It’s raining outside of a nice looking cabin.
Inside, a woman is reading a newspaper article, when her closed
door’s knob starts to rattle. She gets up and goes to check the
source of the noise, and opens the door to her basement. There is a
song playing, You Are My Sunshine. The door closes
automatically behind her, and it startles her into falling down the
stairs.
Inside SQ, Evelyn is complaining to Paul and
Alva about their silent treatment towards each other – Alva is
keeping secrets from Paul, and Paul is keeping secrets about Chad,
the boy who killed “according God’s will” and who told Paul to kill
the remaining three. Paul’s phone rings, and it’s a woman from a
hospital in New York. She called because Paul was the emergency
contact for Rebecca Webb, the woman who fell down the stairs
earlier.
Evelyn gives Paul a ride to the hospital, and he fills her in on his background with Rebecca. He was in love with her, but it turned him into a different person. He didn’t like who he was with her. Evelyn tells him to be careful, and not to sleep with her! Paul says they are different now.
Inside Rebecca’s hospital room, she awakens to
see Paul watching over her. She wonders what he’s doing there, and
he tells her that he heard about her fall. She wonders aloud if it’s
really been five years since they’ve seen each other. The doctor
walks in to check on her, and introduces himself to Paul. Paul tells
Rebecca that he’s still on her emergency contact call. She’s
surprised that he drove all the way from Boston. The doctor tells
her he’s going to release her today, but that she’ll need someone to
help her manage around the house. Paul volunteers.
Back at the cabin, Paul carries a hobbled
Rebecca inside and puts her on the sofa. He asks her what she wants
for dinner. “Surprise me,” she says.
“You sure about that?” Paul asks jokingly.
Later while prepping dinner, it’s raining
again. Paul can’t get the stove to turn on. Rebecca tells him that
it has a mind of its own. Paul then slices his finger while chopping
an onion. Lightning strikes outside, and although neither Paul nor
Rebecca can see it, there is a ghastly visage of a man standing
outside the window. He casually smokes a cigarette.
Back inside, Paul notices that the stove has finally turned itself on. “Mind of its own,” he says.
While eating dinner, Rebecca tells Paul that she is writing a book about her worldly travels. Paul tells her about his time in the seminary, and his current work with SQ, investigating miracles. She asks him if he’s seen any miracles, and he says “it’s picking up.”
Later, while Rebecca is getting ready for bed,
Paul finds a photo of her and another man, but quickly puts it back
when she comes out of the bathroom. He asks her how exactly did she
fell down the stairs. And she tells him about the cellar door
slamming shut and scaring her into falling. Paul tucks her in, and
she thanks him for dinner. “You’re good with the pasta.”
“Single man specialty,” he replies. She asks
him why a beautiful man like him is still single, and he tells her
she broke his heart. She’s glad Paul is there. They stare at each
other longingly, but Paul backs off and wishes her good night.
Outside, the Smoking Man is still standing in the rain, staring into the house.
Next morning, Paul takes Rebecca out for
walking lessons with her crutches. After she stumbles around the
room a few times, she lands in his arms and they get drawn into a
kiss, which leads to lovemaking. The Smoking Man watches … from
inside the house.
Paul is dreaming of Rebecca with another man,
who laughs at him. He tells Rebecca, who is lying next to him, of
his dream. “Are you with someone?” he asks. She tells him she’s
always traveling around to avoid stuff like that. She leans in
close, and tells Paul she can smell cigarette smoke on him. It
unnerves Paul, and he goes to the bathroom. He sees the battered and
bloody face of a woman in the bathroom mirror.
“See what you did?!” the woman asks. Paul is shaken.
Rebecca is in the kitchen trying to start the stove again. Paul goes into the cellar to check on the gas. He turns the gas main and calls out to Rebecca, who doesn’t answer. Paul sees something over by the wall, and moves in closer to find fresh blood spattered on it. He touches it, and voices enter his head, and his eyes glow faintly red, as if possessed.
Back upstairs, Paul is menacingly playing with
a fisherman’s hook that he got from the basement. He is clearly
not himself. He gets a call from Evelyn, and is very rude and
dismissive to her. He also says that “[someone] is screwing the
milkman.” Then, he tells Evelyn to mind her own f—ing business.
At SQ, Evelyn hangs up the phone, and Alva asks her what’s going on.
“Was that Paul?” he asks.
“I don’t think so,” she replies.
Back at the cabin, Paul is going through Rebecca’s photo album. He is playing the part of the extremely jealous boyfriend. He asks her all sorts of questions about the men in her album, and asks her if she ever slept with the Russian photographer. He is being a real jerk, and Rebecca points out that he’s bringing all this stuff up, again, after five years. She tells him she made a mistake, sleeping with the Russian. “Mistake,” Paul repeats.
