong with Victor. Victor says if Jade plays the violin, he will tell him about the man in the photo. Jade says you tell me about the photo now, then I play. Victor says no. Jade says just give me the fucking violin.

Victor says not here. Follow me. Jade says: “The fuck?”

7 — Tabitha paces back and forth on the porch. Jim stands there. Tabitha says there is no fucking way she will let Sara anywhere near Ethan. Tabitha asks Jim how is he even considering this. Jim responds after Thomas, the doctors all said they should let Ethan lead sometimes and they also said that they have to let him work through things in his own way and to be there to support him when he asks. Anyway, I will be right there with him.

Ethan is behind the door, listening to their conversation without their knowledge.

Tabitha insists she wants to be there. The hell what the doctors said. They are in a living hell and that bitch tried to kill her son.

Ethan stepped out and told his Mom that he remembers their conversation yesterday about how scary this place is. When you are on a quest, you have to face the scary things. That’s how you take their power away.

Tabitha asks him to stay with Daddy and do exactly what he tells you. Ethan agrees.

8 — Donna brings Boyd to her room to talk privately and slams the door behind her. She scolds Boyd. He created the rules and Sara should have gone to the box. Boyd said he was going on a journey to seek answers, and instead, he came back with a psychopath that killed 4 people and because she is special, she doesn’t have to go in the box.

Boyd argues that out in the forest, Sara knew things that she couldn’t possibly have known. Donna doesn’t give a shit about that. She only sees someone who may have just betrayed the only thing this place still has going for it.

Boyd asks what’s that. Donna responds: “Faith in you.”

Donna says she doesn’t think this has to do with going home. She thinks this is all about Abby (his wife). She thinks that he shot his wife, and every morning since, you wake up wishing you’d done more, that you’d been there for her, helped her, fixed her. But Abby is dead. And Sara is a killer.

9 — Sara is in front of the collapsed Matthews’ house, across the road from the Diner. Sara sees Kenny leave the Diner, but he doesn’t notice her. Behind Sara, Ethan calls her name.

Jim says Ethan has something to say to her.

Ethan: “Everyone thought you died. But you didn’t. You lived. Out in the woods. Only monsters live in the woods. I thought we were friends. But we’re not. You are a monster. And I am not afraid of you.”

10 — Jade asks Victor where they are going. Victor says just a little further. They are walking through the woods. Jade protests he doesn’t want to wander around all day. Victor ignores him and says it’s weird. The trees are changing. Jade doesn’t understand what he is talking about. Jade suddenly is surprised to see a field filled with cars. (Approximately 29 cars)

Jade asked Victor if he did all this. He said once he was all alone, he didn’t want to look at the cars anymore, so he drove the cars to this place to be out of his sight. Victor says there are more cars past the rocks to the right. A lot more cars. But those were already here before he arrived at the place. Victor apologizes for what he said yesterday, but he doesn’t like when people touch or take his things. But when he heard him play the violin– he stopped talking — sometimes I get angry and I’m sorry.

Victor brings Jade to an Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser, a station wagon. Victor wants Jade to play the violin here. Victor stands on the car’s bonnet and sits on the edge of the roof, near the windshield.

Victor wants Jade to play the “Twinkling Star” with the violin. Jade realizes this car belonged to Victor’s mother.

When Victor was a child and he was afraid, his mother would play “Twinkling Star” with the violin. He would sit on the car’s roof and she would play. When the monsters came and we heard people screaming she told me to think of the Twinkling Stars. And then… I wouldn’t be afraid anymore.

11 — Sara sits in the Church. Elgin opens the door without knocking. He apologizes. He didn’t think anyone would be here. Sara responds with plenty of room. She asks if he is in the bus. He asks how long she’s been here. Sara has been here a couple of months. Elgin asks if she lives in the town because he hasn’t seen her in the Colony House. Elgin used to go to church every Sunday with his grandma. Sara asks if that’s where he was heading when he took the bus. He confirms. Elgin goes to visit her every weekend.

Sara tells him she used to be a dork and her bother would go with her to Dollar Stores to buy Christmas tree figurines and paint them. She had one with her when they arrived, but it is missing. She thinks the person who has it wouldn’t want to give it back. Elgin offers to be her muscle man. She finds him to be a nice person. Elgin asks about her brother, and she says he is not here anymore. Eventually, they talk about the church and that she wonders if it is true that the Lord forgives anything. Then it comes up that she killed her brother. Elgin asks if it was an accident. She doesn’t respond other than soon he will find out. Elgin stands up and says he should go. He didn’t know who Sara is and what she did.

12 — Jim and Ethan return to Kenny’s house. Tabitha hugs Ethan and asks how it went. Julie asks Ethan if he wants to come with her to peel some potatoes. He doesn’t want to. She says she doesn’t want to either. Ethan shrugs and follows Julie to help her with the daunting task. Tabitha asks Jim how the meeting with Sara go. Jim says it went great. Life lessons of the Chromenockle.

As Jim and Tabitha hug, her eyes are fixed on Ethan’s Jenga-like structure. The one that resembles the stone structure she found inside the monsters’ tunnels.

13 — Tian Chen Liu is washing dishes and cleaning up the Diner. She goes to the front countertop and finds Sara at the entrance. Sara says she is sorry. Both stay silent. Sara says she shouldn’t have come here. Tian says wait. You take him from me. I take care of you. But you put hate inside me. I know why you come. You wait. Tian goes inside to the storage room and brings a box with Sara and Nathan’s belongings. You take and go. You never come here, this place. You never come again.

As Sara opens the door to leave, she hears Tian in the kitchen swiping the table, and throwing pans and stuff to the ground. Clatter and sobbing. Sara leaves the Diner as Kenny is approaching. He says: “Are you kidding me?” Kenny grabs the box from her hands and slams its contents to the ground. She grabs the Christmas tree figurine from her hands. Is this important to you? Is it meaningful? Kenny smashes it to the ground.

Kenny says he doesn’t care what Boyd says or how fucking special you think you are. You ever come near my mom again, and I swear I will drag your fucking psycho ass into that box myself.

Elgin witnessed the scene and assisted Sara with collecting her stuff from the ground back into the cardboard box.

14 — Marielle cuts Kristi’s hair. Tillie catches both about to kiss. She came looking for a Kristi. Kristi responds that’s her. Tillie wants to give Kristi her bottle of liquid morphine. Kristi asks Tillie why she has this bottle. Tillie stays silent. Kristi figures it out. When were you diagnosed? Tillie says about a month ago.

Tillie says that she figured that by the time she needs the liquid morphine, she probably won’t be in any shape to– (I guess she meant inject herself).

Kristi says she will take care of it. Tillie shares some gossip about Sara being back. Kristi storms out of the clinic and Marielle follows asking her to stop. Marielle catches up and stops Kristi demanding what’s going on. Kristi says Sara killed somebody and then tried to kill a little boy. They were talking one night. She was at the clinic, and she asked me what I would do to see you again. If it was something bad, would it be worth it? And I said yes. I gave her permission and then the next day she– I guess I wanted to see you so badly, I wasn’t even listening to the question. And now you are here, and I’m wondering if that’s my fault too. And I just… I feel that all I am doing is hurting people.

Marielle says this is not her fault. I am here. We are together. Come inside.

15 — Victor says the man in the Polaroid photo was named Christopher. Victor asks Jade to follow him. He protests. Victor says it is over here. This was Christopher’s car. He was a nice guy and made people laugh. Something not easy to do back then. People liked him. Then he changed. Jade asked how he changed. Victor says he doesn’t like this. We should go back. Jade stops him. They had a deal. He played his song on the violin. I held up my end.

Victor says he doesn’t understand. He shouldn’t be asking these questions (the photo and the symbol). Jade says he hasn’t had a sleep since he got here and he is seeing things that are scaring the shit out of him and it is all because of the symbol.

Victor says everyone died when Cristopher started seeing that symbol. Things changed. He changed and he didn’t make people laugh anymore. He stopped smiling. One night, my mother told me to hide somewhere new, somewhere different, somewhere Christopher didn’t know, and when I woke up the next morning, everyone was dead. There are bad things here. They make people do bad things. I’m sorry. Victor left Jade alone.

16 — Tabitha brought the Jenga-like pieces to the front of the monsters’ tunnels and mounted the structure outside hoping for the dead children to meet her outside.

Tabitha says: “I’m here” several times. The dead children start walking in her direction repeating the same word: “Anghkooey.”

This is something they will repeat during Season 2 and Season 3. Reddit calls it the Hodor code (Game of Thrones reference for Hold the Door). Some people theorize it means Aunt Julie -- but I guess we will find out eventually.

The dead children surround her and touch her. She panics and cries out for them to stop. Suddenly, they disappear from her sight.

Her screams are heard by Jade who was on his way back to the town. He asks Tabitha if she is okay. Jade tells her that her nose is bleeding. She asks if he saw that. Jade asks saw what or who?

17 — Randall removes two seats from the bus and drops them outside the bus. He throws a rope to the top of the bus. He plans to pull the seats to the top of the bus for recreation purposes. Boyd observes what he is doing. Jim comes out of nowhere and wants to talk to Boyd. Boyd doesn’t want to deal with this now. Jim says he didn’t come to argue. He doesn’t agree with him hiding Sara and not putting her in the box, but he looked at Sara today, and he didn’t see a psychopath or a vicious killer. He saw broken kid.

Jim says he has observed a lot of people lately pushed to their edge and he asks Boyd if he has ever wondered maybe that’s the point. Boyd is confused. Jim says they heard a voice on the radio. Donna and he heard it right as the storm was coming. Whoever it was, he knew his full name, knew what his wife was doing in the house, in the basement of our house, and I thought maybe I was crazy. I think people are watching us and listening.

Now there are experiments like this going on all the way back to World War II. We don’t have to trust each other. We don’t have to like each other. But we’ve got to work together on this. I don’t know what they want from us, but if you can give me a more rational explanation for what’s going on here, I’d love to hear it.

Boyd stood there and simply said: “I gotta go, Jim.”

18 — Boyd enters the Diner. Shouts hello with no answer. The jukebox turns on by itself and starts playing: “Roy Orbison’s Candy Colored Clown.”

Boyd calls for Tian Chen Liu, but no response. Suddenly, Boyd feels pain in his right arm. He rolls his sleeves upward and sees the worms crawling under his skin.

19 — At the Clinic, Kristi puts on her favorite T-shirt, brought by Marielle to the town. Meanwhile, Marielle opens the medication cabinet to steal some liquid morphine from Tillie’s bottle.

20 — Boyd returns to the Diner. Tian Chen gives him the evil eye. He is short of words but finally utters: “We need to talk.”

Season 2: Ep. 6: Pas de Deux

1 — At the Diner, Boyd tells Tian Chen that he is protecting Sara because he believes she will benefit the townsfolk. He doesn’t support what she did to Tian Chen and Kenny, but he apologizes for keeping it a secret. He knows how it feels when this place takes someone that you love. Since Boyd arrived, he’s tried to make people feel safe. He thought if there are rules– (Boyd trails off). Here’s what I know. Things are changing. If we don’t use every little thing we have to get these people home.

Kenny arrives and asks Boyd why he is here. Boyd apologizes to Tian Chen, thanks her, and leaves the Diner.

2 — Boyd enters the Church to talk to Sara. None of the seats are in the church. The ballerina music box he found in the Tower Ruins starts playing. Boyd turns around and sees the music box in the corner. Boyd is startled when he hears something behind him. A ballerina woman is dancing behind him. He lifts his arm and grabs the top of her fingers to help her rotate in one foot. The woman stops, looks at Boyd, then opens her mouth to show a tongue made up of multiple sucking worms.

It turns out that when he opened the Diner door to leave, Boyd lived a full minute of a lucid waking nightmare compressed into the moment between fainting and hitting the ground. Kenny and Tian Chen turn around and head toward Boyd to aid him.

Kenny holds his head to help Boyd stand up. Kenny removes his hand and notices blood on it. Boyd injured the back of his head when he landed. Tian Chen asks Kenny to take him to Kristi. Boyd refuses. He says he is okay. Boyd starts to walk toward the door but immediately wobbles as he does. Kenny grabs him again and this time won’t leave him alone.

3 — Ellis is making an inventory of food resources. Dale brings a bag of potatoes. Dale says these are all the potatoes remaining. Fatima and Donna load everything on the pickup truck. Fatima says that’s everything they got. Donna says they will be okay if they stick to the rations plan. She asks Fatima and Ellis to keep it under wraps to prevent a collective panic.

4 — At the Clinic, Kristi is fixing her hair and looks for something in Marielle’s purse. There she finds a folder that says: “Lavender Palm Rehabilitation and Treatment Center. Information Package. Let us help you take your first step to the road of recovery.”

Marielle enters the room. Kristi asks what is this? Marielle is annoyed that she looks through her bag. Kristi said she thought she boarded the bus to go visit her aunt. Marielle says she did say that because she didn’t want Kristi to think– “It’s not a big deal.”

Kristi accuses her of lying to her. Marielle says she didn’t want Kristi to worry. Everything is under control. Kristi makes the connection that Marielle relapsed because she disappeared. Marielle says she was going to tell her. Kristi interrupts as she realizes there are bigger problems. Marielle has access to the locked medicine cabinet. Kristi opens the medicine cabinet. Marielle says she doesn’t need to do that.

Kristi says they have a very limited amount of medication that is vital for some people. She can’t risk anything going missing. Marielle shouts asking Kristi to stop looking through the medicine bottles. Kristi asks Marielle point blank if she took anything from the cabinet. Marielle confesses she took a bit of the liquid morphine to even herself out a bit. Marielle gets angry and starts to leave. Tells Kristi she is gonna leave her alone to hide all her medicine goodies to hide them from her junkie girlfriend. Kristi says the night is nigh. She shouldn’t leave the Clinic. Marielle becomes more irritated and drops the F-bomb, heading possibly to the basement out of Kristi’s sight.

5 — Boyd and Kenny are walking through the woods, and they are touching leaves. Boyd says he noticed the trees are changing leaves. He has never seen this before.

[This matches with what Victor said to Jade in Season 2, Episode 5. That trees are changing. Jade said he didn’t understand how.]

Boyd turns around and tries to talk to Kenny, but Kenny stops him. Boyd is walking better now, so Kenny decides he can continue on his own. Kenny doesn’t want to talk. As Kenny begins to leave, Boyd winces and grunts loudly. Kenny asks what’s wrong. Boyd is holding his right arm in pain. Boyd hesitates but blurts out that when he went into the forest boundaries the other day something happened to him out there.

Something that Boyd doesn’t understand. He’s gotten something in him now. Worms. They are crawling underneath his skin. Boyd stops talking. He can hear the ballerina music box in the distance. Boyd asks Kenny if he can hear that. Boyd sees the ballerina music box sitting on a rock in the woods in front of the Rotten Cellar. Kenny is worrying and asks Boyd what’s going on. Where is he going? Boyd stops in front of the Rotten Cellar to look at the music box. Boyd turns his eyes to the Rotten Cellar door and it slams open. The ballerina woman appears again. Kenny doesn’t see or hear any of this. Boyd goes pale. A few minutes ago, this music box and the ballerina woman happened in his mind when he fell to the ground in the Diner. Now Kenny is here and Boyd is awake.

Boyd asks Kenny if he saw her. Suddenly, the music box is gone. The door to the Rotten Cellar is closed. Boyd is confused but tells Kenny they should go. It’s getting dark soon.

5 — Ellis helps a Colony House resident secure a panel to cover the window. Fatima secures a string on the door with cans and bottles attached to it as a security alarm in case anyone opens the door at night.

6 — Kenny takes Boyd to the Clinic to see Kristi. She examines Boyd. He tells Kristi the old man Martin cut him in the right arm, near the shoulder. He put his bloody wrist against his arm and said “My blood is your blood now.” Whatever was inside him came out of him and went into Boyd. Then the tower disappeared. Kristi calls his name in disbelief. Boyd says there is nothing he can say to make this sound logical. He’s got worms under his skin. It feels like something is coming for him now. Kristi says that she can’t see anything on his arms.

Boyd says these worms had been feeding on him for years and he passed on the worms to him because they wouldn’t let Martin die. It was so bad that all he wanted to do was die. Kristi is still in disbelief. Her look was judgmental. Boyd says she doesn’t have to believe him now, he just needs her to promise that if things get bad, that she will end things before it goes too far. She wonders what Boyd is asking her to promise. Boyd says he doesn’t want to die like Martin did.

