The underlying theme with this episode seems to be families, or belonging. Tess goes to see her mother, Burton cleans up a mess for the firm, and Taka learns about the akepoT cult.
We open on Burton dreaming with his mystery lady. They’re in an art gallery, looking at pictures of people falling off buildings, and mystery lady says it looks more like they’re flying. Burton recognizes the gallery and that he’s dreaming, and tells her he’s actually been there, and that he knows she’s real. He’s getting pretty quickly that he’s not dreaming alone, and she tells him not to ruin it. Interesting. So there’s already an acknowledgement for him, that there’s something more here.
He wakes up on a plane. He’s with the financial partners, and they’re flying somewhere remote to do a deal for rare earth metals, which he repeatedly acknowledges are in cell phones. This is interesting, because cell phones being confiscated is one of the many weird requests of the man making the deal. Burton has to make sure to take them from all people negotiating in the room.
Tess is taking her agent with her to visit her mother. Her mother is a therapist (which might explain a lot) who seems to collect a following (which is its own strange grouping, all centered on her mom). Her mother had apparently studied Tess throughout her childhood, and has a barn full of case notes on her. Yikes. Her agent also wants her to spend the weekend with several water bottle designs, so she can pick the one that’ll be the Next Big Thing.
Taka talks to the psychiatrist of the dead woman he took the green shoes from. Green shoe lady was being deprogrammed from a cult, but it must have failed since she died same as the other 12 akepoT members. He gets an idea, and calls to ask if the cult members are all being handled through the same funeral home…and they are. When he gets there to watch the place, there’s people there with more green shoes.
Tess and her agent get to Mom’s, and Mom is definitely weird. Tess goes digging for notes on herself connected to a specific two month period, whee she was at the mental institution Bill’s people said she was at (Cranwell?). She knows she’ll need to go there.
Burton has landed, and is taking the cell phones of the people coming to the meeting. He notices a design on the back of one of the cell phones, and its the symbol insider trading guy had sketched on the Topeka file. It’s the logo for the firm of one of the men negotiating. White Sand. As it turns out, insider trading guy had been instrumental in setting the whole thing up.
Tess gets to Cranwell, and she finds out that in her missing time, she broke out from the home, and was found by the police. She was gone for three days. Hmm. Was this when she got pregnant?
Taka follows the green shoe people out to the woods. They lay out a round piece of parachute cloth, and spread the ashes of the dead members on it. They lift it, and fling the ashes into the sky. Flying again? Interesting imagery. The woman from the exploded house is there. He chases after her. She disappears into the woods, and he thinks he sees that younger version of his mother. Was he dreaming?
Tess confronts her mother about the missing time seven years ago. She’s pretty pissed, as her mother is one of the people who spent a lot of time convincing her she was never pregnant, but she also didn’t bother to tell her there were three days she’d gone missing at Cranwell? Her sister gets pretty angry, says they were protecting her from herself, and that it sounds like she’s ‘going down the rabbit hole again’. She really wants Tess to leave it alone. I’m guessing they knew about the pregnancy, and are hiding it from Tess. Her sister insists they aren’t gaslighting her. I think they’re lying.
Burton smells that this deal is wrong. He talks with one of the partners about how he’s feeling like he’s unraveling.
Yep, Taka was dreaming. He’d fallen asleep in the car. At least, it makes more sense if that bit earlier was a dream. He’s definitely dreaming now. He’s following one of the green sneakered people, and they go into Burton’s restaurant. Burton is at the bar with his mysterious woman, and Tess bursts through the door. Finally, all the players are meeting.
Burton starts to argue with the mysterious woman. He wants answers. She gets agitated he’s asking questions. She leaves, and this is where Taka enters, and Tess bursts in. Sounds get louder, and Burton is startled. There’s a man with no face. No eyed men, no faced men, there’s a bit of a running theme here…
Then we get the dream from Tess’ point of view. She’s in a house, at an abandoned dinner table. There’s a little doll on the table. The no-faced man appears, and starts chasing Tess. This is how they both end up in the restaurant.
Now we see the rest of the dream, now that we have all of the players. The green sneakered woman Taka followed to the restaurant stands, and puts a plastic bag over the head of the Belgian representative from the meeting Burton was at in the waking world. She’s suffocating him. Our intrepid three watch, stunned. They all wake.
Burton gets a call. The Belgian is actually dead, in the real world. He manages the situation for the firm partners. He finds a White Sand business card on the table that contains the phrase from the flyer with the boy’s picture on it.
Taka goes back to the psychiatrist. He talks about green sneakers, and maybe the parachute part wasn’t a dream? They argue, and he leaves. She knew about his mother?
Tess picks a bottle design. The agent is happy, but it looks like she’s ditching her to get back to work? Nice.
Someone rings Taka’s doorbell. He finds one of the flyers outside the door. His phone rings. It’s the woman from the exploded house. She tells him the Belgian is dead, and that she saw him in the woods looking for his mother. Again, the line between dream and reality is blurred.
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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.