The mist is only just getting started, but incidents at both the mall and the church puts the Bridgeville community on edge. Right now, it’s safer inside than out in the mist, but that won’t be the case forever. As the wait for rescue grows longer, society will begin to break down and a new set of rules will emerge.
Let’s start with our group at the church. After their first night trapped by the mist, everyone is a bit somber and quiet. They drank ceremony wine the night before in honor of the late Benedict, Mrs. Raven’s husband. Tensions are high between Sheriff Connor and Kevin due to multiple factors, including Kevin’s daughter Alex accusing Connor’s son Jay of sexual assault after a recent party. Sadly I don’t think there is much to Connor that will make him worth redeeming, he’s just an asshole and will begin to abuse his power in these extraordinary circumstances. He already abandoned Kevin and Adrian, a teenage boy, at the police station to fend for themselves. Not to mention the two prisoners, Mia and Bryan locked up essentially to die. Yeah he maybe didn’t quite realize his actions would have certainly doomed them but it still shows a lot of his character that he told Kevin he’d wait and then just bailed.
It’s an interesting mixture of Bridgeville residents that are now gathered in the church with Father Romanov. Mrs. Raven who doesn’t believe in spirits or an afterlife, Adrian, the town’s biggest outcast who is pansexual and shamed due to this small town mentality, the devout Catholic who insists God’s rules be followed in His house, and a recovering drug addict who clearly has a past and has done some terrible things. That last fellow befriends Mrs. Raven in this episode, which means that things probably aren’t looking too hot for him.
Image Credit: Spike TV
After getting into an argument with Connor over Bryan and Mia, Kevin has to work out his plan for getting to the mall. Unfortunately, Connor really is a jerk and convinces the Father that the prisoners should be kept locked in the basement, away from law abiding citizens and Kevin can’t really protest past that point. He asks Adrian to keep watch so he can sneak to the basement door and find out if either of them knows how to hot wire a car. He’s spotted a big lump in the mist and is assuming it’s a vehicle. He’s desperate to make it to the mall and find his wife and daughter. After making a stink about it Mia admits that she does indeed know how to hot wire a car, so once he can get them free from the basement they’ll be on their merry mist filled way. The only problem with this plan is that Mia is handcuffed to pipes and the only person with keys is the Father. In part of his distraction, Adrian engages Father Romanov in a discussion about God and if God really loves everyone, even a queer like himself. Knowing that Mia can hot wire a car, Kevin starts his plan into motion, asking Connor to allow the prisoners to accompany him to the mall. He just wants to get to his wife and daughter and he could use their help. Connor picks a fight with both Kevin and Adrian, accusing the former of having a slutty wife/daughter and the latter of being a liar and framing his son. A small fight ensues in which Jerk Cop Connor decides Kevin is now too under arrest and throws him in the basement. Mia and Bryan have had a bonding moment, he’s able to get her free of the cuffs and even gives her some of the pain pills she’s been hiding in order to help her through the drug withdraw. They come to an understanding that they need to trust each other to get through this and Bryan admits that he can’t remember a damn thing about his life before waking up in the forest and something in the mist killing his dog. He’s in a military gear sure, but he has no idea who he is or what he was doing before all of this started.
Image Credit: Spike TV
Mrs. Raven befriends the man with the moth tattoo, telling him about her experience in the garden from the day before. She tells him the old Bridgeville paper had a story about something similar happening in 1860, the black spring. He knows all about it of course, having grown up in this small town. The parents used to tell the story of the black spring to frighten children into behaving. Mrs. Raven suggest that maybe the mist is just another black spring, but he admits to having spent time in jail for doing horrible things. If this was a black spring coming to take away those who misbehave, he sure wouldn’t still be around. At this point Mrs. Raven decides that she’s going to go home. When questioned she doesn’t mean home to her house but home to whatever is next and where Benedict now is. She wanders out into the mist and he follows after her, begging her to come back inside. It isn’t long before he is attacked by a moth, intriguing considering he’s got a beautiful piece of ink on his back in that exact same form. It enters in his ear and starts working it’s way inside of him. Pieces of his back are tearing open and he is screaming in pain all while Mrs. Raven is standing there watching him, Connor and the Father now also outside witnessing this. Huge moth wings protrude out of his back just before he falls to his knees, sputtering some blood before an insane amount of moths come flying out of his mouth and he dies. I’ve gotta give it to the visual effects on this scene, it was wicked cool and disturbing all at the same time. Mrs. Raven comes back inside, says it’s okay because God has spoken to her and she dosens’t want to die anymore. When Romanov tells her that was not God, she smirks and replies with “Not your God…”
After the chaos of this Adrian tells Romanov that he wants to be Baptized so God will love him. In what is the strangest baptism I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been to multiple Greek Orthodox ceremonies, Adrian does seem to be somewhat affected by what’s happening, though it’s just a plot for him to get the keys to the basement. After he frees Kevin, Mia and Bryan the four head towards the door to the mist. Connor notices them but isn’t able to stop them from escaping the church, thank goodness they’re moving away from that type of crazy.