Kristi leaves and asks Kenny if he is going to sleep in the Clinic. Night caught up with him. Kenny asks Kristi if Boyd talked to her about the worms. She confirms. Kenny shares with her that this is how it started with his Dad. He began saying things he would normally never say, and he and his Mom rationalized it by saying he was too tired and needed to rest. But one day he was a different person. Kristi asks him to not worry. It is too early in his life for Boyd to reach that stage. That there are cases where Parkinson’s can lead to dementia but it happens way later on.

7 — In the Colony House, Donna tells Ethan to add only two spoons of salt to each jar. They have a limited supply of salt. Julie asks how long the salt will last. Donna responds if they ration it will last up to a year. That way they can ration the food they have and not worry about the food spoiling. Tabitha, Tian Chen, and Tabitha are here helping to cut Cucumbers, Carrots, and other stuff to place inside these large jars.

Jim asks Donna to please tell him this is not all the food remaining in their supplies. Donna says they have already planted new crops and– Jim interrupts her. Donna, there is barely a month’s worth of food here. Even with rations… (as an engineer, Jim calculates in disbelief). He says they need to let people know how bad things are. Donna says all that would accomplish is to make people panic. Jim says Donna should have told them sooner about the scarcity. Donna snaps back. When should she have informed him… when he was under the debris of the collapsed house? She gathers herself and apologizes for that one. Jim’s mind, however, focuses on something more relevant. This is what [they] want. The food scarcity is part of it. This food crisis is exactly what they would want. They would be trying to increase the stress level.

[Jim is referring to the people that threatened him on the CB Radio. He knew Jim's name and that Tabitha was digging a hole in their basement. Someone is watching and listening to them as if they were in some sort of experiment.]

8 — In the Clinic, Boyd is alone sitting on a bed. He reels in pain and checks both his arms. He can see and feel worms crawling under his skin. Shortly after, he hears the ballerina music box on a nearby desk.

Boyd turns to his right and sees the shade of the ballerina woman behind the curtains dividing the beds.

Boyd opens the curtain and finds nothing. The ballerina woman assaults Boyd from behind and pushes him to the bed where she straddles him and covers his mouth and nose to smother him. Boyd wakes up violently. It was a nightmare.

[This is a psychological warfare. Body can see and hear this ballerina woman and the music box in his sleeping nightmares, in lucid dreams while fainting, and also when fully awake in the presence of his friends. A dangerous situation because now he can't tell which version is reality. Point in case...]

Marielle asks Boyd if he is okay. Boyd turns around startled and points his gun at Marielle. He apologizes and puts the gun away on the desk.

9 — Ellis and Fatima walk to their Colony House bedroom. Ellis says whenever she says she is fine, they aren’t fine. Ellis figures it out and tells Fatima that his Dad asked him not to tell anyone that he would go on a journey into the forest boundaries with Sara. Fatima snaps back telling him that she is not “anyone.” They are supposed to get married. She is her fiancé and he lied by omission to her. They shouldn’t keep secrets from each other. She says that his father shouldn’t have put him in that position to begin with. Sara murdered people. The fact that Boyd didn’t tell anyone — not even Kenny — that’s not right.

Ellis argues Boyd didn’t have a choice. Fatima counters that everyone has a choice and Boyd puts everyone in danger by bringing Sara back to their community. Made this place less safe, and Ellis shouldn’t have kept that from her. Ellis apologizes.

Ellis says this isn’t just about hiding Boyd’s secret about Sara from her. Ellis noticed that since the day at the Sheriff’s Station when the bus passengers died, she is been like this. Both hear some tumult coming from the base floor and go to investigate.

Dale caught someone sneaking food out of the pantry. Elgin replies he was taking some extra food out of his backpack and putting it– “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! What the hell is going on?” — Ellis interrupts.

Dale accuses the bus passengers of stealing food. Bad enough, the storm wiped out everything they had. Ellis says that’s not true. Dale responds bullshit, he saw what they loaded on the pickup truck today. First, the magic radio tower was gonna get everybody home. Did they go home? No. Instead, they now have so many people they are running out of food and they are hiding it so that nobody panics.

[From the way Dale is cutting the celery, one can tell he might have been a chef before arriving to the town or got really good at doing it over the past years.]

Fatima denies anyone is hiding anything. Dale asks Fatima to shut the fuck up. He is sick and tired of all her smiley-happy bullshit. Ellis gets angry at how he just talked to his fiancé. Ellis threatens Dale to better watch his fucking mouth. Dale turns around and looks Ellis dead in the eyes. They can’t have the new people stealing what little food they have. Dale declares the bus passengers must leave the Colony House. Dale approaches Elgin and Bakta with the knife and commands them to go, and get outside.

[This is irrational and dangerous. Dale is not the leader of the Colony House. Donna is. Donna is currently at Tian Chen's house cutting and packaging food in jars with salt to make the food last. Second, the night arrived and it is not safe to go outside.]

Dale violently pushes Elgin away a few feet. Now confronts Bakta. Dale yells once more: “Get outside!” Ellis grabs Dale’s shoulder and asks him to calm down. In the heat of the moment, Dale turns around and stabs Ellis in the upper stomach just beneath the ribcage.

Fatima panics. Dale apologizes. Ellis says: “You fucking stabbed me.” Fatima asks people to get Dale out of here. Dale says he didn’t mean to and apologizes again. Ellis removes the knife from his stomach. Fatima presses a towel against his injury to slow down the bleeding. Bakta and Fatima carry Ellis’ arms around their shoulders to move him to the sofa. Fatima opens his shirt to take a look at the wound. It’s bleeding a lot. She asks for more towels.

10 — In the Clinic, Boyd goes to the basement. He stares at the blood stain on the wall and floor where Kenny’s Dad died days ago.

Father Khatri’s voice says: Some stains you can’t wash clean. Boyd asks Father Khatri if this is how everyone will end up. Devoured by those monsters like Father Khatri and Kenny’s Dad.

[At this point in the series, it is unknown whether this Father Khatri is a ghost, a memory, or something else. He's been appearing before Boyd a few times as his sort of subconscious advisor.]

Father Khatri congratulates Boyd and says he is proud of him. The Boyd he knew was the most stubborn asshole he had ever met. Never admitted weakness. Now he is asking for Kristi, Kenny, Donna, Sara, and Jim’s help.

Kenny enters the basement and catches Boyd having a conversation with nobody. Kenny asks Boyd who he is talking to. There is no one in this room. Boyd says nobody. He was thinking out loud. Kenny doesn’t accept that response. He asks Boyd once again who he was talking to. Boyd asks Kenny to get out of his way. Kenny shuts the door. He is going nowhere until he responds and knows it is safe. Kenny implies here that Boyd might be a potential risk of opening the door and letting the monsters in.

Kenny says Marielle told them what happened upstairs. Boyd had pointed the gun at her earlier. Boyd reveals he was talking to Father Khatri. He knows how this looks. But something happened to him out there. He came back with something inside his body. He doesn’t understand how that is possible, but all he knows is that it’s real and he is fucking terrified.

11 — In the Colony House, Fatima and Bakta continue to contain Ellis’ bleeding. Fatima tells Ellis they are going to take him to the Clinic. Ellis replies that Donna took the truck. Fatima responds they will take the van she arrived in the town with. It’s parked by the shed. Ellis says she can’t. It’s too dangerous. Fatima says they have lookouts at all the windows to alert her of incoming monsters. Fatima says there is nothing they can do for him in the Colony House. He needs to be looked after at the Clinic. Ellis counters that they should wait until the morning. Bakta nods sideways at Fatima. This means he won’t make it until the morning. He will die if not tended immediately at the Clinic. Fatima asks for Elgin’s help to carry Ellis.

A resident with the shotgun looks through the window. He alerts Fatima he detected someone 50 yards out coming up the hill. Fatima says they can make it. Elgin breathes deeply and opens the door. He asks them to meet him at the steps. Elgin is running to the van to drive it to the entrance. That way only he is in danger. As he approaches the shed, two monsters chase slowly after him behind. Elgin enters the van. There are no keys. He searches the drawer on the side of the van, and the sun visor for a key. He finds the key in one of them, but it drops to the floor. Elgin begins to insert the key, but the monsters are coming on both sides of the car where the bonnet opens up. That’s too close. Elgin turns on the engine and drives away to the Colony House entrance.

Six monsters are now approaching the Colony House. Fatima and Ellis leave the house and walk down the porch toward the van. Elgin opens the van’s side door, and then assists Ellis into the van. The monsters are mere feet away. One manages to touch the van’s window. Elgin drives away to the Clinic. The camera focuses on Fatima and Ellis as Elgis drives along the road. Monsters can be heard shrieking in the distance.

Elgin parks the van next to the Clinic and assists Fatima and Ellis out of the van.

12 — Inside the Clinic, Marielle tells Kristi if she wants her to leave, she can move to the Colony House. Kristi says no and is interrupted by the knocking and yelling outside the Clinic. Kristi looks through the window and opens the door. Fatima explains there was an argument and Dale had a knife.

Ellis complains he can’t breathe. Kristi asks how long since he was stabbed. Elgin says about 25 minutes ago. Boyd and Kenny come after Kristi shouts for their help. Boyd sees Ellis on the bed and comes to his side. Boyd is informed Ellis was stabbed.

Kristi asks Boyd to put pressure on the wound. Kristi rips the shirt with scissors for access to the wound. She asks Ellis if he can breathe. He has no response, but he’s awake and shows difficulty breathing. Kristi says she is afraid blood is filling his chest cavity, putting pressure on the lungs. His chest is tensioning. Kristi asks Marielle to bring the saline at the top shelf of the supply closet.

Kristi pours alcohol around the wound and punctures the side of Ellis’s chest to see if it is air or blood compressing the lungs. She finds blood in his chest cavity. Boyd takes Fatima out of the room. They need space to work on Ellis. Kristi asks for the scalpel and some rags. She informs Ellis she will make a little incision. Kristi asks for the forceps and announces she is going to relieve the pressure from his chest. There will be a lot of blood. Kristi begins to drain the excess blood. Ellis recovers the ability to breathe normally.

Kristi goes to the other room to talk to Fatima and Boyd. She was able to relieve the pressure on his lungs, but he has lost a lot of blood. His heart is trying to compensate, but unless they get him more blood his organs will start to fail. Kristi asks what his blood type is. Boyd responds O-Negative. They are both. Kristi will use Boyd’s blood to do a transfusion.

[Big problem. Boyd can't be the blood donor. He has this worm under the skin stuff going on. Boyd won't want to transfer this to his son. From Kristi's point of view, she sees no worms and thinks it's not real. But Boyd knows while he can't logically explain it, it is real.]

Boyd stops Kristi. She can’t use his blood. Whatever is inside Boyd is going to go into Ellis. Kristi asks Boyd to listen to what he is saying. Boyd shouts loud at Kristi that he is not fucking crazy. Even if I can’t see them, I can feel the worms. Fatima confronts Boyd. If he doesn’t do this, Ellis is going to die. Fatima says that even if what he is saying is true, it can’t be worse than dying. Boyd snaps back with: “You tell that to the guy who did this to me. We have to find another way.”

Kenny grabs Boyd’s gun from the table and points it at him. Kenny says he needs to sit down and let Kristi do her work. Boyd tells Kenny if he does this– the pain prevents Boyd from talking. He grabs his right hand. Worms crawling beneath his skin all over the place. No one else can see this except Marielle who exclaims and announces that she can see them. Kristi can now see the worms moving beneath his skin.

Kenny puts the gun aside, gets a knife from his pocket, and opens it. Kenny asks Boyd to give the worms to him. That way he can give Kristi his blood to save Ellis. Kenny uses the logic that if the old man Martin passed the worms to Boyd, then Boyd can pass it on to someone else. As long as you get the transfusion done, we figure out the rest later.

Boyd refuses. There is a nightmare happening under his skin. He can’t do that to Kenny. The illness is growing stronger. Boyd has no idea what will happen if he passes it on to Kenny. Boyd’s voice slowed down as he said these last words as if something clicked in his mind.

Boyd turns around toward the exit and says that he has an idea. Kenny says where he is going. Boyd is standing next to the door and lifts the curtain to look outside the door. Boyd says the worms have to go somewhere, right? Boyd opens the door and exits, closing the door behind him. His hand grasps a knife tight. Boyd stands outside in the night and taunts monsters to come and get him. They come every night to their doors and windows knocking. You want to play games? I am right here.

One of the monsters appears 5 yards from Boyd. Two more monsters appear on each side behind Boyd. A fourth appears behind the first one. The first one walks toward Boyd. Boyd cuts his left hand with the knife. Boyd slashes the monster’s throat in a straight horizontal life. No blood pours out from the wound. The monster smiles. A fifth monster appears behind the first one.

Boyd feels surrounded. Boyd extends his arm and wraps his left hand across the monster’s throat. Both open wounds making contact. Boyd says: “My blood is your blood now, motherfucker!”

Boyd feels his hand and arm shake in pain as if something has been transferred. The monster smiles and laughs. He likes this game. All monsters close in on Boyd. Suddenly, the monster starts to shake, troubled and choking. The monster screams in pain. The monster reels in pain flat on the ground. The remaining 4 monsters around Boyd ignore him and approach the monster on the ground. Boyd runs back to the Clinic.

Kristi says the transfusion needs to start. Kenny is standing there in shock. This has never happened before. Not only does Boyd kill a monster. He survived 5 monsters.

The 4 monsters leave in different directions leaving behind the corpse of the first monster.

The transfusion begins to save Ellis’s life.

13 — In Kenny’s house, Donna and Ethan walk down to the basement to store the remaining food supplies. Ethan tells a secret to Donna. He told his parents that he wasn’t afraid. However, he is afraid. He doesn’t want to be on the quest anymore. He wants to go home. Donna tells Ethan a secret. She is a little scared too but that is a good thing. Ethan asks why. Donna responds that her Mom told her something when she was about Ethan’s age and she thinks it is the smartest thing anyone ever told her.

Donna’s mother said that fear is something that lives inside us. Just like hope or joy or love. They are all things that make us special. But fear might be the most important one of all. Ethan asks why. Donna responds that because without fear, we wouldn’t know how to be brave. Fear is what makes us heroes. Ethan hugs Donna.

14 — In the Clinic, Kristi and Fatima check on Ellis after the transfusion is over. He can breathe normally again. He is on his way to recovery. Fatima leaves the room to sob privately. Kristi is nearby and approaches her. Fatima confirms that she also saw Boyd’s worms crawling beneath his skin. How is that possible, she asks. Fatima asks Kristi if she can share something with her and must promise not to tell anyone.

Fatima asks if she has any pregnancy tests in the Clinic.

15 — Boyd is looking at the dead monster outside through the glass door. Kenny approaches and stands next to Boyd. Kenny says they should have listened to him about the worms. They should have trusted Boyd. Boyd responds it all worked out. That’s all that matters. Kenny asks if the monster has moved. No. Kenny asks if the monster is dead. Boyd says they will find out soon enough.

Season 2, Ep. 7: Belly of the Beast

1 — Kristi performs the Pregnancy Test on Fatima. The results are in. Fatima is pregnant. Kristi suggests to tell Ellis the truth, but Fatima decides not to. Kenny announces the morning is approaching.

Everyone exits the Clinic to look at the dead monster on the road in daylight. Fatima asks what to do with the body. Kenny suggests to burn it. Boyd says they should move it inside the Clinic. Kristi agrees. This is their opportunity to study these monsters and see what they look like inside. An autopsy. Kenny says they don’t even know if it is safe to touch them.

Boyd gives Kristi the choice. It is her call. Kristi says they are going to bring the monster’s corpse inside. Boyd asks Ellis to go back to the Colony House. Ellis wants to stay. If you stay in the Clinic, you will have dozens of people from the Colony House coming down to the Clinic to check on him. They are going to keep the monster’s corpse quiet. At least until they get a chance to look at it post-autopsy.

Kristi allows Ellis to go back and rest. If he has any problems breathing or something else, to come back. Keep the bandage nice and dry. She will visit him to check on his progress. Boyd asks Elgin if he is alright. He looks distant. Elgin says he is alright.

2 — In the Colony House, Dale asks Donna if Ellis is okay. Donna says how the fuck should she know? She spent all night salting food in jars to preserve them longer. Dale asks what Donna plans to do with him. Will he be sent to the box? That’s what they do in the town. Is that who we are now?

Dale is sorry about what happened to Ellis. He is a good kid. But — Dale says — he is not wrong about those people from the bus. There are too many people here. Dale saw how much food she brought down yesterday. There are some hard choices coming and no one here seems willing to make them.

