SEASON 1, Ep. 2: The Way Things Are Now
1 — Jim Matthews hears someone knocking outside the RV and tries to go outside to meet them. Boyd forcefully stops Jim locking his arms around Jim’s neck to prevent him from being killed by the monsters.
2 — Father Khatri, Ellis, Kenny, Tabitha and Julie continue to run toward the Colony House. It is already night time, and it is raining heavily. Jade falls to the ground and is knocked out unconscious as his face hits a rock. Ellis and Father Khatri carry Jade.
3 — They reach the Colony House and knock frantically at the door asking to be let in. The monsters slowly walk around the corner of the Colony House. Alex panics at their sight. Julie looks at the people (monsters) coming toward them. One of them tells Julie: “Don’t you recognize me?”
[There are a few theories: The monster took the form of someone who Julie knows from the real world. Someone who possibly died some time ago. This theory is supported by what happened to Meagan. Meagan thought she heard the voice of her grandma, but when she lifted the curtain and saw the old lady through the window, she said the old lady didn't look like her grandma. A more obscure theory is that Julie will meet this monster in his past in one of her timey-whimey dreamwalking that happens in Season 3]4 — Jim Matthews asks Boyd what are those people. Boyd says he doesn’t know, but these talismans, are what protect the houses in town. You close doors and windows and they can’t get in. Boyd had never used a talisman in a vehicle before. With the talisman in the window, they can get in only if they let them in. This means the talisman is not effective if there is consent.
6 — EMT Kristi asked Jim Matthews if his son Ethan had ever had a seizure like this before. He said never.
7 — At the Colony House, Trudy asks Ellis if Jade is from the RV. Ellis responds he is from another car. They had an accident. Trudy says it is the first time that two cars have arrived on the same day. Ellis confirms he hasn’t either. It’s unknown at this point, how long Trudy has been around in the Town. However, Donna has been around for 3+ years. Victor, who has been in the Town for at least since the 1960-70s, says two cars on the same day haven’t happened in a long, long time. It’s special.
8 — At the Infirmary, Sara Myers is talking to an unseen entity: “I can’t do anymore. Are you sure? Okay.” — the viewer isn’t aware of what the other entity is saying, and it is not revealed what or who is talking to Sara. Sara continues to talk to this entity: “How? All of it?” Sara picks a scalpel from Kristi’s drawer. She aims the scalpel at Tobey’s mouth. The camera fades out.
[It is implied the entity asked her to remove his tongue.]She leaves the Infirmary door open. Curiously, the monsters don’t kill Sara. The monsters enter the Infirmary, where Tobey is death (Sara stabbed him in Episode 1). The monsters kill
Donna gives Tabitha Matthews a summary of all the things that happen in this Town, and she can’t believe it. Donna says her now-dead sister used to think the same way. She was no one to be trifled with. She’d kick the teeth off a bear it looked at her sideways. Donna and her sister were on a hunting trip when they saw the tree on the road.
[It's unknown if Donna's sister will appear in flashback cameos or as a spirit someday, but her photo is shown. It's assumed the shotgun the Colony House residents use is Donna and her sister's. Both shotguns are seen in the photo below.]
Donna confirms to Tabitha that everyone in the Town has seen the same tree and the crows. Donna and her sister arrived to the Town in the night. They looped back into the town at least twice until one of the monsters stood in the middle of the road. Her sister came out of the car and pointed a shotgun at it. He stood there still, smiling at her. After a while, it ripped her face in one sweep and proceeded to skin her. Donna froze but started running when she saw a second monster approach her. She hid in the forest behind bushes until sunrise. Donna has lived in the Town for 3 years, 6 months, and 17 days ago (1277 days).
[This indirectly suggests that Boyd had not arrived to the Town yet. Boyd is the one who finds the talismans that later allow people to live in the buildings. Before Boyd, everyone else had to survive hiding wherever they could]
9 — In the RV, Kristi and Jim Matthews talk. He says he is an engineer who builds theme park attractions: rollercoasters, drop towers, etc.
10 — Ethan awakes some time after Kristi removed the metallic table leg from his right leg. Ethan confirms that during his seizure he saw the Lake of Tears. Ethan says the Lake of Tears was a drawing on the wall. As he says this, the camera shifts to Victor’s room. The walls are covered with crayon drawings on pieces of paper and cardboard, pinned with tacks. Ethan saw in this wall crayon drawings of his family. That someone screamed because a spider came down from the ceiling.
[The fact that Ethan saw the crayon drawings that Victor draws means the Lake of Tears might be real in this Town, and that Ethan has a special talent to see ghosts and other paranormal stuff. The spiders do appear in an episode some time later.]
11 — In the Infirmary, Bing-Qian Liu (Kenny’s father) and Gina (EMT Kristi’s assistant) play chess. He gets upset wanting his son. She leads him to bed where he dozes off. She goes to check on Tobey, but finds him dead and blood all over the place. She runs to the entrance and discovers the door wide open with two monsters smiling at her.
12 — Kristi fell asleep in the RV and had a nightmare in which Jim Matthews grabbed the talisman off the front of the RV and asked how it worked. Kristi looks and panics. Noise is heard above the RV and a monster crashes down through the window. Only a nightmare. Kristi awakes. All is ok. It’s morning. Boyd leaves the RV and sees the Volkswagen van approach with Father Khatri, Kenny, Tabitha and Julie.
[Are nightmares just nightmares in this Town? Are these just torture mechanisms? Or something else?]
13 — Evidently, Sara managed to leave the Infirmary in the evening without being attacked by the monsters. However, Sara confesses to her brother Nathan Myers that she hears their voices: “They told me it had to look like it was the monsters.”
[Something strange going on here. Sara seems to be describing that a different faction, possibly Ghosts, are the voices and they are not the monsters, because otherwise, why would the voices want to make Tobey's death look like it was the monsters who killed him?]The voices told Sara that killing Tobey and leaving the door open was the only way to save the Town. The only way to go home.
[Unsure what Sara means by this. By killing Tobey, and letting Kenny’s father and his attendant die, the only thing accomplished is the arrival of new people. A bus shows up sometime later, which includes Randall. Randall is known to have visions, too. Same as Tabitha. It is Randall who leads Julie to the Tower Ruins in Season 3. Maybe this is what Sara means? Julie is revealed to be some sort of time-dreamwalker.]
14 — Kenny, Father Khatri, and EMT Kristi find the Infirmary door open and discover the corpses of Gina and Kenny’s father (Bing-Qian Liu).
15 — Kenny is axing a tree in rage to replace the bloody chess pieces. They weren’t barnished, so they got all soaked in blood. Kenny and his father had crafted the previous chess pieces together. One of the few things they ever did together other than play chess. Kenny says playing chess with his father, the game always ended the same way. With Kenny down to his last piece trying to escape his father. Kenny draws a parallel between this and the monsters and warns Boyd they are running out of spaces on the board.
16 — Boyd erases the “96” from the “Nights without incident” board outside the Post Office / Sheriff Station.
17 — At the Colony House, Julie is telling Ethan the Lake of Tears story: “Norman, they made it back from the Lake of Tears. It wasn’t too late! You are going to be okay.” Ethan looks out the window. Julie asks what he is looking at. She looks out the window and sees nothing. Ethan responds: “Nothing.” The camera looks through the window and shows the ghost of a kid that smiles back at Ethan and as he raises a finger in front of his lips, he “Shhh”s at Ethan.
| FROM TV SERIES RECAP NAVIGATION | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEASON 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| SEASON 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| SEASON 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
