In the Flesh - S2E4 - Episode 4
Previously, on In the Flesh: “Episode 3”
Apologies for the tardiness of this recap, ProFans; due to spending last weekend covering Wizard World Atlanta 2014-and a busy week of coverage that followed-I was unable to even watch this episode of In the Flesh until last night (Friday). Nevertheless, here is the recap of In the Flesh‘s fourth episode in its second season; incidentally, a fourth episode is new territory for the series, since last season was just three episodes.
This episode begins with a love scene of soap operatic levels, and it’s between Philip and Amy! Yes, of course it’s a dream sequence, and just as it’s getting hot and heavy, Philip’s mother awakens him with a shrill beckoning. Maybe next time, Phil.
Meanwhile, the real Amy is scrounging through her kitchen looking for food. Wait… what? That’s quite the interesting development, considering PSD sufferers, you know, don’t eat food. Yes, very interesting indeed.
Back at Philip’s place, we see that his mother has a visitor: Henry’s mother. She’s openly questioning Maxine Martin’s trustworthiness, and Philip tries his best to keep that talk quiet; it’s to no avail. His mother asks him to help Henry’s mother.
During an extremely condescending meeting for PDS sufferers in the Give Back Scheme, Kieren notices that Simon and Amy are nowhere to be seen. They have “more important things to do”. I wonder what that’s all about.
At the Walkers’, mom tries her best to find out what is going on with Jem, who admits she is going back on patrol, but the conversation goes nowhere because Jem is still putting up roadblocks between herself and any kind of introspection that may help her deal with her PTSD and now the fact that she has killed Henry.
Philip takes another trip down to the best little whorehouse in Roarton, and we see that someone has a camera aimed at the door and is recording the identity of everyone going into the place. Looks like Philip’s little secret won’t be kept for too much longer. We also see that his “usual” is ready and waiting for him: a girl dressed as Amy.
Kieren pays Amy and Simon a visit and steps directly into Simon’s living (no pun intended) room proselytizing While he looks on, we see that Amy develops a nosebleed behind him. What the hell is going on with her?
Maxine Martin has called a town hall meeting to introduce the Roarton Protection Service, which has been set up as a result of the various PDS events that have recently occurred. Maxine tries to tell everyone that it’s not just a recreation of the Human Volunteer Force, but it clearly is… especially since it even has the same members. Maxine takes questions, and predictably, the first question she receives is about sex; particularly, sex between the living and the undead. Maxine is openly disgusted.
Back at the brothel, Philip has been asleep for what has to have been a couple of hours, at least. When the girl wakes him up, he rushes out and, in an attempt to be sneaky, he notices the camera in the nearby window. Just as he does, the woman who had been behind the camera comes around the corner and spits in his face; calling him an “abomination” and saying she will tell everyone what he’s been doing. Shit, leave Philip alone; he has needs.
At the town meeting, Maxine is still talking, and she manages to whip up some fervor among the crowd by appealing to their sense of town pride; she says they used to be great, but now they suck and need to fix it (basically). That’s when Henry’s mother gets up and appeals to everyone to help find Henry. When Maxine tries to interrupt her, the mother is like, “I don’t remember asking you a god damn thing.” I like it; put Maxine in her place.
Simon is having a conversation with Simon, and he out-and-out accused Simon of brainwashing people to “follow” him. Well, that would be rude if it wasn’t pretty much exactly what’s going on. Kieren says he’s not going to let Simon do the same to him, but something tells me that may not be the case; namely that liplock Kieren planted on Simon in the previous episode. Amy interrupts their conversation, just before the two of them can go in for another kiss (see?). After she leaves the room again, the two of them converge against the wall and nearly kiss for a third time; these dudes can’t keep their hands off each other.
Checking back in with Philip, he’s running jogging fast walking his way over to the town hall meeting that he has now missed in its entirety. When he gets their, Maxine is like, “You smell like undead pussy.” Well, okay; she doesn’t say that exactly, but she implies it… sort of. As Philip gets flustered, Maxine reveals that she’s not actually accusing Philip of anything (yet); she thinks he missed the meeting because he didn’t want to deal with the Henry thing. About the Henry thing, Maxine is a compulsive liar; she seems genuinely sincere when she says Henry’s mother won’t “accept the facts”, even though Maxine goes good and damn well that she is not telling Henry’s mother the truth. It gets worse; Maxine wants Philip to exploit his relationship with Henry’s mother (her trust) and tell her he has seen security footage of Henry in a training camp. She rationalizes it by saying Henry is just a distraction. To Philip’s credit, he doesn’t want to do it. Maxine gives him an ultimatum that pits his ambition to “get ahead” against his reluctance to be the complete dickhole that she is. Tough choice.
