Crystal Lake | Ep. 1: Camp Crystal

Kris 0:02

For a franchise built around a killer who keeps coming back, Friday the 13th has spent a remarkably long time trying to make his own return. Since the 2009 reboot, proposed films have come and gone while a prolonged copyright battle between original screenwriter Victor Miller and the companies behind the franchise really complicated the future of Camp Crystal Lake. Miller ultimately prevailed in his effort to reclaim the original screenplay's US rights, but getting these stories to the screen remained a complicated undertaking. But now, A24 and Peacock are bringing us back to the lake through a prequel centered on Pamela Voorhees, who is portrayed by Linda Cartellini. Crystal Lake is set before the original film and explores Pamela's relationship with her young son Jason, as well as the grief, secrets, and the violence that shapes her life after he disappears. Before the camp became synonymous with a hockey mask and a machete, it was a place where a mother worked, a child struggled to fit in, and one summer changed everything. This week we're talking about episode 1, Camp Crystal. Spooky season, greetings and salutations, and welcome to TV Night with Hack or Slash. If you're new to the party, hi, my name is Chris. I'm your friendly neighborhood slasher enthusiast, and this week I'm joined by the classic horror connoisseur, Sean.

Sean 1:19

It's a lake, not a lick. Who wants to go to Camp Crystal Lick?

Kris 1:23

Folks, welcome to our coverage of the Crystal Lake series. This is now the second show that we're actually going over in detail. We just did this a little bit with it with Carrie as a TV series. And I'm really excited for where this conversation is going to go. Sean, I know you and I have both been excited for this show to come out. Up front in our discussion, we're going to talk a little high-level non-spoilery about what we're expecting going into this and maybe some of our initial reactions. But the bulk of this episode is going to be spoiler-based. So if you want to follow along and if you're curious about it, we'll give you a good vibe check early on. But you're going to be able to really listen to this episode and reflect in conversation with us after you watch the episode, or maybe even as you watch the episode. The other thing to consider here that I think is going to be really cool is if you want to listen to a very detailed breakdown and recap of every episode of Crystal Lake, you can head on over to our Patreon and we'll share more about how to do that later. But for now, Sean, you and I have both shared a lot of excitement. What do you even expect going into a Crystal Lake prequel?

Sean 2:28

Oh my gosh. I've been thinking about this since this was announced, and we knew that it was going to be a prequel. I've been so excited. I really didn't know what they were going to do. I mean, obviously, you know, we're very curious to see what happens. I think we're very excited, Linda Cartellini being Pamela Voorhees. You know it's going to be good. Like you just have to know it's going to be good for just from that alone. But I just was super excited. I had a lot of curiosity. What is the story they're going to bring forward? How is this going to tie into the events of the first film? What are we going to get? You know what I mean? I just had a whole lot of excitement and curiosity. I've been waiting for this for so long.

Kris 3:10

Listen, we've all been waiting for something from Friday the 13th. I mean, anything's 2026. We last time we got a movie was 2009. And of course, you and I both hopped on that Angry Orchard Train last year with Sweet Revenge and that short film and their and their collab Cider. I don't know if you've gotten the Ghostface one yet this year, but we were tromping at the bit as much as we possibly could. And I was also excited for this. Listen, you know I'm a Halloween girly. I love Michael Myers, and that's where my loyalty lies. I'm not even that crazy about Jason. But the franchise has begun to grow on me in my older age, and my apparent distaste for some of the movies doesn't preclude me from doing a Friday the 13th marathon every single year. And I found myself really most excited for Linda Cartellini and the opportunity to spend real time with Pamela Voorhees. Pretty iconic that she's the killer in the first film. Also, I know I give a spoiler warning up front, I don't really trust him. And if you're watching the series, you've at least watched the first Friday the 13th movie. Or you know a little bit about the lore. And I'm not saying it's essential, because I I do think that while this show is made by fans and heavily made with pleasing fans in mind, I don't think it's essential. I think you could absolutely be someone who's not familiar with Friday the 13th and just appreciate this as a show. So no shade on you, but I'm gonna spoil this shit for you. Sorry. Here's where we're at. It was in 1980. Okay. Going into there, I really wanted to understand and what I was excited about for the potential for is who Pamela was before Jason disappeared, before Jason drowned in the lake. I also wanted to see how she becomes the woman that we see in the original movie. You know, Betsy Palmer did a hell of a job making her utterly deranged. And you would think that she didn't start out that way. I was curious whether the series would proceed chronologically or jump between time periods. For as much as we have no violence whatsoever and carry up until you know things get very violent in that story, this is a slasher series. There has to be more bloodshed than that, right?

Sean 5:16

You would think so, yeah, for sure. Like you are definitely expecting, but that's one of the things that I was wondering, right? Like Pamela Borges, we're getting a I on one end, I'm glad we got a prequel. I was just thinking to myself, like, we have this series, it could have easily been some random story that no one really cared about. It could have been another installment, another just another Jason movie. But the choice to go back to the beginning and then go even further and do an origin story of Pamela Voorhees, who we haven't explored since 1980, really, other than uh you know, some little key moments throughout the franchise. But really just interesting to see where this story goes, how far they're gonna go, how they're gonna tie this in. I just, yeah, and I and you made a strong point. Like it's very interesting the fact that you can not have seen anything go into this because it is an origin story, because it is a prequel. You could theoretically go into this and watch it and then start the Friday the 13th movies. You could do that, but I also think that this being what it is, it could it is also just kind of a breath of fresh air for fans of the franchise. It's something different, it's something a little bit more, it has more depth, it has more story, it's giving you an a look into some characters that we didn't get to really dive into before.

Kris 6:43

Which makes me so excited, Sean, because when you come into a franchise like Friday the 13th, if you are not someone who is so deeply emotionally invested in it, you have this opportunity to either love it or hate it. I've been really in my bag playing Halloween the game. Like Michael Myers has gotten a lot of my attention this spooky season, and yet here I was absolutely floored by this whole episode. And there's gonna be some light spoilers in this just this this initial commentary before we really start going through everything that happens in the episode. But I finished this thing and I immediately felt like I needed to start the next, and I was so surprised how emotional it was immediately little Jason Voorhees come on, little I didn't expect to hear little Jason Voorhees speak and watch him interact with how could I not have seen this coming? But he was such a sweet, sweet boy. It's like I I saw him and I thought, yeah, everybody fucking deserved it. Pamela and Jason have done no wrong, no wrong, everything should have happened. It's all for you. I'm on your side.

