Shauna and Jackie are hanging out in the meat locker and having a passive/aggressive chat. You know, like you do with your dead best friend who’s boyfriend’s baby you’re carrying. After giving her grief for stealing her ear, Jackie convinces Shauna to braid her hair and apply makeup. These moments of chatting with dead Jackie have been great for giving us more insight into just how close they were, but also showing how far gone Shauna is in her grief. One has to wonder how much truth there is in the proclamation that Shauna only had sex with Jeff so she would know what it’s like to be Jackie.
The consensus in the cabin is not as understanding, though. The girls are hungry, they want to eat and they’re tired of waiting on Shauna while she talks to a corpse. In fact, the starvation, cold and so much time together in such close quarters is wearing all of them thin and they each show it in different ways. Tai has a meltdown about the waste bucket and, really, the biggest question about this is did Tai do something while in one of her fugue states because not only do we not know who used the bucket, but we also don’t know where the other lantern is. And the mere fact that she has to say, “Don’t let anyone eat mine,” before she leaves says a lot about the current state of affairs.
Callie is the quintessential moody teenage girl and, really, who can blame her? I previously accused the writers of giving Callie the Skyler White treatment, but Breaking Bad fans may remember that, ultimately, Skyler was right. She may have been a harpy and a nag, but she was right. Callie may be young and hormonal, but her mom is a manipulative, gaslighting adulterer who uses threats to parent and her father blackmailed his own wife to pay off a debt to loan sharks. To quote the great Lucille Bluth, “Well, I may not have been a perfect mother, but you know kids don’t come with a handbook.” *In fact, there are thousands of books written on child rearing. Regardless of what trauma Shauna is working through, she could choose to be a better parent.
Tai goes on a sleep induced walkabout, follows the man without eyes (a vision that also plagued her grandmother) and almost walks right off of a cliff, but Van is there to save her. When Van suggests that they speak to Lottie about these sleepwalking incidents, Tai is vehemently against it. Tai’s absolute refusal to even be respectful towards Lottie’s personal brand of faith is something that seems to be rooted in her past and will undoubtedly become a part of why our girls end up in two different groups. The moment Lottie started showing any kind of spiritual side, Tai had flashbacks to her grandmother and they were not happy memories.
Tai isn’t the only one who isn’t sold on Lottie. Nat and Travis have a disagreement over the fact that Nat doesn’t want to do the tea ritual and even refers to Lottie as “going all witchdoctor messiah”. Nat and Travis part ways for the day and agree that, “when the sun hits that peak, we’ll meet back in the clearing near that weird, mossy tree” and the fact that she knows the terrain so well feels like something is being overlooked. It’s on this outing that Nat makes the decision to “prove” to Travis that Javi is dead. No fucking way this isn’t going to bite her in the ass later.
Present day Nat and Lottie still do not see eye to eye. Lottie isn’t running a cult, it’s an intentional community and they don’t wear purple, it’s heliotrope. Lottie says that she sent her friends to monitor Natalie, but this begs the question, which aromatherapy owl did they have their secret camera in? The more pressing question in this moment, though, is why is Lisa absolutely terrified when she realizes she didn’t make Lottie’s smoothie just right?
According to Lottie, Travis came to her and told her that the wilderness had come back to haunt him and he knew what he had to do. “The only way to confront the darkness is to get as close as possible. When Van almost died, when you did, you both said you saw something.” She tells him that he’s in the vice grip of his trauma, but pretty soon he’s in the grip of a crane that Lottie holds the control to. Lottie says a lot of things about the night Travis died and none of it really adds up. She says that he gave her the info for his bank account, but if that’s true, why did Nat’s banking friend ask who she had gotten her involved with when she looked into his account? How did Lottie know that Nat had seen the note Travis left? And, technically, she blames dead Laura Lee for why Travis died. Had Lottie not been distracted by her spirit, perhaps she could have been able to figure out how to fix the jammed crane controller? She’s lying about something.
Tai finds Jackie’s corpse looking like Baby Jane Hudson and flips out. Instead of approaching Shauna in a calm and private fashion, she instead, makes a scene in front of everyone and manages to somehow make Lottie culpable in all of it. After realizing that shaming her teammate for how she chooses to grieve, Tai tries to turn it around and says that it isn’t good for the baby. Shauna tells her she has no idea what’s good for the baby. (But maybe Jackie did when she offered some of her arm earlier?) The fact that Tai is the one who demands a cremation is kind of funny in hindsight: the future vegan is the one who created the perfect environment for their first cannibal cookout.
Kevin makes a visit to Shauna to ask her about Adam and, surprisingly, Callie is the one who rescues her from herself. Later, we find out that Kevin sent another detective to follow Callie who is able to confirm that Shauna was, in fact, having an affair, but Kevin isn’t ready to bring Shauna in. I’m now officially on the fence as to whether or not Kevin is on the up and up.
Tai has a sleep deprived hallucination that only makes it more obvious to Simone that Tai is officially dangerous to herself and everyone around her. Never one to back down, Tai proves this point by getting them both into a vehicle collision.
Walter shows up at Misty’s workplace and she definitely checks out his calves. He leaves her a coded message and it would appear that these two will be “interrogating” a motel guest who has been living there for three months (obviously Randy) and, perhaps, beginning a cute Citizen Detective romance.
When Shauna lights Jackie’s funeral pyre on fire, Lottie is on one side of her and Tai is on the other and it all looks a lot like how the two groups split up. Is this the beginning? And did the supernatural wilderness throw the snow onto Jackie so she could roast into the most perfect treat that would first wake Shauna’s baby and then everyone else? As Shauna touches her belly, she proclaims that, “She wants us to.” And so it begins: cannibalism that was not only the idea of the first victim, but she gave her blessing as well. The back and forth between the brutality of what is really happening and the more beautiful, appropriate dreamy sequence is so well done. Of course they’re so hungry that even though they are eating their former team captain, they are as happy as if they were feasting on fresh fruits and meats. Oh, poor Coach Ben. He smelled the BBQ and he watched a group of feral teenage girls happily consume one of their own. I don’t blame him for looking scared: he should be because he’s currently the slowest runner and he’s the only one who didn’t participate in the feast. Here’s a thought, though. If Tai was in a fugue state while eating Jackie, she won’t be happy when she comes back to reality and maybe she can help protect Coach Ben. One thing is for sure; there’s no turning back now. They have gone full cannibal and there will be consequences for everyone’s action.
Sidenotes:
- Kyle’s mom offering post coitus chocolate chip pancakes was very polite.
- Anyone else reminded of the ghost in Heart Shaped Box when the man without eyes appears to Tai?
- “Everyone has their role.” This felt like a very prophetic statement from Travis.
- Heliotrope means “to move with the sun’ and it’s in reference to flowers that follow sunlight throughout the day. This would explain the color of clothing that Lottie’s intentional community members wear, but it is also a mineral, that has myriad ancient notions attached to it about the power of this stone and its ability to reflect light.
- Lisa is played by Nicole Maines who stars in one of my favorite modern vampire movies: Bit – Highly recommend checking it out.
- Of course, Misty’s screensaver is a photo of kittens that she doesn’t own.
- What was that flashback Nat had?
Music in episode:
- Inertia Creeps: Massive Attack
- Climbing Up the Walls: Radiohead (Editor’s Side Note: This is my favourite Radiohead song!)
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