The episode opens with Andy, the guy Tess was told stroked out, appearing to be on the run? The woman from the forest (the one in charge of the akepoT cult) knocks on the door to his (hotel?) room. She obviously knows him, says she hears he’s been working with Bill. So, this tells us the akepoT cult is in direct conflict or competition with what Bill is doing. Is one trying to do naturally what the other is doing scientifically? Interesting question. She tells Andy “The boy has been taken.” Is she talking about Tess’ son?
Tess gets a call. Someone named Javier is in the hospital. As the scene progresses, it’s obvious this is an old lover. It looks like he’s dying. He asks how her ‘wings’ are, has her turn around and spread her arms. This is obviously some sort of old inside thing with them. She tells him she’s been having dreams. He’s a bit jealous, says it’s a powerful thing.
Taka sees the psychiatrist again,talks about the patient Taka followed into the woods. She’s going to get him to talk to her.
Burton is dreaming with the mysterious woman again. She’s mad at him, says he doesn’t want to be there. There’s obviously some static over him not accepting the dream and just going with it. He wants her in reality. They talk about when they met in the dream pub/restaurant. Was the memory something that really happened, or just more dream?
Taka goes to talk to the green sneaker patient. He apologizes for interrupting the ritual. He asks more about the akepoT cult. He says the way they died was strange, not like eating ice cream and suddenly someone pulls a bag over your head. He’s talking about the man in the shared dream, the Belgian that gets murdered in exactly that way. He guilts her over the dead people to try to get more answers. She says none of them were supposed to die, they were supposed to get redemption, but they were betrayed. When Taka asks “By who?” she replies “Fat men who eat too much ice cream”. Hmm. When he presses her about Topeka, she totally flips out, calls him a blind sheep, and says blind sleep gets slaughtered.
Tess is back in the dream lab. She’s supposed to find the other dreamers once they’re sleeping, and bring them all back to one room. She finds the first guy watching a TV, with the image of water running down a window on it. He has a tray in front of him with various glasses of water on it. More water.
As she leads him to the room, they get chased by a faceless man. More faceless men. The guy gets grabbed, and she gets dragged away by another faceless man. Suddenly, she’s overlooking water, and a faceless man is sitting on a bench. He says “Go find him”. She hears a baby crying. So, more water, and more clues about her son. Are these faceless men in league with the Topeka cult? The cult leader had said the boy was taken, and now the faceless man tells Tess to go find him, so their aims seem aligned. She wakes. Once again, she’s the last to wake. Everyone’s gone. She tells Bill about the faceless men, but he seemed to know about them first. Did someone tell him, or did he already know? She’s worried about the guy who got grabbed, but Bill insists he’s ok. Says that when you die in your dreams, you don’t really die. He says that’s how the Andy stroke rumor got started. What about the Belgian, though?
Taka is dreaming. He’s basically looking through a ‘window’ into the psychiatrist’s hotel room while she performatively pleasures herself, and insists he look at her. Um, weird. Guess that means she wants his attention?
Tess goes to a club, and looks to buy the drug Levon gave her, but the seller turns out to be Levon. He gets all intense and mean, he’s mad because Bill kicked him out of the study. He chases her off.
Falling Water recap: Castles Made of Sand
Burton is dreaming again. Mystery woman is typing. He asks what she’s writing, she says ‘We’re going in circles’. He looks at what she typed, it says ‘Mere Anarchy…’. They argue, she says she has a date, and mist appear in the doorway. Burton goes through the doorway, and ends up chasing a blond woman into…the bar. Everything seems to lead to the bar. His creepy boss is playing ball with The Boy. Creepy boss gets pretty anxious, says ‘This isn’t for you, you aren’t supposed to be here.’ He wakes.
Works calls, he goes in, and finds there’s a problem with the big deal they were trying to put together with White Sand. The seller is freaking out. He doesn’t want to sell to White Sand anymore. Burton helps create a plan of action.
Taka is in a bakery, and Sabine, the psychiatrist, walks in. Awkward. They make small talk, and they weirdly bond over a pastry.
Tess goes back to see Javier, and he says ‘I wish I could have one last dance’. She tells him to trust her, and she pulls him into a dream where they’re dancing in the bar. That weird restaurant figures into everything. He says he’s tired, but scared to go. A faceless man comes, and drag Tess away from him. She puts a pickaxe into it’s chest, and runs back to Javier, but he’s gone. She wakes, and he’s died. Was she being dragged off as he was dying? Was that something she wasn’t supposed to see?
Burton is at work, and looks to celebrate with his creepy boss over the plan starting to succeed. He suggests going to Marcello’s for food, and creepy boss is visibly disturbed. Is Marcello’s the restaurant/bar from the dreams? I think the creepy boss is very consciously a part of all this.
Taka has apparently gone out with Sabine. They’re walking down the street companionably, and it’s nighttime. He asks her out, and though it sounds like she’s turning him down, but instead, she invites him in. She does basically what she did in the dream.
Burton is back with the mysterious woman, and she’s typing again. There’s a suitcase full of green balls, same as the one creepy boss was playing catch with, with the boy. Green is everywhere lately, what’s the significance? Green ball, green shoes…
He argues with mysterious woman, he tells her to go away, and she disappears. I think he’s trying to take more control.
He wakes in his car. He goes to a (hotel?) room, and gets a text that his guests have arrived. One of them, when they come in, is the blond he chased down the hallway into the bar in his dream.
We see Andy’s dead body, discarded like garbage in a dumpster. Was it the akepoT cult, or Bill’s people?
Previous Episode: Monsters, Most Familiar
More JL Jamieson on PCB:
Children of Blood and Bone, Tomi Adeyemi’s latest
JL goes into YA literature with Tess of The Road
Not just “Falling Water”, JL is all over “Lucifer” with great recaps
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.