First Things First…
Last time, we got more into communications with the people from the footage. But we got away from the cult. Like Fr. Russo said, there’s something very dark happening in the building. So I’d like to get back to that.
I’d also love clarification on whether that was or wasn’t the real Melody who Mark spoke with. And why he was so sketchy about the whole thing when he talked with Dan about it.
4 Things I Like
4. Uncomfortable
There are two uncomfortable confrontations I really enjoyed.
Virgil comes to Mark’s podcast studio/theater to ask about Dan’s mental health. He’s got a way of letting you know that he knows everything about you while remaining nothing short of a gentleman.
In response, Mark tells him to go fuck himself.
Mark can’t help himself, though, and asks what’s so important about Melody’s footage. But of course, that’s” confidential.”
He takes Virgil’s business card when offered, though. And by the end of the episode, it looks like that’s going to come into play.
Then there’s Annabelle and Samuel.
Annabelle basically calls him out for being a cultist and a scumbag. She makes him so uncomfortable that he just walks away with nothing to say.
Everybody needs a friend like Annabelle. At least until she starts using the black paint. Speaking of which…
3. There’s Someone Inside
You just know when Cassandra gives Annabelle her lover’s black paint that something bad is gonna happen.
Sure enough, Annabelle seems to have lost her mind.
She’s painting picture after picture with it, claiming there’s someone “in there.”
It’s got to be related to Melody’s memory from when she was a kid and HAD to draw. I think she said something similar.
Also, Cassandra says there’s Kharonite in the paint. It comes from a comet which is mentioned multiple times in the episode. I think it’s in other art from Eleanor. And it’s definitely in the necklace Cassandra lets Jess wear during the dinner party.
I don’t know the significance of this comet yet. But it seems related to the cult.
2. Marble Notebooks Have Never Been So Creepy
I don’t know what to make of this, either — just like most of the show right now.
But for some reason, a bunch of marble notebooks are creepy. Probably because, once again, whoever filled them might’ve lost their mind.
In this case, it kinda reminds me of Seven, when they find the killer’s journals.
The notebooks fill an entire closet in a bedroom at the compound — a bedroom Dan hadn’t been in until he finds Melody in there. (A ghost? A hallucination? Still not sure… though they seem to be pointing to ghost in this episode.)
The notebooks are filled with soap opera plots. Except for one that’s filled with five-digit numbers. Clearly the person who wrote them — T. Bellows — kept trying and trying code after code to get into the Wellspring file room in the basement until he finally got it. (Good thing it doesn’t lock you out after three wrong guesses, because he or she was just trying every five-digit possibility in order.)
Now I’m intrigued to find out why someone was there before Dan. Is there someone else with a connection to the Visser? Was that person also working on Melody’s footage? And did they lose their mind, as looks to be the case?
1. The Séance
There’s a lot going on here. For one thing, Evie Crest shows up at the dinner party. Dan is shocked, because her father created a show called The Circle that never aired and was thought to be lost forever — until Dan restores it for Evie in the first episode. That was his holy grail — and it’s another weird connection Dan has to the Visser.
But there’s more…
Apparently, The Circle was based on a snuff film about a grotesque ritualistic sacrifice — possibly a hoax — that William Crest watched at a bachelor parry years earlier.
Cassandra is awfully interested in that movie. The way she pushes Evie to ask about it during the séance, when Beatriz is channeling William — is disturbing. It’s clear once the connection is made that she doesn’t care about Evie reconnecting with her dead father. She just wants information.
It’s worth noting that she and Samuel keep passing each other these knowing glances during the séance.
Most disturbing is when William — through Beatriz — responds to questions about the film by saying forcefully — almost demonically — to stay away.
Something about that snuff film and The Circle is important to the cult.
And even though Beatriz is crying and rattled after losing her connection with William, Cassandra immediately says she should try again, which Beatriz flat-out refuses.
But that’s not the end of the séance.
Beatriz tries to connect with Julia Bennett for Melody but says she can’t sense her in the spirit world. So Melody’s mom is most likely still alive.
But then someone — not sure who — forces a connection with Beatriz and starts to recite Melody’s conversations with Dan. Both sides.
How can this be if those conversations were only in Melody’s dreams?
And why, at the end, does Beatriz start to claw her own face off? It’s really disturbing and intense, as self-mutilation tends to be.
1 Thing I’m Mixed On
1. Dan Seeing Melody
Is he seeing her ghost? Is she seeing him in her dreams? Both?
Again, I like their scenes together. They have great chemistry. But it’s hard to know what to make of this.
It all leads to Dan believing his purpose is to save Melody. That he can contact her and warn her away from the Visser.
Of course, Mark thinks Dan is cracking when Dan tells him. He sounds like a lunatic:
Melody… I’ve been seeing her here. At first I thought I was dreaming. I thought I was going crazy, I thought she was fucking haunting me. But they’re real, the conversations were real. We were talking. I can warn her. I can warn her to stay away from the building, stay away from the fire. There’s still time. There’s still time. I can save her. She doesn’t have to die.
As Mark listens to him like this, the camera pans to Virgil’s card, so it looks like Mark will reach out for help after all.
0 Things I Don’t Like
Final Thoughts
There’s nothing I don’t like in this episode. But I’m having a hard time grading it or knowing what to think about it because I’m so confused about the main storyline between Dan and Melody. But I’m still enjoying it. It’s certainly creepy enough to put me on edge when I watch it at night in my dark apartment.
Tim Matassa