Donna warns Dale not to lobby too much about people making hard choices. In short, she is threatening that he might be sent to the box if he keeps kicking the beehive. Donna locks the door behind her. Dale is in custody for the time being. Outside the door of his room, a black woman holds a shotgun, guarding the door. Donna tells the guard, that no one gets in or out.

Bakta asks Donna what she plans to do. She can’t expect everyone to live here with someone who tried to kill us. Dale wanted us to go outside in the middle of the night. Someone tells Donna the van has arrived. Ellis and Fatima are back. Donna tells Bakta they are safe here and they are going to figure this out. You are one of us. We take care of our people. Donna walks downstairs and helps Fatima support Ellis climb up the stairs to his room.

3 — At Kenny’s house, Tian Chen is cooking pancakes. Julie and Tabitha are preparing the table with plates, glasses, towels, knives, and forks. Ethan is watching the pancakes on the pan. Jim comes in and jokes with Tian Chen. She is giving away the secrets of the trade. Ethan asks his father that he wants to see Victor today. Jim says it is not a good idea.

Julie offers to take Ethan to the Colony House. She was planning to go there anyway. Jim says no one is going to the Colony House. Tabitha says she thinks it is okay for them to go to the Colony House. Jim asks Tabitha to come outside to discuss it in private.

Jim says he doesn’t know what’s going on with Tabitha. They need to be a team here. When I say no one goes to the Colony House and you immediately undermine me, it doesn’t help. She asks what they should do. Lock them in the basement? Two days ago, Jim took Ethan to confront the person who tried to kill him. Jim says that was different. Tabitha gives Jim a speech about the kids. It is better to know where the kids are than to have them sneak out behind their backs.

Jim reveals he doesn’t want their 9-year-old son hanging out with some emotionally stunted freak who walks around town with a gun in his lunch box. Tabitha counters with the fact that this emotionally stunted freak saved their daughter’s life, and he saved mine. Jim starts to talk about the voice on the radio and possibly weaving some kind of conspiracy theory that Victor is in on it, and that maybe the people behind the voice in the radio wanted Tabitha to see in the monsters’ tunnel what they wanted her to see. She’s not having any of it. She said she was going to eat some pancakes with her son and daughter, and if he wanted to eat pancakes, to come inside and sit with them.

Jim stands outside frustrated, looking into the distance, when suddenly a drone passes above him. He looks for the source and sees Randall above the bus controlling the drone.

4 — In the Clinic basement, Boyd and Kristi set the monster’s body on a table. Boyd asks what she needs for the autopsy. She says the monster must have some sort of ribcage, so they will need a saw to cut through it. Boyd says there are a few tools in the tool shed by the Bar. Kristi says gloves wouldn’t be a bad idea. Boyd asks Kenny if he thinks there is something in the Diner’s storage room that they could use. Kenny is too distracted staring at the monster.

Kenny says that Boyd had worms inside him. He transferred them to the monster and now the monster is dead. So what happened to the worms? Are the worms dead too? Marielle excuses herself and runs out of the room. She vomits in the other room. Kristi goes after her and holds her. Boyd and Kenny chase and ask if Marielle is okay. Kristi turns around and says Marielle is going through withdrawal. Boyd looks concerned but decides that’s to private for him to ask questions. He offers aid about things needed for the autopsy. She replies gloves and something to cut bone. She doesn’t want that thing to stay here too long, so let’s hurry up to get this done.

5 — Jim enters the bus. Randall apologizes for the drone flyby. He was just fucking around. Jim says that’s okay and praise his skills controlling the drone. It was supposed to be a gift for his nephew’s birthday. He figured he would get his money’s worth. Jim says he never thanked him for what he did the other day in the basement. Randall says welcome, but being the asshole he is tells Jim: “Though, seeing as your wife wasn’t even down there, it kinda seems like you got those two other guys killed for nothing.”

Jim asks if it feels good to say that. Randall responds Jim said thanks. He replied thank you. What else the fuck he wants now. Jim asks how much weight the drone can carry. Jim asks Randall to take a walk with him. He wants to show him something. Randall refuses. Jim asks what if he tells him that drone can help him get out of this place by the time of his nephew’s birthday. This caught Randall’s attention.

6 — Victor leaves the Colony House and walks across the front yard. He is counting steps from the house to the nearby tree. Ethan arrives behind Victor. Ethan asks if the trees moved again. Victor asks what Ethan is doing here. Ethan replies he came to see Victor. He says go away. Ethan asks why he is so mean to him. He thought they were friends. Victor confirms they are friends. Ethan doesn’t feel it’s so. Victor replies he is trying to protect Ethan. It’s safer to stay away from Victor. Ethan says what’s the point of being friends if they can’t be friends? Ethan gets frustrated and says Bye. Victor turns around and says the orange was dry. Ethan asks what he means. The orange marker was dry. It was a bad gift. Ethan apologizes and continues to leave, heading into the house.

Victor says there is a lot of measuring to do — as if implying he needs Ethan’s help. Victor says he guesses Ethan can help if he wants. Ethan smiles and comes to Victor.

7 — Marielle lays down on the bed, in bad shape. Kristi brings a large bucket and places it near the bed for Marielle in case she needs to vomit again. Marielle says they need her up there. Go. Kristi replies they can wait. You are shivering. Kristi places a wet towel on her forehead and a blanket. Kristi tells her to drink some water while she’s gone.

Boyd changes the bandages on his left hand, the one he cut with a knife to transfer the worms to the monster. Kristi offers to help with the bandage. Boyd asks how Marielle is. Kristi tells him. Boyd says she will be fine. She has Kristi. Kristi says she had been sober for a year when they met. She was so proud. Then she disappeared in this town. Boyd cuts her out. She shouldn’t blame herself for Marielle’s relapse.

8 — Tabitha enters the Bar. She asks Jade what he is doing. Jade thinks he has figured out how to make an enhanced batch of alcohol. Jade needed a project that wasn’t terrifying. Jade asks for Tabitha’s help, but she turns him down. She came here to ask him a question. When Jade found Tabitha the other day, she was rolling on the ground and screaming. Jade was not surprised. Why?

Jade says he likes her a lot better when she is not yelling at him. Tabitha asks him to just answer her question, please. Jade says Jim found him like that once before. Did he ever tell you that? — he asked. Tabitha replies her husband didn’t mention it. Jade says he understands why not. Jade wasn’t forthcoming. From Jim’s point of view, he ran off. Jim found him and then Jade told him to fuck off.

Tabitha asks what happened. Jade confesses that he was attacked by a very angry Civil War soldier. Tabitha goes what? Jade says that’s all she will get. You want more details, you gotta help me with this and you are not allowed to yell at me. He means to help with building a distillation apparatus. Tabitha stands there weighing her options.

9 — Jim and Randall walk down the road outside town. He explained to Randall what happened with the CB Radio. The voice that talked over the Radio. Randall repeats a recap of what Jim just told him and says: “And you think this is one big mindfuck designed to see what we will all do?

Jim says that the government has been doing these types of experiments for a long time, and when you read what they declassify, you wonder about the stuff they keep under wraps.

Randall sees Jim’s RV turned on its side in a ditch next to the road. Randall asks if that’s where his family was. Jim invites Randall to come inside the RV. The key is to bring the antenna above the treetops.

[Interesting. A few episodes ago, Jim asked Donna where the CB Radio ended up stored. Donna was reluctant to say but eventually told him it was stored in the back of the Colony House. Now we know what Jim did after heading there. This was off-screen and it hadn't been brought up until now. Jim took the CB Radio and hid it inside his RV. Far from town and prying eyes. After seeing Randall's drone, it gave him the idea. The tower took a lot of wood resources and manpower to then crash down during the storm. The drone is a more effective way to elevate the antenna with just battery charging as a resource to operate the drone. The bus alone might have battery juice for months to power the drone.

Randall asks if he thinks he can repair the radio, it looks pretty busted up. Jim responds he can, but notices a tone in Randall’s voice. He asks if Randall thinks he is crazy. Randall says no. With all he has seen in this place, Jim is the only one that really makes the most sense. However, Randall wonders why Jim hasn’t asked himself the obvious question. Jim thinks this place is one big experiment. If that is true, didn’t it occur to Jim that some of the people in this place are in on it? How else would they keep the experiment on track? Jim meditates on that theory.

10 — In Ellis’s room, Julie can’t believe Dale stabbed him. She asks if both of them are okay. They say yes. Julie says she will let them both rest then. Fatima hugs Julie goodbye. Julie says she misses them. They miss her too and she is welcome here.

On her way out of the room, Julie almost crashes with Donna who brings a tray with food for the couple. Donna asks Julie if she is leaving so soon. Julie says Yeah, she has to make sure her brother Ethan isn’t building a spaceship with Victor. Donna laughs.

11 — Julie heads out of the Colony House when Elgin calls her from the porch. Elgin reminds her that she offered to talk if he ever needed to. He asks her to walk with him.

12 — Kenny brings a bunch of gloves from the Bar’s tool shed. Boyd separates them and gives a pair to Kristi. Boyd asks how he can help Kristi. She says catch me if I fall. “Sorry, bad joke” — she adds. Kristi is about to open the monster’s shirt. She announces she will make an incision across the chest.

When Kristi made the incision, the monster’s jaw opened, its hands tensed, and slowly went down. Everyone got a big scare. Kristi says she thinks she hit a nerve. It was a reflex. Kenny is upset. He says he told them they shouldn’t be doing this. They should have burned the monster.

Kenny is really pissed off and slammed open the Clinic door to exit the building. Kristi is right behind him trying to make him stop to talk. Kristi yells at him very loudly to stop. He says they shouldn’t have brought that thing inside the Clinic. She says it is dead. Kenny says he is not worried about the monster. He is worried about the thing that killed the monster. Those worms that crawled underneath Boyd’s skin earlier.

Boyd put those worms inside the scariest thing he had ever seen in his entire life, and now that scary thing is dead. Kristi says that whatever Boyd brought back from the forest is like a poison to those things and now it is in his blood. If we could extract it and use it, we may finally have a way of fighting back!

Kenny counters with: “Or there is something in there that might kill you the moment you open that thing up.” Kristi is willing to take that risk. She says all she does here is put broken things back together. She is fucking terrified and that’s why she needs Kenny in there with her. She can’t do this without him. They are in this together. Kenny says not anymore. Kristi looks like him and says are you kidding me? He brings up that right this moment.

Kenny says he loves her. He is glad Marielle is back in her life if she is happy. But he is not going to stand there during an autopsy on a monster that can get her killed if something comes crawling out of that corpse. He can’t do that. Sorry. Kristi leaves upset without a word.

13 — Inside the Clinic, Marielle wakes up and looks around the Clinic for Kristi. Marielle goes to the boiler room where she last saw Kristi about to start the autopsy of the monster’s corpse. The corpse is gone. Marielle is scared and goes upstairs. There she finds Boyd. Suddenly, the monster is alive and walking toward her. Boyd points his gun at the monster and starts shooting at it. Marielle starts to hear a music box and turns around to see the music box.

Marielle wakes up from her nightmare.

[It is clear this is not just a random nightmare. Marielle saw the ballerina music box. Only Boyd had seen this nightmare up until now. To recap, the first time Boyd saw the ballerina music box was at the Tower Ruin in Season 2, Episode 2. Old man Martin said two important things: "You think that those things that come out of the forest at night chained me here? They are just the tip of the spear. There is darkness in the forest. Nightmares you can't even begin to imagine. Things we were never meant to see. You have to get out before the music stops."]

14 — Fatima enters the greenhouse. Donna is upset. Fatima asks what’s wrong. Donna says it is the plants. Some are dying. It’s like they are growing in poisoned soil. Fatima cuts her off. I am pregnant. Donna lightens up and hugs Fatima with a lot of joy. Donna would have loved to see Ellis’s face when she told him he was about to be a Dad. Fatima tells Donna she hasn’t told him yet.

Fatima is worried. Before arriving to this place, she was told that she couldn’t have kids. What is happening right now is medically impossible. And all Fatima can think is what if this place is trying to torture her? Mock her. Like those things that come out at night. The way they smile at us. What if this is just another– (Donna laughs hysterically, confusing Fatima).

Donna says she thought she was at the end of the line. She has witnessed things that are impossible. Roads that lead nowhere. Monsters that come from the dark. According to Boyd, there are evil fucking trees that trap you in dungeons. Don’t ask. The point is, we have seen a lot of horrible, impossible shit here. So we just assume that anything impossible that happens here is bad. But look at you. Sweetie, you met the love of your life in the middle of your worst fucking nightmare. You are going to have a baby that you were told you could never have. That sounds like a pretty good impossible to me. You are going to sit there and tell me that you can’t wrap your mind around a miracle? Because a miracle is just the other side of a nightmare.

Fatima asks what if Donna is wrong? Donna asks back, I have a different question for you. What if I am right?

15 — With the help of Tabitha, Jade finally completes the Distillation Apparatus. He resumes the end of his deal. So first it was the guy crushed by the rock in the root cellar. He was stuffed inside that cabinet in the back. Then it was the Civil War soldiers, and then the other night he saw Christopher in his room. Possibly the creepiest thing he has ever seen in his life.

Tabitha asks who is Christopher. Jade gets excited to answer. He pulls the Polaroid photo from his pocket. Tabitha asks if what he sees in his visions is different each time. Jade responds yes, except for the symbol. Jade asks what Tabitha sees in her visions.

Tabitha says she just sees children. They are fucking terrifying. She thought she was losing her mind or she was being punished. Jade asks why she thought she was being punished. Tabitha responds her son Thomas was a few months old when he died. Jade says he is so sorry. Jade responds the good thing is now she knows she is not being punished. Maybe this is just a fucked-up place where scary shit happens.

Tabitha says she is going home. Jade says he appreciated the help with the apparatus. On her way out of the Bar, Tabitha sees the open notebook on the counter. She sees the symbol. She asks if this is the symbol he mentioned earlier.

Jade says yes. That’s Christopher’s incel book of crazy. Tabitha says she has seen this symbol. Jade asks what… like in a vision or something? Tabitha says: No. On the walls in the tunnels. Jade asks what tunnels?

Note: Tabitha saw this symbol in Season 1, Episode 10. Victor and Tabitha found a chamber in the tunnels where the monsters sleep with the symbol on a wall. (image below)

16 — Victor says the trees are losing their leaves. Ethan asks if that’s bad. Victor says the trees have never changed before. They have always been green and lush. Ethan says if the forest has never changed, maybe change is good.

17 — Boyd and Kristi finish cutting the monster’s ribcage. They are ready to lift the ribcage to access the interior organs. Kenny enters the boiler room where the autopsy is taking place. He puts the gloves on and gets ready to help.

Kristi is flabbergasted. She says this thing was once human. It has lungs, a heart, liver. However, all the organs are mummified. What she would expect in a museum. Kristi is upset. All has been for nothing. She was expecting to see fluids or blood. She says Boyd said “My Blood is your Blood.” This is bad. She was expecting to extract the monster’s fluids to use it as a weapon against the other monsters. This thing is dry.

Kristi desperately punches and stabs all its thorax trying to find any fluids anywhere without success. Boyd and Kenny shout at her to stop several times. Kenny asks what is that stuff. Kristi looks. She punctured something that is now leaking a light orange substance. She says that’s the gallbladder. That’s bile.

Boyd asks if that’s good. That’s liquid. It might be something we can use, right?

Kristi says yes. She is glad to have found something. Boyd asks Kenny to bring something to collect the bile. Boyd congratulates Kristi. She did good.

18 — Elgin and Julie are by the swimming pool in front of the Diner. Elgin is revealing to Julie what he witnessed at the Clinic. Elgin says that Boyd killed one of the monsters. She asks what does he mean. He says he went outside and did something and the monster started screaming. When they opened the door in the morning the monster was dead. Elgin asks Julie to not tell anyone. Not even to her parents. She asks why. Elgin doesn’t know but Boyd said he didn’t want anyone to know yet and I don’t want him to be pissed at me, please.

Julie promises. She says this is a good thing. If they can’t hurt the monsters, if they can kill them, everybody here is gonna be a whole lot safer.

Julie asks Elgin why he is upset, then. Elgin asks if she remembers that dream he had on the bus. He can’t shake this feeling like there is something that he is supposed to remember.

Julie shares a tip on how she makes herself feel peaceful. She fills the tub and submerges her ears at the level of the water. This produces a sensation like she can listen to the ocean and this relaxes her.

19 — Kristi checks on Marielle. Her withdrawal makes her sick. She mentions she can’t sleep well. She had a nightmare about a music box.

