Shrink Wrapped
So we begin the episode where we left off, with everyone in David’s version of Clockworks, with everyone spilling their guts to Lenny, who is posing as a psychiatrist. At this point, we know Lenny is actually a manifestation of the Demon With the Yellow Eyes.
Each of the Summerland mutants (and The Eye) is getting treated as though they’re all crazy, just like David was. Each gets analyzed, until we get to Syd. She’s realizing that this isn’t real. The rest were all behaving as though it were. She’s not totally aware, but she’s more there than the rest.
David is there with them, but he appears as oblivious as the rest. Too bad Carey wasn’t able to use his machine fast enough.
There’s some interesting symbolism going on in here. Cary and Kerry are always seen doing things together–playing ping pong, tossing food into one another’s mouths. Later, they play checkers. The nurse who seems to pick on David a lot is his sister. Syd goes to eat a piece of pie in the lunchroom, but it’s crawling with bugs. Bugs again? Is this reminding us of the Demon/Parasite? After all, it’s like a bug crawling around in his mind.
Dance Dance Hallucination
We then get a strange bond girl-esque dance montage of Lenny. The Demon is in full party mode, here. It’s obviously pretty confident it’s in control and able to run rampant.
David is fairly entrenched and wants to stay there–he’s comfortable. Clockworks was predictable. Syd’s mind chafes against the illusion. She wants out, and wants everyone to come with her. Slowly everyone begins to realize something is wrong. In their dreams, reminders of reality pop up.
Syd begins to postulate that they’re in a memory palace of sorts, only to immediately be cautioned by David, who says such talk is dangerous. He talks about having a different mental illness than what he was originally in Clockworks for, and describes Syd as the one with all his problems.
As she gets closer to the truth, Lenny intervenes to get her out of the way.
Kerry gets cornered by an exceedingly creepy Eye, showing us exactly how messed up he is. Or is this Eye really the Demon?
We see Melanie spritzing flowers as they grow before our eyes. In the end, she’s the one who gets a glimpse of where they really are, and it looks like it’s her husband that shows her. She sees the room as it was before David whisked them all into his dream world, time frozen seconds before David and Syd are shot.
Like a Fungus
We flash back to David talking to Lenny. When David mentions that he loves Syd, she begins to talk about a parasitic fungus that enslaves ants and spreads to other ants. While she says she’s talking about love, it seems more like the Demon talking about itself. Does that mean it can also spread to other minds? She tells him power is the only point to life, and that Walter (The Eye) understands this.
She tells him that she knew David’s father, and we learn that his father (and we all know who that was) was trying to hide him from the Demon, but it found David anyway. It’s pretty clear the fungus/love metaphor was actually referring to itself. Uh oh. It tries to convince him they’re better together, even though it will almost definitely kill him.
The last image is of David’s consciousness getting boxed away, and Sydney being awakened by Carey, who is hiding in Oliver’s diving suit.
Previous Episode: Chapter Five
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.