Whether Simon believes he’s brainwashing people or not, it’s clear that the people who are following him are largely behaving as if they have been brainwashed. Case in point, one woman ominously says she’s “going to make Simon proud”. What is she going to do, and will it really make Simon proud? Something tells me the answers to both of those questions may finally clue us in on just what Simon’s intentions are.
We rejoin Philip as he is about to knock on the door of the woman who previously spat in his face. What is his plan? With Maxine’s chiding fresh in his mind, could he be poised to do “whatever it takes”? We won’t get to find out because, before the knock can come, he hears voices just on the other side of the door. It’s Maxine, and the woman has given her the video she took of the brothel’s door. Uh-oh, Philip. It’s almost like Back to the Future II; only, you know, with a video and fewer undead hookers.
Jem and Gary are out on patrol in the woods. For some reason, she thinks it’s a good idea for them to split up, and for some other reason, he agrees. So they each go off in different directions, and Jem immediately starts to freak out and hallucinate visions of Henry. Then she follows “him”, until she is in full-on freak out mode and ends up staring “him” directly in the dead-dead face. So, she runs off screaming until Gary grabs her. That wasn’t a great idea on his part; I mean, she has a gun and a history of just shooting dudes for no reason. Looks like Jem isn’t as ready for patrol as she thought.
Amy is over at Philip’s house, but not for any reason that makes Philip happy; she’s there to get medical advice from Philip’s mother. They conclude that she should just change her medicine and see if that helps; I predict it won’t. In the kitchen, Philip gets into a shouting match with his toaster and somehow manages to lose… and right in front of Amy. I love how, every time the two of them cross paths, he ends up doing something to embarrass himself.
Over with Kieren and Simon, Kieren has convinced Simon to apply some coverup, for once. As the two of them leave, Kieren makes the first move, this time, and plants a kiss on Simon. As this happens, Amy rounds the corner and see the two of them all tonsil hockeying it up, but they don’t see her seeing them. She seems somewhat sad, but not really all that upset.
Jem and Gary are at the pub, and Jem is still fucked up. She’s getting drunk, again, which definitely seems like that best move in her mental state, right? I love the bartender’s move when Gary goes to buy Jem another drink. He orders, and then a guy says he’ll buy it because he respects the fact that the patrol is back. When Gary leaves the bar, the camera stays on the guy as we see the bartender stick out her hand for payment. It’s a little thing, but it’s very funny.
Philip has returned to the home of the camera lady (Mrs. Lamb); he says he wants to talk, but he is eyeballing the room for weapons-until he gets an eyeful of her mantle covered in Jesus statuettes. He says there’s something she needs to know… then the scene cuts away. Dammit! What is he up to? (I’m sure I’ll find out in a minute, but still.)
We do cut away from that scene to find out something else: the reason Kieren wanted Simon to wear the coverup is so he could introduce him to his family. Damn, Kieren; slow your roll.
After Kieren and Simon agree to join Kieren’s parents for a bit of not eating lunch, we jump right back to Philip as he is exiting Mrs. Lamb’s home. He has some tapes and a suspicious look on his face. What did he do, dammit? What did he do?! Tell me, show!
Following a brief scene with Maxine and the woman who runs the B&B seeing something on a tape that we don’t see, the show does tell me! Philip had lied to Mrs. Lamb and told her he has been visiting the brothel as an “outreach” to try and get the women to move away from sin. Smart move, Philips, but now Mrs. Lamb is telling Philip’s mother all about how great her son is. Whoops. Philip’s mother doesn’t believe it for a moment; she knows Philip.
Now we see what the man and woman from earlier were referring to when the woman said she would make Simon proud; they break into the hospital and set the rabid PDS sufferers inside free. Yeah, I’m thinking Simon won’t really be on board with that… at least I hope not. After the man and woman hightail it out of there-well, after she takes the time to spray paint the wall-the nurse shows up and proceeds to be an idiot. Not only does she hear the alarm and turn it off, but she then sees that the cage has been opened is now empty. She immediately leaves, right? No, she just strolls right on further in and gets jumped by a “rotter”. She wanted to die.