20 — Elgin fills the tub at the Colony House and submerges his ears to the level of the water. He closes his eyes, and immediately hears music. He opens his eyes and sees a ballerina music box by the sink.

Suddenly, a hand pushes Elgin underwater in the tub. He fights it, but the hand holds him down. He sees a mummified woman in a kimono-like dress.

[This is the first time Elgin sees the mummified kimono woman. He will see her a few times in what remains of Season 2, but she returns in Season 3 as well. Only he is able to see her. However, in mid Season 3, another person will be able to see her... Fatima.]

Season 2, Ep. 8: Forest For The Trees

1 — Kenny and Tian Chen are in their house’s kitchen when the phone begins to ring. A man whispers: “They touch, they break, they steal. No one here is free. Here they come, they come for three. Unless you stop… the melody.” The message is repeated a second time, but Kenny hangs up the phone.

[It is difficult to tell whether this was a threat or a helpful warning. I'll spoil some of the people I recall get affected by the melody from the ballerina music box: Elgin, Boyd, Marielle, Julie, Kenny, and I think Randall. "They steal" fits Marielle. She stole the liquid morphine. "They break" fits Randall. He broke something when he pushed a guy at the Colony House.]

Kenny hears a noise and comes to the stove. There are many cicadas in the water pot. Kenny looks at the table and sees the ballerina music box. One of the cicadas jump from the pot and lands on Kenny’s left arm.

Tian Chen wakes her son, Kenny up. The whole thing was a nightmare. TIan Chen says he was yelling in his sleep. He says he had a bad dream. Kenny looks at his left arm. There is a bruise or a burn where the cicada touched him in the nightmare.

2 — At the RV, Jim is putting together a lot of salvaged wire cables tied up to the drone. Randall is arming the pieces of the drone controller. Randall asks what is the point of the big experiment, in Jim’s opinion. Jim says there is value in learning how far you can push someone before they break. Look at what this place did to Sara. Randall comments the fact that Sara is still breathing means Jim has a lot more restraint than he does. Jim responds he won’t let this place turn him into something he is not.

Jim is done with the cabling and asks Randall to give it a shot. Randall commands the drone to go up. It barely carried the antenna about 12 feet. It won’t go higher. Randall lands the drone. Randall asks Jim that if this thing works, why would the people running the experiment would want to talk to him. Jim said they already did it once. Randall thinks it is a waste of time to try to find someone to help them. If someone was able to help, they would have already done so. Instead, they should focus on who within the community is on the inside assisting the experiment people.

[This whole government-run experiment thing is something Jim came up with as a theory to explain what's going on in this place. He is an engineer. Someone of science. I don't think he believes in the paranormal aspect of this place like his wife, Tabitha, does. It's yet to be seen in Season 3 that there is anything to proof Jim's theory right. All points to the supernatural. In short, Jim is probably one of those whacky conspiracy theorists. He is stubborn and wants to apply his science logic to this place.]

Jim says Randall shouldn’t be going around accusing someone of being part of the big experiment staff. Randall asks who gave Jim the rules of the land when he arrived to this place. Jim mentions Boyd, Donna, and Father Khatri. Randall asks who Father Khatri is. Jim says he died the night the monsters got inside the Colony House. Randall asks if he saw the priest get killed. Jim didn’t. It happened outside the Sheriff’s Station. Jim wasn’t there.

Randall asks of all the people that died since you have been here, how many times have you actually seen it happen? Jim asks what is his point. Randall asks what if the people the monsters kill are part of the experiment staff? If you want to scare a bunch of people you need a body count.

Jim is not buying Randall’s theory. Jim asks What about Brick and Tom? Randall says he didn’t see them die. He asks Jim if actually saw them die. Jim wasn’t able to see it from his angle while pinned down by debris.

Randall says he saw Tom’s corpse the next morning, but he didn’t look closely at the corpse to find out whether the corpse was real.

Jim mentions Nathan. Sara’s brother. She killed him. Slit his throat. Randall says: “Or she didn’t. Let’s just imagine for a second that I am right. That everyone who dies here is in on it. It’s gonna mean one of two things. One: They pushed Sara so far that she actually killed someone. Or two: Nathan arriving just in time to save Ethan, what if all that was for show? Maybe Sara is not as broken as you think.”

[Jim is a conspiracy theorist, but Randall takes it to the extreme. Not a good mix. Randall is reckless, violent, and dangerous. Soon enough, Jim will find out he shouldn't have put these ideas in Randall's head.]

3 — Sara visits Boyd at the Sheriff’s station. Boyd says he was going to check up on her at the Church. Sara says she wants to go back out to the forest. She will pack a bag and take a talisman. What if the answers are out there and they didn’t go far enough? Boyd says they went far enough that whatever’s out there put us right the fuck back here.

Sara asks if that’s it. He is going to give up? He responds he didn’t say that. Sara says she understands people need him here, but asks him to let her do this. There is no place for her in the community. No one wants her here. This is something she can do.

4 — Tabitha leads Jade to the entrance of the underground tunnels where the monsters sleep. She tells Jade that’s where she saw his symbol and where she first saw the children. Jade says this has to mean something. This can’t just be a coincidence.

Jade asks Tabitha how much she knows about chaos theory. She looks at him like she doesn’t even know what that is. Jade explains: “A butterfly flaps its wings in Wyoming. A month later there is a tsunami in Japan… and on the surface, the two events appear entirely unrelated, but in reality, there is an intricate set of connections –“

Tabitha interrupts him: “What the fuck are you talking about?”

Jade simplifies it for her: “It’s not an accident. We need more information to see how they are connected.”

Tabitha says she won’t go back into the tunnels. Jade asks if Victor saw the symbol. Jade realizes that when he asked Victor point blank what he knew about the symbol he left out the part where Victor and Tabitha saw the symbol in the tunnels.

Jade says in the entire Venn Diagram of crazy that Tabitha and Jade have seen, there is one single point of overlap: Victor.

5 — Victor visits Kenny’s house and asks Julie if Ethan is home. Julie shouts at Ethan to come downstairs and thanks Victor for saving her life the other night. Ethan says they are going to help Tian Chen at the Diner. Victor says he brought Ethan something. Victor removes a coat from his backpack. Victor says it is getting cold and Ethan will need a coat soon.

[It is obvious that Victor's monitoring of the trees changing means that some kind of winter will soon come to the place. Victor said in a previous episode that in the many years he has lived in the place the trees have always been lush. In the previous episode, Victor said the tree leaves are falling. This never happened before.]

Victor says the coat used to be his when he was a child and asks Ethan to see if the coat fits. Ethan puts the coat on, and gives Victor a drawing he made. Victor returns the drawing and says he doesn’t want it.

Victor says that pictures are for things that are gone. Ethan asks what if something happens to me? You forget a lot of stuff. I wouldn’t want you to forget me. Victor asks Ethan not to talk like that. Ethan says if he doesn’t keep the drawing, he won’t keep the coat.

6 — At the Colony House, Boyd complains that Ellis should be in bed. Ellis says he won’t be doing push-ups anytime soon but he feels great. Boyd asks if Ellis has visited Kristi. Ellis replies she is surprised about his recovery as well. Boyd asks what about Dale. Ellis says Donna locked him up in his room. Ellis says he has good news for Boyd. Donna interrupts and says Corey informed her that Boyd wanted to talk to her.

Ellis tells his father they will talk about the good news later and sends him off to Donna. Out of camera, Boyd asked Donna something. Next Donna opens the door to her room to talk in private and shouts at Boyd if he is out of his mind. Boyd says he wants Donna to take Sara as a resident of the Colony House.

To give Sara any task to do. Anything. She just wants to be useful. Donna agrees but they have much bigger problems now than Sara being bored. Donna has a bunch of people on their last nerves and a madman locked up in his bedroom. Last night, Elgin almost drowned in his sleep. Boyd: “He what?”

7 — Boyd knocks at Elgin’s door and comes in. Boyd tells Elgin he heard about what happened to him last night. Elgin ignores him and says he found a knitting kit in the storage closet and knitting relaxes him. Boyd is interested in listening to Elgin’s nightmare.

Elgin says he was in the bathtub in his dream, and something pushed him under the water. Then he guesses that someone shook him awake and he started spitting up water. How is that even possible? Boyd asks Elgin if he told anybody about what happened at the Clinic.

Boyd tells Elgin they have sorta some good news. They managed to pull something out of the monster’s corpse. Boyd shows him the bottled bile. Elgin asks if he thinks it can be used as a poison. Boyd says it could be a poison but the only problem is they need to figure out how to get the bile inside one of those monsters to test if the bile can be used as a weapon to kill them without getting themselves killed in the process.

Elgin says Boyd has a gun. So make some silver bullets. Boyd goes: “Huh.”

8 — In the Diner, Victor tells Ethan he is making that up. Ethan asks Julie to tell Victor that it is true. Julie asks what is real? Ethan says… the Internet. Julie says yes, that’s a thing. Ethan says to Victor: “Told you.”

Victor goes to the kitchen to help Tian Chen after she asks for his help. Julie asks Ethan if he is going to wear that coat all day. He says he likes it. Julie says the coat is musty. Then smiles.

Ethan picks the coat side and smells it deeply. Ethan notices something in one of the pockets. He shows it to Victor and asks what it is. Victor had no idea it was in the pocket when he gifted the coat to Ethan.

This toy triggers Victor’s memory. When he was a child, Victor’s mother gave him two crayons and the toy. She told him to be brave.

[This is the first time Victor's mother is shown onscreen. This scene might be important at a later time. In Season 3, it is revealed that his Mom had dreams about this place long before she and Victor got stuck there. That's relevant because in Season 3 it is also revealed that Tabitha had dreams about this place when she was a child. I don't know at this point whether the toy is just a toy, or whether his mother gave it to Victor for a reason -- considering she is some sort of dreamwalker that potentially knows the rules of the game and how to play it.]

Jade enters the Diner and shouts there Victor is. Jade tells Victor they need to talk. Victor says he has to go. Jade grabs Victor by the neck and says we had a deal, remember? I play you the song, you tell me about the symbol. Julie asks Jade to leave him alone. Victor says I told you about the symbol. Jade asks Victor if he is sure he told him everything? You didn’t tell me you saw it in the walls down in those tunnels!

Ethan asks what tunnels. Victor leaves the Diner. Jade goes after Victor and asks him to give him one reason why he wouldn’t tell him that he saw the symbol on the wall down in those tunnels. Victor says it is not important.

Jade grabs Victor by the jacket and forces him to stop walking. “I’m done fucking around! You don’t get to pick and choose what you tell us! Tell us everything you know, everything you have seen, it all matters, because that may be how we go home. Wouldn’t you like to go home?”

Victor says: “This is my home.”

Jade is stunned at that answer. Victor walks away.

Tabitha pulls Jade and asks him what’s wrong with him. Is it just physically impossible for you not to be an asshole for longer than 10 minutes?

Jade snaps at her: “Great, you’re yelling at me again. That didn’t take very long.”

9 — Jim and Randall enter the Church. Sara is holding the broken pieces of the Christmas figurine that Kenny broke a few days ago. This is the only thing Nathan gifted her that she owns in this place. They want to talk to her. They ask where she was going when she and Nathan arrived to this place. Sara says they were heading back to Boston.

Randall asks where they were coming from. Sara asks why does it matter and what’s going on. Jim responds they are looking for any patterns to how people end up here. Sara responds she was living in New Hope, Pennsylvania but it wasn’t … (she hesitates explaining her relationship there) Nathan came to bring me back home.

Jim asks about that day at the barn. Sara says she doesn’t want to talk about that. Randall asks if Nathan is still alive. Sara turns around and gives him a confused look. Donna enters the Church and interrupts them. Randall says it is convenient that Donna showed up here out of nowhere the moment they confronted Sara with questions.

[Randall is completely out of his depth here with his conspiracy theory. He thinks Sara and Donna are in on the big government experiment that has them trapped in this place with psychological tests and fake monsters.]

Donna asks what the fuck he is talking about. Jim says Randall means nothing.

Donna tells Sara that she spoke with Boyd. That she learned Sara wanted something helpful to do. Donna has a bunch of clothes that need stitching. Sara knows how to sew. You can start with this bundle. You two, get the fuck out.

Randall confronts Donna and calls her a toll booth operator. Jim intercedes and asks Randall to leave with him.

Sara wonders why they were talking about Nathan and think that he is alive.

A few yards from the Church, Jim and Randall walk down the road. Jim asks Randall what the hell that was. Jim saw Sara’s face when Randall asked about Nathan. She doesn’t know anything. Randall says Donna might. Jim tells Randall that’s exactly what they shouldn’t be doing. To assume every little thing and accuse everyone of complicity with the big experiment. They just need to watch.

Jim says they need to find out what people do when they don’t know they are being watched. Jim tells Randall to go back to his bus, go about his day, and when it gets closer to dark sneak out and meet me at the RV. They will stay the night at the RV to see if there are things they don’t want them to see.

10 — Jim enters the Diner. Julie is now the Diner helper. Jim asks about Tabitha. Ethan says she went to the Colony House. Julie tells her father that Victor and Jade were in there and Jade started yelling at Victor. So Julie thinks her mom went to check on Victor. Jim sighs. Julie asks if he is alright. Jim asks her to follow him to talk for a second.

Jim tells Julie that he won’t be home tonight. He got an idea. Something that can get them out of this place. He just needs time to figure it out. He has a talisman. He is going to be inside the RV. He is telling Julie so that they won’t worry. Asks Julie to let her Mom know.

11 — Jim leaves the Diner and Donna intercepts him outside. She wants to talk to him. Donna asks if he is some kind of moron. “What is wrong with you?” He responds he is just looking for answers, just like everybody else. Donna asks: “By taunting Sara? You asked if his brother is still alive.”

Jim says he tried to talk to Donna. She tries to figure out what he is talking about. Then she realized this krap is all about the CB Radio. Donna says: “Don’t even tell me you put this shit in Randall’s head. That guys is a fucking powder keg. If you start putting ideas in his head,”

Jim says he did not talk to Randall about the voice in the Radio. However, agrees that talking to Sara was stupid.

12 — Victor is in his bedroom. Staring at the toy that Ethan found in his old coat’s pocket. Victor had forgotten the toy was there. This toy was given to him by his Mom many years ago. He remembers again his mom gave him the toy and two crayons. She asked him to just draw his pictures and no matter what happens, you don’t come out until morning. Victor’s mom said she loves him, then goes up the stairs and closes the Rotten Cellar shut.

Victor’s memory lane is interrupted by someone knocking at his bedroom door. Tabitha asks if she can come in. She wanted to thank him for the coat he gifted Ethan. She grabs the toy from the table and says she remembers these toys. Ethan told her he found it in one of the coat pockets.

Tabitha asks Victor why he didn’t tell Jade about that symbol in the tunnels? Victor replies because it is not good to ask questions. People shouldn’t go looking for answers. She asks why not. Victor says because people who go looking for answers don’t come back.

Tabitha says that looking for answers is their way out of this place. Victor replies he doesn’t think there is a way out.

Tabitha says she knows that he thinks bad things happen to those who look for answers, but bad things happen here no matter what. If he knows something that could help them.

Victor says his Mom told him that they were going home the night that the bad things happened. He doesn’t remember what his Mom said next. He stayed silent for a few seconds. Then said that Pictures might remember.

Tabitha says his pictures were in the Matthews’s house when it collapsed.

Victor says not those pictures. He put the pictures that might remember what his Mom said somewhere else. Victor put those pictures away somewhere where he would never have to look at them. So that I would never have to remember. So that no one else would die.

Tabitha asks him if he remembers where he put the pictures. Victor nods yes.

13 — Boyd knocks Kenny’s door. Boyd asks what happened to his left arm. Kenny says he doesn’t know. Somehow he managed to burn himself in his sleep. Boyd says Elgin had an interesting idea about how to test their Monster Bile theory. Silver Bullets. They take the bullets. Dip them in the bile, coat them, fire from a safe distance. Then we see if they work.

14 — Boyd and Kenny enter the Clinic. Kristi is comforting Marielle who looks in bad shape with the withdrawals and the nightmares. Kristi says something happened a few minutes ago in the basement. Marielle heard something in the boiler room, where the monster’s corpse is stored. Boyd and Kenny approach the boiler room slowly. The door is shut. They can hear some rustling and fluttering noises. Boyd lifts the sheet covering the corpse and finds many cicadas coming out of the corpse.

Kenny tells Boyd this is what he was talking about the autopsy, bringing this evil thing into the clinic. Kenny says he saw those cicadas in his dream.

