TV Recap: “Dead of Summer,” Episode 1.07 – Townie
[WARNING: ALL MAJOR EPISODE SPOILERS TO FOLLOW]
INTO: Townie takes the Sheriff to his mom’s diner to discuss the horrible things that have been happening… again. Townie now believes that his father was killed because he knew too much. Sheriff reluctantly agrees with Townie and they head to Camp Stillwater to tell the others. Amy, Alex, Joel, Jessie, Drew, Blaire and Deb are all present while they contact a plan to draw out the cultists so they can end this thing for good. Deb is apprehensive, but the police officers give her permission to call the whole thing off if she thinks it’s getting to risky. Amy is also apprehensive, since she will be used as bait to draw them out, but she’ll do anything to protect her fellow counselors and the camps. Or, I mean, you can just close the camp, but whatever. Townie and the Sheriff give everyone walkie-talkies so they can remain in contact and Blaire and Drew volunteer to parole the perimeter of camp to look for anything shady.
Can You Hear Me Now?: The cult members have gathered in a secret gave just outside Camp Stillwater and they’re wearing their usual robes and ram’s heads. Damian, the biker one, has them all chant to “call to the vessel.” Suddenly, they yank one one of their own from the group and Damian cuts his tongue out with a blade and pours the blood onto an old looking horn. They start to “call to the vessel” again. Meanwhile, Amy is setting up flags for the color wars and is doing it very obviously to the danger around her while the Sheriff watches from the bushes. She hears something and asks the Sheriff if he heard anything on the very obvious walkie-talkie. The Sheriff says he didn’t hear anything, but he does see a cultist approaching. He goes to apprehend him, but a second one sneaks up because him and things go black.
Always Sleuthing: Townie and Jessie are talking about the cult and how they believe they’re trying to copy whatever the cult did the last time when The Tall Man was alive and in charge. Soon enough, they discover that the Sheriff is missing and Amy was clearly taken against her will. Turns out, Amy was lured by the horn and came willingly, under some sort of hypnotic spell. The cultists are pleased to see her. When Townie gets back to camp, he tells everyone Amy is missing already and everyone goes into a panic. Blaire and Drew are still on their patrol and they see a ram’s head. Blaire panics and trips over a branch and sprains his ankle, and it turns out the ram’s head was hung on a tree and not attached to a person. Patrol is over and now Drew has to help Blaire get back to camp, with Blaire panicking that he’ll die in the woods because he was so stupid. Alex and Joel run up to Townie and Jessie and tell them that Anton’s been drawing weird pictures again. When they show it to Townie, he recognizes the drawings as the same one’s Michael, Joel’s brother, drew right before he committed suicide. Now they realize that things at Camp Stillwater have been repeating for a while and The Tall Man is still around.
Flashback: The year is 1982. Two boys under the age of ten ride their bikes to the principal’s house with plans to vandalize his car because he gave them detention. One kid, a young Townie, doesn’t want to do it but is peer pressured into hitting the windshield with a bat. It doesn’t break, but the alarm goes off and neighbors call the cops. Townie’s father and Uncle Todd, who I’ve been calling the Sheriff, happen to be the responding officers who “arrest” them. Townie’s father takes him to his mom’s diner to discuss what being a man means. As a semi-punishment, his dad sends him to Camp Stillwater to reconnect with the world and while there he meets a young Jessie who is psyched about the color wars, where campers are split into teams based on red or blue and compete against each other. Joel’s brother, Michael, is a counselor. In the middle o the first competition of the color wars, Townie beats the crap out of a kid for making fun of his mom and Jessie is pissed they lost because of him. During capture the flag, Townie helps Jessie get the first victory for team red and they become friends. Townie and Jessie both have their first kiss at that moment, but it’s interrupted by Townie’s mom and the Sheriff coming to tell him that his father has been killed.
Change of Clothes: The cult has now changed into white and black robes instead of their usual all black ones. Amy has been changed into a ceremonial dress and is hanging by her waist above a lake inside the cave. Damian tells Amy, still in a trance, that “it chose you,” before he hands her a knife and she willingly cuts her wrist so it bleeds into the lake below her. They start to lower Amy into the lake, but this wakes her for some reason and she begins struggling. Townie miraculously finds the secret passage to the cave and barges in on the ceremony. It is revealed that Damian is the little boy from the beginning of the flashback, Townie’s childhood best friend. Damian says that once their blood mixes with Amy’s, they’ll live forever… and then all of the cult members including Damian slit their throats and die in mass suicide, just like in the opening shot of the pilot. At that moment, the rope snaps and Amy falls into the lake, and unable to swim from being tied and cut, she starts to drown.
End: Townie jumps into the lake to save Amy. The demon claw from episode 2 or 3 comes out and tries to drag them back down, but they escape the lake with help from Jessie, who also miraculously found her way there. Amy isn’t breathing, but Townie is able to revive her with CPR. She’s visibly shaken and disturbed, even when she gets back to camp and reunited with the other counselors and Deb wishes she never went along with the plan to bring out the cultists. Blaire and Drew have also made it back to camp and they share their first kiss as a couple. Alex and Joel aren’t so sure the whole evil event is over, but they’ll take the victory for right now. Townie and the Sheriff are collecting evidence in the woods when Townie says he knows that the Sheriff was leading the cultists. The Sheriff admits to it and says that he killed Townie’s father, but he didn’t want to. He asks Townie to join him so they can rebuild the cult, but since he just admitted to murdering his dad, Townie shoots him to death… while another cultist watches from afar.