The group at the mall isn’t in any better shape, it’s only been a single day/night and they’re already dealing with witnessing what the mist an do AND finding multiple dead bodies. After making an announcement that two of the members hung themselves in the bathroom, the security assistant wants to search everyone for military ID tags. Jay spotted them while helping to remove the bodies and nobody local seems to know who they really are. One scared member starts to run but is apprehended and he swears that he knows nothing. With Bryan not remembering a damn thing and coming from the same base that Eve’s first murder victim did, it seems that maybe the military is involved with whatever this mist is. He gets off pretty easy though and isn’t questioned much further than that. Gus decides that there needs to be some rules established for the group in order to keep everyone safe. Eve has already decided that she and Alex are too close to Jay and they hunt out a new camping ground to move to. Jay approaches Alex while she’s alone and supposed to be grabbing bedding supplies. He swears that he didn’t hurt her and that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She is visibly uncomfortable with him being close to her and he isn’t really helping to prove his innocence to me with how demandingly pushy he is with her in this scene alone. He says he isn’t going to hurt her but then won’t let her walk away until he’s been able to say what he wants. He even briefly touches her hand when he knows and can see that she’s uncomfortable, still ranking him pretty high on the jerk scale in my books.
Image Credit: Spike TV
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum who own the gaming store have the grand idea to roll the soldiers dead bodies outside in shopping carts to see if whatever is in the mist will attack them. After being discovered and nearly causing a fight with the last remaining soldier, Gus brings everybody back to the main “living” area to lay down the law. Just because they haven’t been rescued yet, doesn’t mean help isn’t coming. And he will be damned if the patrons of his mall start running amok and not acting like civilized people. He decides that together they will come up with rules for the group. Before a rule becomes mall-law they’ll take a vote and more than half have to vote yes for it to become official. The first rules thrown out are all pretty standard, ration the food supplies equally between all members of the group. No looting from any of the stores/businesses expect for food/personal care items, etc. Enter the jerk known as his security officer, he is way too much like Connor except didn’t pass the entrance exam at the police academy. He likes bossing people around and he thinks the uniform he wears allows his certain liberties that aren’t exactly there. He decides that if someone endangers the group, they will be thrown out of the mall. Woah woah now, let’s take a step back and look at that again. If someone breaks one of the rules then this guy gets to decide if they get thrown out of the mall to their deaths? Eve and Alex have already discovered their new living quarters and begin packing up to leave this bs behind them, and along the way gather a few other mall members who aren’t keen about Gus and his governing style. At first Gus tries to protest, saying that everyone needs to be in the same place, they’re stronger if they stay together. This is when Jay crosses the line however and he reaches out to Alex and tries to reason with her directly. Oh boy does mama bear Eve come out and she pulls the gun she took off that first solider and has it on Jay without missing a beat. At this point Gus decides that Eve and her group can go their own way but that they can’t come crying back to him when it all falls apart
Alex stopped at a party supply store when they were hunting out a new camping location and picked up a bunch of red balloons, a helium tank, string, and some stationary. At first Eve is frustrated at why she would waste the energy finding these items and lugging them to their new digs, but she soon realizes that Alex has a genius idea. She is tying notes to each of the balloons, letting whoever might find it know that they’re in the mall, they’re trapped, but they’re alive.
Image Credit: Spike TV
The Mist just keeps getting better and better each week, slowly revealing more about not only the mist but demons within. With enough creepy visuals to keep you on the edge of your seat and wanting more, “Show and Tell” proves to be the best episode yet, and it’s only going to get better from here on out. The personal element of fear and understanding that the mist itself is showing is proving to be one of the best psychological scares ever before on television. Spike has something special happening here, in a truly terrifying way.
For another look at The Mist episode 3 check out this Podcast Review by fellow Three If By Space writers, Daley Review.
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