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.]| 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 |
