Between - S1E4 - Love Hurts
Previously on Between, ‘Crossing Lines’
This week’s episode opens with what I initially thought was a flashback, but was also convinced could be a dream with Miss Symmons on her birthday getting proposed to by a fellow teacher who was kissing on her neck, just as he started to spew the virus out of his mouth. I’m just glad we didn’t have any dead children before the title card this week.
Where We’re Going We Don’t Need Rules
In Creekertown, Wiley cooks breakfast for Ronnie and his family. Tracy asks what the baby’s name is and Wiley indicates she has yet to pick one out. Ronnie comes downstairs armed to the hilt and announces he is going hunting despite it not being hunting season because who is going to catch him? He convinces/coerces Wiley into leaving her unnamed baby with Tracy and coming with him.
In town, two kids steal a car from Chuck’s family’s dealership despite one of the duo’s reluctance. As they careen through town, they draw the notice of two of Chuck’s merry men who are patrolling in a police car and they follow the kids. Naturally the prepubescent boys decide to see how fast the car can go and speed out of town. Eventually they wreck the car and the “cops” catch up with them as they run across a field. Kids are idiots.
Also in town, Pretty Eyes brings a case of beer into the nice restaurant/bar in town and decides to set up shop. Chuck’s discarded girlfriend, Stacy, tries to kick him out of her family’s bar and the two strike up a deal to work together, Mark (Pretty Eyes) will provide the beer and she will provide the taps, they will split the proceeds 50-50. And because she’s awful, Stacy hits on him for good measure because… look at his eyes, that’s why.
Melissa is losing her mind in the orphanage still, especially now that Wiley has abandoned ship. Miss Symmons comes in and tells Melissa to take a break and go look for Wiley while she handles the kids. Logically, this is a sound idea, considering this woman is an educator. Melissa goes to their home to look for Wiley and does not find her. When she returns to the empty orphanage, she finds Gord and Frannie cleaning up the godawful mess that the children left behind. Gord offers to go out look for Wiley at their uncle’s house. Here he comes to save the day!
Remember the Murdered Girl?
Up until now, this has been an inexplicably unimportant side plot: the murder of Lana, Chuck and Amanda’s younger sister. While Adam walks around town moping and looking at pictures of Wiley on his phone, he thumbs across the “crime scene photos” he took when they discovered Lana’s body in the woods. He decides to go back out to the crime scene and look for clues.
While searching around the scene, he finds a baseball cap under some brush. Pocketing it, he heads out of the woods and goes to talk to Gord. He shows Gord the hat, indicating that it belongs to Pat. Gord comes up with some convoluted excuses as to why Pat’s hat was in the woods and Adam shows how smart he is by poorly attempting to explain Occum’s Razor to Gord who could give less than a shit about Adam right now.
In the end, Gord makes perfect sense (as always) by telling Adam that if he goes to Chuck with this information, Pat is as good as dead. I tend to agree considering how “Johnny Law” Chuck acted in this episode. He says they need to hold onto the evidence until the quarantine is lifted and actual adult detectives can investigate and get to the bottom of it. Preach, Gord.
Adam later wanders out to the Creekers’ house to check out Pat’s boots which have been conveniently left outside in the frigid, freezing weather. As he compares the tread to the picture on his phone, Tracy comes outside and asks what the fuck he is doing. He claims he wants drugs. Pat comes out and Tracy reveals that Wiley and the baby have been staying with them. Adam tucks this nugget away and heads out. Tracy tells Pat that she thought Adam was going to steal his boots and Pat gets that knowing and slightly sinister look on his face indicating he has something to hide.
Small Town Justice
Chuck’s “deputies” bring the idiot car thieves to Chuck for punishment. Chuck and Amanda hold court over these two kids and Chuck hands out the punishment of having to apologize and do 30 hours of community service. The poor brown-haired kid is obviously scared and agreeable. The blonde kid, Harrison, needs to get smacked. He refuses to apologize stating Chuck is not a cop (true) and that he doesn’t own the cars because they belonged to his father (true), and basically that he doesn’t have to do a motherfucking thing.
Chuck’s mature form of justice is to strap the kid to the flagpole. Of course he strapped him to the flagpole, Chuck is the consummate jock and this is pretty much exactly what I’d expect out of him. In order to make an example of young Harrison, he will remain strapped to the pole until he apologizes. It’s cold and this kid’s lips are already red and chapped, I would have broken down as soon as we walked outside.
Calm Down, It’s Just the House of God
Evidently Melissa is not of the opinion that Jesus loves the little children. She enters the sanctuary to find Miss Symmons playing Marco Polo with the kids she has been entertaining. Melissa straight flips her shit and orders her to get out because all of the Bibles are ruined. Miss Symmons stands her ground and said that the kids were going crazy in the one room all of the time. What kind of daycare center are you running, Melissa?!
Every Small Town Needs a Bar
Mark and Stacy set up the newest hotspot in town and he effortlessly carries a full keg inside while she continues to sweep the damn floors. She tells him about how her parents were alcoholics and her dad was a mean drunk. They bond over their mean drunk daddies. And she continues to hit on him. A few kids walk in asking for a beer. Mark, ever the opportunist, jumps on the idea and they decide to start serving beer to anyone. Stacy acts scandalized at their age, but honestly, no one of legal drinking age is still alive, so if she wants to make a profit, who was she expecting to sell to?
Miss Symmons shows up later to drown her sorrows at being chased out of the church by Melissa and shares a fifty dollar pitcher of warm beer with Adam when he shows up. At least they know how to make some money. Adam breaks down and tells her about Lana and she tells him that it’s her birthday. Her 22nd birthday in a town where that means death.
