Trickster Episode 2 recap: Is Wade really Jared’s biological father?

In Trickster Episode 2, Wade returns to town in full-force and tries to convince Jared that he is his biological father.

Richie has officially moved in with Maggie and Jared, and it’s going about as well as you’d expect. Trickster Episode 2 begins with a disgruntled Jared begging Richie to stop howling in the shower to the same song he listens to each day at full volume while bathing. Maggie is unphased by it all.

The tension between Jared and Richie continues to grow until it boils over into a confrontation. Richie says one of them is going to have to leave, and Richie doesn’t think it’ll be him. Does he really think Maggie would choose anyone over her son?

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Later, Maggie and Richie send Jared off to the grocery store with Crashpad to get some food for the house. There he runs into his dad — or should I say dads — Phil and Wade. We learn that Phil, Wade, and Maggie were all supposedly tight back in the day. They’re buying supplies for a party at Phil’s that evening because all Jared’s parents do is party like teenagers. Jared and Crashpad are invited to attend.

Wade manages to steal a few seconds alone with Jared and points out that Jared looks nothing like Phil. “In fact, you got my eyes.” He encourages Jared to ask his mom about Wade’s real motive for being in town.

Trickster Episode 2 recap: Wade tells Jared some surprising things about his past.

Back at the house,  Maggie has locked herself in her bedroom to “argue with her imaginary friends.” Richie isn’t thrilled. “Nobody told me she was crazy.” Jared isn’t all that phased, considering he’s seen Maggie do this his entire life. As viewers, we are left in the dark as to whether Maggie is talking to something supernatural or legitimately has a mental illness.

Fast-forward to the party at Phil’s, and it’s as you might expect, a bunch of older adults trying to relive their glory days by shotgunning beers and rocking out to music. Crashpad bluntly points out the place is full of “old people.” Apart from them, there are no other teens in attendance.

Wade invites Jared to check out his motorcycle, and they discuss the past. Jared wants to know why his mom would lie to him. Jared hasn’t asked her about it yet. He’s still not sure he believes Wade is his real dad. “Why would she just lie about Phil being my dad?” Wade explains that he wasn’t ready to be dad back then, but Phil — as hard as it might be to believe — had his act together. Phil loved Maggie, and he was prepared to be a father when Wade wasn’t.

At the same time, Jared wonders if Maggie was “crazy” back then, too. Hearing voices, seeing strange things, all of those afflicted Maggie, too. Wade claims she inherited many of her issues from his grandmother, Sophia, and offers to be a shoulder to lean on if Jared has been experiencing anything abnormal. Unwilling to trust Wade just yet, Jared lies and says nothing out of the ordinary has been happening, neglecting to mention the doppelganger or talking crows — which Wade might know anyway.

Returning home, Jared finally confronts his mom about the night he was born. She leaves out all of the important stuff and claims that the only thing that happened was that she pulled over to the side of the road to give birth in the back of her truck because she couldn’t make it to the hospital at the time. She neglects to mention Wade’s involvement, even when Jared presses her.

Trickster Episode 2 recap: A flashback to the night of Jared’s birth.

We flashback to the night of Jared’s birth. We already saw part of this scene in the first episode’s prologue, but now we get to see it in full. Maggie gave birth in the back of a pickup truck, as she said, but Wade was there and took the infant into the woods. Maggie followed behind him, screaming for her baby as Wade walked deeper into the darkness, his eyes briefly flashing black.

And, as we saw before, she eventually started screaming. Something about her scream caused Wade to start bleeding from the eyes and mouth while collapsing to the ground — allowing Maggie to take Jared back. For years, Maggie thought she had killed Wade, but now he’s back.

She confronts Wade in the present, demanding to know what the heck he is. Maggie threatens him, warning him to stay away from Jared or she’ll kill him for good this time.

Meanwhile, Jared returns to Tasty Bucket to grovel for his job back. But the only opening left is for a delivery driver, and Jared doesn’t have a car. He’s back to square one. Before Jared can start considering his next move, he visits Phil, who tells him a little more about his past relationships with Wade and Maggie. And, speaking of the devil, Wade drives up on his motorbike to offer Jared a ride.