Sean 7:58

It is a very interesting feeling, like getting to see Jason, you know, before all of the events that took place, before he drowns in the lake. I honestly I'll I'll I'll make a confession. I was literally leading up to this series thinking, like, okay, this is a prequel. So like what it what like what could possibly happen between Jason drowning and Pamela going on her rage? Like, I thought that we were living just in that space. I didn't know we were gonna go. I mean, we weren't, it's not that we were that far ahead of that, but I didn't think we were gonna build that character development the way that we did. And so, oh man, you definitely get this different range of emotion for these characters. It's a very different feeling for someone watching this franchise.

Kris 8:42

And it's so interesting because the humanization of Jason Voorhees is not something that we've ever gotten from anybody but Pamela Voorhees. Think about Michael Myers, he kills his sister, and he's this darling little six-year-old boy with his blank pale, emotionless face, and we know these things about him. And then in Halloween Kills, we have the 78 flashback where there are stories about how he was growing up and when that cop's mom made him have playdates with Michael Myers. So you still get a little bit of something there. There's still something to work with. But Jason Voorhees has always been this kid in the lake who is getting made fun of, bullied, unsupervised, and drowned. That is what his story has been, except for what Pamela shares about him. So the fact that we get this close to him and really get to see his heart and see what what happens in his mind when he's processing things. Oh my gosh. It's it completely upended anything that I could have possibly expected. And this is where I think it's almost better if you don't know anything about the franchise because you really get to fall in love with this kid. It's like watching the Phantom Menace without ever knowing anything about Darth Vader. It's like you're just following Anakin Skywalker doing his thing. And even though I know what ends up coming, I still found myself completely shocked and and appalled on behalf of Jason, on behalf of Pamela, thinking, like, damn, I just want to go back and protect you.

Sean 10:18

Yeah. That's an interesting point. I don't know what what is a more effective feeling. Like, I if you know the story the way that we do, the way that horror fans do, or the or the franchise of Friday the 13th fans do, I don't know. The feeling of knowing what happens and then watching this and and maybe getting that little that feeling of like really feeling bad and like you wanting to protect little Jason, right? Like you have that feeling, but watching it for the first time and not knowing anything, not knowing anything that happens, I can't imagine what that feeling's like. I'm sure it's I I don't know. I almost want to say it may not even be as effective, to be honest with you. I'm just thinking, I like I can your point around Star Wars, maybe. I think like leading up Anakin turning into Darth Vader, that's a twist, I think. But I think this right here, I mean, I don't know if it's as effective because I actually went I actually went back without giving too much way. I went, I thought back to like what I knew about this franchise and what happens in this episode, and I was expecting something a little bit different in the way that he died. I'm just gonna be honest, I was expecting a little bit different. Not that it's a bad thing.

Kris 11:31

I can't wait to unpack it. I can't wait to unpack it. There's gonna be so much I feel like you and I are gonna be debating throughout the course of this series. But one of the other things that's really special about this, and just like the initial energy that you just dropped into straight when this episode starts, you're really living in Peak Crystal Lake. You get to see a functioning summer camp with a ton of kids, a lot of music, and there's a lot of threads there that connect to all the movies, but you have this stark contrast of what it means to be, yes, a functioning and thriving summer camp versus a lot of violence. We get some gory shit in this episode, and I'm like, damn, I was hoping it would happen, but I didn't think it'd happen in episode one.

Sean 12:18

Yeah, way more than we thought we were gonna get right off the bat, for sure. So much happens in this first episode, by the way. I mean, if you haven't watched this yet, definitely watch it. So much happens in episode one.

Kris 12:31

Yeah, if you haven't watched it, I just need you to know now. Linda Cardalini fucking delivers, and she communicates both affection and distress with this tremendous specificity, and you're in for a treat. But I think this is a good point for us to we gave you your warning. We're about to start talking about the whole shebang, everything that happens in this episode. But now's your chance to go pause and go check it out. Otherwise, you're coming along for the fucking ride with us. Sean, this episode opens up with a crazy visual.

Sean 13:06

A crazy visual. I will say, the way that this episode opens up, I thought for sure we were starting the series with a glimpse of the end of the series. That's what I thought going into this. I was like, oh my god, we're starting in the aftermath of what we know from the original film. This is where we're at. What a cool way to open. I that's what I thought. I was like, this is great.

Kris 13:27

I thought the same exact thing. I thought that they plunged us forward to maybe one of the deaths that we get right before the original 1980 Freddie the 13th. We know that a lot of stuff has happened at that camp every time they try to reopen it.

Sean 13:42

Yeah.

Kris 13:42

But the fact that we see Linda Cartellini as Pamela Voorhees covered in blood, like carry at the prom level blood.

Sean 13:51

Pulling a tooth out of her hand?

Kris 13:53

A tooth! There's a tooth lodged in that meaty space between your knuckles. When she pulls it out, it's not like it was like barely in there. No, there was a gap. Sir, there was a cavernous hole, a gaping hole, some might say, where that tooth was. Ridiculous. She's asking, What did you do? I'm like, damn, girl, what did you do? How could we possibly get here?

Sean 14:16

Yeah, I thought we were literally starting like at the events of what we know to be Friday the 13th. We end up going backwards, and I thought this is what we were building to, and we'll get to it because once we well, we'll get to it. There's just more to say there, but that's where I thought this movie or this episode was starting. It was wild.

Kris 14:35

Yes, but of course, to your point, we do jump backwards to the summer of 1971, and we're inside Pamela's home. She's watching the Don Knotts show, which is such a throwback. I was I remember watching when Don Knotts was the superintendent of the landlord in Three's Company with actually John Ritter when he played Drag Tripper. We just recorded Bride of Chucky, so all these things are really collecting in my brain. But as she's watching TV, we have this what feels like a prowling camera. It's the old yes, exactly. And there's so many musical cues that hearken back to the original movies. It feels like she's being watched. Yeah. But of course, we get the reveal that it's Jason. And not only is it Jason with his cranial deformance, but he has the sweetest little voice, and he's waking up from a nightmare.