At the quaintly awkward lunch, Simon asks Kieren’s parents how they met; after mom responds “work” and asks how Kieren and Simon met, they says they also met at work, and then Simon says “I liked the way he gave back.” That’s hilarious, and it causes Kieren’s dad to go wide-eyed before going to answer the door. At the door, it’s Jem and Gary… and they are now full-on making out. Is it just me, or does she seem way younger than he is? I think she’s supposed to be 19, so it’s not a big deal, but these characters just play like there’s a huge age difference between them. Anyway, they join the family for lunch. Dad asks if Jem wants to change before eating, because she’s still wearing her uniform that basically means “I’m hunting people who are the same as my brother”, but she and Gary just go ahead and sit down without any thought (or care). The two of them are drunk in the middle of the day. Gary starts in with talk about “rabids” and killing them; everyone tries to move the conversation off the topic, but Gary won’t shut up, even to the point that Jem starts to feel uncomfortable. Simon keeps his cool and even tell Kieren to “leave it” when he begins to speak up. Kieren doesn’t stop, though, and I love it. He goes on to do exactly what Gary was doing but from the other perspective; he describes how he came back to life, pushed his way through the dirt, and stood in the night air completely free of fear-for the first time in his life, or after-but Simon fixates on one aspect of the story more than others: Kieren was apparently the first person in Roarton to come back, because no other graves had been disturbed when he rose. Interesting. Anyway, he continues his story and doesn’t even get to a point where he says anything about killing anyone, and his dad stops him. Kieren is angry that everyone (read: assholes like Gary) can sit around laughing about killing PDS sufferers without anyone saying anything, but then he says one thing from the perspective of a PDS sufferer and gets shouted down. He says it’s bullshit, and the show does an awesome job of demonstrating exactly why it really is bullshit. Kieren leaves the table and the house, followed by Simon.
Back at Philip’s house, his mother sees the tapes in the garbage but doesn’t say anything to him about them. She just turns and asks him if he will “do what’s right” about Henry’s mother. He says he will, but you have to wonder if he knows that the right thing to do is.
It turns out he does because he goes to Maxine Martin to tell her he has decided not to lie to Henry’s mother. Before he can do that, however, she interrupts him and shows him the tape she saw earlier. Turns out Mrs. Lamb conveniently accidentally loaned out a tape that had Philip on it; not the exact tape we saw her filming earlier when Philip last arrived at the brothel, but very similar. Yes, it’s all very convenient, but it works. Maxine tells Philip it’s very simple, now: he just has to tell a couple more lies. While she’s saying this, the camera stays on Philip, and his is the face of pure fury. Man, I thought he was going to kill her right then and there. He had walked into the room with such confidence after having felt like he just pulled one off on everyone, but then he leaves the room with shoes weighing heavy with dejection.
So, Philip pays a visit to Henry’s mother… and gets interrupted again. This time, Henry’s mother says she knows Philip is a “good boy”, so he will tell her the truth. After a short pause, Philip nods, but we don’t hear what he says to her. What did he say? Did he tell the truth, or did he lie?
Again, we’re going to find out almost immediately because Philip goes over to the protest outside the brothel and grabs a megaphone to address the crowd. Aaaaand… he’s apparently taken a step to the good side because he proceeds to lecture the protesters about how they aren’t “pure” and no more good than the PDS sufferers are evil. He runs out of steam as they refuse to listen to him, so he just gives up and goes to stand with the men who had been pulled out of the brothel. I like this move by Philips; standing up for what’s right. This is a nice character turn, and I’m glad this season has spent a lot of time on him.
Back with Kieren and Simon, Kieren removes his contacts and begins to wipe off his coverup, as Simon looks on. Then, in a symbolic gesture, Kieren stops wiping his own face and begins wiping Simon’s. Kieren doesn’t want Simon to pretend for him anymore.
Out at a bus stop, Philip is getting drunk when Amy comes along and actually has a conversation with him. All it took for him to get her attention was to completely ruin his reputation. He confides in her that he only went to one sex worker, and it was because she reminded him of someone. Is he going to go the full monty and tell her about the dopplebanger he was sleeping with? Not exactly, but he does come out and tell her that he only likes one PDS sufferer: her.
We see a quick shot of a crying Maxine standing at a grave saying “not long now”. If we already know what that’s about, I’ve forgotten. I don’t think we do, though.
Given how this episode began, it’s crazy the next scene we see is Philip and Amy in bed together. I’m thinking he considers his public showing of good will to have been more than worth it.
The episode ends with Simon making a phone call to someone we don’t hear; he tells the mystery person that he has found the “first-risen”. Of course he’s talking about Kieren, which is further hammered home when he says “You should see him; he’s beautiful.” What’s in store for Kieren? I guess we’ll see tonight, when episode 5 airs on BBC America. Then the season finale is next week. Oh my!
