Chapelwaite :: Hold the Night

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Let’s Talk About ‘Hold the Night’: 

• Constable Dennison is alive, and is put in charge of guarding the barn door from an upper window so Jacob’s people don’t find the tunnels.
• Rebecca is on duty in the parlor, Honor and Tane take the kitchen, Minister Burroughs is acting sketchy.
• George checks on his undead wife Mary in the cellar. She says she can smell his wound, that he’s dying but she can save him.
• Charles catches George allowing Mary to feed on him and grows concerned about his character.
• Minister Burroughs believes the undead are coming for him because of the sins he’s committed.
• Dennison reveals that he saved Phillip and Charles’ father from hanging after their mother Slence tried to kill them all.
• The siege begins as Jacob prowls the grounds around Chapelwaite and his acolytes go on the attack, but met with resistance from within.
• The Apple Girl tries to tempt Burroughs by mocking his God … and revealing that Faith Pringle’s baby wasn’t his.
• An intruder gets into the house and finds the tunnel back to the barn. The others use the tunnels to get inside the walls of Chapelwaite.
• Rebecca recognizes one of the vampiric intruders. Her father? He has gotten the book from Mary.
• Tane has gone missing during the confusion of the attack, but finds an unlikely source of safety for himself and everyone else … with one condition.

A lot of regular series, those with a standard 22 episodes, usually have one episode a season referred to as a ‘bottle episode’, referring to the fact that all of the action is bottled up into one location. This week’s episode of Chapelwaite could be considered the show’s ‘bottle episode’ as almost all of the action takes place within the house and very little on the grounds outside. And that is because Jakub (apparently the correct spelling according to the captions) and his acolytes have arrived to take The Book.

Of immediate concern is the condition of Constable Dennison, who was stabbed in the stomach in the previous episode. He’s alive, but in pain but Charles gives him an important job — sit in an upper room and keep an eye on that barn door. No one can enter and find the door to the tunnel that runs to the house or they are all done for. Before taking his post, George visits Mary, still tied up with The Book in the cellar, and she tries to play some mind games with him. She says she’s still his wife, the only difference now is that she’s dead. He says the dead should not walk the Earth, but they do, she says. He says they were meant to spend eternity together in Heaven, she says there is no Heaven. There is life, then nothing, it’s all been lies. She also tells him she can smell the wound in his stomach, and he won’t be anything soon but mud and bone but she’ll be alive. She’s also hungry, so if he loves her he’ll feed her. She says the hunger burns, so not wanting her to suffer he offers her his hand, but Charles catches them in the act. He says nothing and leaves, and George pulls his hand away saying he needs to conserve his strength. Mary tells George he’s dying but she can save him if he drinks from her. He turns down the offer.

Charles tells Rebecca his concern after seeing George feeding Mary. Rebecca tells Charles she and her mother will move to New York after all of this is over, and wonders if he can build ships there. Charles says they shouldn’t get ahead of themselves because he’ll still have The Book and the curse will follow. But they clearly have a budding romance.

Minister Burroughs is getting a little buggy, believing the undead are coming for him because of his sins. Rebecca reminds him that with all he’s lost he should be leaning on God now. But his faith has been shaken, especially as he was in Phillip’s grip, feeling in that moment that he deserved nothing. Rebecca tells him that is not true, but he says it is and that she and her mother know he’s a fraud. Rebecca says he is just a flawed man, the kind that God favors now and then, like he used to preach. Empty words, he says. Feeling that he’s on the verge of giving up and putting them all in danger, Rebecca tells him he doesn’t have to raise a fist to fight, but he has to fight if not for himself then for everyone else. She reminds him there are children in the house and they deserve more than just the next few hours to live.

Charles talks to George about his stomach wound, telling George he wants him to live and there are worse situations than death. George tells Charles he met Mary when she was 12 years old, and they married four years later. He never wanted there to be a day without her. Charles says it must be tempting to have a chance to love someone forever, and he loves Loa but he doesn’t think the vampires believe in love. He’s seen it in Jerusalem’s Lot … no love. George is not liking where this conversation is heading so he tells Charles he will fight for Boone and that book, but don’t dare tell him how to handle his wife. Charles says he won’t mention it again, but suggests there will be trouble if he catches George feeding Mary again. George says they’ll be keeping an eye on each other then. And then George drops a bomb on Charles — he saved Phillip’s life when he was 17 years old. And Charles’ father. Everyone had known that his grandmother Silence had gone mad, so there was concern for her children. George rode to Chapelwaite and found Silence hanging herself and the two boys. He cut the boys down but she fought him off and died. George tells Charles to imagine if he hadn’t saved those boys. There would be no Boone curse, he’d still have Mary and Phillip Boone would have been dead. Really dead. And Charles … would have never been born. George tells him to consider that the next time Charles walks up behind him with a gun.

The situation outside changes as the torches are extinguished and Jakub approaches the house, walking around it. Burroughs sees Jakub and asks Charles what it is, and Charles says ‘the end of the road.’ Charles feels Jakub is trying to intimidate them now, and Rebecca says she never wants to be like them. Honor and Tane also see Jakub as he walks past the kitchen, but their attention is drawn away from someone using a knife to unlock the kitchen door. Tane asks his father is Jakub is the Devil, and Charles says that’s giving him too much credit. Jakub was a man and now he’s less. Jakub picks up Phillip’s head and walks away, and Charles warns that the others will now try to find a way in. Most of them are mortal so make them pay. When they do attack, Charles warns that if they get in the house, the undead are next. Chapelwaite is now completely under siege.

