REVIEW: Dead of Summer, Episode 106
Dead of Summer continues the season with episode 6, entitled “How to Stay Alive in the Woods”, and what a great episode this was, and that is exactly what this show needed at this point, because even though the previous episodes were good, maybe not as good to make the audience always keep watching, definitely one of the reasons why it got cancelled.
In flashbacks, we saw a lot of Deb’s past and we found out that she is, like everyone else, a woman with secrets, but maybe in contrary to what some people may believe, her secrets have nothing to do with the major mystery that has been looming over Stillwater. Deb is simply a woman who had once a great summer, and so she thought some great and magical things would follow, but turned out very disappointed. We saw that she was happy (not the happiest, but happy) when she was collecting signatures for charity, but it was clear that when she started working in the law firm with her partner/boyfriend, she was far from happiness (unless when she was reading Keith’s postcards). This was the most clearer when her boyfriend, Fred, proposed and Deb’s answer was simply “sure”, like that moment was a mundane thing. No surprise, no “Oh my God, of course I do”, no joking around a bit, just “sure”. Deb clearly is far from happy with her life in that moment, and, almost as it was always meant to be, by chance, she found Keith. The two of them talked, and that is when Deb realized that that summer back in 1970 is as good as her life will get. We later found out that Keith isn’t also exactly doing well. Even though he might have been happy when he was writing poetry for some magazines, when he found Deb he hadn’t written in a while, so he definitely agreed with her. Ready to go find their time capsule, Deb later went to Keith’s motel room, where she found him dead, killed by an overdose. That is how much Keith needed memories from that summer.
In present day, Deb blames herself for what happened to Cricket, because she realized that if she wasn’t so stuck in the past, if she didn’t want so hard to bring back some memories, Cricket would still be alive. Of course she is being a little hard at herself, it obviously wasn’t her fault, and that was exactly what Keith came back to tell her. In the beginning we might have thought that he popped by because he learned Deb had reopened the camp, so he wanted to see her and it again, but things got a lot creepier when we find out that Keith was dead. And exactly because he was dead, he had to go back to wherever he came from. But before he left, he told Deb that bad things are coming. Maybe Deb wasn’t able to save the world, but she might now be able to save all those kids at the camp.
Meanwhile, Blair is far from OK with Cricket’s death and he wants to find out what really happened to her, because he realized that her death doesn’t make sense, since she knew the woods very well. But with Cricket dead, there is no way that isn’t creepy to talk to her, so he prepares a spirit session using an Ouija board. The session scene was really amazing to watch, and my heart was definitely beating really fast because I had no idea what was going on. Cricket possessed Amy, but then so did Holyoke, and while in her body he tried to cut her throat. The session ended with Jessie’s arm drawing a skull. This was the moment in which Jessie started to believe there is definitely something very wrong going on.
At the same time, Sykes continued to investigate the lake’s history and he found a file number in the cufflink he had found last episode. Inside the file was his father’s research about the lake and cults related to it. Later on, Jessie found him and they realized that what she drew, when put on top of the map Sykes had found earlier in the series, shows the spot where the cult is burying things for the ritual. But someone already knew that Sykes knows where to find the buried things, so they moved it.
After Keith left, Deb decided to gather everyone and make a time capsule for Cricket, in which someone put something that had some kind of meaning to her. I found this scene a really great one, and this idea was really good so everyone would get some closure.
Right in the final scene, we saw someone in a mask burying Blotter’s head, making sure that there are no doubts that he is actually dead.
This was really a great episode, the best one so far. I really liked Deb’s back story because it felt so real. There is always a moment in time in which we would all like to go back to. Sometimes we try to recreate it, but succeeding is very very rare. The episode also really focused on the main mystery and that is definitely a plus, since there aren’t many episodes left. I am giving this episode a 9.4/10.
Episode 7 is entitled ”Townie” and, as the name suggests, it will focus on Garrett, so don’t miss my review.
REVIEW: Dead of Summer, Episode 105
The fifth episode of the only season of Dead of Summer is entitled “How to Stay Alive in the Woods”, and it has Joel as centric character. This was definitely an episode that raised a lot of questions, but also that answered a few old ones.
In flashbacks to Joel’s early life, we find out that he used to have a brother, Michael, but he killed himself when Joel was still young because “He’ll never leave me alone”, at least this is what he wrote with his own blood on the wall. It was later confirmed that Michael was hearing voices, and he believed that killing himself was the only way to make them stop. We also found out that someone glued a camera to Joel’s hand in a very early stage of his life. But the fact that he wanted to be a film maker isn’t really the reason why he carries a camera in his hand almost 24/7. He does that because, like his brother, Joel started hearing voices and seeing things that weren’t there, and his camera allows him to see what is real and what isn’t. But the man he sees isn’t just some random someone, but Holyoke, also known as Tall Man, the guy who has been haunting the Camp since the beginning. This was definitely a great and really unexpected twist, but it sure wasn’t the only one in this episode.
In present day, Joel continues to see Holyoke and right from the beginning of the episode the ghost asks him to kill Amy, or someone else will die. Joel of course continues to believe that none of this is real, but we can see that he is afraid of himself and of what he might do, because, when asked, he refused to be alone with Amy. Everyone else starts to realize that Joel is acting weird, but of course that no one suspects the truth.
Do you remember last episode when I said that Joel and Deb had sex? Well, maybe not. This episode made us realize that most of the scenes which we saw from his perspective didn’t exactly happen as he thinks they did. Deb said all they did the previous night was go for a walk, she showed him what is inside her box, she told him about her friend Keith and that is it. A short while after this, Joel realizes that things work differently in Camp Stillwater, so he can’t trust his camera there.
In the meantime, Styles continues with his investigation in cults related to the lake, so he and Jessie go to the cabin in which we saw Holyoke play the piano right in the beginning of the series. There, they find a hidden door on the ground, inside which there is a doll, a tape and a cufflink with the initials JS, Jack Sykes, which means that Garett’s dad was investigating these exact same things.
Closer to the end of the episode, after losing the one thing that allowed him to distinguish reality from his imagination, Joel decides to tell everyone about everything, from his brother’s death, to Holyoke asking him to kill Amy. But when Jessie arrives with an old photo of Holyoke everyone starts to understand that in Stillwater there is a lot more than what meets the eye. When Anton walks in, he tells everyone the man he saw when he arrived was Holyoke. Jessie is still a bit skeptical about all this, but now no one can say that this is just in their heads. There is definitely something big happening, and even though we knew this from the beginning, the counselors start now realizing this too, which means that from now on, things will start to be very different.
But of course that none of this changes what Holyoke said, and with Amy still alive and kicking, he made good in his word. Right in the end, Cricket was going to meet Alex to watch the Blood Moon when someone pushed her and she fell on a bear trap, dying immediately. I have to say that this part doesn’t seem very realistic. Sure that there are bear traps in the woods, but when the Camp reopened those traps should have been deactivated, because there are kids around.
Nevertheless, this was a great episode. It had great twists, and it was definitely a change compared to other previous ones. The death at the end was also very surprising, because it gets to a point where you don’t think that anyone major will die, but you should be warned that in Dead of Summer no one is safe. I am giving this episode an 8.6/10.
Episode 6 is entitled “The Dharma Bums” and it will have Deb as centric, making us realize why she decided to reopen Camp Stillwater.