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Forgive me for sounding like a broken record recently, but I have to say again how vastly improved NOS4A2 has been this season since that Manx-centric episode. I thoroughly impressed by how a show that I basically ‘hate watched’ over the course of 11 episodes has suddenly become a must-watch series. I don’t know if there were behind-the-scenes changes that reversed the course of tedium into some gripping entertainment, but I tip my hat to whoever paid attention to the criticisms and righted this ship before it sank (but I still won’t go so far as to forgive AMC for cancelling Lodge 49).
This week’s episode had four concurrent storylines. The most minor of them involved Tabitha, recovering from her encounter with Bing and Manx and the repercussions of her actions that night. Her superiors are not happy she charged in without back-up, even after she explained she was afraid she’d lose the suspects — which she did anyway, and that almost came with losing her life — but they now feel she’s too close to the case because of her girlfriend’s connection to Vic McQueen (and they still aren’t sure Vic isn’t behind her son’s disappearance even though Tabitha is adamant Manx is the culprit). In the end, Tabitha is forced to step away from the case and take time to heal. Maggie consoles her and says they will still work to defeat Charlie.
As for Vic, she, her dad and Lou aren’t really fully recovered — Vic has a spleen that’s on the verge of rupture and Lou had a cardiac event that required a stent — but they’ve checked out of the hospital against Linda’s wishes. Chris tries to explain to her that Vic has a gift and Vic tries to explain it as well, but Linda says what kind of mother would she have been if she didn’t see her child had a gift. Chris had a hard answer for her that hit home, but she still wasn’t sold, threatening to order a psyche eval on Vic if she didn’t stop with this gift nonsense. But after looking through Vic’s old drawings and unable to keep them at the hospital, Linda is starting to come around that maybe her daughter is special, asking Vic to explain her power but Vic said she isn’t even sure how it works. She even agreed to allow them to rebuild her Triumph in the kitchen. Which is easier said than done because the thing is in a million pieces. Before Lou left the hospital, he was being cute comparing him and Vic to Han and Leia, going so far as to suggest Han isn’t half the mechanic Lou Carmody is.
But when Vic sees all the tiny pieces of her bike strewn across the kitchen table, she begins to panic, telling Lou she feels they are losing Wayne and that he’ll be like that other kid Lou saw in the back of the Wraith.
Meanwhile, Charlie is driving Wayne to Christmasland but unlike the other children, he has not begun his transformation just yet. Charlie notices that Wayne still has his cell phone and tells him he can call his mother, knowing full well she’s still in the hospital at this point and unable to answer. And when she doesn’t, Charlie seizes on that and tries to convince Wayne that his mother has already forgotten about him. But then Wayne has a surprise visitor in the back seat — Craig! A terrible scarred Craig, but it’s Craig. Charlie can’t see him and wonders what Wayne is looking at. Craig doesn’t reveal who he is, but he tells Wayne that Charlie is lying, that his mom hasn’t forgotten him and she will come.
Charlie makes a stop at an auto junkyard, one of his hiding places on the way to Christmasland. Wayne says he doesn’t feel good, and he notices the gash on Charlie’s face has healed, now just a scar. Charlie tells Wayne they have a long journey ahead, so they’ll sleep here and dream of Christmasland in this special car, and when the sun rises it’ll be like Christmas morning. Wayne feels something in his mouth and spits blood into his hand, along with a tooth. Wayne sees a butterfly outside the window which rolls down by itself letting the insect in. It lands on Wayne’s arm, he names it Sunny … and then he tears the wings off. The next morning they awaken, Charlie’s face is completely healed and he asks Wayne if he needs to use the water closet before their long trip. Charlie gets out of the car to let Wayne out but hears a sound behind him — it’s Bing! But he’s in full gas mask mode and he gives Charlie a dose, knocking him out. Bing disconnects something from the car’s engine (sorry, I am not mechanically inclined to know what it was), knowing that it will also drain Manx of his power. He begins to drag Charlie away and while Wayne watches he hears ‘call your mom’. Craig is back and even though Wayne says she didn’t answer the first time, he should try again. And he gets through! He tells Vic he’s in the car but doesn’t know where he is because it’s dark. He tells her something is wrong (he’s spit out more blood and teeth at this point) and that he killed a butterfly. That part really seems to jolt Vic and she tells him to keep fighting. And then the phone goes dead.
