Serpent’s Egg, Serpent’s Tooth
FROM – Episode 408 – Heavy Is The Head – speculative recap ⁓
Tabitha
Fatima (Pegah Ghafoori) has developed abdominal varicose veins (Caput medusae). This follows her experiences in “Best Laid Plans” (episode 407) when she saw through the eyes of the Smiley Creature and stopped Smiley from killing Kenny (Ricky He), who was trapped on the roof of The Bus after his attempt to kill one of the Night Creatures failed.
Fatima speaks to Ellis with his image of her in the form of a drawing in the background.
At the clinic, Fatima asks if she might be turning into one of the Night Creatures. Marielle (Kaelen Ohm) suggests, somewhat unprofessionally, that Fatima’s ability to influence Smiley might be a blessing in disguise, which gets her in trouble with Kristi (Chloe Van Landschoot), whose primary concern is her patient’s well-being. Later, when Fatima returns, Kristi again has to restrain Mari from giving potentially unsound advice, with a more empirical reason this time. Fatima’s blood pressure is 53/33, and her pulse rate is 19 bpm. “Medically speaking,” says Kristi, “Fatima shouldn’t even be alive right now.”
This Is My Blood
Ever since Henry (Robert Joy) got drunk with Sophia (Julia Doyle) in “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” (episode 406), he sometimes imagines himself waking in hospital surrounded by concerned family, including a grandson named Sebastian. Henry’s visions began after Sophia surreptitiously cut herself on broken glass and dripped her blood into Henry’s drink.
Wolfgang Foster as Henry’s possibly imaginary grandson.
To take his mind off the puzzling visions, Henry volunteers to help Bakta (Angela Moore) prepare lunch, but “Blue” by Joni Mitchell starts playing on the diner’s jukebox and Henry’s mind flashes back to his conversation with Tabitha in “Mouse Trap” (episode 303). They are in his car, about to head for the bottle tree (the one in Maine), when that song starts playing. “It does that sometimes,” he tells Tabitha. “That tape’s been stuck in there for years.”
Mallory Amirault as Henry’s doctor.
Later, in another visit by Henry to his “hospital reality”, a possibly imaginary doctor tells him: “I need you to focus. You’re getting stronger. You’re coming back now more than you have in a very long time. But if you want to stay, there’s something you need to do…You have to forcibly disconnect from whatever is anchoring you to that version of reality. You have to eliminate the anchor.” One wonders what (or who) Henry’s anchor might be.
I heard the bones a’rattlin’
Jade (David Alpay) thinks that digging up the bones of The Children is the way to get everyone home. He believes the bones were buried in the chamber he was led to in “What A Long Strange Trip It’s Been” (episode 405), but his initial plan to recover the childrens’ remains was rejected by Boyd as being too dangerous.
Jade, Boyd, and Kenny at the bottle tree.
Trying to satisfy Boyd’s requirement for a second exit that would provide a means of escape should things go wrong, Jade remembers a hole in the ceiling of the chamber with roots covering part of it and deduces that the chamber is directly beneath the Bottle Tree. Jade proposes pulling the tree out by the roots. Boyd (Harold Perrineau) rejects this idea as unsafe.
After arguing with Jade, Boyd walks away. When he is alone, he imagines that Kenny, Jade, and several others are shot and killed. He sees his late wife Abbie kneeling over the body of his son Ellis. Then she is shot as well, and his vision vanishes.
In “Revelations – Chapter One” (episode 309) Victor took an axe to the bottle tree, but the Boy in White stopped him, and explicitly said: “Don’t cut down the tree.”
He Ain’t Heavy
Victor’s stuffed companions.
Victor (Scott McCord) has decided that Ethan (Simon Webster) needs to be prepared for the worst, because the Man in Yellow is back, and Tabitha (Catalina Sandino Moreno), who believes she is the reincarnation of his mother Miranda, came to town with a boy and a girl just like Miranda did. Victor believes bad things are bound to happen again, and that Ethan should learn how to deal with being left entirely alone.
Tabitha reluctantly goes along with the idea. We learn that on the ’70s morning after everyone else in town was killed, Victor met the Boy in White for the first time. To make himself less lonely, Victor found a doll and a stuffed bear and named them after his mother and sister.
Sophia finds the yellow suit in a box in Boyd’s bedroom.
Tabitha objects to none of this until Victor suggests getting another doll to represent Ethan’s father. Then she takes charge of things and tells Victor and Ethan: “Jade and I, we have memories that Miranda didn’t have. She tried, Victor. She tried so hard. I know because I feel what she felt…I don’t think I came back just to free the children. I came back for you, Victor. I’m gonna take you home. So we’re going to go to town now, and we’re not going to draw any more pictures because neither of you are ever going to be alone again.”
While all this is going on, Sophia tosses Boyd’s bedroom and steals the yellow suit. Then she goes to Tabitha’s place, sniffs a dirty cup in the sink, and takes all of Ethan’s recent drawings away with her. Sophia seems oriented to the olfactory. In episode 407, Roger’s dead body was reanimated by Sophia. She collected an egg from the chicken coop, sniffed the egg, and crushed it against the corpse causing Roger (Eugene Sampang) to get up, and enter Colony House without being affected by the talismans. Elgin (Nathan D Simmons) stabbed him in the back with a totem, and Roger died a second time.
Auld Lang Syne
Tabitha and the phone.
After Ethan and Victor go to visit Donna at Colony House, Tabitha gets a phone call from her deceased son Timothy, just like Jim did in “When We Go” (episode 302). She is told to come to the RV or else Ethan and Julie will be hurt. When she gets there, Ethan’s drawings are posted on the RV’s roof and Tabitha is approached by the Man in Yellow (Douglas E Hughes) who asks her if she knows who he is, then realizes she hasn’t “remembered that part yet”.
“Your husband died right where you’re standing,” he tells her. “Jim was so brave. I really liked him. I kept one of his teeth, you know?…You’re here because you’re about to do something you’ve never done before. We’ve played this game so many times but the notion of you digging up those bones? You may have finally found the key to setting those children free, to bringing your own children home. Or you’re about to unleash a type of suffering you can’t even begin to imagine.”
Miscellaneous Info
Kristi Miller
The shirt Kristi is wearing has a “3J’s Plumbing” logo, which could be from 3J’s Plumbing in Clearwater, Florida. The map in the Sheriff’s office has a green pin stuck near Ocala, Florida which is about 200 kilometers from Clearwater. It is unknown which of the town’s residents the pin represents, but it is not Kristi. She disappeared on 6 August 2021 while traveling from Detroit to Grand Rapids, MI.