Kristi tells Boyd and Kenny that Elgin shared with her that in his dream he was drowning in the bathtub and then when someone woke him up, he started spitting up water. Now you had nightmares about those bugs and now they are swarming in that thing downstairs.

Kenny says it wasn’t just the bugs. When the music box started playing, one of the bugs jumped out of the pot on the stove and burned his left arm. Marielle asks if he means that their fucking dreams can hurt us now?

Donna shouts asking for Kristi. Donna comes to the room and says they look glum. What the fuck’s going on?

15 — Victor and Tabitha walk into the woods. Victor brings her to the area where he drove all the cars of the people who died when he was a child. He put these cars here so he wouldn’t see them again, as it reminded him of the massacre.

Victor stops at one of the cars. He says Tabitha is a nice lady and Ethan is his friend and he wants to help. But Victor is afraid to remember.

Tabitha says she knows he is afraid, but she needs him to be brave.

Victor says that is what his Mom said to him that night.

16 — Boyd brings Donna outside the boiler room. Donna tells Boyd she talked to him less than 2 hours ago. When the fuck was he planning to tell her about the dead monster?

Boyd said well, I’m telling you now. Donna argues no, she caught him. It’s not the same. Boyd said he just didn’t want to jump to any conclusions. He needed to test if he could kill those monsters again.

Donna asks since when is she just “anybody?” He apologizes and says it won’t happen again.

Donna asks about the Bile he pulled out of the monster’s corpse that can help kill the rest. Boyd says that it is something worthy of trying, but he needs to test it first.

Boyd says this monster’s corpse was covered with hundreds of bugs. The door was closed and there is nowhere the bugs could have escaped through. Boyd and Kenny saw the bugs. Now they are nowhere to be found. Donna asked Boyd to burn the corpse immediately.

17 — Kenny and Boyd load the monster’s corpse on the cart outside the Clinic.

Donna asks Boyd to burn the corpse far enough that people won’t see the smoke and get curious. Kristi brings a red container of gasoline.

Boyd says they will burn the monster’s corpse, and hopes that takes care of the nightmare dreams. But it would be a good idea to sleep in shifts to make sure.

Boyd says it would be a good idea to bring Sara, Kristi, and Marielle to the Sheriff’s station to sleep in shifts.

Boyd tells Marielle he has seen withdrawals and that’s about to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.

Kristi says she won’t stay under the same roof as Sara. Kristi prefers to stay at the Colony House.

Donna asks before she forgets if Kristi has any Aspirin. Donna says great. Fucking monster bile and no aspirin. Boyd suggests a compress. Donna tells him fuck right off. He chuckles.

Randall had been hidden nearby looking at them load the corpse on the cart.

18 — Victor opens the car’s trunk to show Tabitha the location he hid the very old crayon drawings when he was a child.

The drawings fill in the blanks of some of the memories he had forgotten.

He can see his Mom in his mind. “Victor, I need you to be brave. I’m counting on you. No matter what happens, you cannot leave. You need to protect your sister.

Eloise: Please, don’t go Mommy.

Victor says these drawings aren’t mine. They are not mine. They were Eloise’s.

Victor’s Mom to Eloise: You just draw your pictures, okay?

Victor’s Mom to Victor: And you stay here all night, and when I come back, we’re gonna go home. I love you.

[This is a lot to unpack. Not sure everything has been revealed yet. I wrote this summary when MGM was broadcasting mid-Season 3. In Season 3, Tabitha exits the place and lands in the world outside. She has Victor's lunch box and finds in the interior wall of the lunch box Victor's home address. There she finds Victor's father. I won't say the whole thing here but suffice to say Victor's father tells Tabitha his wife had dreams about a place. She was obsessed about it before his wife and son disappeared and never returned home. Eventually, Tabitha and Victor's father find the fallen tree in the road and he gets to meet Victor as adult. I am not sure what the eff is going on with the production writers because Victor's father never mentioned Eloise or a daughter. He didn't ask Victor where Eloise is either. In Season 3, also, Tabitha visits an ancient settlement near a lake that noone had seen before in the forest. There were three ritual rocks in that settlement. Tabitha says that she saw these 3 rocks in a dream when she was a child. Either Tabitha was like Victor's mother who also had dreams about this place in the forest... or ... Finkle is Einhorn. Einhorn is Finkle (Ace Ventura quote). Tabitha is Eloise. Wild theory. Not proven until the show reveals what happened to Eloise. If... Tabitha turned out to be Eloise, the way I could think that Victor's father wouldn't know about Eloise is that his wife was pregnant and he didn't know. If Eloise was born in the place and Victor and his Mom lived in this place years until Eloise was as old as shown in the image above. A lot of ifs and wild theories. Keep that in mind.]

Shortly after Victor’s Mom closed the Rotten Cellar’s door, Eloise ran into the forest after her Mom. Victor did never see Eloise or his Mom after that. It was still daylight.

Eloise: “Mom! Please, I wanna come with you!”

Young Victor: Eloise? Eloise, come back!

[present] Victor reels in pain, kneeling in front of the car’s trunk. He remembers he lost his sister Eloise. That’s why he hid Eloise’s drawings in this car’s trunk. To forget the pain of her loss.

The important thing to know is that as far as I am aware, Victor never said he buried his Mother or his sister. Therefore, it is up in the air whether they are still alive. Or in this case, if Tabitha is Eloise.

19 — Randall intercepts Donna coming back to her van. Randall apologizes to her. He knows they got off the wrong foot. He hopes they could talk. “We are all in this together.” Donna measures him and agrees.

[Not sure it had been revealed up to this point where Donna and his sister came from before they found the fallen tree on the road, other than they were on their way from hunting deer. The van's plate here is Garden State: New Jersey.]

20 — Boyd is pouring gasoline over the monster’s corpse — hidden in a sheet and tied up for easy handling.

Boyd grabs a lighter from his pocket. He is ready to light up the torch but holds back and asks Kenny if he wants to do the honors.

Kenny says he had grown used to being scared of the monsters. But now monsters attacking them in their dreams, that’s another level of scary…. causing physical harm to them. Elgin spitting up water from his lungs when he woke up after he dreamed of drowning. Kenny with a burn on his left arm after he dreamed a cicada hop from hot water to his skin.

21 — Victor tells Tabitha that his mother told them to hide in the Rotten Cellar. He was supposed to take care of and protect his sister Eloise. But she was so scared that she ran, and he was so afraid. He should have run after her.

Tabitha says he was just a little boy. Victor didn’t come out until the morning. Tabitha looks at the different crayon drawings made by Eloise and asks Victor what this one means.

Victor says that Eloise told him that the Lighthouse is where their Mom went to that night. She went to save the children locked in the tower.

<Big fucking revelation here. Allegedly, Victor's Mom went to this lighthouse to save the children locked in the tower. One that showed up in dreams or a vision. That this is how they get home. Completing the quest. Earlier in Season 1, Episode 10, Boyd and Sara found the Lighthouse. At the end of Season 2, Tabitha finds the lighthouse and the Boy in White throws her out of the window -- sending her into the outside world. Does that mean Victor's Mom landed in the outside world? Is Victor's Mom in a different time? Is she held captive in a dungeon like Martin was? Many questions. Below is an image of Boyd and Sara in Season 1, Episode 10.

22 – Boyd and Kenny return to the town, dragging the cart. Tian Chen, Julie, and Ethan exit the Diner, locking the door behind them. The night is 20 minutes away. They meet Boyd and Kenny in front of the Diner.

Kenny is listening attentively and asks everyone if they can hear that. Cicadas chirping.

They hear a man scream in the nearby house. The man asks for help as the cicada chirping intensifies. The man leaves the house with blood on his hands, shirt, jacket, and face. But it doesn’t look like it is his blood.

23 — Jim walks toward the RV to rendezvous with Randall as agreed. However, Jim is concerned to see Donna’s Volkswagen van near the RV and blood in the back seat with the backdoor wide open.

Jim shouts for Randall, but Donna shouts his name, instead.

Randall tied Donna to a tree and threatens her with a knife. Donna’s forehead is bleeding. Randall tells Jim: New plan.

Season 2, Episode 9: Ball of Magic Fire

1 — Reggie tells Boyd and Kenny that Paula said she was going to take a nap. He was downstairs and heard her screaming. Reggie tried to shake her to try to wake her up. She kept talking in her sleep. She kept repeating the same words over and over. Something cracked inside her.

<Interesting to note that Reggie and Paula were the ones who were mean to Sara in Season 2, Episode 5. They live in the house that belonged to Sara and Nathan. There might be a connection with why they were now victims of the cicadas.>

Boyd asked Reggie: What did she say? Reggie replied that Paula said: “They touch. They break. They steal. No one here is free. And then her face…”

<This were the exact same words that Kenny heard in his nightmare when he picked the phone in his sleep. The scary part about this new attack is that it happened in broad daylight. Paula was simply napping in daylight. The problem with this new type of attack is that it was triggered by Boyd. In the expedition into the forest's boundaries, Boyd ended up shoved into the Farway Tree by Sara after the Boy in White told Sara to enter the tree for safety. Old man Martin told Boyd to leave before the music box completed its music. Now Boyd, Marielle, Elgin, and now Kenny can hear the music box.>

2 — Boyd and Kenny leave Reggie’s house (formerly Sara’s). Boyd sees the house is surrounded by 9 townsfolk who heard Reggie’s shouting earlier. Boyd asks Ethan if he can go home and asks Julie to stay. Tia Chen takes Ethan to her house. Cicadas continue to chirp in the area.

Boyd says they have 30 minutes more of daylight. They need to go door to door. He asks Julie and Kenny to cover the town. He will cover the Colony House. Reggie will come with me. “We can’t leave anyone alone,” Kenny asks what about Sara.

Julie freaks out: “Boyd, what’s going on? What happened in here?”

Boyd replies something killed Paula. Julie is confused. It’s not dark yet. Boyd says there is something else here now. Something new. It is not safe for anyone to go to sleep tonight. Julie breaks her oath of silence. Her dad is out there in the RV.

3 — Jim scolds Randall. Donna threatens she will kill Randall. Jim asks Randall what is he doing. Jim apologizes to Donna. Randall tells Jim not to apologize. They were both right. Donna is part of this. Randall followed Donna earlier to the clinic and saw them moving the corpse of one of those monsters.

I think the writers messed up here. Boyd, Kenny, and Donna didn't talk about the monster when they were burning it. The monster was wrapped up with a blanket, and tied up in bundles with a large rope. Unless Donna told Randall off-screen what was in the blanket, there is no way he would have known.

Randall asks Donna what the monsters are: animatronics? Did they get a faulty model? Donna replies it was a body. Boyd killed one of them. Jim is shocked by the news. Randall asks if now the monsters die. It’s funny how suddenly the rules change when someone catches out your bullshit. Donna thinks he is out of his mind. Randall says he thought Jim would be more helpful with the questioning. This was Jim’s idea. Jim categorically denies this was his idea. This is fucking crazy. This was not part of the plan — he says.

Randall grows even more paranoid with Jim’s reaction. How does he know Jim didn’t put ideas in his head to mess with him for the big government experiment to see how he would react? “How do I know that you aren’t part of this?” Jim replies to Randall: “Because my house collapsed right on top of me. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Jim tries to untie Donna. Randall pulls him and launches him to the ground (Jim just recently left the clinic with 3 broken ribs). Jim stands up slowly. Randall pulls a knife on him and asks if he wants to dance.

Boyd arrives and shoots in the air. Then points the gun at Randall. Randall asks if he is going to shoot him. Boyd aligns the gun with his eye and the gun’s rear sights to make his point. Randall throws the knife to the ground. Boyd asks him to move away from the knife. Boyd picks up the knife and gives it to Jim to cut the rope wrapping Donna to the tree.

Boyd says they have about 5 minutes to get in Donna’s van and get the hell out of the RV area to get back to town.

Asshole Randall responds: “Oh, you mean these keys?” He launches them into the air further into the woods. Randall says: “I guess we will have to spend the night here and see what happens.”

4 — Victor follows Jade to Kenny’s house. Julie tells her mom that she should have stopped her Dad. Jade asks what’s going on. Victor told Jade they couldn’t go to sleep.

5 — Sara stays in the Sheriff’s station with Kenny. She thanks Kenny and knows he doesn’t want to be here. She says things feel different and wrong in the town. Did Boyd tell him what happened out there to both of them in the forest?

Sara says the more they walked into the woods the worse things got. Boyd told her this place feeds on fear. Sara theorizes what if this place feeds more on more than just fears? Kenny wonders what she means. Sara says Nathan was always terrified of cicadas. When Sara and Nathan were kids, their stepfather would take them on these week-long camping trips. The cicadas would buzz all night long outside their tent. Nathan would cry the whole night. Nathan thought the cicadas were monsters.

Sara further theorizes what if the people who die here … what if their fears become part of the forest? What if these cicadas are Nathan’s nightmare out there? The camera shifts outside the Sheriff’s station looking at Sarah behind the window and pans outwards. Cicadas buzz louder. The camera continues to pan out as if in a drone and the camera follows the road and flies above the town’s buildings all the way to the Colony House. Cicadas fly in front of the camera as it moves toward the Colony House.

6 — Reggie talks to Fatima and the residents of the Colony House about what happened to Paula. He wants to talk to Donna about what happened. Kristi points out that Donna left the clinic hours ago. Donna said she was coming back to the Colony House. Reggie says they are all going to fucking die. Fatima tries to calm Reggie down and asks him to repeat Boyd’s exact words. Boyd said we can’t sleep. No one goes to sleep. Fatima says that that’s what they focus on.

Fatima will take Reggie to change his bloodied clothes and ask everyone to partner up and prevent each other from falling asleep.

Kristi asks Ellis if there is a room she and Marielle can stay at tonight. Marielle looks in bad shape through her drug withdrawal.

7 — Jim, Boyd, Randall, and Donna settle inside the RV. Donna places the talisman in the front of the RV. Jim asks Boyd what he means that they can’t fall asleep. Boyd asks why he thinks Boyd came out to the RV? Julie is terrified. Boyd asks him to place the lantern in the back of the RV. Randall asks Jim to pick a side. Doesn’t Jim see what this is? They come here and actually had Donna by the balls and the Sheriff comes out here with a new story and Jim falls for it. No wonder Jim’s family is a mess. This angers Jim and both go to each other’s throats. Boyd yells at them.

Boyd pins Randall with his own body weight on top of Randall and cuffs his hands. Boyd warns Randall whatever the fuck ideas he is cooking in that rock-hard head of his, those ideas are going to get him killed. Or worse, Randall is going to get one of them in the RV killed, and he is not planning to die in here tonight. (I guess Boyd just warned he’s gonna shoot Randall). “Shut the fuck up and sit down.”

Boyd turns to Jim. “After all the shit you’ve been through here, you still think this is a fucking game?”

Jim says his investigation, wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Donna replies so he led a pig to shit and now he is surprised he made a mess? Randall says Fuck you to Donna. Donna returns the same back at Randall.

Jim comes up with this stupid idea that even without the keys Randall threw away — those Volkswagen vans have a pretty basic ignition system he can probably rig. Boyd stops him there. Boyd is not going to lose another person on a “probably.” They are barely making it through right now.”

Randall stands up and complains he doesn’t want to spend the whole night listening to this crap. Boyd shouts he told Randall earlier that he wanted him to sit down.

Boyd walked slowly toward Randall with his eyes sideways looking away. Boyd says in a composed serious tone: “Sit. Down.”

Randall says he doesn’t know what his deal is. Whether Boyd is part of this [referring to being in on the government experiment to test their reactions] or if Boyd is fucking dumber than–

Randall doesn’t get to finish the sentence. Boyd slammed Randall hard against’ the RV’s wall by the jacket’s neck.

Boyd said: “I lost my wife here. My friend bled to death in my arms, and you still think I’m lying? You want proof? What if I tie your ass up to one of those trees out there, Let you find out for yourself?”

Boyd slams Randall to the ground to sit.

8 — Ellis escorts Kristi and Marielle to an unused bedroom. The bed has belts strapped on both sides. Marielle asks if this is the freaky sex room. Ellis sighs. He says that the first night is rough for some people. They can get unpredictable.

Kristi tells Marielle she is going to go downstairs for some supplies. Ellis tags along and both leave Marielle alone.

9 — Ellis is worried and asks Kristi for her medical perspective about this “Don’t sleep” warning. Fatima told him she is pregnant. Ellis is asking if he should be worried about the baby. They sleep in their Mom’s belly. Kristi said if she was further along, maybe. But she’s 6-7 weeks pregnant at most. She says of all the things to be worried about tonight that’s not one of them.

