A whole host of factors came together this evening: 1) I’m going to Ottawa in the morning, 2) A couple of friends are in tonight tonight for the first time in quite a while, 3) I had to watch tonight’s episode away from the computer and 4) there were repeated phone calls and distractions during the watching (normally I’d be watching a later airing when people aren’t likely to be calling). So tonight’s recap will be in point form, with less detailed coverage than usual. Fortunately these are all one-time factors and I should be back to my overly detailed recap form next week.
– Episode opens with Mariel asking Tom to dredge the cove where she found her body last week (I think, I missed this because the TV near the computer was usurped, forcing me to relocate)
Dave decides to interrupt a hurricane survivor meeting just as Mariel is on the verge of telling everyone about her body finding adventure. Once she sees Dave, she backs out.
– Larkin and Russ are frolicking about in the forest when Russ spots a dead crab. He runs to investigate and find a swamp teeming with dead things. This makes Russ angry; he doesn’t like people poisoning his swamp.
– Russ rushes over to see some people (who were apparently drug dealers) and blames them for what happened. One of them pulls out a gun but he points it at them and gets angrier. When they claim innocence over the swamp he demands to call the cops. Then he pistol whips one of them when they hesitate. Larkin doesn’t seem too sure about how to react to Angry Russ.
– Dave meets up with Mariel and convinces her to go to lunch with him. They two talk about things and have a bonding moment.
– Tom goes to talk to Father Scanlon. He is still scared about losing Mariel. Scanlon, more or less, suggests he lies to Mariel but to do so in a way that everyone can believe.
– Mariel and Dave talk some more and it seems like she may be about to tell him something but then Tom happens by and ruins the moment. Mariel and Tom talk and she says she still wants to dredge the cove where she saw her body
– Back at his lab, Russ finds out that the man he pistol whipped has a broken jaw and the DA is considering pressing charges. They asked about his past record and Russ surmises they were referring to his time in a work camp when he was a juvenile. Larkin always thought he went there voluntarily, and he did, but it turns out that he had a choice of going there or going to juvi. Larkin wants to know more but Russ blows her off as he wants to deal with his dead gator.
– Tom is called in by the coroner. Apparently a few bodies have turned up in the aftermath of the hurricane with puncture wounds. They weren’t killed by the wounds but they speed the decay process. Tom pays particularly close attention to the unidentified body of a young blonde woman (if you can’t see where things are going by now, you’re probably a bit slow).
– Dave is getting ready to post some stuff on his blog at an Internet cafe when Larkin comes in. She tells him about Russ’ record and how he refused to discuss it. Dave uses his powers of Internet to break into a database and pull up his record.
– Whatever it is shocks us right into commercial.
Russ is autopsy the gator with another forestry service person. Apparently it smells far worse than a dead gator normally would and Russ is intent on finding out why. While working, Dave comes in and lets Russ know that he and Larkin know about his record now. Russ says he will talk to Larkin when he gets home. He then cuts open the gator’s stomach and is burned by some acid which spills out. After washing his hand, they look at the floor and see some sort of clawed hand type thing.
– Dave goes to blog his findings, convinced that what they have found is definitely alien. It is currently at the lab being tested and they should know more soon.
– Russ comes home, looking for Larkin. Dave says that she went to the swamp and advises Russ to tell her the truth.
– Russ finds Larkin and apologizes to her. He then tells her about having to sell coke for his gangster uncle, Max, when he was a teen, just to avoid being beaten. The uncle used to always pick on Russ’s friend Leon and one day Russ told him to stop. Max responded by pulling out a gun and shooting Leon. Russ snapped and bludgeoned his uncle to death. Russ’s lawyer convinced the judge it was self-defense and he ended up at the work camp. Russ says he doesn’t like to talk about it because it wasn’t really self-defense, he killed Max because Max deserved it.
– Mariel is at Dave’s when he gets home. She seems a little weired out by the newspaper clipping but she still wants to talk. She asks Dave what he saw when he was attacked. He tells her and shows the marks on his leg. When Dave asks what she saw, she says she saw ‘me’.
– Dave goes back to the hurricane survivors meeting and gives a make good speech, asking them to accept him and help him as they help each other. They seem to go along with this and when Dave goes outside he speaks into his tape recorder boasting about having them where he wants them.
– Preliminary test results come back on the claw. It is filled with poisons and definitely killed the gator and also poisoned the surrounding water. And they also found possible evidence of human DNA in the sample but more testing will have to be done.
– At the cove, Tom is dredging the swamp with his crew while Mariel watches. It doesn’t look like they will find anything but they do. It’s the body of a young blonde woman, (presumably the one we didn’t get good look at earlier in the episode). Tom explains that Mariel must have saw that and in her panic, thought she saw herself. Mariel seems to buy this explanation.
