It Ain’t No Hollaback, Girl
SURREALESTATE – Season 1 Episode 6 – SPOILERS
Luke’s rival Rita Weiss
Luke (Tim Rozon) explains the demon of the week, the Watchmaker: “They came over with the flood of German immigration in the mid-1800s,” he says, “which gave us kindergarten, and Christmas Trees, and Watchmakers.” And Father Phil (Adam Korson) adds: “Basically, it’s a very methodical demon that does very bad things in the same way in a very precise order.” This particular demon does not possess a human. It passes for human to the extent of being able to purchase and own a house, and being susceptible to conviction for murder. (I’m sure Duana Taha, who wrote this episode, did not intend to suggest that all German watchmakers who emigrated in the mid-1800s were demons indistinguishable from humans.)
The Watchmaker demon was convicted (on circumstantial evidence) of the murder of a tenant in the house, and now that the house is up for sale, she somehow arranges to (remotely from prison) kill one person every three days at precisely 5:11 pm by the same method as the original victim was killed (a shaft of some sort through the eye into the brain).
Megan (Tennille Read) meeting Luke for dinner. She will shortly discover that her name is next on the victims’ list.
The first victim is Gabriel (Bruce Lilly), the realtor who was hosting an Open House for the demon’s property. The next two are from the sign-in book for Gabriel’s Open House. After failing to frighten the person they know will be the fourth victim into being cautious and he dies a similar death, the team must decipher the next signature in the open house guest book, and that turns out to belong to Megan Donovan (Tennille Read).
Megan is looking for another place to live, since her current residence is haunted by Luke’s mom. To save Megan’s life, he team runs a LEVERAGE-style sting on this particular demon causing it’s neat little universe to short circuit. (The ship name for Megan and Luke is now officially Romanovan.) In the process of warning Luke about the danger to Megan, Augie (Maurice Dean Wint) texts Megan’s email address to him, and we find out that her email provider is (somehow) Tele-Post, which is the ISP for Greenland.
Duana Taha, who wrote this episode, also wrote “The Name Therapist: How Growing Up with My Odd Name Taught Me Everything You Need to Know about Yours“, She also wrote the LOST GIRL episode “Table For Fae”
Other types of demons mentioned in the episode are: Tracers, Homers, Rippers, Hollabacks, Flycasters, Mumfords, Peabodys, Poindexters, and Inkstains. We get no details on most of those, although some of the terms make it easy to infer descriptions. Mumfords (we are told) are demons who do the same thing over and over. (Susan is offended by this. She likes Mumford and Sons.) All we are told about Peabody demons is that a killing spree is out of character for them.
Elsewhere in the episode, Zooey (Savannah Basley) helps Susan (Sarah Levy) deal with some recalcitrant frat boys, and we learn that at least some ghosts have the ability to make video calls.The ghostly call has poor visual quality, and this suggests that the call is coming from inside a computer system.