Pole Position
Harrison is still strapped to the pole, and his friend is still tasked with standing watch over him. He goes to retrieve Chuck when he thinks that Harrison is not looking too good and Chuck tells Harrison to apologize. After a few back and forths, Harrison spits directly in Chuck’s face. Let’s just say that if this were me, I would turn Red Queen real quick and be all “off with his head!” Is there anything more disrespectful and straight up nasty than spitting on another person?
Meanwhile, Gord and Frannie venture out in search of Wiley. They do not find her, but they do have a preciously awkward conversation about how Gord likes Melissa and Melissa likes Gord and maybe they should go to prom or something, except that they will probably never have a prom because they live in a post-virus quarantine zone of mass chaos. I may just be assuming that last part, but it works in my head canon.
As they head back into town, they come across an unconscious Amish girl laying in a field. They wake her up and she immediately starts asking where her horse is. Gord recognizes her from school, but says he assumed she moved away when she never came back after middle school. Where the FUCK did these Amish people come from and how have they not been previously mentioned?
Ronnie The Rapist
While all of the other events have been taking place in town, Ronnie and Wiley have been sitting in what looks to be a duck blind on stilts in the middle of a field with absolutely nothing to be camouflaged into, but is still covered in camo mesh like it’s hidden or something. They discuss their theories on the virus and Ronnie bets her that he can convince her that it could possibly be a terrorist attack. If he does, she has to drink a beer. This is so high school.
He does convince her that it’s a possibility, so she drinks a beer while he drinks a lot of beer. As Ronnie gets drunker, Wiley gets colder. Ronnie attempts to be smooth and kiss her, and she politely - but firmly - says no thank you. He pulls every stereotypical douchebag move in the book and attempts to make her feel horrible for turning him down. She does not care.
As it continues to get colder, Wiley decides she needs to head back in to her baby and Ronnie attempts to make a move on her again. When she again refuses, he becomes forceful and eventually forces her to lay down on the floor of the stand. She does, but when he attempts to get on top of her, she shoves him off and he falls about six feet into a pile of soft grass. Despite this, she feels the need to check on him before heading home, he grabs her and continues to attempt to rape her. Thankfully, Tracy shows up with a shovel and hits him upside the head. Um, where is the baby?
Chuck and His Inflated Ego
At the bar, Chuck confronts Mark about selling alcohol to underage children, pointing out the drunken 12-year-old in the corner. Mark claims he didn’t want to, but Tracy made him. Chuck stays on his high horse and tries to tell him what he can and can’t do in a town without rules or anyone with any modicum of authority. Stacy comes up protesting Marks lies, but Chuck refuses to believe her both because he’s an asshole and because she’s a slutty lying liar who lies.
On his way out, he sees the girl he came across earlier on his run who was attacked by a vicious Chihuahua (no lie, Chihuahua’s are evil and from the devil). He decides to take a short break from being the town asshole to share a drink with her despite earlier establishing that he’s way cooler than her and that because she reads she must be a giant nerd, and all of those other tropes that infest anything having to do with teenagers.
Everything Is Going to Shit
Miss Symmons and Adam go bowling in the abandoned bowling alley. Pat finds them and comes in with a rifle to confront Adam about his suspicions. Adam understandably panics and says that he won’t tell anyone that Pat is a murderer. Conveniently, one of Chuck’s minions overhears this statement and runs off to find Chuck and tattle like a little bitch.
As Pat explains his side of what happened to Lana and hands Adam a note to prove it, Chuck and his merry band of idiots come running in shooting. Everyone takes cover and Pat hides behind the skinniest post ever (other than the one that Harrison is strapped to) and somehow doesn’t get shot. Adam finds Chuck in the fray and shows him Lana’s suicide note, telling him that the struggle was Pat attempting to stop her from killing herself.
Just then brown-haired kid comes running in to tell Chuck that Harrison has lost consciousness strapped to the pole. Everyone in town comes running and Chuck learns that Harrison is diabetic and has lapsed into insulin shock. Gord decides to call him out for being a total prick and nearly killing a child by accident. Chuck doesn’t really hear that, he just thinks he is still the most important person in town because his daddy was rich.
In Creeker town, Pat and Tracy discuss Ronnie’s rapey ways while Wiley names her son Jason. Wiley comes downstairs and Pat says he talked to Ronnie who is very sorry, but Wiley is like, yeah that doesn’t make things better. She asks for a ride home and he says he can’t, but he will after she does something for him.
Adam and Miss Symmons are back in the bar enjoying more beer when the power comes back on. It’s unclear if it’s related, but at this precise moment, Miss Symmons vomits the plague and dies. In the excitement/confusion, the female prison guard comes up behind Mark who is wiping down the bar and puts a gun to the back of his head. She takes him back to prison and locks him in a cell before immediately letting him back out and telling him that he is now her spy in town.
He asks her age and she says she is 21 (she’s clearly not), and he says, “No offense, but I thought you were older.” She responds, “Then you’d be wrong and offensive.” As he walks out of the prison, she calls someone on her phone and asks for more information on Adam.
The dialogue has picked up slightly, but there are still some very obvious plot devices and tropes being thrown about like crazy. The storyline has definitely gotten more interesting as the weeks go on, so I am intrigued to see where we are going on this ride. Hopefully next week, we will get more into the conspiracy behind the virus and the quarantine and these kids will stop acting like complete idiots ALL of the time.
