FROM – Episode 409 – The Calm Before – SPOILERS ⁓
Sophia
After finding out from Tabitha (Catalina Sandino Moreno) that the Man in Yellow (Douglas E Hughes) is unaffected by the talismans, he decides to implement Jade’s plan to enter the tunnels and dig up the bones (see episode 408 – “Heavy is the Head”). When Donna (Elizabeth Saunders) hears about this, she is not pleased. “Listen,” she tells Boyd, “I don’t wanna be the asshole, but once you pull out that tree, it’s like opening a window. Talismans or not, those things are coming inside.”
Clara in Sophia’s room.
The Man in Yellow’s alter ego Sophia (Julia Doyle) reveals herself to Clara (Katerina Bakolias), then takes Clara to her room.
SOPHIA: “Come sit. You don’t have to be scared. When you first came here, we made a bargain, and I told you, at some point, that I was gonna need your help.”
CLARA: “You want me to stop them from digging up the bones.”
SOPHIA: “Oh, no. You see, when they go into those tunnels tomorrow, that’s not gonna work out very well. They have the right idea, of course, but this place, it’s built on ritual, and with rituals, how you do something is just as important as what you do.”
The two perform a blood sister ritual, each cutting her hand and allowing the blood from the cuts to mix. The favour Sophia requests is for Clara to put a few drops of her now-intermingled blood into a drink that Fatima (Pegah Ghafoori) can be persuaded to drink. Clara goes along with this because she is afraid of Sophia, and also because Sophia has promised to allow her to go home. That night, Fatima’s hair begins to fall out and she screams in pain, doubtless a reaction to Sophia’s blood.
Three of the ghoulish children played by Eli Reade, Emerlee Myrick, and Jayden Watters
Ethan (Simon Webster) tells his mother, who is sitting on the porch examining a talisman, “I think this place tries to make us afraid, so we won’t believe in the things that can help us. All those things you remember? You should listen to what it’s trying to tell you. Don’t be scared to believe.” Then all seven of the ghoulish children appear to Tabitha and point at her. Ethan can’t see them, but they give Tabitha an idea. She finds Boyd and tells him that she and Jade (David Alpay) must be the only ones who go into the tunnels after the bones. “We only get to do this once,” she explains, then strangely echoes Sophia’s earlier words to Clara. “And I think here, in this place, the way that we do this matters.”
Four of the ghoulish children played by Samuel Mcpherson, Frankie Parnell, Emmett Atwood, and Bianca Marie Newhook
At Colony House, Patty (Trina Corkum) offers Henry (Robert Joy) some freshly baked cookies. When he bites into one, he is transported to his hospital reality, which he first experienced in “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” (episode 406). That reality’s version of Victor brings his father a burger and fries and reinforces Dr. Boyd’s instructions to destroy the thing anchoring him to the town reality, and tells him that the dream will provide whatever he needs to accomplish that. Then Henry wakes up, or goes to sleep again, depending on one’s point of view.
Sara (Avery Konrad) sets up the communication equipment as Jade and Tabitha enter the tunnels.
Meanwhile, the Victor with whom Henry is most familiar visits the graves of his mother and sister. The Boy in White (Vox Smith) appears and tells him to the bottle tree is important and he should stop people from destroying it. Victor tries to persuade the Sheriff to change his plans and is arrested for his trouble.
At the diner, the jukebox usually only plays what it wants to play, but Sophia is able to make it do what she wants. The song Sophia selects is “Doctor My Eyes” by Jackson Browne, perhaps because of the second verse:
I have wandered through this world
And as each moment has unfurled
I’ve been waiting to awaken from these dreams
People go just where they will
I never noticed them until I got this feeling
That it’s later than it seems
The Polaroid picture with the real Sophia in the background.
Next morning, Clara comes to the diner and tells Sophia that only Jade and Tabitha are going into the tunnels. This does not make Sophia happy. Then Elgin (Nathan D Simmons) comes in. “Sophia,” he says, “check this out. there’s a person in this photo, the girl in the background, she looks just like you.” Sophia admits she is the girl in the photo, and says “I can only take the form of people who have died here. I really wish you hadn’t seen that.”
Underground, Jade and Tabitha locate the bones, but in the process wake three of the night creatures who were sleeping nearby.