Ellis shares with Kristi that a new life is growing inside Fatima. Normally, in their world, he would be thrilled about the baby. But in this place, Ellis is worried at any second the baby would spring out of her belly with fangs and claws.

Kristi looks at him sideways with a smirk and says that if it is any consolation pregnancy is weird, no matter where you are. Pregnancy is beautiful, but it’s fucking weird. We’re just used to it because we see it every day. It’s like the magic ball of fire.

<Huh. That's exactly the title of Season 2, Episode 9 (just now). Ball of Magic fire.>

Ellis is lost with that answer. The what? Kristi says it is this thing from medicine school. The whole world, even the parts that we think we understand, it’s all really just one big mystery, floating through space around a giant ball of magic fire that keeps us warm from a million miles away. I mean, it’s fucking insane. We are just used to it, that’s all. Ellis is still lost trying to figure out what she is talking about. Kristi smiles. “Pregnancy is weird.”

<I see. In this context, the ball of magic fire is the Sun. However, the way she coins the entire sentence to compare it with pregnancy... gives out some vibes in contrast with Jade's recent comment to Tabitha about Chaos Theory. It might be my imagination, but maybe the writers are building up to something. In Season 3, there is something weird going on with Fatima's pregnancy.>

10 — Jade looks at Eloise’s crayon drawings. “I can’t believe he had a sister. How do you forget something like that? “

Tabitha says he should have seen Victor’s face when he opened his trunk. It was awful.

Jade shows Tabitha one of Eloise’s crayon drawings. See the color of those uniforms? These are Civil War soldiers. Why the fuck would a little girl draw pictures of Civil War soldiers?

Tabitha says the crayon drawings came from the stories their Mother used to tell young Victor and his sister Eloise. Jade asks why the fuck then is he having visions of a story some dead woman told 40 years ago?

<For context, when Jade was helping Jim climb a tree to place the CB Radio antenna above the canopy, Jade had a vision of a Civil War soldier shooting at him and several Civil War soldiers' corpses hanging from the tree. Image below for reference: Season 1, Episode 6: "Book 74">

Jade moves away from the table to go deep in his thoughts. Tabitha pulls one of Eloise’s crayon drawings and asks Jade if he wants to see something really weird. Look at this.

Victor told Tabitha that his mother wanted to rescue the children who were locked in the tower. That it was the only way to get everyone home. Since I got to this town, I’ve had dreams about walking up the steps of a tower just like this.

<Tabitha refers to a dream she had in Season 1, Episode 9: "Into the Woods" where she is climbing a spiral stairway, which means she was climbing a tower. In the dream, there were dates scribbled on this spot. Tabitha is saying to Jade that she likely dreamed about the same tower -- which is actually a Lighthouse. Boyd and Sara found this Lighthouse in Season 1, Episode 10.>

Tabitha thought all this time the children were trying to scare her, but what if they were just asking for my help?

11– Downstairs, Tian Chen brings a board game to keep Julie, Victor, and Ethan entertained so no one falls asleep. Ethan worries and asks if their father is going to die in the RV. Julie assures him he is not going to die. Ethan asks if they all are gonna die. She reassures no one is going to die. Ethan says Victor told him when he was a kid everyone died. All at the same time. Victor said that it won’t happen like that again.

Ethan asks how Victor knows. Victor stays silent. Julie tells Ethan that she knows he is scared, but do you know what the Cromenockle would say? Ethan snaps at Julie and says it doesn’t matter. She (the Cromenockle) is not real. It’s just a stupid story.

Victor says his mother used to say that everything is a story, and we are the ones who get to decide how it ends.

Ethan asks what about the story of Victor’s mother. Did it end the way she wanted? Julie is horrified by Ethan’s response. It is not nice for Victor. Tian Chen scolds Ethan in Cantonese, then says in English: “Be good.”

Ethan leaves and says he doesn’t want to play any games. Julie apologizes to Victor.

12 — In the RV, Boyd laces the bullets with the Monster’s Bile. Jim asks Boyd if whatever was in his blood that killed the creature, the monster’s blood is going to–

Boyd corrects him. The monster’s Bile. Boyd says it doesn’t matter. If this works, they are walking back to town in the middle of the night guns-blazing against the Monsters with the Bile-laced bullets. Randall mocks Boyd. Boyd responds why does he care? It is not real, according to Randall.

Donna shares an idea. Why not let Randall test the Bile-laced bullet on the Monsters? Randall is not afraid to go outside, so give him the gun. She is just saying it so that if it doesn’t work, they kill Randall. See if these monster-killer bullets really work. One way or another, they get rid of a problem (again referring to Randall). A monster shrieks in the distance.

Donna asks Boyd to make up his mind. The Monsters are coming. Boyd asks how many she can see outside. Donna sees a few and they are closer.

Boyd says: “Showtime!” and hands the gun to Randall — who doesn’t pick the gun. Jim protests. Boyd says Randall is a big boy. He can choose. Jim opens the curtain in the back of the RV and says the Monsters are on that side too. (I counted 9 Monsters in total)

Boyd says the time is up. Are you going or not? Randall raises his cuffed hands. Boyd searches for the keys in his pocket and frees Randall. Boyd asks if he is having any second thoughts, and he gets his ass back inside.

Donna says: “The fuck!” They ask what happened. Donna says they stopped moving toward the RV. She says something is wrong. They don’t just do that.

Everyone in the RV freezes. The CB Radio begins to receive a broadcast in channel 47. The ballerina music box plays over the CB Radio’s speakers. Everyone can hear it, not just Boyd.

13 — At the Colony House, Marielle is screaming get away from me. She is throwing things to the floor. She’s trying to remove the wood planks from the window. Kristi enters the room with water and food and asks Marielle to stop. Marielle tears up the plank from the window in one pull. Kristi stops Marielle before she has a chance to lift the curtain.

Marielle says Kristi doesn’t understand. There is something standing there in the room with them. Kristi assures her there is nothing in the room. Kristi says that Marielle told her once when she first went through withdrawal she saw a lot of things that weren’t there. Marielle said that the guy downstairs said– (Kristi interrupts her)

Kristi says the guy downstairs said we can’t go to sleep, and that’s all. We know what the monsters look like here, and they are all outside. As long as you are in here and you are awake, you are safe. Now, come sit down.

Marielle aggressively steps back and asks Kristi to not touch her. Marielle tries to walk past Kristi to reach the bedroom door. Kristi says she is sorry and blocks the door. Marielle laughs and mocks her for being sorry. This is all Kristi’s fault for disappearing on her. She couldn’t eat or sleep. Kristi fucking did this to her. (She means relapsing into doing drugs again after a year sober).

Marielle apologizes for saying all that to Kristi, and Kristi says it is alright and hugs Marielle. Both sit on the bed and Kristi kisses her head. Marielle grabs the end of one of the belts and asks Kristi to put the belts on her. Kristi says she doesn’t think Marielle needs them. Marielle looks at the window and responds: “Yes, I do.”

14 — At the Sheriff’s station, Sara is looking at the map with pins. She says she guesses the pin near Springfield, Massachusetts is hers. She asks which pin is Kenny’s. She says something insensitive about his family being together before arriving here and apologizes again for what she caused to her dad — leaving the clinic door open for the monsters. Kenny asks her to stop talking.

Sara keeps talking about how difficult it is for him to see her every day, and that she wants Boyd to let her go into the forest. Kenny says he doesn’t care. He doesn’t give a shit what she wants or what she feels. Sara doesn’t get to sit here and have a pity party, because she is a murderer and should have gone into the box the second Boyd found out what she did.

Sara kept going on and on and mentioned Kenny’s dad. Kenny reached his patience limit. She pressed all the buttons. He yells very loud: SHUT THE FUCK UP! Throws the chair away and asks her to stop fucking talking about his Dad.

Sara said no. She says she didn’t ask for any of this. Does he think he is the only one that lost something? She lost everything. Everything she was and everything she could have been is gone. This place destroyed the only person she ever got to be and she is tired of being afraid and ashamed. She doesn’t want to be in this town anymore. She doesn’t want to be Kenny’s monster anymore. She wants it to be over.

Kenny says if she wants out, Boyd keeps his spare gun in the top-left-hand drawer. Kenny slams the door to be alone in the other room.

15 — Reggie rings the bell several times at the Colony House yelling Wake up! He tells everyone not to sleep. The talisman won’t protect them from this. No one is safe. Fatima asks Reggie to cut it out. He is scaring everyone. Reggie says everyone should be scared. She didn’t see what happened to Paula.

Ellis approaches and asks Reggie to calm down. Reggie reacts violently and pushes Ellis to the sofa. Ellis reels in pain. He’s still recovering from the stab in the stomach. Elgis locks his arms around Reggie and neutralizes him. Reggie cries they are all going to die tonight or tomorrow.

16 — In the RV, Boyd and Jim dismantle all cables and power from the CB Radio, but it continues to receive the music box signal through the speakers. Randall panics asking how can it continue to play the music.

Boyd opens the curtain to leave the RV through the front window which is positioned at the top with the RV turned on its side after the accident. Donna stops Boyd. Boyd turns to her and she squeezes herself against the wall with his menacing tone as he points a finger at her with the gun in the other hand. Boyd says he heard this music before in the forest. Every time it plays, bad shit follows. They need to get the fuck out of the RV before the music ends.

The music ends.

Something hits the wall of the RV hard and loud. The RV’s lights start to flicker on and off. Problem is with the RV turned sideways on the ditch, the wall is facing the ground. It is not possible for someone to knock the wall from the ground side. Boyd asks Jim and Randall to move to the front of the RV. Whatever happens, run.

Randall says fuck this. He uses a crowbar to break the back window to escape through it. They are screwed. That’s the equivalent of giving the Monsters authorization to come in. Boyd breaks the windshield window in the front and asks Donna to follow. Boyd tells Jim if he wants to see his family again, you get that fucking Volkswagen van going.

The 4 monsters in the back of the RV chase after Randall in slow motion.

Boyd shoots the gun at the 5 monsters in the front of the RV, with the Bile-laced bullets, while Donna and Jim run to the Volkswagen van.

The RV’s lights continue to flicker on and off. Boyd is shooting all of his Bile-laced bullets with no effect. Boyd hears a voice behind him: “Boyd, stop!”

Boyd looks back inside the RV. In one of the light flicks he sees Abby standing there, then disappears as the on-off flicking continues. Then reappears.

Abby asks Boyd to come back to her. Boyd hears a monster shriek behind him and looks. Then looks back toward Abby. She is no longer there.

Donna shouts at Boyd to come on. Jim hacked the Volkswagen van’s ignition system to turn on without a key.

<Boyd shoots 11 bullets.>

Randall is left behind. He can hear cicadas around him and they swarm all over his body and enter his mouth.

17 — In the Sheriff’s station, Sara sits in front of the desk. The gun with its cylinder open. Bullets on the table. Kenny opens the door to check on Sara, making sure she is not asleep. Kenny sees the scene and asks her to put the gun away. He didn’t think she would get through with what he said earlier.

Sara asks why. It’s what everyone wants. For her to die.

Sara tells Kenny that he said she should have been sent to the box. It wouldn’t be Kenny killing Sara. It would be this place (the monsters) killing her. So. Pretend that I am in the box. (Sara grabs the gun and prepares to load it)

Kenny slowly approaches from her flank.

Sara asks how many bullets will do. One? She loads one. Two? Loads another one. Sara closes the cylinder and points the gun at Kenny, who gets much closer.

Sara says no. He doesn’t get to decide. Sara rolls the cylinder, Russian roulette-style, and points the gun to her temple. Kenny asks her to stop.

Sara clicks the gun trigger. No bullet that round. She prepares to click the next cylinder round. Kenny no longer talks. He jumps forward to get a hold on the gun.

Kenny opens the cylinder and removes the two bullets. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

18 — In the Colony House, Elgin teaches the old lady named Tillie how to crochet. Fatima asks what they both are doing. Tillie says he is teaching her how to crochet.

Tillie compliments Fatima for what she did tonight and how she handled things. She would make a great mom. Elgin looks at Fatima and asks her if she is pregnant. She hesitates but confirms she is.

Fatima asks Tillie how she knew. Tillie says: Oh, sweetie. I have had 4 kids and 7 grandchildren. She knows an expecting mother when she sees one.

Elgin goes pale. Fatima looks at Elgin and asks him what’s wrong.

Elgin says… “I just remembered my dream.”

Fatima looks toward the entrance. The Volkswagen van is back. The guard with the shotgun opens the door and announces that Donna is back.

19 — Upstairs, Kristi wets a towel to place on Marielle’s forehead. Marielle is tied to the bed with the belts holding down both her wrists and both ankles. Mariselle is thirsty.

Kristi tells her she will be back. She will bring her juice to drink. Mariselle asks her to stay. Kristi kisses her and leaves the room.

Mariselle can hear rustling and chirping in the covered windows. Cicadas start swarming the room and crawl all over her body.

Kristi enters the room and finds her in a panic attack swatting away at nothing.

Mariselle screams to get them off her. They are all over her. They are everywhere — she says.

Kristi says there is nothing on her.

20 — Downstairs, everyone is flooding Boyd and Donna with questions. When can they go sleep? Why do they have to stay awake? Donna responds they still need to figure it out.

Jim slowly moves away and surprises the guard at the entrance and manages to open the door briefly before the guard slams it shut and pushes Jim off. Boyd shouts at Jim.

Jim wants to get back to his family. Boyd tells Jim that every time that door opens at night everybody here is at risk. Jim says when the fuck are they not in risk.

Jim struggles with the guard and manages to open the door slightly, twice. (WHAT A GIANT #$%)

Boyd pulls the gun and aims it at Jim. The guard manages to push Jim away and also points the shotgun at him.

Boyd says: “Stand down.”

Kristi shouts that she needs help upstairs. Boyd asks the guardian that the door stays closed, and storms upstairs.

21 — Mariselle’s irises go completely white.

Boyd tells Kristi, who is panicking and crying, that Marielle needs a doctor right now, not a fiancé. Kristi says there is nothing medical she can do for her state. Boyd says Mariselle is breathing. Just hold on to her.

Ellis interrupts and tells Boyd he needs to hear this. Both leave the room. Donna stays.

22 –Downstairs, Elgin says this whole time, he felt like there was a reason why he had that dream on the bus. That there was something in the dream that he had to remember and forgot what it was. Then Fatima said that she was pregnant and it all–

Boyd’s jaw opens and he looks confused back and forth between Elgin, Fatima, and Ellis. Elgin realizes he said something out of place. Ellis tried to announce to his Dad earlier that Fatima was pregnant, but Donna pulled him away to take care of something, and Ellis didn’t get to break the announcement.

Elgin apologizes for revealing it without Fatima’s consent. Boyd says it’s ok and asks Elgin to resume telling about the dream.

There was this boy… all dressed in white, and … he kept repeating the same phrase over and over: “Here they come. They come for three unless you stop the melody.”

Bakta says: “Wait, I know that one. It’s an old nursery rhyme. My grandmother used to sing it to me. ♪ They touch. They break. They steal. No one here is free. Here they come. They come for three unless you stop the melody ♪”

<Boyd's eyes open wide. These are the words Kenny mentioned hearing in his nightmare. Boyd was also the first to hear the ballerina music box's melody. The same words were in Elgin's dream when he was in the bus.

I realize something now. In Tabitha's dream in the tower, she saw all those dates dating back to the 1500s. In Season 3, it is revealed that Victor's mom had dreams about the town long before she saw the fallen tree in the road. Tabitha dreamed about a settlement not far from the town when she was a child (over 30 years ago).

Now Bakta says that her grandmother used to sing this song to her. Bakta's grandmother was possibly born in the early 1910-20s. Bakta is a black woman. They way these lyrics sound, the nursery rhyme may have originated in the 1800s during slavery and passed down to the next couple generations for Bakta's grandma to pass it down to her. The Civil War happened... between 1861-1865. Look at the number in Tabitha's dream (in the image below). Eloise (Victor's sister) also drew the Civil War soldiers -- the same Jade saw in his lucid waking dream in the forest. This means this place has been around a long time, influencing the dreams of people for centuries. Choosing which person to lead to the fallen tree in the road. The dreams about the music box monsters became folklore and edged onto nursery rhyme.

Another explanation would be the other way around: that monsters who killed people in this place, who knew the nursery rhyme in the 1800s, absorbed their fears into the forest --- keeping in mind what Sara said recently about Nathan's theory.