Burroughs is terrified, and the Apple Girl preys on him from outside. She knows he’s the minister and she tells him Faith was their sister. She was there when Faith died, she chuckled, and says it was terrible (in a pretty mocking tone). She tells him Faith begged for her life but they just kept stabbing, and she wouldn’t stop crying. A man asks the Apple Girl who she’s talking to and she says it’s Faith’s minister. The man says he doesn’t have to end up like Faith, just give Jakub The Book. Apple Girl tells Martin their god doesn’t care if he’s an adulterer, lies mean nothing to him, he makes no judgment, he welcomes the sinner. She says Martin can fornicate with as many woman as he wants. The man says they’ll all die in the house if they don’t get The Book. Why should Martin care for a God who doesn’t care about him? The Worm is much stronger and wiser. Martin wants to know what they did with his child, and she says it’s back with it’s father where it belongs. Martin is confused by these words, and Apple Girl chuckles that Faith never told him the truth about the baby. It wasn’t his … it was Jakub’s. Faith was his favorite. Every scar Martin kissed was Jakub’s bite. He threw his life away for Jakub’s whore so give them The Book.

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Overwhelmed, Martin begs Charles to give them The Book so all this will end. If his God is a falsehood then so is theirs. They cannot raise a god if none exists. Rebecca is growing concerned about the minister and Charles says he will kill him himself if he tries anything. But they are distracted as there is a clatter upstairs. An intruder has managed to break in through a window. Charles warns Honor to be on alert and for Tane to be her eyes while her back is turned. But … why is the basement door open? Honor says the minister needed to check on Mary. Charles runs down into the cellar and finds Martin just standing there. He admits he tried to take The Book because everything he believed in is gone, but what stopped him was ‘that thing’ in the tub. Charles tells Martin to put down his gun, but he does not comply. Charles tells him he knows his kind, running to God for every hardship because ‘God provides’, and crediting God with every victory even when you do the work yourself. Every defeat is blamed on ‘God’s will’, especially when it is because of your own ignorance or weakness. Charles says believe or don’t, but stand up and be a man … or remain still and he will end it so he can defend his family. Mary taunts him to do it, but the figurative slap in the face Charles just delivered snapped Martin out of his doubts, saying he wanted to go back upstairs because whatever they are, wherever they’re from, they can’t let them win.

Rebecca spots a woman tearing a board off the wall and running into the passageway. Rebecca warns Dennison that she is making her way to the barn. Dennison watches intently and when the woman emerges, before she can cry out to the others, he shoots her dead. But the gunshot certainly drew their attention. They tell Charles that the others are going to the barn, so they go to Plan B and barricade everyone in the dining room. Charles repairs the boards in the wall, Rebecca watches from the parlor, and Martin sees that George is in pain so he tells him to rest while he takes care of the barricade. But now they can all hear the thumping and scratching inside the walls of Chapelwaite. The house has been breached so it’s just a matter of from where the intruders will emerge. Honor sent Tane to fetch their father, but as they board up the dining room, Charles does not know Tane is not in the kitchen.

In the library, Tane sees a man and a vampire woman enter but they don’t see him. In the dining room, Honor notices Tane is missing and Charles needs to find him. In the library, Tane tries to sneak off but he makes enough of a sound for the man to hear and look for the source. The man notices a door ajar, where Tane is hiding, but before he can find Tane the man is attacked. Then the door opens and … it’s Loa. She tells Tane to come with her now, she won’t hurt him but they will. Meanwhile, Dennison advises Charles to not leave the dining room. They are trying to draw him out, so stick with the plan. Charles agrees, even though he may lose his son.

Rebecca and Honor see that the kitchen door has been breached and the cellar door is open. A man comes from the basement with the book, and Rebecca recognizes him. Honor fights off a woman, and Charles is in the grip of a vampire who grabbed him from between the boards of the barricade. He manages to get away and makes it to the kitchen to help fight. Rebecca stabs the woman and Honor hits her in the head … and keeps hitting her. Charles impales the male vampire with a table leg but he pulls it out and retreats, dropping the book in the kitchen. Burroughs watches it all unfold, stunned. Charles asks Rebecca to return The Book to the cellar with Mary, Burroughs goes to help Dennison, and Charles and Honor block the kitchen door. But Tane’s whereabouts are still unknown.

Mary smugly tells Rebecca they’re all going to die, there’s no escape. Charles comes to look for Tane but Rebecca says he isn’t in the cellar. But he is, hiding on the other side of the wall. Through the barricade, they can now see two men on the stairs and three woman in the parlor. Martin asks what they do next and Charles says fire at will. Dennison calls for Charles and they watch as Jakub descends the stairs. All of the barriers are being breached so Charles and the others go for their last resort, to take a stand in the basement. Rebecca tells the children to say their prayers (no one asked Tane where he was or where he came from) as Jakub’s people tear at the cellar door. Charles briefly considers killing his children, putting his gun to the back of Honor’s head but suddenly the violence at the door stops, and there are sounds of footsteps running away. Then Tane says he had to do it. She said it would make them stop. He tells them he gave The Book to Loa. Charles runs outside calling for Loa. She turns for a moment to look at him, but Jakub shuffles her along as her father can do nothing but watch, not believing all is lost.

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Chapelwaite airs new episodes Sunday at 10:00 PM on EPIX. Episodes are also available on EPIX Now. Subscribe through Apple TV channels using our Apple TV Plus affiliate link.