He gets up and walks to a shelf in the room, and pulls down an extremely dusty cigarette case that’s been up there for who knows long. He blows off the dust and pops in a ciggy, while asking Rebecca if she’s ever made anyone happy. She tells him that it didn’t work between them before, because he was too insecure about her comings and goings, and Paul insists that he could’ve come with her. She says maybe she wanted to be alone.
“You want to be alone? Fine.” Paul says
ominously. He leaves. Rebecca backs up, but doesn’t see the image of
the Battered Woman standing right next to her.
The next day, Paul is watching the outside of the cabin while inside his truck. He is now smoking and drinking. He watches Alva and Evelyn pull up in their jeep and go inside. He takes another puff.
Inside, Alva and Evelyn are asking Rebecca about Paul’s behavior. Alva casually touches the onion Paul was slicing. It is now black and slimy. Rebecca talks about how angry he’s been. Paul comes in and acts surprised to see them.
“Don’t tell me you drove all the way up here because of the way I spoke to you on the phone last night,” he tells Evelyn. He apologizes for his behavior, and Alva asks him if he’s alright. Paul tells them he’s going to stay and help Rebecca get situated, and he’ll be back in Boston in a couple of days. He asks them to stay the night, but Alva declines. Paul sees them out. Rebecca says that Alva and Evelyn seem like really nice people who are concerned about him and how he didn’t come home last night. It barely registers with Paul. He tells her he’s sorry. She says it’s okay.
Paul says “I’m sorry I didn’t do this.”
He walks over to Rebecca, and slaps her, knocking her to the ground.
He leans in close, and tells her “next time you wanna hump somebody,
make sure I’m not on my way home, Sunshine. Let’s see how many men
you look at now.” He walks over to the wall where the phone is
mounted, and tears it clean off.
Later, Paul is busy boarding up all the windows from the outside, making the cabin into a prison. Inside, Rebecca is struggling in vain to free herself from the wall Paul has her tied to. Somewhere, You Are My Sunshine is playing again…
Driving along the road, Evelyn apologizes for bringing Alva all the way up there for nothing. Alva tells her something might be wrong, as the onion he touched earlier was black and slimy, which could indicate an evil presence was nearby.
“Are you saying the house is haunted?” Evelyn
asks.
“The house, Paul, maybe both,” Alva replies.
Evelyn says they need to go back; Alva says that first they need to find out the history of that house.
Inside the cabin, Paul is drinking again. Rebecca is terrified, but is making something for them to eat. “Like fried chicken?” she asks.
“Mmm. Sounds good.” Paul is so not himself. He wanders off.
Alva pulls up to the realtor’s office in
Albany, and inquires about the cabin that Paul and Rebecca are
inside of. He wants a bit of history of the house. Alva tells her
he’s writing a book about haunted houses in the area.
The realtor asks, “Who says it’s haunted?” She tells Alva that Mrs. Spencer lived in that house until she was 81, and died peacefully in her sleep a year ago. She says that Mrs. Spencer was known as “Spooky” Spencer to all the kids, and that her husband left her for another woman. Mrs. Spencer was so brokenhearted that she boarded up all the windows and became a bit of a hermit. Alva asks why the rent is so cheap there. “Something else happened in that house, didn’t it?”
In the cabin, Paul is busy watching TV while
Rebecca sneaks and grabs the door keys. She is trying to unlock the
door when Paul sneaks up behind her. He has the key she needs, and
scrapes it along the wall. “Looking for this?”
He tells her she’s looking for her English boyfriend, and he’s going to do what he should’ve done to all her boyfriends. “You and I need to talk. We have some issues to work out.” He grabs her and whispers that he needs to put her on ice.
Evelyn is in a phone booth talking to Alva as he is driving back from the realtor’s. They fill each other in on the info they have learned. Evelyn says that according to the police, some guy rented the house six months ago and was the first tenant after Mrs. Spencer. He hung himself in the cellar. Alva suspects that the house itself is exuding negativity – jealousy, anger, betrayal.
“Whatever Paul’s dark side is, that house will find it and amplify it,” he says.
Evelyn hangs up the phone, and Paul is there
right behind her. He tells her that Rebecca and he had gotten into
another fight, and she locked herself in the cellar. He says that
she has been acting really strange lately. Paul tells Evelyn to call
Alva and have him meet them back at the cabin.
At the cabin, Evelyn asks why all the windows are boarded up. Paul says he’s figured it out. “That’s how he kept her out of trouble,” he says.
Evelyn asks what’s going on, and Paul tells her that Rebecca is doing every guy in town. From the cellar door, Rebecca is calling for help. Evelyn tells Paul to let her out.
“She needs to learn her lesson,” Paul says, “and so do you.”
Evelyn knocks Paul down and tries to open the door, but he is too strong and winds up locking her inside the cellar too. He laughs with glee.
Inside the kitchen, Paul has the gas stove on, and he’s singing You Are My Sunshine to himself. Downstairs, Rebecca is asking if Paul’s acting this way because of the work he’s been doing with SQ. Evelyn shines a flashlight on a bricked in doorway, and they start trying to chisel the bricks loose.
Back upstairs, Alva arrives at the house. Paul, smoking another cigarette and taking another drink, prepares to let him in…
A few loose bricks later, Evelyn can see a door behind the bricks.
Paul welcomes Alva in and offers him a drink. He declines. “Mind if I do?” asks Paul. Alva asks where Evelyn is, and Paul flatly tells her that she’s locked in the basement. He admits to doing it, and he tells Alva that he knows a secret: that Rebecca likes him. Alva wants to bring the ladies up. Paul’s jealousy about the files locked in Alva’s office bubbles to the surface, and he compares the files to Rebecca, saying that he too has something that he doesn’t want Alva’s hands on. Paul says that Alva is jealous of him.
“After all, Chad Goodwill told me things you’ll never know,” he taunts. “I’ve seen God’s name written in my own blood, and all you got was a little tape with your dead mother saying Alva….”
Alva gut punches him, and tries to get him out of the house. They struggle, and Paul punches him in the face.
Downstairs, Evelyn and Rebecca open the door. Rebecca notices how cold it is around that door. She won’t go in with Evelyn, because she feels something is wrong in there. Evelyn finds two dead, desiccated bodies inside, and she covers her mouth in horror. The door behind her slams shut, and back on the outside, Rebecca has the same crazed look in her eyes, and can hear the same voices, as Paul. Standing right next to her is the Battered Woman again. “You’ve put your hands on me for the last time,” Rebecca says.
Paul and Alva are still going at it upstairs. Paul grabs the ice hook and swings it wildly at Alva. He prepares to land a killing blow, but Alva smashes a bowl into Paul’s head and knocks him out.
Minutes later, Evelyn is waiting by the locked door, when Alva opens it. She says that apparently Mr. Spencer and his mistress didn’t leave after all.
Upstairs in the kitchen, Rebecca is heating up some cooking oil. Alva has called an ambulance, and he tells Rebecca that it’s over. Evelyn is helping Paul to his feet. “What happened?” she asks.
“We, uh, hammered out our differences,” Alva
says.
While no one is looking, Rebecca slowly picks up the scalding hot oil, and makes her way over to where Evelyn is checking on Paul. In a black and white flashback, a bruised Mrs. Spencer approaches the very same spot, only it’s currently occupied by Mr. Spencer, who is dancing with his mistress. You Are My Sunshine is playing on the phonograph in the background. They turn in time to see Mrs. Spencer throw the scalding hot oil into their faces. She drags their bodies down into the cellar, and begins to brick up the door behind them.
Rebecca advances on Paul and Evelyn, and is
about to throw the hot oil on them when Alva runs over and grabs
her. Their struggle sends the oil flying towards the stove, where it
immediately ignites, and quickly engulfs the kitchen in flames. Alva
helps Rebecca outside, and Paul and Evelyn head out as well.
Outside, they watch the cabin burn to the ground.
Some time later, Rebecca and Paul are together in her car. He asks what she’s going to tell her sister, and she jokingly says that her ex-boyfriend got possessed and tried to kill her. Paul can’t even begin to tell her how sorry he is. She says that he’s lucky, in a way – to have friends like that who risked their lives for him. She wonders if they met all over again for the first time, if things would have turned out differently.
“I’d like to think so,” Paul says.
He gets out of her truck. She stops him and tells him there’s one more thing he needs to know. “I really did love you,” she says. She starts the truck and drives away.
Inside SQ, Paul apologizes to Evelyn and Alva,
and says that what he did was unforgivable; that he’d like to think
that he can’t remember what he did, but --
“It wasn’t [unforgivable],” says Evelyn.
“Not entirely,” says Alva.
Paul tells them that if they don’t want him working there anymore, that it’s fine. Alva and Evelyn agree that it could’ve been worse, since they both could’ve been dead. Alva says that it says a lot that even under the influence of that house, Paul couldn’t bring himself to kill.
”Maybe I just didn’t have it in me to kill
you,” Paul says.
Evelyn thinks it’s nice that Paul and Alva are talking again. She wants to get back to work, but on her way out she stops by Paul.
“And I told you not to sleep with her…”
Paul sits down next to Alva. He offers Paul a cup of tea, which he happily accepts.
Episode
Summary written by Moski