SURREALESTATE – Season 3 Episode 9 (speculative recap) ⁓

Rita Weiss (Alison Brooks) asks Luke (Tim Rozon) for help with a pressing problem. The father of her client Stephanie Clifford (Sarah Cleveland) is unable to inherit the house she wants Rita to sell because her deceased, very rich father Magnus Clifford (Wayne Best) left a password-protected will on his laptop computer. Stephanie, the probable heir to the house, must deduce the password by midnight or the document becomes null and void, and the house will go to probate to pay for taxes.

To find the password, a riddle must be solved. (Stephanie is not herself available, having broken a leg skiing in Gstaad. Also, she and her father did not get along.) The first clue reads: “My skin is grass / my teeth are stones / I’m far too shy to show my bones / My willows weep like widows do / Come visit me for your next clue.” Lomax (Elena Juatco) figures they should head for Weeping Willows Cemetery, which, she says, is “totally the kind of high-end place some local rich guy would choose to decompose”. But they don’t know the exact location of Mr. Clifford’s grave.

Lomax likes this particular cemetery, and being there is the most excited we’ve seen her. (‘Innocent mirth’ is the part of the George Eliot quote omitted from this post’s title.) She even points out her favourite headstone.

“I basically grew up here,” Lomax explains. “My parents would be doing some business here, you know, helping the bereaved pick a plot, or prepping a graveside service and me and my sister would just be running all over the place, climbing trees, hiding, seeking. To us the cemetery was a playground, except the other kids just weren’t that fun to play with.”

In “The Gardener” (Episode 3.5), Clytemnestra’s father told her “We’ve really been up against it and lord knows your siblings can’t be bothered to help.” She has more than one sibling, but her sister is the only one she’s mentioned so far.

At the Clifford house, Rita unexpectedly encounters Mr. Clifford’s ghost, who locks her in the house and insists they have a chat. Rita is frightened at first, but he is a funny ghost and she soon relaxes, and they discuss their mutual dislike for children. He offers her a drink, and she is surprised that a ghost can drink. “I’m a corpse, not a Methodist,” he asserts.

“Surely,” says Rita, “you must have some pleasant memories of Stephanie?” Magnus relates a story about a moment he had with his daughter when she was ten, involving tea and a stuffed panda. “In that moment,” says the ghost, “I saw something in her eyes other than scorn…I saw only affection.” Then Rita tells Magnus something of her own history. “My first husband wanted children so badly, He was kind, handsome, loving. That one detail, it was our undoing…then I proceeded to marry two more men who had no interest in children, mainly because they were selfish, greedy toddlers themselves.”

Magnus allows Rita a brief phonecall warning Luke him that his people at the cemetery are in danger from the traps his agent had been hired to set. Then her phone stops working again. Luke can’t reach anyone at the cemetery because their cell service is also blocked. At the graveyard, Luke uses his talent for communicating with the dead to find them by doing a reverse lookup for live humans in a place full of spirits.

The place is so full of spirits that after rescuing his associates from one of Magnus’ more ingenious traps, a ghost named Celeste (Nicky Guadagni) sits next to him on a bench and tells the tale of how she waited too long to marry her one true love and died shortly thereafter. Not wishing to suffer a similar fate, Luke later meets Megan (Tennille Read) and tell her he loves her.

On the way back to Magnus’ grave and the final clue to the puzzle, Susan (Sarah Levy) asks Augie (Maurice Dean Wint) for advice on how to tell her firefighter boyfriend that she’s a telekenitic firestarter. She wonders how he told Rochelle about his involvement with the supernatural. “Rochelle is a rare woman,” Augie muses. “Once-in-a-lifetime. She’d made a living of confronting the impossible, so how could she…” Augie stops speaking abruptly, as though he’s realized something, then says: “Right. Yes. How could she tell me to do otherwise?” Susan replies: “You’re a lucky guy.” Augie then responds in the past tense. “Yes,” he says, “I was.”

Against Luke’s advice, Rita tries to interest Tyler (R Austin Ball) in the Clifford property. Then she makes a phone call to her daughter, Madeline (Evelyn Wiebe). “Hi Mads, it’s Mom. Look, I know it’s been a long time. It’s just, well, I was thinking of you and I thought maybe we could, I don’t know, get together for a coffee or, or tea? I’d really love to see you and hear what’s going on in your life. Maybe it’s time…I hope you’re happy, Madeline.”

While talking with Tyler, Rita let it slip that Luke’s mother is in town. Tyler visits Victoria (Jennifer Dale), and forces his way into her house.

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All episodes of SURREALESTATE can be streamed on HULU in the US, and on CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada.