Crystal Lake | Ep. 2: Part II

Kris 0:01

Spooky season, greetings and salutations, patrons, and welcome to another TV night with Hackerslash. If you're new to the party, hi, my name is Chris. I'm your friendly neighborhood slash enthusiast, of course, and this week I'm joined by the lake by the classic horror connoisseur Sean.

Sean 0:15

I'm gonna keep doing it until you stop stocking that fridge with chocolate milk and body parts.

Kris 0:21

We're here to discuss the second episode of A24's Crystal Lake series, and this episode is so aptly named Part 2. So original, so inventive. Now, previously on Crystal Lake, Pamela Voorhees' son, Jason, disappeared beneath the lake while his counselors were off having sex. Nine months later, his body still hasn't been found, but that is enough time to make a baby. And Pamela is struggling with the town as uh they prepare to reopen the camp. Then two men posing a state police attempt to abduct her. She killed them, she got her taste of blood, and she's then uncovering clues connected to her hidden past. Now, after leaving her body in a bear's den, she imagines Jason beside her in his cute little blue plaid shirt and overalls. So again, this is just a warning. This episode presumes that you've already seen this episode that we are discussing today. So there will be spoilers for the previous episode and spoilers for the current episode. Say it with me now that it's episode one and episode two of A24's Crystal Lake now streaming on Peacock. So if you don't want the spoilers, pause for just a moment. If you've already seen it, stick around. Sean, one hell of an episode that we had as our first episode in our introduction. How'd you feel with this one?

Sean 1:38

My gosh, it was a hell of an episode, episode one. Episode two was also really good. It was just the what I loved about this episode was that we really focused heavily on continuing to develop Pamela and some other characters and really kind of dove deep into the psyche of Pamela a little bit deeper. That's what this episode really felt like to me was like, okay, we had a really strong, intense opening. We put all we threw a lot at you. Now we're gonna spend an episode really kind of diving in deep and telling you who this character is, and I loved it.

Kris 2:16

100%, Sean. Man, this was another great one. Just like the first episode, I wanted to watch the next one immediately. Same thing here. I was hooked on every second. And what I love most is this show, and especially in this episode, it really continues to make Pam's grief feel way more immediate, way more personal, and there is still this really solid balance of tenderness, very uncomfortable humor. Linda Cartellini is just a powerhouse. Like I I cannot think of someone better to have played Pamela Voorhees in this. Everything that we get from her evolving and rediscovering this relationship with Grace to what we see as she engages with Rita and she goes to this seminar. There's just a ton happening in here that I absolutely love. And I can't wait for us to get into all the details.

Sean 3:10

Yeah, there is so much to unpack. It's just a lot to unpack with Pamela, specifically the relationships that she has with, you know, different characters, like you said, with Grace, different things like that. Um, but yeah, it was just um even getting more on like Chief Lee and his character and diving in a little bit deeper there and kind of the story moving a little bit forward, giving a little bit more as it kind of unfolds. I loved it, man. There's a lot to unpack. I'm excited.

Kris 3:39

Well, let's go ahead and start unpacking it because this episode opens with what ends up being a dream, but it also opens up with one hell of a song. The soundtrack on the show is already baller.

Sean 3:51

It opens up with one hell of a song, it opens up with one hell of a scene, it opens up to one hell of a callback. Let's just say that. Like it, I mean, it's it's amazing. You've got you've got the opening scene of of Pamela floating out onto the lake on the canoe, and you and it's just the seeing her, and she just looks down. Like you have Chief Lee in the background telling her to come on in, but she's there and she looks into the water and she sees like this little the ghost of her son Jason in the water, maybe, and there's this whole thing, but then you get the classic jump scare with the dude, you know, I don't know which one it was that popped out, but one of the dudes she killed from the last episode, one of the fake police jumping out of the water to grab her. Come on.

Kris 4:42

I am so glad you fucking said this because this is exactly what I wanted to point out in our last episode. She sees Jason in the water. And we know when we saw this scene in the original Friday the 13th, Alice had young Jason jumping over the canoe. Here's the fucking problem, Sean. I rewound it and I was so sure when watching that it was the guy she killed whose face she sliced off because you could see the gum exposed.

Sean 5:11

Was it not?

Kris 5:12

But John, the caption at that moment on Peacock says Jason growls. How the fuck is this adult Jason in her dream? I mean, it is a dream, so I guess it doesn't matter how big or small he is. I fully clocked, okay, like a lot of guilt from having killed these guys, but then the caption makes me believe that it's Jason growling.

Sean 5:35

Maybe it could be. That's wild. I didn't I didn't pay attention to the caption in that moment. I was so enthralled with the visual aspect of it all, but that would be wild. And maybe it's like a premonition or a foreshadowing or something. There's some stuff I will say that happens um, you know, in this series, you know, and I think even maybe starting in this episode where we start to get glimpses of Jason, and it may not be far-fetched to start seeing a larger Jason.

Kris 6:04

No, yeah, I do think it's far-fetched, though. I do think it's far-fetched because this franchise's whole problem is just like a little boy drowns in a lake, and then at least in the movies, they had this whole expanse of time to suddenly make him a grown-ass man. Sean, it's been nine months. Well, not even a year yet.

Sean 6:24

Nine months in the afterlife is like it's like dog years, you know what I mean? So, like once you're dead, nine months, that's like maybe ten years. I don't know.

Kris 6:35

Sir, vampires would like to have a word.

Sean 6:38

Listen, I don't know. I'm just trying to give some kind of an explanation.

Kris 6:41

You're giving a dog a bone who's already eaten. The dog doesn't need the bone.

Sean 6:46

But nonetheless, uh, whoever it was, unusually large Jason, somebody that she may have killed, who knows? It was a great callback to um to the to the original movie. So you gotta love it.

Kris 7:01

It was. It was. Now, thankfully, she does wake up from that dream and eventually gets a phone call and and we're introduced, well, reintroduced, because in the previous episode, she makes a phone call to someone named Nora, who seems to be a trusted figure. Right. Nora has another call with her, she's calling her from a payphone this time, and this doesn't give us a ton to work with except to cement that there is treachery afoot.

Sean 7:26

It's very interesting. Like now we're starting to get a little bit more information. It's starting to become more apparent that there was definitely something going on here that Pamela was running from, that she may have saved Jason from, it seems to be possibly, and that they've been on the run, kind of in hiding. And and this is maybe a friend that uh you know still works at the place that they escaped from. I don't know. This is kind of what it's feeling like, but we still don't know the details.

Kris 7:57

Yeah, my expectation at this moment is well, he's like what what I thought and what my prediction was going to be. Of course, we see some things later that either validate or lead this astray. Imagine a world in which Pamela Voorhees is not Jason's mom. Just follow me along this crazy thought. She's infertile, she can't have kids, she works at a company that's doing shit with test tube babies, she hurts for Jason, fears for Jason, steals Jason away, raises him like her own, not unlike Hopper and Eleven and Stranger Things.

Sean 8:42

Yeah, I'm with you. I'm right there with you. It does it's definitely giving some kind of vibe along that sense.

Kris 8:49

Now I'm not making this an official prediction. This is me just yapping and talking some shit as I am watching this episode. But of course, that's neither here nor there because what is real and what is confirmed were the tears in my eyes that were just trying to peek up when Grace sees Pamela in the school lunchroom and she tries to offer back the bracelet that Jason made her.

Sean 9:13

Yeah, it's such a it's such a subtle moment kind of. I I mean it's just the start of this relationship that starts to build between Pamela and Grace and and uh her giving, trying to give Jason's bracelet back to Pamela, and Pamela, you know, not necessarily accepting it, but really just kind of seeing Grace as and and just saying like uh you not saying anything, but like you can kind of feel like she's you know, it's kind of a light, you know, like it's kind of a something that makes her smile, that there's such a kind soul that's there, and she, you know, she has this almost this kind of like she's building this relationship with Grace. And then the funny thing that happens in this is that there's a moment when they're exchanging and dialogue, and the kid that's next in line says something like, Oh, you're holding up the line, and she gets a little bit upset about it. But they finish the conversation, she leaves, and he goes from like smiling to like stone cold face right away and just slops his mashed potatoes down.

Kris 10:10

It was so good. Again, Linda Cartellini is really in her bag. She's in her lane, she's moisturized, unbothered, focused, doing her task, doing a fucking job well done. I loved this exchange with Grace because in this moment, Grace is also talking about how she doesn't really see her mom because her mom sort of working nights. And so we have the intersection of a childless mother and a motherless child who are finding connection in a lunchroom. And as Grace goes to turn away, she doesn't know what the hell she's doing in this school. She's trying to defend for herself. Yeah, that's like she has no one to sit with.

Sean 10:47

She has no one to sit with, so you kind of start to see like this is she's she's also kind of a loner, right? Like she's also kind of this kid that doesn't have a lot of friends or doesn't feel like she fits in, and maybe there's some trouble at home or whatever, and it kind of builds on her character, and then you start to see, like, okay, so she maybe has simp like this is maybe why she was connected with Jason, like they kind of fit in together, you know?

Kris 11:11

Exactly. And you can tell that there's still so much of her that's just trying to figure out how to survive, and while she is not in Jason's circumstance, they do have like this kindred energy because even when she's hiding in the bathroom, even when she's in the bathroom and she listens to these other girls gossiping, she comes out of the stall after they're gone and mimics them and imitates them, and then looks at the makeup that they leave behind. And this is her just trying to adapt. Her mother is not super present in her life, it seems. So this is a little girl who doesn't have someone to be a shepherd and a guide for her. So she's trying to have to she's having to figure this shit out on her own.

Sean 11:54

Yeah, it's an interesting dynamic for sure. And I think we start to really dive into Grace's character a little bit more in this episode, too. And that you you get this moment where Grace remembers kind of the um the the whole scenario with Claudette getting it on in the in the cabin, and then she ends up going into the bathroom at the school, and like she has this moment where she's seeing like all these vulgar things that are written all over the walls, and like it's like this very strange moment as I was watching this unfold and thinking, like, is this a really fucked up like way of depicting her coming of age story and like her kind of like really just trying to like figure out like where she is in her life, her age in school, trying to fit in with like a different crowd, trying to like explore her own sexuality and maturity and all this stuff, and just being exposed to all this stuff, maybe a little bit, maybe that one moment was too early for her to be exposed to it, and then now it's just like in on her mind, and now she's seeing all the stuff she was oblivious to. And you get that like really strange moment of like the gossip that happens, and how she like goes after they leave into the mirror and she like repeats it herself in a very like you know, dumb kind of valley girl kind of way.

Kris 13:08

But again, that's not who Grace is. She's just seeing people who are accepted and are friends, and she's just trying to imitate what she sees. She's parroting and mimicking those behaviors so that she can try to survive in this what feels like a new world for her.

Sean 13:27

Yeah, it is. Um, yeah, it's very interesting. So it was interesting to watch that unfold, but I think it was very important for us to understand her as a character. And so I don't know, it was a it was a very interesting moment for sure.

Kris 13:41

What else was interesting was when Pamela decides to bring her specialty copcakes to Lee down at the sheriff's.

Sean 13:51

The cop cakes.

Kris 13:53

The copcakes, the blue and white copcakes.

Sean 13:56

You gotta love it. Yeah, she seems to uh you know, she seems to be a baker. You know, she's she's got the baked apples, now she's got the cop cakes that she's delivering, and now we're starting to see a little bit more of the dynamic between, you know, Chief Lee and her and in this exchange, but I think also she's also there for other reasons, right? Like she's kind of scanning the the the area a little bit, trying to figure out like if there's anything that's been known, anything going on. Did they they catch wind of anybody that's gone missing or anything like that? There's there's a there's an ulterior motive that's at play here, I think.

Kris 14:34

100% again, master stroke of genius from Pamela's part. She's riding a couple things pretty fast and loose. I don't know how she got those grown-ass men into a trunk to dump off to a bear. But then also just showing up this way at the sheriff's office, she's getting away with a lot of things, and I I really think it's a Lizzie Borden effect. She's getting away with murder right now because no one would expect that she's capable of it.

Sean 15:00

Yeah, for sure. And you've got like the you know, you've got the whole dynamic Frodo the dog, which I think was hilarious, by the way. But like you have that whole moment where the guys are like walking, you know, down the road or whatever, and their dog Frodo like yanks yanks in front of them, they accidentally like lose the leash or whatever, and he runs and bolts, and they find this carcass, if you will. The whatever's left of these guys that she fed to the bears, there's this little piece of carcass of flesh that's left with a bunch of maggots on it and stuff, and the dog's really gnawing at it.

Kris 15:35

I have an unimportant but important to me question about Frodo.

Sean 15:39

Okay.

Kris 15:40

If Frodo were your dog and your dog were munching on human flesh remains with maggots, yeah, how long would you wait before you ever let your dog lick you again?

Sean 15:48

Oh, a long time. I mean, I would literally be spending that entire afternoon like getting the baking soda and the coconut oil and making some kind of makeshift like neutralizing substance, brushing the teeth, brushing the tongue, sanitizing that whole area. It would still, after all of that, be at least a couple days or so.

Kris 16:09

Oh no, I'm thinking like a couple months. That dog is going straight to the vet, getting a dental job, getting a cleaning. There needs to be like a hose in the mouth or something. That shit is rough. No fucking waste. Dogs lick and eat all manner of gross things, but human flesh with maggots, absolutely the fuck not. Okay, I'm sorry, back to our regular scheduled programming.

Sean 16:32

Yeah, no, you're good. It's a valid question for sure. But yeah, so like that is found, right? And and uh, and then you know, Chief Lee and and they go down there in the in his deputy or whatever, they go down there and um they find the carcass. And I I think it's uh you know, they start going back and forth and thinking like, okay, this definitely looks like a possible bear attack and whatnot. And I think you know, that whole thing happens, but it's interesting because we kind of feel like, okay, well, they're gonna collect this evidence and we're gonna see where it goes. And maybe this is the start of this um this unraveling now of they're gonna kind of get to the bottom of this. But it's also like I'm also thinking at this time it's 1970s, like they don't really have a lot of good forensics at this point, so I really don't know what they're gonna figure out now.

Kris 17:17

Yeah, you could literally get away with so much shit in the 70s. So there's plenty of opportunity. There's plenty of opportunity here. Pamela is just someone's discernment away from not getting caught for anything ever, really. Like there's potential here. Super easy. It's super easy. Now, one of the things I also found funny during this whole scene, right before they find the remains, is the fact that Dorf is trying to get Lee to go on a double date with him and Rita. Even though Dorf, even though Lee is just saying, No, no, no, no, Pamela and I are just friends. He's really trying to make this happen because this man continues to chase after Rita and he has no business chasing on after her, which is what leads them all to having a double date.

Sean 18:00

They end up in the double date for sure. Dor Dorf and Rita rolls off the tongue. But yeah, Dorf and uh what kind of name is Dorf? So strange. But yeah, they do it the double date, they go bowling. Pam's actually having a good time. She's having a good time, but it's an interesting moment because you know, she's having a good time bowling, and she starts talking to Rita and this get this idea of going away and going out of town, and she uncovers this seminar that Rita's gonna go to, and they decide to go out of town together. That opens the door to the next chapter of the episode. What I before we move on to that though, what what's with the dude that she kept looking at?

Kris 18:34

Well, Sean, she's traumatized, she's just seeing a mustached man.

Sean 18:39

You just see people are after her.

Kris 18:42

Yeah, clearly, it's people were literally after her, Sean. Why wouldn't she be?

Sean 18:46

I mean, I get it, yeah. I just thought, like, was it just her paranoia at that point, or was this actually somebody? Because like that dude would not let up, man. He was a he's got a death stare.

Kris 18:56

Yeah, well, I think you underestimate how fucking creepy men can be in a bar, Sean.

Sean 19:00

It's true. Fucking drunk idiots, probably just fucking doing weird shit, you know. Yeah, it could be especially in the 70s.

Kris 19:07

If we see his face, then we know. If we see his face again outside of the context of that bar, then we know that he really was just like following her. But also, I think he was just being a fucking perv and she was skewed out by it.

Sean 19:19

We'll see. We'll see if that ever comes to fruition. But yeah, so I get it. Okay, she's got the paranoia, which may have pushed her over the edge to saying, I need to get out of town and do this seminar that Rita's talking about.

Kris 19:30

Yeah, which is also let's take a moment to acknowledge that Rita thus far in this episode in this show has been comedic relief. Like with the first time we ever meet her, she's reading the wildest fucking smut in a restaurant, like basically talking about a woman grabbing a dude's junk and helping him pee, but then wanting him to pee on her.

Sean 19:50

Whoa, yeah. What's with the golden shower of it all?

Kris 19:53

Like it's I trauma blocked that from my memory from our last episode.

Sean 19:57

It it's already awkward one thing if you're just trying to hold somebody's, you know, junk to help them pee. It's another to be like, hey, let me let me get a little bit of that, splash some on me. You know what I mean?

Kris 20:10

While I'm here. Um speaking from experience, Sean?

Sean 20:13

No, I just think it's a little bit strange, you know. Just think that's weird enough, but then to be asking to actually get peed on. Got it.

Kris 20:22

I didn't know if you were speaking from no okay. Anyway, you are the author of that book, apparently.

Sean 20:27

Yeah.

Kris 20:28

So Rita, Rita had been a clown this entire time. We get her, she's a comedic relief. But in this conversation that she has at the bar, she praises Pam for the way that she talked to the John's people and just tore them a new asshole because she feels like this town could be suffocating. And you also have this really sweet and vulnerable moment where she opens up to Pamela about having lost a child, she had a stillborn baby, but it just adds a layer of tenderness and and grounds her in like a very serious air for a moment, and her and Pamela now have this connection, and Pamela tells her that she would have been an excellent mother. It's just really sweet.

Sean 21:05

They do have that genuine connection there of just like there's this empathetic moment of just kind of understanding each other, losing a child in different ways, definitely. Which it, you know, it it it leads to the conversation, it leads to you know, her saying or you know, Rita saying that she likes to get out of town, and then Pam, for whatever reason, decides that she also needs to do this, and they decide to go off together to this stupid seminar. This fucking seminar, by the way, holy shit, what in the holy fuck was this seminar all about? Like the way that this guy was literally just talking to everyone like they were pieces of fucking shit. Like when they open to this seminar and he like locks and chain locks the doors behind them and tells them that like for the next couple of hours they're his and telling everyone that their lives are shit and he's gonna make it better. It's like, okay, buddy. Okay, guy. And then that whole moment with him and and Pamela and it just was such a like, what did you think? Like, what a what a wild time this seminar was.

Kris 22:10

I thought he was a snake oil salesman. For sure. I thought he he probably could have been a cult leader, quite frankly. Immediately when the locks and the chains went on the doors, I was like, okay, it's giving scam, it's giving multi-level marketing, it's giving cult. And I loved, even while he's like off on his bullshit, I loved how un utterly unimpressed Pam was. And even when she like interjects, so he's going around the room, he passes the microphone, he's like having people open up about the shit that they're afraid of and just belittling them. And he gets to this girl named Calliope and she talks about being afraid of men. And I fucking hated this so much because it feels like there's a reason she's afraid of men, but he's like, Oh, all men are good. He's like, Oh, why would you be afraid of little all lust? We're protectors, we yeah, we're providers, we do all the things. I mean, your husbands, your sons, your fathers.

Sean 23:08

The 70s, there's a different uh, you know, different ideology, I guess.

Kris 23:13

But no, of course, of course, there are still plenty of decent men in the 70s who fucking get it, right? They're not chaining up a bunch of fucking women in a room and then getting mad at them for being afraid of men. Like, what the fuck is this guy? But I love that Pamela steps up and she steps in and she's confronting him. She obviously doesn't want to participate, but he is dragging her for filth, and he is very insightful in the way that a broken clock is right twice a day. I mean, he's kind of calling it, he's calling it for sure, but also it's kind of fucking dangerous, and he could be a little less of an asshole.

Sean 23:48

Yeah, he could definitely be less of an asshole, but he is it is the interesting thing, is that he is kind of calling her on her shit in a way that she's obviously feeling because she definitely gets emotional as he's talking her through this. I just think that there were moments that were just were so unnecessary for her, like him to pry out of her that she was a singer or whatever, and she sings, and then he calls her on her bullshit. Like you the guy was just a an asshole for sure.

Kris 24:14

Great an American asshole.

Sean 24:16

I think he got lucky. I think he got lucky in calling her on her shit because I think he, you know, he may do the same for other people, it doesn't really actually help them.

Kris 24:25

100%. He got lucky.

Sean 24:27

We're gonna come back to that. I think that um there's that whole exchange of of them meeting after the seminar, which I think gross. Just didn't just ah, we just need to see it. But one thing that was even grosser, even more gross, was at some point we cut back to seeing Chief Lee at home, and there's a moment where his sister comes in and she's bringing home kind of like a takeout or whatever to help him out, and they're talking and it's casual, and you're like, okay, where is this leading up to? But she goes to put the food in the fridge, and this motherfucker has the entire carcass of the remains of this person from the woods that, mind you, had maggots crawling all over it on the ground out there, and this motherfucker has it not only in his fridge, but just like in a paper bag, like in a paper bag from the grocery store in his fridge, around all of his regular food, just fucking chilling in there. What the fuck?

Kris 25:32

And sir, there's gotta still be maggots on it. It's not like you can clean the evidence.

Sean 25:36

There's no way you got every single maggot off of that thing.

Kris 25:39

No, nor should you though, right? Like, shouldn't you be transporting this to the medical exam? Probably poor ME office, man. They gotta fucking deal with the grossest shit and maggot infest it too.

Sean 25:50

Okay, yeah, but it's like, so that's not if that's not bad enough, this guy actually decides at some point to fucking plop that thing on his fucking hobby lobby table and fucking start doing his own medical examination with his fucking hobby lobby tools. Okay, this guy is literally going from painting G.I. Joe's to fucking dissecting something. I mean, granted, he does find a pretty significant piece of evidence in there, the little piece of the scissors or whatever, but come on. On some newspaper, nonetheless.

Kris 26:24

On some newspaper, Sean. It's what are we carving a pumpkin?

Sean 26:28

Like, what the fuck is happening here? The 70s were wild, man.

Kris 26:32

It was wild, it was super gross. Absolutely hate that he had this shit in his fridge, and also though, the strain between him and his sister when she's like really pressing him for the fact that she still doesn't know what happened to him in the city when he was a city cop. And she's like, Oh, what? you took a couple bribes, so fucking what? I'm gonna find out sometime. Like She wants she, it's clear that she loves her brother, and it's clear that he loves his sister, but he does not want to go down this road. And the fucking reaction that he gives her and the way that he scares her, there's some shit there that needs to be said.

Sean 27:04

Yeah, we want to know. We want to fucking uncover this. We want to dig this shit up because now you got me interested because I want to see what his fucking past is all about because something seems a little shady.

Kris 27:14

Were you about as interested in that as the seminar leader was in Pam?

Sean 27:19

I don't know if anybody could be more interested than that fucking weird fucking predator. That guy was fucking strange. I mean, he was just using whatever fucking manipulative jargon to get her like his whole you could already tell. I know for a fact that this guy, his only purpose for doing what he does is to go to these seminars to find one fucking victim that he can fucking prey upon and fucking conveniently be at the fucking bar that they're all staying at the hotel for. That he his whole his only goal is to get laid every single fucking time. I guarantee you, this guy is a piece of shit.

Kris 27:57

This is a man who never felt powerful and really needed desperately to feel powerful. That's why he fucking gets his rocks off just being mean and cruel to people. And I love that even when she approaches him, she calls him on his shit. He's like, hey, I think you're very insightful. I think your words resonate, but I don't think you have to be this much of a jerk to actually help people. Which then there then there implies that he doesn't really want to help people.

Sean 28:24

Yeah.

Kris 28:25

I was just acknowledged that.

Sean 28:27

Yeah, I can't believe one, I can't believe she actually got as far as she did with him and going up to the room and everything, and then almost almost go in the distance. I was really hoping that she was gonna kill him for some reason. I was just really hoping that she that this dude was gonna die in in the uh hotel room, even though it did not happen. Thank God that nothing happened, also, because I think that if she did hook up with him, I just have a bad taste in my mouth from that.

Kris 28:59

Oh, you would have you would lose respect for her?

Sean 29:02

I would just be very upset, that's all.

Kris 29:04

Yeah, no, I would just be disappointed on her behalf because she deserved better and she had better back in Crystal Lake just waiting on her. Listen, this hotel room hookup. First, I love when they get up to the room and you have this like plucky string kind of music. It's very fucking threatening, it's very intimidating, it's very reminiscent of the original movies, and there's a duality here because he thinks that this is a very sexy moment they're having, and she is just feeling so disconnected, and she's feeling like she's on the verge of really tapping into this memory of how she felt. Like she remembers the bear, she remembers looking and locking eye con and making eye contact with the bear after throwing these bodies to it. That has to make her feel powerful, it makes her feel ravenous.

Sean 29:51

It's her inner, it's her inner beast coming out for sure. That's why she bites his ass, which you know. I was actually hoping she was gonna take like a chunk out of his neck at that moment. This yeah, I was hoping, like, I was like, ooh, like it was just a little a little nibble, but all I'm saying is we lost sweet baby Jason.

Kris 30:08

We could have padded this body count with one asshole at least. Yeah, this man.

Sean 30:13

For sure.

Kris 30:14

But yeah, I mean, he he keeps acknowledging and pushing her and pushing her to talk about like this power that he encourages her to release. You then have to wonder, like, what kind of fucking power is this, right? And how does that power manifest? Is it through murder? Is it through control? Is it through both? I don't know. Stick around and find out.

Sean 30:31

Control leads to hate, hate leads to murder, murder leads to the dark side, you know.

Kris 30:36

God damn it. Are we gonna shoot for a one Star Wars reference an episode?

Sean 30:40

It just seemed appropriate, but um it's the 70s, so it works. But yeah, so we're jumping a lot. We're jumping back from this this seminar stuff. We're going back and forth. We we get to this moment where where Chief Lee visits Ralph in the woods and and he's talking to him and exchanging, I think, looking to see like maybe if he can get some help like scanning the perimeter to see if like Ralph can uncover anything uh suspicious that's happening in the woods nearby. But the ominous thing that is said that I think is very curious is that you know Ralph says that there are worse things in the woods than bears, and I'm really curious what do you think he meant by that?

Kris 31:20

Obviously, Jason Vorhees, obviously the spirit of evil that's lurking in the woods. That's what we want to think. Yeah, that's what we want to think, but also it's only been nine months, and surely he's felt this way about the woods for a very long time. So I think it's a mix of things. I think Ralph is haunted by his trauma as a Vietnam vet.

Sean 31:41

For sure.

Kris 31:43

And I think there's a lot that he sees in the woods that reminds him of his time abroad, overseas, fighting. And so there are some bad things, especially for him in the woods. And I think that if Jason actually is alive, regardless of whether he's man-sized or boy-sized, I think he thinks that shit ain't right. And I think that there is something happening out there, and and I think that's what he's referring to. I think it's largely a conflation of his PTSD and his trauma, and also maybe seeing Jason.

Sean 32:16

Yeah, I think it's definitely a lot of a lot. I think it's like 90% PTSD, and like maybe 10% he's starting to see some weird shit in the woods. Um, but yeah, so I think that was a really interesting it was, but it's interesting because that was a very specific thing to highlight in an episode for him to say something like that, right? But it's also just you know, also developing him as a character and just really diving in deep into like this is who eventually becomes the crazy old man that's warning the kids.

Kris 32:47

I mean, listen, Ralph has definitely seen some shit in the woods, but another thing that was also really fucking weird was when Pamela goes back into the second day of the seminar. This fucking charlatan is is acknowledging that he didn't know if she would come based on what happened in his hotel room that night, and she sees regression possession where their old selves have to completely take wind and take over so that they can say all the things they never got to say to the people who hurt them. I don't know, it's some bullshit. However, it is but it is during this exercise that Pam taps back into these fragmented memories. And in the prior episode, in episode one, there's a few clues that we were left with uh with the company and and the people that were after Pam. So one of the things that we saw was the term Argonaut when they saw Jason's name written in the paper that he had circled in, annotated the newspaper and said and wrote out Argonaut. In addition to that, there was the company Bellflower, so you have that. Uh there's also some clues involving like Sun Bun Solutions. Um, they he calls her Mrs. Miss or Mrs. Whittering as if her name is Pamela Whitering. So there's a lot of insidious little clues here, and then these fragmented memories, and now in episode two, actually give a little bit more context. Sean, did you get to see what those flashes were? Because I had to pause and rewind it a bunch.

Sean 34:25

I didn't pause and rewind, but the flashes were were very interesting, right? You know, you got to see. I'm curious. So what you when you rewound and found, like, did you see anything different? But like uh, there was a moment where obviously we see Pamela looking a little bit different, and then we see Jason, which looks like I don't know, like was he in water? There was some weird shit that was going on. Like there was a really flash glimpses. I did not rewind or pause or anything, so I'm curious to see when you did that, what did you uncover?

Kris 34:58

Yeah, so we see an Argonaut door, or this a yellow door with a an Argonaut label on it, yeah, a faucet running water, a baby's leg submerged underwater. We have some people who are observing something, just like watching, and what also then looks to be like Pamela's legs maybe being wrapped up. Exactly. Bloody fingertips. And then there is this big contraption that looks like one of those fucking kind of like when people would do lobotomies, you would imagine, like these big fucking things that had like syringes full of some kind of fluid with a very long needle. It looks like some kind of like operating instrument. And then there was a figure, uh a baby in a in a tank. It seemed like a tank, and it seemed like it would be like Jason, if not exactly Jason, and at least close to Jason, because the face also looks like really deformed and really split. Also, there's like a cleft lip or a cleft palate situation. It it just looked pretty rough. But all these things flash by her, and it also fucking cements my theory about there just being a bunch of scientific experiments here.

Sean 36:11

Yeah, I mean it's definitely starting to unfold that way. Like there is something that was happening at this company, this corporation, this whatever. It's very umbrella academy or whatever, like you know, or corporation or whatever resident evil shit going on. They're experimenting. I don't know. There's some weird shit happening here. It's definitely starting to feel that way. Pamela's involvement, I'm not sure. Like, was she did she work there? Because she has friends that work there, like she has this Nora person that she calls that is obviously still tied to this establishment of some kind. It's interesting to think of like as this story unfolds, because we don't know quite yet, like, what is her involvement? How did she get to this place? Was she a victim herself? If those flashes were genuine, genuinely her being strapped down. Was she what did she give this birth? We don't know. Is she the mother? Is she not? We don't know.

Kris 37:03

We don't know, but we do know that is an asshole because as she's freaking the fuck out and she's trying to leave, he's talking all this shit to her and then talking about how she ran away from his hotel room that night.

Sean 37:16

Yeah, what a piece of shit this guy. Like that's the response. That's the response you have is calling her out in front of everybody. Like, that's one, okay. Yeah, that's uh it's gonna, you know, call her out on some stuff, but it also makes you look like a sleazy piece of shit. That's all I'm gonna say.

Kris 37:35

Well, don't worry, because men are providers, they work, they take care, they protect, they're your husband's father's sons. Why are you afraid of little them? So he doesn't have to worry about how he looks.

