Time and Tide - Episode 3
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Beneath the Surface
- A moonlit night. Dillon meets his grandfather in the ruins of the Esoteric Order of Dagon. His grandfather says that it is Dillon's responsibility to rebuild the order. As he says this, the building starts to rebuild itself around them. An altar comes out the the new wooden floor, and Dillon's grandfather picks a book off it. The book is old, bound in leather, and has a crude eye marked on it in inlaid gold. He hands it to Dillon and says that it will answer all his questions. Dillon wakes up in bed, sunshine streaming through the window. Fighting back panic and confusion he looks around and sees the book lying on the bed beside him.
- Leo is at the high school, presenting awards to the many-times champion swimming team, the New Gloucester Sea Devils, when he discovers that in amongst the cards for his speech is a message from the Mayor. Unfortunately, this takes him so much by surprise that he inadvertently reads some of it out, alerting 'Shit' Creek to a possible link between Navidson and the Devil Reef Casino project.
- Dillon returns home only to meet Agent Green coming down the stairs of his house. She makes some curt excuses about being in a hurry, and as she pushes past, Dillon notices the corner of his copy of The Book of Dagon sticking out of her bag. Dillon challenges her and, almost without thinking, mutters an incantation he learned from the book. We see a close-up of the sea being reflected in Agent Green's eyes, and Dillon grabs the book as she staggers off. We follow Green around the corner, where she starts vomiting clear water and strands of seaweed.
- Dillon visits Jadviga and Kristina at The Age of Aquarius, where they are reading through a paperback copy of The Book of Dagon. Dillon shows them the book he found this morning, and they realise that the published version is missing much of the content, including various prayers and rituals. Kristina suggests that they gather some of the local pagans together, along with 'Shit' Creek, and try the ritual in the caverns; Dillon tries to convince her that it would be safer if the expedition were limited to the three of them, but is overruled.
- Leo visits Navidson in hospital, where he has just had his finger seen to (by Nurse Ratchet...) and confronts him over his links to the Mayor and Patten, the property developer. As it emerges that Navidson was using the Mayor's influence in office to launder his immoral earnings, and the Devil's Reef will be one more conduit for this, Leo loses his temper and twists Navidson's newly stitched on finger! Navidson attempts to corrupt Leo but Leo stays strong and walks out on the man he despises most in this town.
- Dillon, Kristina and Jadviga go down the the cavern with 'Shit' Creek and the local pagans. En route, Kristina tells creek what happened last time they were down there. Creek's interest is piqued by the death of the civic worker, and once they discover that his mutilated body is still in the cavern, Creek decides that this is the real story, takes some pictures and heads back to the office to write everything up.
- In the cave with the statue of the Mother, the circle of pagans start their ritual. They chant, and the camera follows their ecstatic dance, moving faster and and faster. Some additional blurred figures appear to join the dance. As the ritual stops, the pagans realise they have been joined by a number of Deep Ones. One of the pagans screams in horror, and the bloodbath begins.
- The scene changes to a bright new morning, to contrast starkly with the horrors of the night before. Jessica goes to meet Leo at the Black House and walks in on him holding an empty whiskey glass and looking furtive by the book shelf... Leo asks Jessica for her professional and personal opinions of building the casino; when she explains that she is against it, he asks her to submit a report advising againts the construction of the casino. Jessica does not trust his motives, however, especially as Leo is still obviously keeping secrets from her and the whole town. She goes off to write up her report.... about corruption and graft in the mayor's office, with Leo as the prime suspect, and e-mails the whole thing to Navidson!
- Dillon returns to the drop-in centre, where a hunched figure staggers out of the shadows and grabs hold of him. The dark shape is revealed to be Jadviga, who is bloodied and terrified. She expresses her terror and confusion to Dillon, unable to understand why the Deep Ones turned against them. Dillon realises that the strange people he was coming to think of as family and friends are in fact monsters.
- Jessica meets Leo at the shore the morning after she betrayed him and he shows her the remains of the Dillon's friends, washing up on the shore. Angrily, he demands she study them... she sees the paradox in their wounds: shark-like bites but also claw marks with human-finger spacing between them. Leo fills Jessica in on the big picture, how Innsmouth residents have this hereditary condition that mutates them in this way. Jessica thought it had been purged, as part of whatever Agent Green and the DOD have told her, but Leo explains that the bloodlines live on... and the Black family is one of those bloodlines! His diffidence towards her is not part of some grand scheme, just a desire to protect her from having to live with the curse should they grow closer... Shaken and holding onto the idea of exposing the truth, Jessica accuses Leo of being as big a monster as those he is protecting and he loses control of the monster he believes resides inside him; he strikes Jessica down in the body parts and leaves her to explain herself to the sheriff's office when they arrive, if she is fool enough to wait there that long...
- Dillon comes to Leo in his office for help; Leo is horrifed that Dillon has been down in the tunnels, but that's nothing to the horror he feels when Dillon mentions that they were practicing rituals! Dillon convinces Leo that covering things up isn't going to work any longer, everything will be out in the open soon, so Leo determines to control the situation... somehow...
- Dillon storms into the McLeod residence, determined to find the truth about the mayor's plans. Mrs. McLeod grabs a poker from the fireplace and attempts to chase Dillon out, but he uses a variant of the magic he used earlier to subdue Mrs. McLeod and force information from her. He learns that the mayor, before his disappearance, had announced that he was going out to Devil Reef. Dillon leaves the shell-shocked Mrs. McLeod vomiting up seawater in her living room.
- Leo goes with Dillon to the 'Age of Aquarius' bookstore, but Jadviga has no memory of going under the town or the massacre by the Deep Ones. Kristina looks smug and Leo is about to dismiss Dillon as a raving lunatic after all, when Dillon breaks through the spell on Jadviga and she remembers 'everything'... In the process of breaking the spell, Dillon uses a similar incantation as the one he used on Agent Green, and Kristina looks distinctly ill.
- Mrs. McLeod pays a visit to Agent Green. In the course of the visit, Mrs. McLeod is sick again, vomiting up seaweed. The two of them piece together Dillon's involvement, and Green mutters darkly about Dillon being a naughty boy who must be punished.
- In a montage before the end, we see...
- Leo, with a glass of whiskey, takes the Holy Bible from the bookshelf, puts it to one side and reaches into the exposed gap to operate a hidden switch. The shelf swings inwards and Leo steps into the darkness...
- Navidson sitting at his desk in the hidden store room, poring over a pile of gold.
- Dillon and Jadviga studying the Book of Dagon.
- Kristina sitting in her apartment, looking up the land registry details for The Age of Aquarius and finding that the property is owned by mayor McLeod.
- A shadowy figure entering the front door of the mayor's house.
- Dillon stands with his grandfather at the top of a hill. Down below, we can see Innsmouth as it was in the late 1920s. There is the sound of guns, fires are burning all over town and off in the distance we can see ships over by the reef dropping explosives, lighting up the sea as they detonate. Grandfather Seagrave says: "This is how it all began," and leads Dillon through the town. They encounter dead bodies on the street, with some being piled into mass graves. Soldiers and policemen are shooting unarmed civilians, or rounding others up onto covered lorries. Eventually the two travellers enter the Esoteric Order of Dagon, where the pews begin to fill up with the present-day inhabitants of New Gloucester, including cast members. Grandfather Seagrave leads Dillon to the pulpit, where they watch as Deep Ones enter the church behind the congregation. "And this is how it will end," says Grandfather Seagrave, as the screen goes black and the screaming begins.