According to Sara, the cicadas are Nathan's nightmare. They started to appear shortly after Nathan died.

23 — At Kenny’s house, Jade tells Tabitha if she realizes what she is saying is bat-shit crazy. Tabitha counters with: “Well, you were the one that said that everything’s connected.” (This in reference to when he explained Chaos Theory to her with the fluttering butterfly and Tsunami in Japan comparison).

Tabitha grabs the crayon drawing of the Lighthouse tower. She says this is a connection. What if Victor’s Mom is right? What if saving those children is how we all go home?

Julie screams. Tabitha and Jade run to find out what’s wrong.

Julie is screaming: “Get them off me!”

Julie is having the same lucid waking dream about the cicadas swarming around her body. The attack reached a new phase where sleeping is no longer required. The attack now happens while awake. Another detail: Those who are now in a trance swarmed by cicadas are Randall (1), Marielle (2), and Julie (3). ♪ No one here is free. Here they come. They come for three unless you stop the melody ♪

Season 2, Ep. 10: Once Upon A Time

1 — The morning has arrived. Jade is outside sitting on the porch in Kenny’s house. He is in a bad shape. No one has been able to sleep. Kenny and Kristi arrive and enter the house. Kristi brings her emergency kit backpack.

Boyd is standing in the living room. He tells Kristi they are upstairs.

Boyd tells Kenny that his mom, Tian Chen, and Victor took Ethan to the Diner. Kenny starts to talk, but Boyd interrupts and asks him to go upstairs in case they need his help.

Boyd leaves Kenny’s House and stands on the porch. Jade tells him that Julie should be wearing a dress to a Prom, not lying there catatonic.

Jade starts a monologue that Boyd listens to intently: “There is so much they don’t know about this place. It’s like opening a book and starting from the middle. Or trying to imagine what a jigsaw puzzle looks like when all you have is a few random pieces and not even the helpful ones, like corners or edges.

The trick is you find two pieces that connect. Then at least you have a place to start.”

Boyd looks at Jade in a meditative stare tinkering his words.

Kenny asks Boyd where he is going. Boyd replies they need to talk to Sara.

(It seems Jade’s words clicked. Sara is the two pieces that connect … to start the jigsaw puzzle.)

Boyd heard Elgin's dream where a Boy in White repeated the same words Kenny heard in his own dream. Sara said in the forest when they found the Lighthouse that a Boy in White told her to push Boyd through the Farway Tree. That's what started the whole thing. Boyd appears in the tower dungeon. Someone throws a rope at him to climb. He finds old man Martin chained to the wall. The music box plays a song. The same music box everyone sees in their dreams in the town. Sara is the connection to the Boy in White -- who seems to know a lot of what's going on in this place.

2 — Donna, Dale, and Elgin arrive in the Volkswagen van to the RV. Dale suggests they get supplies, set out, and see what they can find. (seems Boyd told them off-screen about what he found in the forest, the tower, and the music box. Stopping the melody of the music box is how they end the dying in their sleep).

Donna says Boyd tried that already. Dale complains Boyd isn’t the end-all, be-all answer to everything. Why should they be here at the RV? Randall is an asshole.

Donna responds, well, you are an asshole too and I wouldn’t leave you out here to rot.

Dale complains he finally gets out of his jail room and he is now on corpse-collection duty.

Donna asks Dale to check the left side of the road and Elgin to the right side of the road with her.

Donna thanks Elgin for coming to help find Randall’s corpse. Elgin says it feels good to do something useful. Donna says he helped enough with his dream. That might end up being the answer to their current threat situation.

Dale calls them. Donna and Elgin arrive. Dale says he doesn’t think Randall is dead. Dale asks if there shouldn’t be dead monsters around here. Donna replies so much for silver bullets.

Donna asks both of them to carry Randall to the Volkswagen van. Dale complains. Donna shouts to carry him to the ban. As they touch Randall, he screams literally endlessly in agony, nonstop, scaring the hell out of Dale and Elgin. His eyes’ iris are all white.

Simultaneously, Julie and Marielle begin to scream nonstop, too.

3 — Sara, Kenny, and Boyd walk into the forest. Sara asks how is this supposed to help. Boyd replies when we were in the forest, you said a little boy in white told you to get into the tree. It’s the same tree that put me in the damn chamber where all this started.

Boyd tells Sara, well it turns out that Elgin had a dream about a little boy in white, told him a nursery rhyme, the same one Paula kept repeating before she died. “They touch, they break, they steal, no one here is free. Here they come, they come for three unless you stop the melody.”

Boyd asks if any of that makes any sense to Sara. She says no.

Anything else she knows about the little boy? She replies only that he was trying to help them.

Boyd says this little boy goes around this magical forest doing good. Popping up in people’s dreams and–

Sara says she doesn’t think he really was a little boy.

Boyd tells Sara when he said this was the opportunity to help these people — the moment is now.

Boyd brought Sara and Kenny to the Tower Ruins. This is where Boyd exited the tower. He explains the old man Martin was chained to the wall in this spot, and the hole that was 40-50 feet deep where he appeared was in this other spot, and– (Boyd stops talking). Sara looks troubled.

Boyd asks Sara what is it? Sara replies she can hear it. The music box is right here. Boyd asks where. Sara looks around and points to a pile of rocks. Right here. She starts digging. Boyd says there is nothing here. She insists the music box is in this spot.

Sara stops for several seconds. Boyd asks what happened. Sara can hear their screams. Sara’s nose begins to bleed. The music box is hurting them. Sara begins to scream and hold her head with both hands. Kenny asks what the fuck is going on.

Boyd asks Kenny’s help to move Sara away from the Tower Ruins. She asks them to stop. It is laughing at you for bringing it back to town. For setting it free. It wants to hurt us and make us suffer. It got so excited when it touched Kenny’s arm.

Boyd asks Sara how does he stop this. Sara hears Julie’s screams. July and the others are dying and when they die, it will be too late. You need to stop the music. Boyd asks Sara how he can stop something he can’t see.

4 — Donna looks at Tillie gathering residents on the ground to hold hands and pray together.

Donna asks Matthias to gather all the guns and lock them in the shed. She doesn’t want them in the house. They managed to make it through the night. Now we just have to see about today.

<It seems Donna implies some people might get so hopeless and desperate they might take the guns to do damage to themselves, or worse... to help others die before the dreams terrorize them to death.>

5 — In Kenny’s house, Julie’s state hasn’t changed but she is no longer screaming. She is in a deep sleep. Tabitha is next to her daughter, meditating while staring at Julie.

Tabitha stands up and asks Jim to come along to outside the room. She tells Jim there is something she has to do and expects him to say it’s okay.

The last time Victor saw his mother, she told him that there were children locked in a tower, and that if she helped them then everyone could go home.

Jim doesn’t understand. Tabitha says that all these children she has been seeing, the tower she has seen in her dreams, what if Victor’s mother was right?

What if the only way to save Julie is to find that tower?

Jim says he had a theory about this place that almost got him killed. Tabitha says this is different. He asks how. Tabitha says that last night Julie was calling out to her and she couldn’t do anything to help her daughter. She was just standing there powerless. They can’t sit here hoping for the best.

Jim points out that Victor’s mother left this place and she never came back. Whatever she went to do, she never came back. Victor had to grow up here alone. What if that happens to you? She says that she knows. That’s why she needs him to tell her that it is okay for her to go. She has to try.

6 — Ethan says that when Julie wakes up, she’s gonna be hungry. Tian Chen, Victor, and Julie bring a lot of containers with food. Tian Chen made Julie’s favorite.

Tabitha asks Victor to come talk to her for a bit. “You said that your Mother wanted to help the children that were locked in the tower. Do you know the way to the tower? “

Victor doesn’t know the way to the tower, but he knows the way to the Bottle Tree. Jim asks the what?

Victor browses through the crayon drawings and brings one to Tabitha. This is how you get to the Tower. You have to visit the Bottle Tree. Tabitha asks if he can take her to the Bottle Tree. He replies he thinks so.

Jim wants to talk to Tabitha privately.

<Boyd and Sara found the Bottle Tree in Season 1, Episode 9: "Into the Woods." They found the tower some time after Boyd picked one of the bottles from the tree.>

7 — At the Tower Ruins, Boyd is powerless. Unable to find a way to stop the music box without the ability to see where it is. Kenny asks what to do next. Boyd says they should head back to town. Kenny refuses. Sara just said that the box is here. All we need to do is find it. People’s lives are at stake here.

Boyd says they know more now than they knew this morning. That’s a win. The best thing they can do now is tell people they shouldn’t feel afraid. We are working on it.

8 — At the Colony House, Ellis asks Reggie if he’s okay. Reggie asks why people ask that when the answer is obvious. Ellis apologizes for locking him up in that room. Reggie says he lost his shit. He didn’t realize how fragile they are. This place breaks you. He was cooking something for Paula like an idiot. Ellis says it was no one’s fault. Not to blame himself. Reggie looks at Ellis. Repeats it was no one’s fault. You are right.

Fatima asks Ellis to get married right now. They don’t know what’s going to happen. If this is the end, then I want it to end with you.

9 — Jade is at the Bar. He is wrapping bottles in a towel, and then slamming them on the table to break them. Then collects the pieces aside on the table. Christopher’s Notebook can be seen on the edge of the table. He picks two pieces and tries to fit them as if they were the jigsaw puzzle he mentioned to Boyd earlier.

Bartender Tom appears behind the Bar and asks if that’s what he is doing with his Bar. Jade says it is a thought experiment. He found this helpful when he was developing his software. Jade doesn’t finish the thought. He turns around and tells Tom… you died.

Tom says correct. Jade says: “Okay, well, just wanted to make sure we were on the same page. Tom wonders if Jade will ask him if he is real. Jade responds he imagines this is some sort of stress-induced psychosis, and you will disappear soon enough on your own. He is trying to reorient his perspective. It should help him find a different way to look at this symbol. There is got to be an answer and he is not seeing it.

Tom says Jade is overthinking it. Jade says: “Oh really, Dead Tom!”

Tom replies he already knows what he has to do. Tabitha told you she saw this symbol down in the tunnels. The question is: How far are you willing to go to find the answers?

Jade says going into those tunnels would be insane. He doesn’t even know if he will find anything down there.

Tom says Of course you do. It’s natural design. Same reason your brain is in your skull. Your heart’s behind your ribs. Nature will always put what’s most precious in the spots most difficult to reach.

Jade being the asshole he is, continues to be an asshole to a figment of his imagination. Or is it a figment of his imagination? “All right, so I’m supposed to what? I’m supposed to take advice from some… You ran into a house that was falling down to save Tabitha and she wasn’t even there.”

Tom responds that given the chance, he would do the same thing.

Jade responds: “Then you are a fucking idiot. Like–” both laugh.

Tom: “You don’t make moral choices based on the outcomes you expect. You make them based on whether or not you think they are right. When I ran into that house, I wasn’t thinking about the Trolley Problem, or determinism, or… wasn’t thinking of any of that. There’s a 16-year-old girl over there who needs your help.”

10 — Sara asks if Boyd buried Paula yet. Boyd recoils at the thought that he forgot. Sara volunteers and she will find some people to help. Boyd holds the hand he sliced with the knife to transfer the worms to the monster’s throat. Sara says not to worry about Paula’s corpse. He is doing the best he can. Boyd removes the bandage on his left hand and the wound is dry but open. It looks like it needed stitches and should be still bleeding, but it’s dry.

10 — Matthias is storing all the guns in the shed, as Donna requested. Reggie enters the shed and asks Matthias if he is putting away the guns. Matthias says he is. Donna was worried about leaving them in the house. Matthias asks if he needs help, but he responds no, he is about done. Matthias turned around to face Reggie — who slashed his throat with a knife.

Reggie tells the dying Matthias that it is okay. He just gonna go a little sooner than the rest of them. Reggie opens the cabinet to stock up on weapons and ammunition for his massacre spree plans.

11 — Jade heard Tom’s words clearly and loudly. Jade brings a large spool of thread, possibly from the crochet kit that Elgin uses. He is tying one end to a nearby tree. Jade mutters: “Everything is a system. Everything is connected.”

This is how Jade deviced to find his way back to the exit as he goes deeper into the tunnels where the monsters sleep in search of the symbol’s secrets. The thread will lead the way back to the exit. He turns on a flashlight.

Jade enters the tunnel: “Everything is gonna be fine. Fuck my life!”

Jade begins his descent but immediately trips on his butt and slides down the entrance. He recovers his composure and begins to walk into the tunnels. A few yards in, his flashlight begins to flicker and turns off. Jade panics and smacks the flashlight a few times until it functions properly once more. “Piece of shit!”

Jade moves the flashlight around to identify his surroundings for a direction deeper into the tunnels when he spots the puppet and the unexpected sight frightens him.

Jade slowly approaches the puppet and touches it to make sure it is harmless. Jade looks around his surroundings and settles down his fear. “Okay, I got this. Easy peasy! Easy fucking peasy!”

12 — Boyd enters the church. He needs answers and wisdom to figure out how to stop the music box’s melody — something he can’t physically see or locate at the Tower Ruins. Boyd asks: “Anybody up there?” As if asking God if he is listening.

“If you are really up there… you are a real fucking asshole, you know that? You enjoying this? If Khatri were here, he would say: God moves in mysterious ways. Oh yea, yea, ’cause Khatri had a plan. He thought you put him here for a reason. He… (chuckles) thought that we were gonna walk out into those woods like Butch Cassidy and the motherfucking Sundance Kid! He thought that right up until the time one of those things slit his fucking throat! What did he do with his last breaths? He prayed. He gasped out that fucking prayer so that you would know. So that he could show you that he had never lost faith. You know what, motherfucker? I ain’t here to pray. If you are anything other than some bedtime fucking story that we tell ourselves, then you will tell me why! Why you made me think I could fix this. Some kind of fucking hero gonna lead these people home when all I am is a dumb motherfucker who keeps getting people killed! You fuck. You think this is funny? Huh? You up there somewhere having a fucking laugh? Huh? Huh? Just… answer me! Answer me! Huh? Say something!”

(Boyd kicks the mailbox that Father Khatri used as a lectern for Mass, and it crashes down with a loud clank noise.)

<Damn. This writer must be an atheist or an asshole. Or both. Way to get 80% of USA christians to cancel their MGM subscription. Not sure if to cancel or praise his cojones. Fuck. My sister is an avid Marvel Cinematic Universe watcher with me. She refused to watch Deadpool and Wolverine just because he said he is Marvel Jesus in the movie trailer teaser. Wait till she ever watches this episode. lol>

The second Boyd knocked the lectern to the ground, Donna was entering the church and saw the lectern crash down.

Donna says: “You know… tampering with a mailbox is a federal crime.”

Sigh. Another asshole. lol

13 — At the Colony House, someone knocks the door. Kristi is watching over the comatose Mariselle. She shouts whoever it is to come in.

Kenny asks how Mariselle is doing. Kristi says she is getting worse and getting colder. She ponders to Kenny if this is how it ends for all of them. Ever since Marielle stepped out of that bus, Kristi allowed herself to believe that maybe there was a plan to all of this. Something they were meant to do here. But there is no grand design. They are all going to die here. All they endured would have been for nothing.

Kenny says his father used to say: “It’s hard to see the sweater when you are only just a thread.” Kenny didn’t really know what he meant until now. All of the people that have gotten stuck in this place… maybe we aren’t the ones to get to get home. But maybe what we did here… makes it easier for the people who come next. Maybe we are the reason that they get to go home. Just because we are only a thread doesn’t mean we don’t matter.”

Kristi takes a deep breath as a tear crosses her face. She places a hand on Kenny’s thigh. Kenny holds her hand.

14 — Donna puts the mailbox-slash-lectern back in place while Boyd sits sideways on a chair.

Donna says: “There you go. The least you need is Father Khatri haunting you over everything else.”

Boyd replies: “It is too late for that.” (Because he already haunts him.)

Boyd says: “Julie and Marielle. Randall. Sara says they are dying. And once they are gone, there is no way to put the genie back in the bottle. Whatever this thing is, it just waits for us to go to sleep, and then…”

Donna finishes his sentence: “Like Paula.”

Sara says the music box is there at the Tower Ruins in the clearing. Only it is not physically there. Like looking at an instruction manual with too many pages missing. How is he supposed to —

Boyd trails off without completing the sentence. He tells Donna that he saw his wife, Abby, last night. Donna asks how she look.

Boyd says there should be rules. There has got to be something he can hold in his hands. Boyd blames himself. He brought those worms back to the town.