He takes him to the spot he was born to prove that he really is his dad. We saw Wade carry baby Jared into the woods toward a tall, looming tree with a mysterious totem face carved into its trunk in the flashback. Wade shows him the exact spot in the present. It’s proof that he really was there that night since Maggie confirmed earlier in the episode that the carving was there.

Trickster Episode 2 recap: Jared and Sarah share a kiss.

Amid all the crazy supernatural phenomena and parental drama, Jared manages to steal some normal teenage moments with Sarah, the new girl on the block who just moved in with her third foster family. She admits that she’s looking for her birth parents. Sarah goes from town to town searching for her family, and when she confirms they aren’t there, she acts out, so her foster family pawns her off to someone else, rinse and repeat.

Sarah’s problems aren’t all that different from Jared’s, and they seem to bond over it, sharing a kiss in the dark of Sarah’s car. Jared sees a ring of fireflies around her head during their liplock — Sarah doesn’t see anything. Freaking out, he rushes off and leaves her hanging.

We pivot to a local bar where Maggie and Richie are playing pool. Wade interrupts with a sexy little sequence of him whipping out his personal billiard cue and ruffling his hair. Maggie isn’t falling for it. She corners him in a dark corner of the bar, demanding to know what he’s doing there. Wade wonders if Jared knows “what she really is.”

Obviously, he doesn’t, and Wade insinuates that he could tell Jared the truth, whatever that is. Maggie shoves Wade into the wall and then grips his hair to pull him into a fierce kiss. It seems random, but when she walks away, it’s with a clump of Wade’s hair in her hand — which will be important later.

After Maggie and Richie leave, Wade hangs around to play a billiards game and is confronted by a mysterious trio named Edna, Georgina, and Albert. Georgina appears to be the pack leader and calls Wade “Weeg’it.” Also, Wade notices that they’re wearing “new skins.” The entire confrontation is tinged with unease. Georgina wants to know what made Wade reappear now, after all these years.

Whatever is going on with these people, it’s not good news. Georgina has some serious scars on her face, as does Edna. And they want to know who Jared is. Wade lies, claimed Jared is Phil’s kid. “We’ve been waiting a long time. I won’t let you worm your way out this time Weeg’it.” “When the time comes, I’ll do what’s right. But who knows when that’ll be, right?”

Jared wakes up in the middle of the night to his mother hovering over his bed. “Don’t ever leave me.” The trio from the bar slink off into the shadows, and the last we see of them in this episode is Albert hosing off a skinsuit on a picnic table outside. I had to rewatch it a few times. It’s pretty gross. But I think that all but confirms these guys are skinwalkers of some sort.

Trickster Episode 2 recap: Maggie performs a ceremony with Wade’s hair.

In the final scenes of Trickster Episode 2, Jared stops by Phil’s house to look for Wade, hoping to go on another motorcycle ride. Phil says he hasn’t seen him since the night before. For once, instead of asking for money, Phil actually has a gift for Jared. It seems like he’s feeling a little threatened by Wade’s presence in town and wants to reassert himself as Jared’s father. He gifts him with a moped. Sure he’s having a new baby, but Jared is his first-born.

Now that he has a mode of transportation, Jared returns to Tasty Bucket to accept the delivery driver position. On his way back from the fast-food joint, he runs into Sarah again. He apologizes to her for wigging out the night before.

She’s busy hanging up fliers to promote awareness for an anti-pipeline protest. Jared warns her that her protest might not work out because a lot of people in town are relying on the new gas terminal for jobs. Sarah isn’t impressed with his attitude and turns down his offer for help.

When Jared gets back home, his mom is missing, and Wade is on his way to pick Jared up after they exchange a few texts. As Wade steers his bike along the twisting roads, Maggie conducts a beach ceremony using Wade’s hair. We don’t see what happens, but it doesn’t look good for Wade as he drives down the road toward Jared’s house. It looks like Maggie is using magic to take care of him once and for all, as she promised she would.

New episodes of Trickster air Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. ET on The CW. Stream for free on Wednesdays on The CW app or website.