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Well, after last week’s stellar Charlie Manx episode, Vic McQueen is back and is her old, morose self again. Having ditched Lou and Wayne, the Shorter Way guides Vic to her father’s cabin in the woods, of all places. Vic hasn’t seen either of her parents in years so her arrival is a bit of a surprise. And even more surprising, Vic’s dad Chris is sober so when she shows up drunk he puts her to bed and takes the miniatures she took from the hotel room. Pissed, she heads to her mom’s house to crash and gets a talking to for deserting her kid, telling Vic to give Lou a call.
She does, but he doesn’t answer because he’s busy with a customer who has a bike that won’t start. Lou doesn’t know it at first, but the customer is Bing Partridge. When he goes to take a look at the bike in the back of a flatbed, he sees the gas mask and tank inside the pickup and immediately calls Vic … who is busy drinking her mom’s booze and listening to loud music while looking at things from her past. While Lou is preoccupied with Bing, Wayne wanders down the road after hearing some Christmas music playing in the distance. Of course he sees the Wraith and then Charlie appears and tries to entice Wayne into the car’s back seat stocked with wrapped gifts. But Wayne suddenly asks Charlie for the password, and when he doesn’t say the right thing Wayne takes off into the woods. But Lou is already there, having fought with Bing and whacked him in the head pretty hard.
Lou did manage to call Vic’s mom’s house and left a message in code for Vic, and when she called back everything was fine and the police were on the scene. But that prompted her to get in touch with Maggie and Tabitha who offered to put Lou and Wayne up at their place for safe keeping. Vic didn’t give Lou hope that she would show up. She knew her family would not be safe until Charlie Manx was dead.
In Christmasland, Millie is once again disappointed in her father who is leaving her to keep lights on by herself. Again. As he drives off, Millie follows him beyond the gates of Christmasland and sees a house on top of a hill with a light on inside (and what appears to be a reindeer with an exposed rib cage wandering on the property). Millie makes her way inside the house and seems to recognize it as her home. As she enters a bedroom, she finds some clothes and holds on up to see how it looks. But she sees a terrifying reflection in the mirror — a woman with a face full of gashes. Millie runs out of the house, kills the reindeer and sets the head on the porch, then knocks on the door and runs far enough away to not be seen. And the door opens and she recognizes the woman as her mother. Millie calls her father to ask what that place is and he’s not happy she’s ventured outside of Christmasland, demanding that she stay away from the house.
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Meanwhile, Charlie has taken the Night Road back to Parnassus to pay a visit to his old ‘friend’ Abe … who is none too pleased to see that Charlie is still alive after having a bit of a celebration upon the news of his death. Charlie wants Abe to arrange a meeting with ‘The Hourglass’ but Abe says he’s not in that business anymore. Charlie suggests it’s in Abe’s best interest to get back in that business. But Charlie seems to have been alerted to a visitor outside in the parking lot when the Wraith comes to life. Stepping outside he finds Vic there, attempting to do some damage to the car in order to kill Charlie. But the car is too fast and stealthy for her and she misses her chance to hit it with a Molotov cocktail. Failing, she takes off and actually shows up at Maggie’s house, assuring Lou that she’s there to stay.
Abe does make his phone call to ‘The Hourglass’, Jonathan Beckett, who is very interested in meeting Charlie Manx. But … he has no idea who Vic McQueen is. The question is, should he?
This week’s episode was mostly interesting but Vic continues to drag things down. I’d be just as happy to see Charlie kill her, have a ten year time jump, and then have Wayne be the one to come for Charlie. With Lou, Maggie and Tabaitha along for support. That would make for a pretty decent show.
NOS4A2 airs Sundays at 10:00 PM on AMC.
What did you think of this episode? Sound off in the comments below!
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I hate to always be correcting you Chuck, but when Vick called Lou from her mother’s house initially, that was a full day before Bing arrived. Lou didn’t answer the phone NOT because he was especially busy. In fact, he looked at his cell phone, saw that the caller ID read “Vicks Mother”, and then hit the “Decline” button. What I find weird about this scene is that they give us no explanation why Lou refused the call. He obviously thought that it was Vick’s mom that was calling, but why did he not want to talk to her? Does he not like Vick’s mom? Do they have some kind of poor relationship? We have no idea!
I wholeheartedly agree with you that the character of Vick drags the entire show down. (Season 1 was even worse with all the related teen drama, not to mention the really fascinating aspect of learning all about the College Admission process at RISD!… just what we ALL look for in a vampire series!)
Keep in mind I’m not trying to do a minute by minute recap of the episode, just a general description with my own thoughts. The general idea was that Lou, in my mind, knew Vic was calling and at that point just didn’t want to speak to her because he was pissed that she took off again. He knows about the Shorter Way, so he had to have known it was her calling. I don’t think there’s any reason to believe he has a bad relationship with Linda. We don’t even know if they’ve met. All Linda wanted was to see her grandson. But the character of Vic is such a drag and such a disappointment that the less I have to talk about her, the better, even if it’s in a Reader’s Digest condensed version of events.
By the way, do you do any writing on a regular basis? We’re always looking to add to the roster.
Chuck, I hope I’m not coming off as mean… That’s not my intention at all. I enjoy your reviews. Maybe I’m just trying too hard to enjoy the show, which is definitely a chore at times!
I think they’re on the right track by showing us more Charlie Manx, more Millie and Christmas Land, but still way too much family drama for my liking. Do you know anything about “The Hourglass”? My prediction is that he can maybe age people, which would weaken her powers? I really hope they continue showing us Parnassus, and other evil Creatives.
No, I’ve never read the book so I don’t know anything about The Hourglass. It’s funny because right now on Stargirl there is a character who uses an hourglass to give himself super strength for one hour!
But, yes, more Charlie and Christmasland. That was one of the biggest gripes I had last season. Stop talking about the place and show it to us! I think introducing The Hourglass will bring more to the story if he becomes an integral part of the plot. One can only hope.
And I was serious about the writing question!
I’m not clear what you’re proposing, but feel free to contact me at the email address that I entered to post my comments.