With all the shows we follow, we try to keep extensive
notes as to when each show is due to return. “When is X coming back?” is a
common question
And occasssssionally the answer to that is “oops… a month
ago”
When that happens we try to catch up – and blame Renee of
course.
So we start off with a flashback to tell us that Kyle has
always attracted lots of demonic attention, even as a child. Also to show a
woman impale her hand on a spike to remind us we’re going to have lots of awful
visuals since this is the show that brought us the eyeball poking
I am not over the eyeball poking.
Despite leaving Rome, West Virginia, last season Kyle and
his daughter Amber are now coming back to town to try and track down Sidney –
the evil demon man. Instead they find Rev Anderson, the Worst Person Ever
around Sidney’s burned house- the house that Anderson burned down. Anderson is
indulging in his second greatest hobby – moping self pity (his first being
judgemental self-confidence and self-righteousness). Kyle isn’t thrilled by the
burning as he kind of wanted to talk to Sidney as the only man who seemed to
know anything about the demons – and he clearly doesn’t have a lot of time for
Anderson. This gets Anderson back to his favourite hobby, declaring “At least I
Believed in something, you’re just swinging in the dark.”
UH-huh – sorry but I don’t see the positive in believing
something whether it’s true or not as opposed to freely admitting ignorance and
trying to find the truth. I’ll go with swinging in the dark any time. Anderson
remains the worst.
Sadly Kyle wants Anderson’s help because he’s pretty much
the only one who believes in demons and stuff.
Megan is currently traumatised and near catatonic after
killing Mark, her husband (and poking his eyeball! Still not over it) and she
is staying with Mrs. Giles. I’m not sure why she’s invested in helping these
people or if they’re paying her or what – I want to see some kind of paycheck
for this Black woman playing nursemaid when we had no indication of friendship
before this. She’s also looking after Holly, Megan’s daughter who has decided
to blame Amber for her mother’s possession. Still Kyle dumps his daughter on
Mrs. Giles so he can go wandering.
Also they have spooky dolls in their loft, so you know
this house is an evil house.
Meanwhile Anderson runs into Patricia, his old flame from
last season, who is desperately looking for her son. We know her son, who was a
bit of an arsehole, was actually in Sidney’s house when Anderson burned it
down. Anderson offers to help Patricia find her son and be the shoulder to cry
on even as she blames herself for the boy leaving because he is the worst.
Giles isn’t having an easy time – he finds a demon on one
of his nightly patrols – clear by the way the man runs, disorientated and
nearly mauls himself on barbed wire to get away. Add in the mayor being far
less co-operative and he’s having trouble. He does tell Kyle about the man in
the hope he can do some exorcising I exchange for help trying to track down
Sidney. Really Giles and Kyle would work far better than Kyle and Anderson the
Worst.
He also has a chilling warning (and we know it’s chilling
because the ominous music never stops. Really, the music department needs to
back it down a little it’s waaay too forced and over the top) that all the
people they rescued and exorcised from the basement last season? None of them
were reported missing: which suggests a lot of long term planning went into
picking victims and getting them possessed.
Which is the trail Kyle follows – going to find Ogden
whose wife was possessed. Said wife has left him along with Sidney and he’s now
all alone and feeling sorry for himself. Kyle pushes for a list of all the
people Sidney had him round up for the basement and after waving his gun around
a bit Ogden shoots himself.
Alas we have to return to Anderson, the Worst, who
feeling all lost goes to a church in the backwoods to mope a bit more, before
joining Kyle on the last name on Ogden’s list who didn’t wind up in the
basement – someone at Joshua’s
house. Joshua was the boy they brutalised and exorcised before: and that
child is duly traumatised by this (especially since everyone told him Kyle
should have been arrested for how he abused the child. Which he should have
been)
There they find that Joshua’s mother is possessed – but
too far gone to be exorcised (though Kyle’s touch still hurts her). He leaves
Anderson The Worst to watch her and foes to fight Joshua’s dad who is also
possessed. He has super strength and weapons that more than overcomes Kyle’s
burning touch. He starts to do the weird soul-sucking thing they keep doing to
Kyle while ominously telling him that none of them can go back any more.
Kyle is saved by Giles shooting the man- but no demonic
mist arises. They turn to the possessed mother and she says none of them can
return now – not after being here for so long, not when here completely
This raises lots of questions of exactly what these
entities are, what Kyle does to them and what the exact morality is about
killing them especially if you can’t free their hosts either.
For more moral-non-quandaries police officer actually
doing her job Nunez would like to actually get some fire investigators to
examine Sidney’s burned home – especially since they found a body. Giles tells her
no – law and order has no place round here
But Anderson derails this deciding to confess all to
Giles – and warning him if he doesn’t get arrested he’s totally going to the state
police. Oh please please please send him to prison. Please
Giles and Kyle also have a plan to cover up Mark’s death –
presenting it as a suicide. She wakes up and makes it clear Oh Hell no, she’s
not having her dead husband be labelled a suicide. Absolutely not. She’s not
having that
And Kyle’s possessed comatose mother is now dying for…
extra angst
I have to say this first episode of the new reason left
me the question of “and”? I mean Kyle is the relevant character but what does
he actually want? He says everywhere he went there were demons, but what did
they do? Does he want to hunt them down? Does he want to know what’s going on? I’m
not quite sure what this show is doing or where it’s going.