Sean 37:47

True, I guess. Well, he apparently does have to worry about something because uh after all of this nonsense that happens, uh he is attacked. He's attacked, and we think it's gonna be Pamela because she is packing up to leave and she grabs the bowling ball and she's approaches him, and you think you see her like as she's about to like get ready to I don't even know what she was gonna do, throw it at his nuts, throw it at his face, whatever. We know she can bowl a strike, so I guess she's got some good form, but she's gonna do something with this bowling ball. But before she can, this dude comes up and starts whacking this dude with what a baseball bat or something, and what are you whisking? Tell me one thing. Tell me one thing. I don't know that it's actually physically possible to make somebody's face look like that with a swing of a baseball bat.

Kris 38:39

Oh, there are multiple swings, though. There was a couple of swings, and it was splintered wood, maybe.

Sean 38:44

It looked really bad. This dude's face was coming off.

Kris 38:48

Yeah, it was pretty fucked up.

Sean 38:50

Which is now trending to be what this what this series likes to do is take people's faces off.

Kris 38:56

Literally, yes, absolutely, and I'm okay with it, honestly. Great gore, it was ooey gooey. Ooey gooey. I love that she didn't have to get her hands dirty here, but even though she wasn't the person doing it, what was very satisfying was her finishing it because she leans into him and she just gives him a response about warning him like this is what happens when you mess around with people's heads. There's uh there's some danger there. Like she's acknowledging the danger that's beneath her mask. She's telling him that some people are meant to wear masks.

Sean 39:35

I loved it.

Kris 39:36

Oh my god, it was just so fucking chilling. Like her getting to tap into this element of her that he kept saying, Oh, you should just let go, you should just let go, you should just do it. Motherfucker, you don't know anything.

Sean 39:48

Yeah, I I loved it. I loved how she knelt down and told him that shit and just casually walked off and left him to suffer right there. It was good. It was good.

Kris 40:00

Now, uh a couple other things that were happening, all back and forth. Like we like you mentioned earlier, Sean, we're cutting back and forth a lot in this episode.

Sean 40:09

Yeah.

Kris 40:09

But you mentioned earlier Lee is is examining the remains, he finds the scissors, so we know that although Pamela doesn't know that he found remains or found the scissors in the remains, she doesn't know yet what's happening because she's been at this convention. What is interesting is the confrontation that we get with Claudette, with Barry, and with the teenagers when Grace shows up to the party at camp. And it's so sad because she's wearing this makeup that tries to make her look older. She's really trying to fit in. I mentioned earlier she was like mimicking and and imitating these girls in the bathroom with the gossip, and she was rehearsing these lines.

Sean 40:53

Yeah.

Kris 40:54

And there's this element of okay, uh Claudette is wondering what the hell she's doing there. She's commenting that she's too young for it. An older boy wants to get Grace a beer, and then Claudette intervenes. Sean, at this moment, do you think that Claudette's just being a fucking killjoy or uh or a mean girl? Or do you think she's actually looking out for someone who's too young to be there?

Sean 41:19

Yeah, I mean I actually think she was kind of looking out for her in that moment. You could see it. Like, I think the response was actually done in a way that I actually initially thought without knowing too much of either of these two characters' backstories, I initially thought that maybe like this dynamic, they were like sisters or something. Like, that's it. My initial gut was like, Oh, this is her older sister saying, What are you doing here? Because they just immediately had that exchange or that connection or whatever. But I, you know, I guess, you know, counselor versus kid at the camp, they know each other that way, whatever. But but yeah, I think she was genuinely trying to just look out for her in that moment, and then it just kind of escalated from there.

Kris 42:07

Yeah. I think she couldn't communicate very well. I think she was looking out for her, but then of course she like gave her some tough love and talks about how ridiculous she looked in that makeup. She's gonna tell her when no one else there would. I think she could have been a little sweeter, I think she could have been a little nicer. I think just like Pamela called out that fucking Wilhelm guy for saying, I don't think you had to be that much of a jerk to actually help people, I think Claudette had a chance here. Yeah, Claudette squandered it, which makes it even tougher when then Grace starts threatening her and blackmailing her, like, oh, I'm gonna tell everybody what you're doing in the boathouse when Jason drowned.

Sean 42:42

Well, yeah, like there's that whole exchange of her saying that she's gonna tell, like, I saw you hooking up with you know with Barry in the in the boathouse or whatever in the in the whatever. And and but then the exchange is that Claudette's like, Well, don't fucking forget you threw that fucking ball out there, so technically it's your fucking fault.

Kris 43:01

These two girls are just wielding and lobbing guilt at each other.

Sean 43:06

Yeah, willy-nilly. It's wild.

Kris 43:08

Super willy-nilly. So then Grace storms off, she takes off her clogs that this other guy complimented, throws it into the woods. Yeah, and we have this moment where there's like a POV shot from the woods looking at Grace before we get like another like cinematic like cut-in on her shoes. But it's giving Jason, it's giving Jason was out in the woods, and it's giving Jason cared about Grace's feelings and cared about her little clogs. Because when Barry and Claudette end up in their car later on making the world's worst football sex puns known to oh my god.

Sean 43:46

The weird sex pun football reference skin or play fucking.

Kris 43:53

Yeah.

Sean 43:54

Yeah. Well, I don't know. Weren't condoms made out of weird shit back in the day? What were they actual pictures?

Kris 44:00

Kigskin is leather. She was talking about his junk. To be clear, she was just making some football inu and sexual innuendo. It's weird.

Sean 44:07

Oh, it's like sheepskin or some weird shit. They made condoms out of weird shit back in the day. That's all I know.