Sean 15:35

Just a little guy. He's just a little guy looking for, you know, some protection from his mother. It was a great little moment. Yeah, you you're talking about like the POV camera, the stalking, the things that we're used to seeing Jason do and his point of view, walking through the house, you know, and and she gets this little nice jump scare, if you will, seeing his reflection in the TV screen and then jumping back and noticing that it's him. It was a great little moment. But yeah, as soon as he starts talking, as soon as you start to see the dynamic between these two, you're just like immediately drawn to this dynamic. You're just like, oh my god, little Jason, what a sweet little kid he is, you know.

Kris 16:14

Yeah, I mean, it's so tender, Sean.

Sean 16:16

It's don't make us feel for little Jason.

Kris 16:19

Oh, dog, immediately I felt for little Jason. I'd never give a fuck about Jason before, although I did acknowledge that he was like a very sympathetic killer because it's kind of pitiful, right? But no, I'm like ride or die for Jason now. All it took was a few little moments because he he apologized so sweetly for scaring her, and it gives him this personality and this vulnerability beyond the drowning that's associated with his name and why he's famous. And it's also so sad, and we're I'm sure we're we're gonna get more of this as we go on in this series, but he doesn't want to go to camp because he notices the stairs, he knows that the other children treat him differently. And even though Pamela's trying to reassure him, he doesn't buy that shit. He understands more about his situation than she can easily comfort away. He doesn't want to go back because this is his home. His mother feels like the place where he can be safe and accepted for exactly who he is, even though he doesn't understand why he is the way he is. And you gotta think Sean, like her reluctance or his reluctance to attend the camp must make her feel even worse, knowing that she kept encouraging him to go. Uh, and just knowing what's ahead. It's like, please stop, get off the ride. Please pull over. You don't have to go do the thing that you're afraid of doing. It's gonna end in tragedy. Please just stay your ass home.

Sean 17:43

Yeah, it is uh it is tough just watching the dynamic. It's tougher knowing what's going to come, and you're just watching this dynamic between the two of them, and Jason obviously just struggling with the bullying and not wanting to be someone that you know just isn't fitting in and doesn't want to deal with that and doesn't want to deal with being made fun of and all these different things, and you know, she's just saying like it's good for you to get out and do things, and like it's a it's a tra that's a normal family conversation, totally normal. But the difference is is that we just know we know what's coming, and so we feel really bad about it.

Kris 18:20

They could have at least let us live with Jason living a little bit longer because the next, the very next segment of sequences that we get are really all at Crystal Lake, and again showing us the reality of what their day-to-day lives were like.

Sean 18:34

With that wild frickin' song that they opened with at the at the Crystal Lake of the little whatever they were singing, a bunch of kids singing the little Crystal Lake theme song. Felt like it was a children's show, to be honest with you.

Kris 18:46

It felt like it should have been, oh, I'm a happy camper.

Sean 18:50

Yeah, we just immediately go into Crystal Lake in a familiar setting, and you know, Jason is in the lake learning to almost like learning to swim, it looks like. He's got like his little paddleboard, and he's with the counselor, and but you could tell right off the bat people are be are making fun of him. You know, you hear the little digs at him, you hear like your big head's in the way, or you're a freak, or whatever. And right off the bat we know that at least we think that this is gonna be leading up to the moment that we all are expecting to happen sooner rather than later here.

Kris 19:23

Yeah, and what a painful time that is. And you know, while that's happening, he's in the water. You have Pamela who is working in the kitchen, she's the camp cook. The Christies are own this camp. We meet Steve Christie in Friday the 13th, 1980. In Friday the 13th, 1980, one of the most infamous things that happen is they find a snake in a cabin and they literally kill a fucking snake.

Sean 19:48

A real snake in a film. It actually happens.

Kris 19:51

Move over cannibal holocaust because they actually kill a snake. But in this show, we have a moment where Pamela is confronting a snake and she picks up a meat cleaver, and you have to think, okay, is she gonna go for it? Is this gonna be her first little taste of blood? But no, she puts it in a cooking pot, goes out in the woods, and meets who we end up being crazy Ralph near the campgrounds.

Sean 20:17

So crazy. First of all, I definitely thought she was for sure gonna kill this snake. For sure. I didn't I didn't know, like obviously, I didn't ex I wasn't expecting them to have a live snake on this set and chopping up a live snake this time around because we do things a little bit different these days, but I was not expecting for it to go in a different direction, and I thought it was a very interesting choice, but it a cool choice to just show, like, hey, we're we're still acknowledging throwing some nods at something that I think you know you you look back on and say, Oh, we wouldn't even touch that this time around. But they chose to do it, but I think it also adds a little bit more depth to Pamela's character a little bit, you know, like the she's not she's not all bad here. She actually has sympathy and she actually does care for things, and she is, you know, technically a good person.

Kris 21:12

Yeah, no, she is given nothing but good so far. The reality is okay. Yeah, you can be faux posed with this question. I too, Sean wondered, is she gonna kill the sick? But her releasing it really reinforces kindness, and then when she meets Ralph, who, as it turns out, isn't crazy Ralph, he's traumatized, he's a war veteran. We get moments where the community really like highlights that she was a very nice woman that feels very consistent with her behavior, but the fact that he's describing what is essentially a memory of landmines, and then she wants to guide him back.

Sean 21:51

Yeah, it is very sad. I actually really love what they're doing with some of these characters because crazy Ralph, obviously, iconic. In the original movie, but I also think like there is depth. I love seeing that there's a little bit more to this character. I kind of love that they tied in this like Vietnam war vet that's just traumatized by the horrors that he saw in the war and just can't really, you know, get back to a sense of normalcy. And like it's you know, it's not it's not the crazy Ralph that we don't know anything about. He's just this crazy old dude that's you know giving you warnings and stuff like that. No, this guy is a little you know, he's kind of savvy to what's going on, but he's also kind of messed up in the head.

Kris 22:34

Again, he's traumatized, it's just really sad and really tragic. But another character who we meet throughout this moment in the episode is Grace. And Grace is a young girl close to Jason, a Jason's age, who actually defends him from a bully when this kid is just picking on him, she intervenes, and then she's so supportive of him, and that is such a sweet, sweet moment.