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While all this is transpiring, Maggie has used her tiles (against Tabitha’s wishes) and located The Hourglass at The Providence Hotel (according to the title card). We have no idea how Maggie got there so quickly, and at first it seemed like this was perhaps some kind of dream or alternate universe she had entered, but it was real. I think. As soon as she enters the bar, the lights flicker over Jon’s head and she knows that’s the man she’s looking for. He seems to be expecting her — which reinforces my thought that this perhaps isn’t a physical encounter — and quotes the line from Casablanca ‘of all the gin joints in the world, she had to walk into mine.’
He ponders is Fate brought them together but she said it was her tiles. But she’s curious about what his gimmick is and he shows her the hourglass and tells her she’s wrong about Fate: it controls most of the outcomes in the world, but not all of them. He controls the rest. She tells Jon she’s looking for someone who isn’t afraid to show her things and he gives her a demonstration of his power by asking the bartender for a moment of his time. Requesting a bottle of the best bourbon and then saying to make it on the house, the bartender is perplexed until Jon flips the hourglass and he carries out the command. With the bourbon on the bar, Jon flips the hourglass back and the spell is broken. He tells Maggie the power is exhilarating at first but boring by the end … and it doesn’t come on the house, telling her it’s affected his memory. His first twenty years are a blur, she says her powers give her tonic-clonic seizures. Jon tells her he’s found a way to mitigate the cost of his hourglass and his last twenty years are clear as a bell. He’s willing to teach her how to mitigate her tiles at the cost of an answer to his question. Maggie agrees to accompany Jon to his room.
Jon tells Maggie there are two ways to mitigate the cost of her gift: Option A is to hurt herself. Option B is to hurt someone else. He shows her the scars on his own arm from cigarette burns and says he thinks she’ll choose Option A, even though he’s explored both options. But she’ll need her tiles for the hands-on tutorial and promises not to hurt her unless she wants him to. She says the tiles need a question to work and he whispers into her ear. She says he might not like the answer. Before she reaches in the bag, Jon takes her arm and puts the tip of his cigarette on her wrist, telling her not to scream, and when the pain fills her up to use her gift. She takes a beat then asks the question: will Jon achieve immortality? She pulled the tiles and experienced no ill effects, no seizure, but she reveals the answer she assumed Jon did not want to see: ‘No’. Angered, she smashed the glass on the tabletop and left the room, giving Maggie just enough time to grab the hourglass from his jacket.
But Jon returns and Maggie quickly says she was just pouring him another drink … with her purse in hand? He tells her he retains his memory when he kills someone and he though taking their life would bank time on his own. The he asks if she’s ever heard of Charlie Manx, saying he’s unlocked the secret of immortality. Maggie says he wouldn’t like the answer he got and he says the tiles are wrong and she needs to ask again. She says the tiles never lie, so he’ll force her to ask again with his hourglass … but it’s gone. Maggie had tried to get out the door while he was looking but he got to her first and finds it in her purse suggesting it wasn’t Fate that brought them together after all.
He wants to know who Maggie is and why she came for him and she replies that he tried to kill Vic McQueen. Tried? She’s still alive?! Maggie says he’s nothing but a failed errand boy for Charlie Manx, and Jon tells her that his victims usually do themselves in (as Maggie witnessed at the hospital when a doctor under Jon’s spell tried to inject Vic’s blood bag with drugs to kill her and then injected air into his own bloodstream), so it’s a rare, exhilarating opportunity when he gets to do it himself. They fight violently but Maggie is able to whack Jon in the face with something heavy. She almost gets the dropped hourglass, but he grabs her leg. She tries for the hourglass again, but a knife is closer and she stabs him in the gut, reminding him again that her tiles never lie. She smashes the hourglass (why didn’t she take it to use against Charlie???) and says that was for Vic, leaving Jon mortally wounded. Although she leaves before we know for sure if he’s dead.
So, another good episode but I hope this isn’t the end for The Hourglass just as we’re getting to know him.
NOS4A2 airs Sundays at 10:00 PM on AMC.
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