Intruders - S1E5 - The Shepherds and the Fox
Previously on Intruders, ‘Ave Verum Corpus’
I didn’t get to live-tweet this episode because I was so busy getting my life watching the Beyonce and Jay Z On the Run concert. Some of you may be thinking, “But didn’t you spend an obscene amount of money to see the show live back in July?” To that I say, “Mind your business. I’m grown.”
Anyway, I did miss live-tweeting the episode with you guys and I promise to be back at it next Saturday. Let’s dive into this week’s show.
9 years ago, the police raided Marcus Fox’s home in Seattle. From the looks of what they find inside: bodies bound under the basement’s floorboards, this is something that should have gone down a long time ago. Unfortunately, Marcus gets away.
In present day, Jack is being interviewed at the scene of the Anderson shooting. The detective doing the questioning is the same one who taunted Jack about his departure from the LAPD and he also led the raid on Marcus’ house. Jack isn’t able to tell anything more than he knows, which isn’t much. Gary is MIA.
Madison/Marcus (Mardison?) finally arrives at the building in the sketch, the same building Gary took Jack to last week. She’s looking around until a woman instructs her to leave. Mardison offers up a “nice tits” before storming out.
Frank Shepherd visits Richard Shepherd with coffee. Richard wonders if the power Qui Reverti has shouldn’t belong to all. “Don’t talk like that,” Frank warns. Frank tells Richard he’s on a special mission, off the books, for Rose. He then says they need to find out who helped Marcus Fox return. But first they need to find Marcus and kill him. “Please tell me it wasn’t you, Richard?” Richard lies with a straight face and says he didn’t help Marcus return.
Jack is drinking and talking to Amy on the phone. He tells her he’s at Le Soleil hotel, which isn’t true at all. Rose calls Jack and tells him “You’re only alive because of your wife” then makes arrangements for the two to meet at the pier. Then she casually drops that she knows his exact location and it’s a shitty motel room. He’s in room 112, and we all know that’s where the players dwell. Anyway, Jack calls Gary’s job and learns he hasn’t been with the firm for months. I told you Gary’s ass was sketchy! Even so, Jack calls Gary and agrees to come to his room at Le Soleil since Gary’s too afraid to leave. Note: I am most likely spelling that hotel’s name wrong.
Frank meets Jack on the pier and Jack tries to explain he doesn’t care what Qui Reverti are or what they’re up to, he just wants to know that his wife is okay. Frank tells Jack he can ask Amy if she’s okay the next time he sees her… in the next life! Then Frank pulls a gun. The two fight, but before Frank can kill Jack, Richard appears and shoots Frank.
He tells Jack that the third time they see each other it will be because someone sent Richard to kill him. Oooh, snap! The look on Richard’s face after delivering that line is everything. I almost forgive him for raping Tara on True Blood.
Mardison is drawn to “her house” which turns out to be Marcus’ house from nine years ago. The man living there now is not amused when she pushes her way inside and picks up his phone like she pays rent. She calls her mom and when the owner learns that Madison’s been missing a week, he gets on the phone with her mom to make arrangements to have Madison picked up. Unfortunately for him, Marcus emerges and kills him.
Jack visits Gary’s hotel room which he has turned into a Beautiful Mind room. Here, Gary kinda looks like Denzel in Flight when he was just strung out on everything. What I’m tryna say is: Gary is having a rough time. He tells Jack about the “Ghost Machine.” Gary went to Anderson’s to learn why he wasn’t cashing Granfield’s check. He was exposed to the vibrations of the machine as he looked through a window. Later, he got sick at home and then he was able to see another soul inside his baby girl: Donna’s! Even though Donna’s suicide note has the same line he heard Amy say, “In the beginning there was death,” Jack is still skeptical. Oh, Jack. Wake up! Gary drops a bomb that Rose is staying in the hotel, too. Right across the hall, in fact.
And poor Gary is such a hot-ass mess. He explains that everyone has two souls: their own and the one of a person who has been reborn into them. The machine allows everyone to see this which is why Granfield wanted Anderson to stop building it. Only Qui Reverti has the power to control it, only they know about it, and they want to keep it that way. Gary also admits that his wife has a restraining order against him because in a moment of frustration with Donna and the whole situation, he shook and harmed his infant daughter. Fine. I take it back. Gary’s not sketchy. This has him all fucked up.
On a hunch, Richard goes to Marcus’ old house and it pays off. Mardison is still there, trying to make sense of the book. Richard tells her he made a mistake in going through with their deal, but he hesitates to shoot her when she lays on the little girl act. Oh, Richard. Mardison gets away, stealing Richard’s car. Watching her drive off, barely being able to see over the steering wheel, was one of the highlights of the episode. Richard chases her in the dead man’s car, but finds his car crashed down the road and Mardison nowhere in sight.
Jack tucks Gary into bed and heads across the hall to confront Rose. When he hears someone getting off of the elevator, he goes back into Gary’s room and watches from the peephole. Richard knocks on Rose’s door (room 909) and when she answers it’s none other than Amy!
Thoughts & Questions:
- I love that we finally got a full explanation (though I’m sure there are more twists to come) of what we’re dealing with. I also like that this thing of having multiple souls applies to everyone. That raises the stakes and opens up so many possibilities for the series going forward.
- I’m usually not a fan of coincidence, but I like the way Donna’s death and connection to Gary/Jack is brought full circle. Also, it’s super creepy thinking she was in love with Gary and now she’s his daughter. Unless, Donna and her original soul were in love with him and it’s her second soul (the Intruder?) who is in his baby’s body and warning him because he/she knows what Gary meant to Donna? Still fuzzy on that one, but enjoyed the reveal.
- Although I was sad to see Robert Forster go, it makes sense that Richard would take out Frank. He can’t have Frank sniffing around figuring out what he’d done. This also explains why Richard has been so intent on taking out Marcus before the others could learn he was alive. It’s also starting to make more sense why he hesitates to shoot Mardison - there IS a little girl in there who didn’t ask for this. Still, sooner or later Richard’s gonna have to commit to getting this done if he wants to save his own ass.
- What the hell was Marcus into with all of those bodies? Why did one corpse have a strip of photos of Marcus and a young woman? I love watching the actress play Madison slip into the role of Marcus, even when it’s disturbing to watch like in this episode when she’s taking a shower and chugging liquor. But I was starting to wonder how realistic is it that Marcus would continue to act in such a way with strangers when all it does is draw negative attention to him. Now we see that he was a pretty sick man into some weird shit so it’s unlikely he had decent social habits to begin with.
- Now that Jack has the first and last name of the person sharing Amy’s body (assuming he’s finally willing to get onboard that this is really happening), I wonder if he’ll do some digging based on the name, what George told him about Amy, and her being able to speak Russian and loving jazz.
- When Gary was looking at baby Emily and realized Donna was in her, did her eyes change a bit? I feel like they did. I need to rewatch that scene.