Sean 23:01

Yeah, that is a sweet moment having uh a friend like Grace to kind of stick up for you, and and as soon as we get this event that happens, and you know, they're you know, they're talking on the sidelines, and somebody throws a ball at Jason's head, and she gets mad, sticks up for him, and you know, ends up throwing that ball out into like from the shore and the cutoff section to the regular section of the lake, you know, you can call it the deep end or whatever, but it's the restricted part of the lake for these kids. They were specifically told not to go over there. So we get this moment where she throws the ball over there, and I'm just thinking between that moment and the moment where she tells Jason, like, or when the kids are telling her, like, you know, you can get kicked out for going over there. I see, you know, they cut to Jason and he's got like this little thought in his head, and we know that he doesn't even want to be there. So I'm like, okay, well, they're setting this one up for sure.

Kris 23:58

Okay, I didn't clock that as he didn't want to be there, I clocked that as he didn't want the only person who was nice to him to get in trouble. Oh, I saw that as like a protective instinct.

Sean 24:10

Could be that. I thought, like, for sure he was like, I don't want to be here in the first place, so that's my ticket out of here kind of thing.

Kris 24:16

Well, his mom works there, so I don't know that he exactly has that full amount of a ticket out of there. But another moment before we even get to him getting into the water, we have Barry and Claudette Sean.

Sean 24:27

Oh, OG Camp Counselors.

Kris 24:30

OG Camp Counselors specifically named in the cast for the original 1980 film, which is pretty incredible. So we have Claudette who was doing like the swim instructing, and she was supervising the kids in that area. She leaves to go get some rope for their next thing, and then fucking bummer of a boyfriend Barry goes over there and just starts hooking up with her, like encourages the neglect.

Sean 24:53

Of course, it wouldn't be a Friday the 13th anything, it wouldn't be Camp Crystal Lake if there wasn't some horny teenagers getting it on in the cabin. I mean, it's it's classic. You got the two OG camp counselors, you got them hooking up in the in the cabin. I want to say I was surprised, but I really wasn't surprised.

Kris 25:12

Well, so many other Friday the 13th movies, and even Freddie versus Jason shows us that Jason drowned because he wasn't supervised because the counselors were hooking up and screwing around, and it's Claudette's decision, and she tries to go back. She tries to say no, but her decision to be tempted and persuaded by her boyfriend becomes the consequential failure of this episode.

Sean 25:38

For sure. And I don't think she tried that hard to say no, you know. I think she, you know, a couple of uh, oh no, I gotta get back there, no, not right now, and then she just gave in right away.

Kris 25:50

So Well, she gave in because she loves her boyfriend, and he said the kids are fine, and she thought, well, no, how bad it could it be?

Sean 25:59

You never know, you know. Ideally, the kids would have probably been fine, but somebody decided to go into the the regular part of the lake that couldn't swim that well.

Kris 26:09

Exactly. That would be like me going in the regular part of the lake. I would have definitely been dead. But of course, so we have Barry and Claudette hooking up. We have Pamela trying to take care of Ralph in the woods, and then there's little Jason Worhees getting in the part of the water he doesn't belong in.

Sean 26:28

Well, we also, yes, but we also have an important moment too that we will have to come back to because Grace also sees them hooking up. Oh my god. We do have Grace is asked to go find her, and she does peek and see the hookup that's happening in the cabin or in the barn or where the hell they were. I'm not sure.

Kris 26:46

But she gets a full eye of Barry Butt.

Sean 26:49

Yeah, she does. And we gotta we gotta revisit that a little bit later. But that is something that happens, and then yes, Jason's flailing around, drowning in the lake at this point now, unsupervised. Here's the thing, and maybe and maybe here's what I was expecting. I was expecting to see more of the bullying of like them like edging him on into the lake or pushing him into the lake or throwing him into the lake and then laughing at him, but we we genuinely have the bullying, but then it just seems to be a conscious decision to go get that ball and be by himself.

Kris 27:26

Yeah, yeah. I don't uh okay, prior to the 13th be damned and all the lore there. Yes, he was bullied. However, I saw this as him trying to do a nice thing to save a friend. Yeah, because she was close to him, or at least he perceived her to be close to him. But what I really appreciated is while he was out there again trying to get this ball and he was screaming for help. Oh my god, also heartbreaking to even hear. He is screaming for someone to to help him, and even though I've seen this movie and know the story, my anxiety is still going like, oh my god, please, somebody get to this fucking kid, please. It was so unsettling, it was so upsetting to hear, but also there's a reality that people were actually going trying to help him. John Christie fucking bolted and trying to jump into the water. Pamela bolted, got into the water, and it's honestly kind of supernatural that he just went down while he was in the midst of being saved, because you know, all those people have to see around the area where he was before he'd just stopped coming back up.

Sean 28:34

So it's pretty spooky. It is a little spooky. He did go down pretty suddenly after flailing around for quite some time up there, and then you know, he's just gone after that, which is wild. But I also, yeah, I mean, I just I don't I'm not mad at it. I'm not mad at it by any means. I just you know wasn't expecting it. I was expecting it to be a little bit or play out a little bit differently. So it was interesting the choice that they made to kind of depict that moment. I'm not mad at it by any means. I thought it still was effective. I still am trying to figure out how he got that far if he couldn't swim.

Kris 29:09

Well, I think kind of swim. His his kicks were getting better.

Sean 29:14

Maybe he had the paddleboard and then somehow the paddleboard left him. I don't know when he tried to grab the ball. I don't know.

Kris 29:20

It could have been, but also it could have been that. I mean, there are plenty of swimmers who can swim, who die in the water and drown every day. Like that happens. Sometimes your body gives out, you're tired. It's not like he had been improving, so he was probably just more confident in his swimming than he should have been, bodyboard or not. I I mean, yeah, it it's it's kind of a feat to have gotten out there, that's for sure. So you were expecting him to only be out that far or to drown as a result of bullying specifically, not because of a conscious decision.

Sean 29:47

Correct, yeah. Which I'm not mad at. I'm saying it right now. I'm not necessarily mad at it. It definitely was a swing in a different direction that I wasn't expecting. So, but I like that we're taking, you know, different, you know, we're taking different approaches to different things and trying to tell this story in a different way. I think there's a lot of breathing room, which I think, you know, it it's great that we don't get a lot of really specific details in the original film, which opens it up a little bit for a really good origin story. So I think it's cool to kind of see this story unfold.

Kris 30:20

Friday the 13th is such a fucking lucky franchise because they really went with no idea, just a vibe and a title, a hope and a prayer to just reverse engineer Halloween success. Really just stumbled into this success.

Sean 30:34

And look at all this that's happened.