Donna agrees. He did. But he also gave people a whole lot of more time if it hadn’t been for him coming back to town. He gave Donna more time.

<Donna refers to Boyd coming to the RV to save her from Randall, who tied her up and threatened her with a knife. Then again when the monsters surrounded the RV and he distracted the monsters while they ran to the Volkswagen van in Season 2, Episode 9: Ball of Magic Fire.>

Donna reveals his son Ellis is about to get married. This is what she came searching for Boyd. Nothing official as they no longer have a priest. They are making the most of whatever time they have left before they fall asleep and those things kill them in their sleep. Boyd should do the same. Donna asks Boyd to come to the Colony House with her to participate in the makeshift wedding.

Boyd says he is not giving up. She chuckles and replies she didn’t say he should. This might be the last few hours any of them get. So why doesn’t he stop being a martyr and come and watch his son get married? The end of the world will still be here when the ceremony is done.

15 — In the tunnels, Jade reaches a large chamber and looks around with the flashlight. There is nothing remarkable in this chamber other than a brain-like mass of small roots in the ceiling sprouting roots in every direction in the ceiling. Suddenly, Jade hears a child whisper: “Anghkooey.”

<As mentioned in the article, later in Season 3 Julie gains the ability to dreamwalk, apparently, through time when she walked into the Tower Ruins. The theory floating around in Reddit is that "Anghkooey" is the Game of Thrones version of "Hodor / Hold the Door." In this case, "Anghkooey" is allegedly meant to be "Aunt Julie" -- which on itself seems to imply that at some point in the series, Julie might dreamwalk back in time to an era where the children are alive and be a sort of protector to them. So now they remember her and call for her help in the present as if saying: "Aunt Julie. We want Aunt Julie. Anghkooey." Whether this Reddit theory turns out to be true is yet to be seen. This article summary was written when MGM is still broadcasting mid-Season 3 episodes.

As Jade hears the whisper, he seems to have a lucid waking dreamwalk into another time, where the children are all around him lying down on top of stone slabs as if ready to be sacrificed against their will in a ritual.

<I read somewhere what looked like a leak, that there were 7 childrens to be sacrificed, but one escaped. Probably the Boy in White or someone else. The ritual failed and the monsters who planned to gain eternal life got a botched ritual that wasn't completed, leaving the men and women cultists in a monster-like immortal state instead of a normal human immortal state.

So the children are trapped in this comatose state eternally until a 7th child is sacrificed to complete the ritual. In this case, Sara was supposed to sacrifice Ethan as the 7th child. The voices lied to Sara, who promised if she killed Ethan, everyone could go home. I haven't confirmed this yet, but whoever said that online likely watched it between the end of Season 2 and beginning of Season 3 (which I am yet to transcribe.>

Jade moves the flashlight around every child around him, then feels the urge to look to the ceiling where he finally encounters the origin of the symbol haunting his dreams and waking moments alike. The children Tabitha sees and the symbol are connected. All this time he refused to enter the tunnels, and long before that, Jade was meant to be standing in this chamber to understand his next quest. Being a pragmatic scientist who believes in physics and chaos theory, he has a special talent set. That’s one of the skill sets the children draw people to find their way to the fallen tree in the road.

<Jade has been haunted by dreams and visions of the symbol in:

SEASON 1, Ep. 2: The Way Things Are Now
Season 1, Ep. 4: A Rock and a Farway

Victor and Sara saw the symbol in the tunnels in Season 1, Ep. 10: Oh, the Places We’ll Go and later Tabitha told Jade.

Jade saw the symbol again and the puppet in the Colony House in Season 2Ep. 1: Strangers in a Strange Land

Jade confronted Victor and showed him the notebook with the symbol and the Polaroid photo in Season 2, Ep. 3: Tether.

Jade saw the symbol again and also Cristopher holding the notebook in Season 2, Ep. 5: Lullaby.

Full circle. Jade finally reached the source of the symbol.>

Jade looks back to the ground and the children and rock slabs disappeared. Jade looks back to the ceiling where the symbol turned out to be a hole in the surface with growing roots with a view into the sky. Now there is only a ceiling with a brain-like mesh of roots blocking the view into the sky.

<This hasn't been revealed yet in mid-Season 3: "if the circle of children with a window into the sky is a vision of something that happened centuries ago... what tree grew above this chamber and how the surface looks like in the present? Is the Tower Ruins above the symbol or something else?>

16 — Victor guides Tabitha through the forest toward the Bottle Tree. Tabitha asks how his Mother planned to save the children. Victor replies that he doesn’t know. All she said was that the children needed her. Victor stops. He tells Tabitha that the Bottle Tree should be right here (where he is standing).

<It is unclear if the writer wants the viewer to figure out that the Bottle Tree is a living thing that moves location. Early in the series, we have seen Victor measure the distance between the Colony House and the trees. He has said that the trees are moving closer to the Colony House inch by inch over a period of short period of time.

Logic dictates under this place's rules that the Bottle Tree has moved far more than mere inches from where Victor is now standing over a possible period of 30+ years since the last time he saw it when he was a child.>

Victor hears the clinking of bottles in the distance. The Bottle Tree moved several yards from where he last saw it.

Tabitha asks who put the bottles there. Victor doesn’t know. He looks at the ground in front of him. He says here is where he saw his Mom standing. Victor says when he came out of the Rotten Cellar that day of the massacre, he came looking for his mother. Victor found his mother’s corpse there on the ground in front of the Bottle Tree. His mother didn’t make it into the tree.

Tabitha asks what does he mean: “–into the tree?”

Victor guides Tabitha around the tree and shows her that the Bottle Tree is a Farway Tree.

<When Boyd and Sara found the Bottle Tree, they completely missed looking around the tree to discover the hole.>

Tabitha inspects the rim of the hole in the tree and says that the night the monsters got into the Colony House, Julie said that you both escaped by climbing into a tree.

Victor replies that Farway Trees always take you to different places, and you never know where you will end up, but his mother said this one was special. That it would take you to the Tower to the children.

Tabitha asks: “– and then what?”

Victor says that’s all he remembers.

Victor opens his lunch box and says that he put some snacks inside for her.

Victor places the lunch box’s cord around Tabitha’s neck so she can carry it with her.

Tabitha asks if it hurts to go through a Farway Tree. He says it is just like walking through a door. Tabitha tanks Victor and hugs him.

Tabitha asks Victor to go back to town. He wishes her to be careful.

Tabitha steps into the hole in the Bottle Tree and disappears while Victor stands there.

17 — Tabitha appears next to some trees in the forest. A few yards away she finds the door into the Lighthouse tower.

Tabitha stands there in awe and looks above her all the way to the top of the Lighthouse tower, taking in the sight.

18 — In the Colony House, Donna covers Fatima’s eyes and guides her to their bedroom. Fatima has a fancy dress and a decoration on her hair. Donna tells Fatima that he wants it to be a surprise.

Ellis says she always says this view makes even this place look like a dream, so I figured… is this okay? Fatima says it is perfect.

Boyd enters the bedroom. Ellis says he made it. Boyd replies wild horses couldn’t stop him if they wanted.

Fatima says it is not much of an aisle, but would Boyd do her the honor of walking her through? Boyd agrees and extends his open hand to lead her to the doorway. She doesn’t need to call him Sheriff Stevens anymore.

Boyd walks her down to Ellis by the window. Fatima says her father had a saying: “Life is a journey through the unknown, and though your eyes and mind may sometimes deceive you, your heart will never lie. My heart’s belonged to you since the moment I met you. You are the love of my life, for as long as that life may last. So, will you Ellis Stevens do me the honor of being my husband?”

Ellis responds: “I will.”

Fatima tells him she made something for him. She places a wire-made ring on his left wedding finger.

Ellis’s turn: “It’s a tough act to follow. The day my family and I saw that tree, our lives changed forever. But the day I saw you get out of that car, that’s the day that my life really began. There have been… so many times here where I felt… like I was stumbling in the dark. But each and every time, you were the light that guided me through. You are my love. You are my home. You are my light in the dark places. So, will you, Fatima Hassan-Rostami… will you do me the honor of being my wife?”

Fatima says: “I will.”

Ellis: “Well, the rules say we kiss now.”

Donna looks at Boyd who is distant in deep thought. “Are you all right? Where would you go?” Ellis asks his Dad if he is okay.

Boyd snaps out of his vision-tunnel thoughts: “Light in the dark places. I gotta go. I’m sorry.”

Boyd hugs Ellis, then Fatima. Boyd departs with: “I love you guys.”

19 — In Kenny’s house, Ethan stares at a comatose Julie and asks his father: “Will we get to see Thomas again if we die?” (the baby brother that died a year ago)

Jim responds: “Yea, we will.”

Ethan: “Grandpa, too?” Jim replies: “Grandpa, too.”

Ethan: “Maybe it won’t be so bad, then. She likes to sleep with two pillows.” Jim tries to help him.

20 — Boyd closes the door of that canned goods truck he took shelter in with Victor, Tabitha, and Elgin when he exited the Tower Ruins the other night.

<Those words in Ellis's wedding speech about Light in the Dark Places -- Boyd figured out what he needs to see the music box at the Tower Ruins is to bring the torch he took from the wall next to old man Martin to the Tower Ruins. He left that torch inside the canned goods truck. A physical item he brought from a Tower that doesn't exist in the present.>

As Boyd jumps off the truck’s side step, he hears a loud shotgun-racking noise,

Reggie points a shotgun at Boyd: “You did this. Everything was fine until you went into the forest. You are the reason all this is happening!”

Boyd says he knows that Reggie doesn’t understand this, but Boyd thinks this torch is gonna help him fix this.

Reggie shoots at Reggie, injuring his shoulder and a big area around his arm, knocking him to his knees. Boyd can hear Reggie reloading the shotgun.

Reggie apologizes to Boyd and says he likes him, but–

Boyd turns around and points his gun at Reggie, killing him instantly.

Boyd drags himself slowly as he carries the torch on his right hand, while his left arm is numb with the pain. The shotgun’s scattered fragments are lodged all around his upper arm.

21 — Boyd reaches the Tower Ruins and waves the torch around without success. Nothing happened. He gets frustrated and reels in pain.

Boyd reaches out with the injured arm and grabs the lighter inside his jacket’s left pocket. Boyd lights up the torch with the lighter.

Just like that, the Tower Ruins disappear and are replaced by the full Tower — somewhere lost in time. The walls and the well’s winch appear before his eyes. Boyd can now hear the ballerina music box. He turns around and sees the music box behind him by the corner. Exactly where Sara said it was located.

Boyd hears moaning coming from the adjacent room and investigates. Boyd finds Randall, Marielle, and Julie chained to the wall, just like old man Martin was.

Freaky. Could the skeletons Boyd saw next to old man Martin be... Marielle and Julie? Did Boyd dreamwalk to a past version of the Tower where they are still alive? Who knows. Who needs paradoxes, right? Well, buckle up. You will see this Tower room again in Season 3 when Boyd is still trapped in the hole beneath this room -- and someone will be there to drop down the rope that saves Boyd -- which is a mega paradox on itself.

If you don’t understand what I mean about the skeletons… just compare the two screenshots: A) Marielle and B) skeleton. The very same spot on the wall. Sadly, the production messed up the position of the arms and the chain holding the skeleton.

Now take a look at the part of the wall Julie is chained to and compare it with the screenshot of the skeleton that Boyd found in Season 2, Ep. 2: The Kindness of Strangers. Again, the production messed up the position of the skeleton’s arms and the chain. But it is the exact same spot on the wall.

Boyd attempts to free Julie from her chains, but he remembers how difficult it was to remove Martin’s shackles. He decides to return to the music box. As he raises the torch high in the air to smash the music box… Abby appears behind him and shouts his name.

Abby says that destroying the music box won’t stop their suffering, it will only prolong it. People in this town will suffer in ways he can’t even imagine. They are all going to die, screaming. You think you need to be the hero. You think you need to be responsible, to save them. You don’t have to suffer anymore. You don’t have to be afraid. It’s okay. None of this matters. We can be together. I miss you so much.

On cue, Randall, Marielle, and Julie begin to scream in agony. The camera shifts to Kenny’s house, matching Julie screaming in agony on her bed simultaneously.

Boyd hesitates. So whatever this thing is, it just lets you come in here for a little chat?

Abby says it knows you won’t listen. It wants you to fight. It wants you to have hope that you could actually win!

Boyd asks why. She replies: “Because hope is what makes you willing to suffer. Hope is what sent you out into the woods that day. Hope is what made you leave me alone when I needed you most. It is not your fear that feeds the forest, Boyd. It is hope.”

Randall, Marielle, and Julie scream louder.

Abby asks Boyd to let it go. If they don’t die today, they’ll just die tomorrow.

Boyd says no and smashes the music box with the torch, then steps on it twice with force to further smash it into pieces.

22 — After Boyd smashed the music box, Julie, Marielle, and Randall wake up in their beds.

23 — Boyd exits the Tower and appears at the Tower Ruins. Triumphant, Boyd says: “Fuck you, motherfucker. You don’t break me! You hear that? YOU DON’T FUCKING BREAK ME!”

The dog that young Victor met in the past appears near Boyd and barks at him.

<This dog saved Boyd the last time he exited the Tower Ruins, leading him toward the canned goods truck in Season 2, Ep. 2: The Kindness of Strangers.>

The dog runs away and Boyd follows him.

24 — Ethan uses his crayons to draw a picture. Jim brings a glass of water to Julie, who is still shaken up after the horrifying experience.

Ethan opens the door. He tells his Dad the cicadas’ buzzing is no more. Ethan asks if he thinks it is over. Jim says he hopes so.

Julie asks her Dad… “Where is Mom?”

25 — Tabitha climbs the Lighthouse tower. The spiral stairway reveals the same toys she saw in her dream: The truck, the poker cards, the ambulance.

Tabitha can hear a child whisper: “Anghkooey.”

Tabitha approaches the end of the Lighthouse. Gears clinking as the mechanism rotates the Lighthouse’s lamp clockwise.

At the mechanism room, the only way forward is to climb the short ladder that leads to the top of the Lighthouse, where the lamp rotates lighting up the horizon.

Tabitha walks around the top of the Lighthouse, looking to the forest below through the glass. Suddenly, she hears a voice behind her.

The Boy in White tells her: “I’m sorry. I really am. This is the only way.”

The Boy in White pushes Tabitha through the Lighthouse’s window, shattering it as she falls to her death.

The camera fades out and fades in to the sound of a life support device, beeping at the rhythm of a slow heartbeat. Tabitha survives and wakes up. The Boy in White sent her back to the real world.

Tabitha’s heartbeat stabilizes and picks up speed. A male nurse notices she woke up and tells her to wait a moment. He goes to the lobby to report she is conscious.

Tabitha stands up from the clinic bed and removes her saline IV needle. She walks toward the window. The computer screen near the bed has the St. Anthony Hospital logo.

A female doctor asks Tabitha how she is feeling.

Tabitha asks where she is.

The doctor replies she is at St. Anthony’s Hospital. Her name is Dr. Brody. Three days ago, a pair of hikers found Tabitha in the woods. She was lying unconscious on the side of the trail. The doctor asks Tabitha if she remembers what she was doing up there.

Tabitha opens the curtains to look outside the window. She is in a city somewhere in the real world. Her thoughts on her family left behind in that place.

From TV Series Spoilers: Season 2 Recap

Season 2, Ep. 1: Strangers in a Strange Land

Season 2, Ep. 2: The Kindness of Strangers

Season 2, Ep. 3: Tether

Season 2, Ep. 2: The Kindness of Strangers

Season 2, Ep. 3: Tether

Season 2, Ep. 4: This Way Gone

Season 2, Ep. 5: Lullaby

Season 2: Ep. 6: Pas de Deux

Season 2, Ep. 7: Belly of the Beast

Season 2, Ep. 8: Forest For The Trees

Season 2, Episode 9: Ball of Magic Fire

Season 2, Ep. 10: Once Upon A Time

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From TV Series Spoilers: Season 2 Recap

Season 2, Ep. 1: Strangers in a Strange Land

Season 2, Ep. 2: The Kindness of Strangers

Season 2, Ep. 3: Tether

Season 2, Ep. 2: The Kindness of Strangers

Season 2, Ep. 3: Tether

Season 2, Ep. 4: This Way Gone

Season 2, Ep. 5: Lullaby

Season 2: Ep. 6: Pas de Deux

Season 2, Ep. 7: Belly of the Beast

Season 2, Ep. 8: Forest For The Trees

Season 2, Episode 9: Ball of Magic Fire

Season 2, Ep. 10: Once Upon A Time

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