At the beginning of this episode, we see the leader of the akepoT cult talking with Tess’ mother on a bench, talking about access to ‘him’, and how ‘he’ belongs to all of them. Are they talking about the boy? Given that Tess’ mother mentions sacrifices her family has made, I’d guess that’s a yes. Seeing that the boy has been taken now, I’d guess this is a memory of the past. This pretty much confirms what we already knew–Tess does have a son, and the Boy is that son.
Burton talks with the blond woman from last episode. He sets her encrypted wifi password to ‘Topeka’, and she doesn’t even blink. Interesting. It’s also obvious he’s trying to avoid sleep. Is this his way of not seeing the mysterious woman? He seems to see her everywhere anyway. She’s on his mind.
Taka’s mother yelled at the same time she yelled in his dream. She’s still catatonic, but that’s another bit of proof of the crossover between his dreams and reality. He goes to see Sabine. It looks like they’ll probably be continuing their unconventional relationship.
Bill is upset with Tess because she’s skipped a session. She wants a break. She says she keeps running into the Faceless Men, that they seem to want her to lead them to her son, but she thinks they want to hurt him. Bill agrees to a break, but on the condition she dreams with him. He tells her about how his sister used to be a dreamer like Tess, but she got stuck in the dream, and died in an institution. He wants to be able to dream again. She agrees, but not in the lab.
Burton talks to one of his bosses about the blond woman. He finds out a few intriguing things about her. She’s definitely involved in everything somehow. He gets a call from one of the bidders, he says he wants to talk about Topeka. He tells Burton about a program to control the dreams of the opposing investors, but says Topeka is far larger than that. Burton keeps hallucinating during the conversation, the lack of sleep is clearly getting to him.
Taka gets a call about Andy’s body in the dumpster. Apparently, Andy is an Icelandic national who is supposed to be in prison over there.
The blond woman asks Burton to drive her to get something from an ‘unsavory’ part of town. Burton assumes she means drugs.
Taka visits Bill to talk about Andy. 20 people in Bill’s address book are dead? Bill is the one who got Andy out of the prison for his study, but Bill claims he put him on a plane back to Iceland when he ‘washed out’. As Taka is leaving, Tess enters the room. Taka is visibly shaken, he obviously remembers her. Same with Tess.
Bill lies to Tess about why Taka was there. He takes a sleeping pill to get to sleep. When they get to sleep, they’re back on the bus. Bill says he ‘has to sit with his sister’. He’s obviously deep in his own dream. Every time he tries to sit with her, she moves. Tess pulls him out of it, and they end up in the art loft. The Faceless Men show up almost immediately. They run, and Bill tells Tess to leave him behind. He stands to face them alone. His face starts shifting like Taka’s mother’s face in Taka’s first dream. They both wake. He tells her the Faceless Men vanished. Tess didn’t find her son.
Burton takes the blond woman to buy her drugs. He talks to her about what the investor told him in their discussion about Topeka. He tries to get more information from her, but she’s already too wasted. Instead, she makes it clear she sees his hallucination, then she passes out and disappears? Is he dreaming, or is it something weirder?
Taka goes to the airport for Andy’s luggage. The suitcase is full of the flyers of the Boy. He gets a call from the leader of the akepoT cult. She says she wants to talk, and asks how he got his mother to join them in the woods. Yet another wake/dream crossover?
His boss says the blond woman hasn’t returned and everyone is looking for her. Burton tells her about what the other investor told him about the investment being worthless.
Taka goes to the address he found on Andy’s suitcase. There’s a picture of the sculpture Tess just saw in the art studio in her dream, and Taka’s mother’s name is on it.
Burton goes looking for the blond woman and ends up falling asleep on her couch. He dreams of the fog again, and finds the blond woman in the dream. She says ‘they’ wanted to see how strong his dreams are. They talk about when he saw her the first time in the dream, and he asks her about his mysterious woman. She refuses to tell him anything. Instead, he sees the mysterious woman drowning in a bathtub. The next image he sees is the investors in the same room with the Boy, and people all taking pictures of him. He takes the Boy’s hand, and sees rapid images. The crowd pulls him away. Someone wakes him. Burton quits his job. He’s sick of all the secrets. He talks to the blond woman, he’s guessed that it’s the Boy the bidders were buying, not a piece of land.
Tess and Bill find the buildings in the waking world that they visited in the dream. It’s also where they were keeping the Boy in the earlier memory we saw with Tess’ mother. She realizes her mother knows what’s going on.
Taka finds information on his mother’s art. Why didn’t he know til now? The leader of the akepoT cult calls him again, says they can help heal his mother if he comes with her. She says his mother is lost in her dreams, and he needs to come with them. He goes with her.
Burton is unraveling from the lack of sleep. He dreams, and the mysterious woman asks for his help.
Previous Episode: Castles Made of Sand
JL Jamieson is a strange book nerd who writes technical documents by day, and book news, reviews, and other assorted opinions for you by night. She is working on her own fiction, and spends time making jewelry to sell at local conventions, as well as stalking the social media accounts of all your favorite writers.