Kris 30:36

And honestly, how do we start it with this show? Like, if I had something as deep as this show, I would have loved the original Friday the 13th and really moved up to it. And it's so weird because I'm not someone who usually likes a lot of backstory and a lot of knowledge, but damn, they're spending and investing the time to make me care. Which is why when we see Pamela Voorhees still looking for Jason nine months later because they haven't found his body, damn, that hurts.

Sean 31:04

No, damn, that's so tough. Yeah, nine months later, and she's just at the lake every day, staring out, looking for him, still waiting to see. And then we learn, like, as you know, Chief Levant going out to take her, like he can't be here at the lake or whatever, and letting her know like you're here every day, you can't be here, you know this, and it's just heartbreaking. She's there every single day for nine months. But the story starts to reveal like they've looked for him, search parties, they've I'm assuming they dove. I'm I'm assuming, and they can't find his body. You know, I guess it's connected to a river that may lead to something else. So, like maybe they're talking about like the currents taking him out, but it seems a little bit suspicious that all of a sudden, right away, like you would think somebody would have been going under pretty damn soon after his death, and we couldn't find a body. That's a crazy thing.

Kris 31:56

Well, Friday the 13th is a crazy story, but it is it also is then an indicator. This town is starting to move on, and she's not because she's also surrounded by his toys, his belongings, she feels his absence, everything.

Sean 32:10

She feels so bad. Ah, the trauma, the grief. You have to live with it with her, and it's so tough like losing a child like that. Can't even imagine what it's like to lose anybody and having to come back to their things and live in the house where all their stuff is, and yeah, it's tough.

Kris 32:25

It's horrible. It is honestly horrible. But we also get a flashback after this point where we get to see some things that feel like they're very intentional seeds that are being planted. And I absolutely fucking love this, Sean. It's like one of the best moments in the episode for me. Pamela comes home, she walks in the door, and she has a box with her. Jason is excited because inside of it there's camping supplies, there's a tent, there's stuff to cook, there's a machete. And a machete, the machete, a machete, no weapon. You start to see that this is a thing for them. These are are little moments that they share together, and uh, and obviously she's talking about like the woods and how much they explore and camping and fishing. So she has already done some outdoor stuff with him, and she does it with him. This is a bonding thing. He's learning these things. He has a little ranger book, he loves just being outdoors. Maybe he doesn't love being at Camp Crystal Lake because of the kids, but he loves the woods.

Sean 33:27

Yeah.

Kris 33:28

And I love how intentional they are in building up this excitement and also showing that from a young age he's been learning how to survive.

Sean 33:36

Yeah, so it's an interesting, a lot of interesting pieces of lore that we get here. We get to see, you know, a little bit into their, you know, what they like to do in pastime together in the hobby of him like learning how to like, you know, live live and camp and fend for yourself and survive and do all the things. Maybe he's in the Boy Scouts, you know, things like that. And you get that. So, like, okay, a little background, like he understands the woods. They, you know, they they go out in the woods and camp together. Okay, I like that. It's a little bit of foreshadowing. You also get the fucking machete, which is also great foreshadowing. He's sitting there swinging the machete around, and you're just like, oh, this is a nice little nod for sure.

Kris 34:16

It's also a nice little nod for her. I mean, she eventually gets decapitated with one of those bad boys. But the other aspect that we see and we learn here is that Jen Jason is not just someone who has like a deformed cranium. He actually has an ongoing medical condition that requires Pamela's daily care for him. And there's a moment where he goes to get the matches so that they can try out this camping thing, and then she just hears his body hit the ground. And it looks like he's having a seizure. I don't I've never seen a seizure, nor do I want to. But that's what it seems like. And she gives him this medication and she tries to just hold him. She eventually takes him to his bed and she's promising to protect him. She's talking about how she's never gonna let anything happen to him. And Sean, he's he's asleep. This kid isn't hearing it.

Sean 35:12

No, but the memory of that. It's so heartbreaking. That whole scene, because you see, you get to live that whole scene, and then it goes to the moment where she's in bed as he's like sleeping and recovering from this what we think is some kind of a seizure due to his metal condition, and it cuts directly from that to her in the bed hugging a pillow instead of Jason, because in reality, it's just maybe a memory, like you said, and she's just remembering that moment, maybe, but she's just laying in bed and it's so heartbreaking.

Kris 35:45

She's going from cuddling her son to grasping the acceptance of his absence, and it's so sad because yeah, she lost her son for sure, but then she also lost the structure and everything that defined her life for the entire time that he's been alive.

Sean 36:03

The empathy that you feel in those moments. It just what they did to build these characters up in this short amount of time. We're talking maybe 30 minutes so far. Incredible. Incredible. And then and then we we move from that and she gets invited to this Founders Day celebration at the lake at Camp Crystal Lake, and you know, she ends up going and everyone's having fun, you know, and it's a really interesting moment. One, I in a lighthearted sense, she brought like four baked apples. I don't know, like when you're going to a party with like 50 to 100 people that you want to bring four of anything, it just seems like a strange choice, you know, to me. I don't know. That just maybe it's just me and my weird thinking, you know. Like it's like, hey, I'm I'm going to this party. Here's four deviled eggs. Do what you will with them, split them up into tiny little bite-sized pieces.

Kris 37:00

There might be only four people in that town that she even likes, John. Let's just be real.

Sean 37:04

But okay, yeah. I just it was an interesting thought.

Kris 37:07

Yeah. Also, there's so much to unpack here in the Founders Day picnic. I also just want to highlight for a moment because the reason she even ends up there is because of Chief Brooks. So his name is LeVon Brooks. We're gonna reference him Brooks or Lee or Chief Brooks, etc. He has a moment with her and he invites her to come out just to try to heal, to try to for for people for her to be able to let people in.

Sean 37:32

Yeah, he's a nice guy.

Kris 37:33

And I also love that he is a nice guy, yeah. I also love that as we get through this episode, we even get to see his home life a little bit. And when he gets into his own house, who I expect to be his wife, I guess his sister.

Sean 37:48

I thought it was his wife too.

Kris 37:49

Yeah, you have these these pictures of him married to somebody in the background. I couldn't make it out clearly enough to understand to see the face. But you reckon you realize, and and she admits she calls him Big Bro. And so through their conversation, you start to realize that he's a widower. Yeah, he's lost his wife.

Sean 38:08

Yeah, there's a little bit more to this dynamic here.