Kris 44:12

Okay. Wow. Sucks to have been a man, I guess. Well wow.

Sean 44:15

Sucks to see anybody dealing with those materials.

Kris 44:18

Praise be, lesbians. Okay, so they have this whole moment, they hear the thuds, Barry gets out of the car, and you look out in the woods, and this is a moment. Lightning strikes, it was giving your favorite Jason film.

Sean 44:33

Yeah. Jason lives.

Kris 44:35

Even the wet, swampy looking, decomposed body that we start seeing from a distance is giving Jason lives.

Sean 44:42

Yeah, it's a it definitely was giving that a little bit. Um, and this is the moment here that we're seeing like so you get the flash, like he's looking out there. Who is this? They heard some thuds on the car, he's getting out, it's raining, it's stormy, it's dark, he's looking out, and the lightning flashes, and you get a glimpse of what looks like this swampy Jason. And these are this is like the moment that I was telling you is like the as we start to see more and more of this glimpse of Jason. This dude looks a little bit bigger. This guy looks like he grew a few inches, yeah.

Kris 45:16

And granted, I can understand hitting puberty and growing, but this kid seemed like he was a far way away from growing in puberty. He was not a puberty age yet.

Sean 45:26

Yeah, he looks like he grew at least a foot or two just in this one little flash.

Kris 45:31

Yeah, and now it's interesting because up until this point, who's seen Jason? Maybe Ralph, maybe Ralph, maybe we don't know, but maybe yeah, Vietnam vet Ralph, who also sees a lot of dead bodies in the woods. So it's possible that Jason could have been just imagined this entire time, but now it's Barry who's seeing him, which also lends itself to the idea that maybe Jason actually is alive, maybe he didn't drown.

Sean 45:58

Maybe Jason lives.

Kris 46:01

Maybe Jason lives. They said the thing, they said the thing. But what I love is just the absolute petty moment in which Jason must have had his mother's bowling arm and her physical power because he throws that fucking clog and that fucking clog went straight through the windshield. Straight through the rear window of that transam, broke the glass.

Sean 46:24

Good form, Peter. Good form.

Kris 46:27

Also frames Grace though. Like he he fucked up a little bit.

Sean 46:33

Yeah, well, that's true. Yeah, he did fuck up because that does definitely look like it would be Grace's fault with the whole clog situation.

Kris 46:42

It does, but you know what? Vengeance for her, vengeance and revenge. I'm okay with it. I was encouraged to even just see that Jason l to your point. Jason lives.

Sean 46:55

Yeah, Jason lives. That's the whole theme.

Kris 46:58

Uh, a really fucking robust and just jam-packed episode. There's so much happening in here, but of course, we had a few other things that stood out as the Easter eggs as they were, or not even just Easter eggs, but things that just tie back to some of the original properties. So obviously, you have Steve Christie, the Steve Christie, who ends up being the guy in nine in 1980 who also was hooking up with Alice, little slimy bastard.

Sean 47:23

What a slimy guy. Steve Christie. Yeah, we definitely had that. We had um, you know, we start to see what do you call it? Like uh Pam's Jeep is like a callback, kind of a nod to the to the original film of her vehicle that she uses. So that's kind of fun.

Kris 47:42

Yeah. One thing that I did catch, and I don't know if it's intentional or even maybe tangentially related in another way. I'm gonna like really like look into this and dig into this as we continue to watch the franchise, as we continue to watch the series, and I'm gonna revisit some of the Friday 13th franchise. Lee gives instructions for him to contact for Dwarf to contact McCready, which for me was reminiscent of the thing, John Carpenter's the thing.

Sean 48:09

Oh, you think so?

Kris 48:10

Yeah, I mean, not like in universe, but I thought it was like a nice little callback, a nice little Easter egg. Just a little nod, nice little homage, but also it's just a fucking name, so it could be anybody.

Sean 48:21

Yeah, you never know, but that's kind of cool to think about.

Kris 48:24

You know, grasping at straws, so to speak. Listen, there's a there's a ton that happened. I can't wait to see what happens in the next episode. We still have so much to dig into. We're only on episode two of eight, and it feels like we're on a fucking fast train to just crazy town, my guy.

Sean 48:41

There's so much. I mean, yeah, we're only on episode two of eight, but we're when you think of two of eight of a the the beauty of having a series. Now we're two hours into this tale. That's a movie length of of stuff that we've now been exposed to, and we've got another six hours of content to go through minimum, so that's awesome.

Kris 49:06

Yeah, and then we get to reflect on the whole series as it were. And I almost feel like we should have made predictions on like bets on how many what the body count would have been on the series at the end of it.

Sean 49:16

We should have, we should have.

Kris 49:17

Yeah, maybe we still should. We'll think about it. We'll think about it. All right. Well, for now, folks, that wraps up our discussion on this episode of Crystal Lake, but of course the conversation doesn't end here.

Sean 49:28

Yeah, if you have thoughts on what we covered, if you want to talk about this episode as much as we like talking about this episode, call or text the hackerslash hotline. Click the link in this episode's description. You can send us a text or a voicemail. We want to hear what stood out to you, where you landed on it, what you love about the series of this episode. Did we miss anything? Talk to us. We want to hear from you.

Kris 49:54

We'll see you next time, folks. And remember, some of us are meant to wear masks.

Sean 49:59

See what happens when you play around in people's heads.