Suzanne drops off Mae at the family services center to get checked up before heading off to a foster home, while Peter is left with the unenviable task of taking the poor bird to the bird sanctuary. Only, it happens to be closed. Peter decides to leave the box by the front door, but when he notices numerous birds circling the house ominously, he has second thoughts and decides to take the bird back home after all. Peter is swimming in debt and he could well be on the verge of foreclosure. He heads to the bank asking for more time but it’s hit or miss right now whether he’s going to get that. At the hospital, Detective Lopez shows up wanting to question Mae. Suzanne refuses though, pointing out that she’s still a minor and in shock. For now, Suzanne manages to sort Mae out a foster family and it appears she’ll be moving on soon. Mae seems to have formed a bond with Jules though, whom she awkwardly speaks to that night about her past. Jules forces a smile but it’s clear she’s uncomfortable. If that wasn’t bad enough, Mae even leaves a strange corn figurine by Jules’ bed that night. Jules isn’t exactly happy about it but Suzanne looks past that and sees it as an amazing contribution to her school paper project. Detective Lopez heads up to Amon County in the morning. He immediately ends up with no signal when he arrives at the exact spot Mae was picked up – right by a sign reading 67. Once there, he finds that bloodied knife hidden in the shrubbery. Lopez continues his search, looking through the cornfields and following the bare footprints. He eventually finds an ominous scarecrow, complete with a severed pigs head and a strange symbol carved into the wood below. When Detective Lopez gets back in his car, he finds Amon County’s Sherriff Wilkins, complete with his dog, waiting at his car. This is the same shady guy from episode 1. Anyway, the pair have an uneasy conversation, with Lopez pointing out that no missing person report has been filed and apparently they’ve found no conclusive evidence either. Although Lopez manages to leave, it’s clear there’s more going on here. Mae is brought into the foster home but she doesn’t exactly seem enthused by the prospect of living there. They’re a religious family and there are kids all over the place. The cross up on the wall seems to affect Mae quite badly, and she struggles to compose herself. In fact, she turns the cross upside down before they leave. “I can’t stay in that house.” Mae eventually says later at the store, pointing out that there being no place to hide as the reason. Mae decides to dip out and Suzanne asks Rhoda to reconsider the adoption. She agrees, and Mae is able to continue staying at Suzanne’s place for the time being. However, she continues acting strangely, taking Jules’ hair from her hairbrush. Not only that, but Jules ends up seeing Mae’s pentagram scar on her back. So why does Suzanne care so much? Well, interspersed around this episode are various flashes to the past, of someone else seemingly trying to escape from Amon County, or at least some sort of cult. The girl’s name is Suzanne, and the scars across her wrist only seem to reinforce this point as well. Peter is offered an extra six weeks to try and rustle up the funds he needs to prevent slipping further into debt. When he tries to bury the bird, Mae actually gets there first and takes the dead crow and serves it up as an offering, marking a familiar sigil we saw on that pig-head scarecrow on a tree stump she’s turned into a makeshift shrine. And with that, she bows and whispers a “thankyou.”
The Episode Review
There are some serious Servant vibes running through this series now, as it’s becoming increasingly clear that whatever Mae is up to, it’s not pleasant. Between her devil worshipping and strange obsession with Jules, it would appear that she’s trying to worm her way into this family and potentially try and kick Jules out. The devil worshipping and the various satanic signs all add up to whatever happened to her past, being directly linked to rituals or an antichrist cult. The subplot involving Detective Lopez is intriguing, and it remains to be seen what’s going to happen with that bloodied knife too.