Kris 38:11

There's so much more. So he is a man who has lost his wife, who is now encouraging a woman who has lost her son to reintegrate into the community. And it's just it makes what happens even sadder.

Sean 38:25

Yeah, it definitely does. There's this building moment between these two. Um, you get a little depth into Chief Lee, but the the Founders Day celebration of it all, I think, really, really is a pivotal moment in the episode and into you know the the psych of Pamela Voorhees because she's still not she's still very triggered by the events, you can tell. Like she made a choice, she wanted to go out and like maybe have a nice time, but being there just was not it. It was just not it. There was too much going on. You start to like really feel what's happening, and it's just too much for her to take in. There's fireworks going off everywhere, which is triggering. You can see she's like jumping at it for whatever reason, like she's just getting shocked by it. There's kids yelling and running everywhere. At one point, some kids actually throwing one of her baked apples up and like hitting it with a baseball bat, like it was like we're just playing baseball. So, like, there's a lot of chaos. It starts to feel chaotic, but I think in that moment it wasn't really the chaos of the party, it's just it's the chaos of the anxiety that she's feeling in that moment and how she's feeling with everything going on, and she's not ready to be at the place her son died that they haven't found the body, but everyone's just having a great time doing whatever, and it's just really hard to watch her kind of descend into madness in this moment. She's really just descending downwards, spiraling.

Kris 39:53

Yeah, I mean, it's really sad to see. And imagine this, she doesn't even know what Barry and Claudette were doing. She doesn't know that their negligence played a part in Jason's drowning, however indirect it may have been. And they're approaching her, wanting to have some kind of memorial or do something for him to honor him, you know, for them to share just how much he meant to everybody. Except Jason didn't mean that much to everybody. He meant that much to Pamela, he meant that much to Grace, maybe. And so it's it's just it's just tough. And and you put it so well, it's like Linda Cardalini's performance during this, she masters the art of being overstimulated while trying to remain composed.

Sean 40:40

Yeah, it's a tough one for sure. Yeah, she does a great job doing this, and yeah, I think that you know there's that it's that moment where they are saying something nice, like we want to do something to remember or honor Jason, and oh that's really nice of you to say, but then she learns in that conversation that they have plans to reopen the camp. They're gonna reopen the camp that summer because they you know they can't afford to not, I guess, you know, it's a you know, they can't afford not to close to keep it closed or whatever it's they have to open it, and so she that was the last straw.

Kris 41:15

That was the last straw, which honestly I get if your livelihood is running a summer camp and you haven't been able to open it, yeah. I completely get why you need to do it, and it sucks because it's just a shitty situation for everybody, and it's a really difficult spot to be in, but for her to also find out there, you know, she feels like it's a betrayal, like the Christies were her friends, and she feels like that is a deep, deep, deep betrayal.

Sean 41:43

Yeah, and that's when she loses it, right? Like she just she completely loses it, she gets upset, she runs into the water, she's yelling at the kids that it's not safe, they need to get out of there. You know, Chief Lee tries to console her, get her out of the water, and she just goes off on everybody, which I I get that part too. Like, you haven't found my kid's body yet, and you're all flailing around in the water, like you're having a good old time, everyone's having a party, celebrating, and my son is dead and missing. And it happened right here, and no one cares.

Kris 42:15

John, she was having a real bad day, but her day was about to get a whole lot worse because not only does she have a shitty time at the Founders' Day picnic, when she got home, there's two men waiting on her.

Sean 42:27

Dude, this whole moment was so strange until I realized what was happening. It just felt so off, and obviously on purpose. But yeah, these two cops or presumed police officers or detectives come to her house and they're sitting there telling her that they may have found Jason's body downriver. And you're like, okay, I I bought into that for a second, but then like there was weird shit that was happening. Like the guy was asking questions that why would you be asking this question if you were just gonna show, like, tell her in the news of finding her dead son's body, it would be irrelevant to ask weird shit like how well do you know the neighbors and this weird shit like that. And immediately at that moment, I'm like, okay, something is off with these guys. What the fuck is going on here?

Kris 43:16

Yeah, and of course, as she as they're delivering this news, you have two men. One of them is uh, what a what a motherfucker. He is tracking dirt in her house, and of course, somebody who is processing this much grief probably wants to have that a little bit of that control back, right? So she points out that he's tracking dirt in. He makes a comment on a hundred dollar shoes, but she remembers she remembers, uh-huh, uh-huh. But Lee said, You cop can only afford eleven dollars and ninety-five cent shoes. Because that was a cute little that was a cute little joke that they had.

Sean 43:52

I didn't even clock that. That's a good, that's a good I didn't even catch that. I just thought by the just the response alone, this guy was. Such an asshole. If you're tracking mud through somebody's house and your immediate response of being called out for that, you're just saying, Oh, my fucking hundred dollar shoes. What a piece of shit. But I didn't even clock the whole conversation before of a police officer can only afford an $11 pair of shoes. That's crazy.

Kris 44:16

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. No, listen, who would respond that way? You're not wrong. So for sure he is an asshole. But yeah, when she got to the Founders Day picnic, she was commenting on how Lee looked different. He said, I'm out of uniform. He's commenting on his wardrobe, and she points out his shoes. He's like, $11.95, best I can do on a cop salary. Something to that effect. He's commenting on the price of his shoes and how much money he does not make as a police officer. And he asked for her help to break them in. So regardless of whatever this thing is with her and Lee, it's significant enough of a moment to just be sitting there in her subconscious. So the second he comments on the pricing, that's where the first thing out of her mouth is, Who'd you guys say you were with again?

Sean 45:02

Yeah. Yeah, I knew she was catching on to something for sure. So let me ask you this though. When we get to the point where you know she's like getting up and saying, Yes, she's gonna go with them, but then she has to go to the bathroom, we know she's buying time. Like at that point, anyone that says, Give me a minute, goes into the bathroom, we know she's buying time. The moment you see the dude try to like take out a pouch with like a some kind of whatever substance of you know, whatever it is, like a tranquilizer or some kind of thing like that. What did you think these guys were up to? Because my initial thought was were they sent here from like a psych ward?

Kris 45:43

Okay, Sean, I am so excited to see how this series plays out. But here's what I actually thought. When they showed up, like the feds or some kind of secret people, and they wanted to drug her. I thought to myself, what the fuck is her deal? Is this gonna be like a Stranger Things and 11 situation? Was Jason actually a very special boy? Are they with some kind of like CD Underground Corporation? I thought there was something happening to that effect that they wanted to kidnap her.

Sean 46:14

Well, I caught on to that once like I I started seeing weird stuff like about this company. I started thinking that way. But in my initial reaction for some reason was like, I don't know, are they just are they did somebody send these people here to like bring her maybe back into a psych ward that she may have been in at one point in her life or something like that?

Kris 46:34

Yeah, I didn't go psych ward because I thought psych ward would have been more upfront and formal. The fact that they were in suits and assholes either says to me you work for the government, you're contracted by the government, or you're part of some big fucking organization, or you have mob ties.

Sean 46:52

Something weird. It is jersey for sure. Okay, but okay, so then let's get into it because this fucking part of the episode goes fucking bonkers. Like this is where you weren't expecting the slasher feel of this to happen so soon, but Pamela goes off. And when she goes off, I mean like she fights back, like they realize that she's trying to escape or do something, so the one asshole dude barges into the bathroom and grabs her. Luckily, she grabs a pair of like scissors and stabs this motherfucker in the leg and starts twisting at it. Man, and the whole struggle right there is intense. You get like the back and forth, but were you ready? Like, I I thought for sure these two dudes were gonna overpower her. I don't know why the other dude didn't jump. She swings that fucking scissor around and gets the dude and clips him right in the neck. Woo! That's wild.

Kris 47:55

Yeah, the blood splurting from the neck was intense. And again, I thought for sure they would overpower her, but also I'm like, oh well, she does end up in this town in 1980, so she's gotta be here at some point. But even then, I thought they would have been much more successful over her. I don't know why the fuck they got overpowered by her and she really got them. But for me, Sean, it was when oh my gosh. So Benny is the first guy who she ends up stabbing.

Sean 48:26

Yeah.

Kris 48:27

But when Ed has her like essentially cornered, she grabs the machete and slices off part of his face.

Sean 48:34

Oh my god. Were you ready for that? Were you ready for that level of graphic like gore? I wasn't expecting it to go that heavy.

Kris 48:47

How could you be ready? You simply could not be ready. It did look a little like okay, yeah. It's pretty it's it looked a little off, but I think it's just because anytime I see that, I'm instantly throwing back to the 1999 mummy, and I'm just thinking.

Sean 49:04

Yeah, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about.

Kris 49:07

Specifically being able to see the teeth, you know what I mean? It's just that.

Sean 49:11

Yeah.

Kris 49:12

But my god, it was grotesque, it was gruesome, and then for her to actually take the machete to the top of his head to the dome piece, and of course, Lee fucking shows up.

Sean 49:24

Of course, because like when anything if there's ever a situation in a horror movie or any kind of movie for that matter where you have a dead body in your home and you're trying to figure out what to do with it, somebody always shows up at your door. It's in an opportune time. Somebody's always like, Hey, what's going on? What's going on in there? Luckily, he was easily deflected, but geez.

Kris 49:46

Yeah, he was easily deflected. However, we also need to really linger in here for a moment because she has now killed Ed.

Sean 49:53

Yeah.

Kris 49:54

She pulls a machete from his head. He's spurting blood everywhere.

Sean 49:59

Everywhere, which is so campy that she tries to put a couple paper towels down to try to soak it up. That was such a that was a com a slight comedic relief for me.

Kris 50:09

She tries to duct tape it clothes, but it's too wet. So then she grabs a bag. No, she grabs it around his neck.

Sean 50:16

Then she grabs the fucking bag and says, or plastic wrap or whatever it was that says keep it garden fresh.

Kris 50:23

But I loved watching the blood fill that bag up.

Sean 50:27

Yeah. Oh my god.

Kris 50:29

Sean, I here's what I really need to know from you, Sean. At what point did you clock that she was wearing what she was wearing in the beginning of the episode? Because I fucking didn't until she gets covered in blood later.

Sean 50:40

I didn't clock it until the moment that she that the bag bursts on top of her and she gets covered in blood. That is the moment that I realized, oh shit, this did not start at the place that I thought it was starting. It just started at the end of this episode.

Kris 50:59

Yeah. It was fucking nuts. So this bag filled up with blood. So she's she thinks he's down for the count. She goes to the door to get rid of Lee without ever opening the door. But in the background, Ed pulls a Michael Myers and he just sits right up and he's getting up and he's coming, he's coming towards her.

Sean 51:20

Don't know how he got up, and don't know how he died afterwards. Because all that happened was she got pushed into a wall and punched a couple times.

Kris 51:30

Yeah. I mean, she did get a tooth stuck in her knuckles.

Sean 51:33

Maybe it was just some rigor mortis, I don't know, but you know, she did get a tooth.

Kris 51:37

That's a lot of rigor mortis. Absolutely not.

Sean 51:40

Oh man, gnarly, gnarly. Oh my god, I wasn't expecting that. And I I thought it was really clever. Like, I think they did that opening of the episode on purpose to get all the fans to think that way, and then kind of reveal that nope, this is just something that happened during this during this moment of the story. And that's the disposal of the bodies that I think is amazing. Let me tell you this. When she first decided when she's going through and she drives these bodies to the woods, I thought for sure maybe she was just gonna dump them in the lake, something like that. But I wasn't clocking a bear for some reason. I was thinking, like, why are you spreading honey on this dude? Why are you dumping cans of tuna fish on this dude? Why are there blueberries involved? What is happening and why are we doing all of this?

Kris 52:32

Yeah, I I figured out pretty quickly as she grabbed the food items out of the bag. I didn't think bear specifically, but I think ants?

Sean 52:43

Well, was it gonna be ants eating her or like a fucking what what are we talking about? Like, what's gonna eat like squirrels, like rabid squirrels? Like what the fuck? I'm thinking, okay, a bear is a reasonable decision. Like, okay, if you if you know that there's some frequent bear activity here, a bear is not far-fetched, but can this bear actually eat two full ass men? I don't know about that.

Kris 53:05

Well, it wasn't a matter of the bear eating them overnight, but she was leading, leaving the remains out there to create the illusion of attack. Hopefully, the bear would eat it over time. But who's looking for these guys? You know what I mean? I found the bear disposal inventive. It was giving very yogi bear gonna steal a picnic basket, except the picnic basket are too fucking corpse. I appreciated that. She lathered them up in food and then got rid of it. However, her connecting with the beast in the den and the bear coming out and sniffing her, it felt like mama bear and mama bear. I don't know what that bear situation was. Mom, dad, cub, whoever. It was this almost like parallel of the beast that's inside her coming face to face with an another predator in the woods.

Sean 53:57

Yeah.

Kris 53:58

I really love that. I absolutely loved it. And again, it just harkens back to would you rather run into a bear or a man in the woods? Pamela would rather wear run into a bear.

Sean 54:09

That's true.

Kris 54:10

But but Sean, the best part of this whole thing with Pamela at the bear's den is the fact that she imagines little Jason beside her holding her hand. And what is he wearing? A blue plaid shirt and denim overalls.

Sean 54:26

Amazing.

Kris 54:27

Just like Friday the 13th, part two.

Sean 54:30

Amazing. You gotta love it. You gotta love it. You gotta love all of the little things that they did to really call back and do little nods to the franchise and really pay homage to the franchise. Because, you know, sometimes they're subtle. Like if you're you know, you could watch that scene and maybe not pay attention to something like that. But there's a lot of things that they do that call back to the episode. I even the even the opening title design was a callback directly to the original title card with the 3D lettering, and it was perfect, it was absolutely perfect, breaking through the glass and all.

Kris 55:08

Even the font that you used, just in the regular credits.

Sean 55:11

Yeah, yeah. I I call right away. I was like, okay, I see you, I see what's going on here. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they did it.

Kris 55:17

So I I think we should go through a couple things that we just know because there's there's a bunch of different categories of things. So we had the Crystal Lake title, we got that. In terms of characters, we talked about Pamela being the camp cook. We talked about burying Claudette, the original counselors who Pamela kills in the beginning of the 1980 film.

Sean 55:38

Yeah.

Kris 55:39

We had the Christie family, so John and Kay Christie.

Sean 55:43

Ralph.

Kris 55:44

Ralph. Mm-hmm. And then did you clock who Enos is?

Sean 55:48

Yeah, it took me a second to like figure it out. Enos, the truck driver, he gives Annie a ride in the original film. Yeah.

Kris 55:56

Yeah, that's not something that I ever would have known, but it is one of the few things that I heard before the show even released was that they were bringing his character back and expanding his role. Because in the original movie, he's just listed as the chart to the truck driver. I don't recall them ever really saying his name.

Sean 56:13

Yeah, that's true. I had so the thing is that I had subtitles on, which I do mostly now for movies, just so I can visualize quotes and stuff. And so the helpful thing about that is you get to see like it'll tell you the names of the people as they talk. So it helps a little bit sometimes to see, oh, this character name.

Kris 56:34

Oh yeah, and don't worry, when we talk about episode two, I had a whole moment earlier in the early, early in the episode where I thought someone was someone else, and all of a sudden I saw a different name in the credits. But yeah, for sure. Okay, some other things that we saw. Pamela is wearing her blue sweater.

Sean 56:51

Yeah, of course.

Kris 56:53

We talked about the snake. We talked about the machete.

Sean 56:56

We did the plaid overalls, and we did all that. There is one thing that I thought was really clever, and that's the drowning sequence that we get with Jason and the whole like it the leading of Pamela screaming was a definite that's that echoes from the original movie's opening. The whole moment that we get of Jason drowning and Pamela screaming in the water and how it like cuts like that way and freezes was a really cool kind of just nod to the opening of the original movie.

Kris 57:29

Oh, damn, I love that, and that's so good. Of course, ooh, okay, and even in addition to that, you also have the the the whispered Yeah.

Sean 57:37

And they they put it, it wasn't like overdone, right? Like they did it in just the right pockets of time, which I loved. That's what I'm talking about. So far, we're getting these little things, these little nods, but it's not like they're just doing it and like overdoing it and over whatever. It's just little pieces that they give you and subtle things, and the even just the use of that is perfect. I think it was just really well done.

Kris 57:59

A couple of the small things that I caught. So we uh we talked about like the camping equipment already, and there's a point where Jason talks about the woods being his, but the last thing, and this is actually pretty early in the episode when the kids are all at the camp and you have like the announcement coming on over the camp, like uh intercom, they talk about making crystal like memories, and of course, crystal like memories is the title of the entire Friday the 13th documentary.

Sean 58:29

That's true. I didn't even think about that. That's awesome. I mean, yeah, I'm sure that maybe that is intentional. I mean, they definitely are it feels like the things that they're doing in making their own story, but also making a point to just pay homage to everything that surrounds this franchise in very like clever and subtle ways, um, just feels really well done. It's almost like a love letter, in a sense, um, the way that they're handling this, which I think is is is pretty awesome. And I gotta say, overall, that so much happens in this opening episode. I my reaction to the credits rolling to this episode was literally just wow.

Kris 59:08

Genuinely, you called me or you text me and said, wow, yeah, absolutely, absolutely need to get my hands on more. I finished this episode and I was like, oh no, I gotta watch the next one immediately. I have to. I'm down bad.

Sean 59:25

It's so good.

Kris 59:26

It is so good, and I can't wait to see what is next in episode two. Obviously, we have a lot of expectations of what we're getting into here, and Crystal Lake has not disappointed yet. But for now, that wraps up our discussion on this episode of Crystal Lake. Uh, of course, the conversation doesn't end here by any means. If you have thoughts on what we covered, please do call or text the hackerslash hotline. You can click the link in this episode description, do send us a text or a voicemail. We'd absolutely would love to hear what stood out to you and where you landed on it.

Sean 59:58

And if you want to follow us deeper into Crystal Lake, we're breaking down each episode over on Patreon with detailed recaps, theories, discussions as we work our way through this entire series review. We're super excited about it. We can't wait to dive into it. We want you to be a part of that. Join us at patreon.com slash hackerslash, where you'll also get bonus content, early access, extended episodes featuring our B-sides. You'll get to take part in movie nominations and live shows, and your support honestly just helps us keep the horror coming every single week. And on top of that, throughout October, you can join our new blood drive with code BLUD to get 50% off your first month or year. That's patreon.com slash hacker slash. That's where you can sign up for that. We look forward to you joining us.

Kris 1:00:56

We'll see you next time, folks. And remember, Crystal Lake, don't give up for dead.

Sean 1:00:59

Now let's go out there and make some more Crystal Lake memories.