The Gloaming Season 1, Episode 6 recap: Heathen Dogs

The Gloaming Episode 6 begins with Alex taking his cat to the vet, which turns out to be a guise for him to get more diazepem. After refueling his little addiction, Alex visits his old rowing teacher, and current high school principal, William (Anthony Phelan), who is still heavily involved with the Star of Forest Church.

We find out that Marianne Gowdie might have taken Dorothy Moxely’s identity, she has the same blood disorder, and Alex points out that Valerie Gowdie’s obituary was tucked inside of Dorothy’s bible. Could Valerie have been Marianne’s daughter? And how does this relate to Ricky, the guy arrested for Valerie’s murder?

To find out, Alex gets a DNA test to see if the Valerie connects to Dorothy Moxley.

Meanwhile, Gareth visits Grace. Williams is also present. William and Grace are pissed at Gareth for fumbling the ball with Jacinta so badly. They needed her support. He’s lost the church millions. Grace tells Gareth his mother would be ashamed of them. Grace tells Gareth to stay out of everything now, except they do recommend he catch up with his old pal Alex to find out what he knows. “Death follows you everywhere, doesn’t it, Gareth?”

While this conversation is happening, Stephanie watches from outside.

The DNA links Freddie to the two murders so the cops finally have enough to charge him and build a case. But Molly and Alex aren’t yet satisfied. They want to know who Dorothy really is, why Freddie killed her and why he was in possession of Jenny’s backpack and ID card. Molly thinks Lewis is jumping the gun by going after Freddie, but he doesn’t have time for anything she has to say right now. He’s still angry about the Gareth drama, so he demands Molly work on the brief while Lewis and Alex head to the hospital to arrest Freddie.

The Gloaming Episode 6 recap: Molly tries to decipher the photo of Daisy

Alex remembers Freddie’s weird message to him, “out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth.”

Earlier in The Gloaming Episode 6, we saw a strange woman go to the funeral home to claim Dorothy’s body, so now when the cops try to revisit her for further examination, the funeral home no longer has access.

Molly visits Lily at the dance studio, the one where Grace works. Molly takes Lily aside to tell her she’s got restricted visiting now and to inform her that Freddie is being charge dwith murder. Then she changes tactics, asking Lily if she’s ever been to one of Grace’s camps. Remember that photo Molly took from Daisy’s home during her funeral? Apparently it was taken at one of these camps. But Lily has never been, she says her dad wouldn’t have let her without Molly’s permission.

Alex arrives at Gareth’s house to “catch up,” although both men obviously have ulterior motives as each one tries to glean information from the other. Alex brings up Molly and pleads with Gareth to cut her some slack, as a favor to him. Then we find out why Molly is really so obsessed with Gareth.

She believes that Gareth killed her friend Elizabeth. According to Gareth, Elizabeth was crazy and when they broke up, she didn’t handle it well. She showed up at his house drunk and fell off the balcony. The coroner ruled it “death by misadventure” but Molly wouldn’t let it go. Gareth also wonders if she has a thing for him.

The Gloaming Episode 6 recap: Gareth drugs Alex

Alex continues pushing Gareth to tell him more, like how he ended up at Hillcrest when he didn’t know anyone there? Where did he get his rowing skills? Eventually, Alex excuses himself to the restroom and takes advantage of being alone in Gareth’s office to snoop a little. Then Gareth catches him, but just offers him a drink to take the edge off. He assures Alex that there’s not bad in the drink, just something “herbal.”

Well, that turns out to be a lie. Whatever Gareth gave Alex starts making him trip out and hallucinate. He can barely hold himself together as the room around him transforms into a club with flashing red lights and gyrating dancers. Alex chases Jenny through the crowd and notices a weird tattoo symbol on her shoulder along with other ominous things like people in cloaks, masks and general creepiness.

Then Alex finds his hands are bound by ropes and sees a wooden blue door at the end of a hallway. He pushes it open and sees something terrifying inside that yanks him out of his fugue state. Alex collapses to the floor and Gareth tries to reassure him. Alex is like, “uh what the heck did you give me!?” And insists on leaving ASAP despite Gareth’s protests.

At a fundraiser, William bribes someone to get something in exchange for helping his son get a scholarship.

Molly continues obsessing over the photo. She starts taking pictures of the physical image with her phone so she can zoom in and she notices some weird symbols and people in the background.

The Gloaming Episode 6 recap: Eileen puts a spell on Grace

At home, Eileen is alone making something involving blue ribbons and pacifiers with a lock of hair attached when Alex shows up unannounced. He tells her that he and Jenny went to a house with a blue door, a place Jenny lived when she was younger. Eileen gets spooked and tells Alex to leave because it was just a robbery gone wrong. She’s clearly terrified and tells Alex to let go because she can’t change anything. Alex threatens to bring her in for questioning if she’s covering up a crime and he’s frustrated that she won’t try and help him solve his daughter’s murder. What was Jenny trying to find out about her family?

While Alex is going to Eileen’s, William follows him in his car all the way to Molly’s house. Alex confesses to Molly that he’s starting to remember things from the day Jenny died. He knows Jenny lived at the house with the blue door as a kid and found an empty paddock there. He also tells Molly what happened at Gareth. They connect in a way they haven’t in years, you can sense the chemistry between them.

Eileen brings the weird pacifier thing to Grace’s house while whispering incantations, seemingly doing some kind of spell. Then she hears Stephanie’s daughter crying in the house and leaves the pacifier under the front mat. Suddenly, Grace wakes up and hears a little girl calling out. She runs and cries out for “Valerie.”

The Gloaming Episode 6 recap: Molly and Alex reconnect

At Molly’s, Alex draws the same symbol he saw on Jenny’s shoulder and asks Molly if she remembers what Daisy was trying to draw beacuse it could be the same symbol. Then the diazepam falls out of his pocket and we find out that Alex named his cat Molly. He tries to pretend it’s just a name, but come on! It’s yet another cute moment.

But then Molly and Alex start piecing together weird things about the case, including Grace’s salvation camps, Dorothy and Daisy’s matching wrist fractures, and the symbol that keeps reappearing (remember Molly also saw it drawn on her mirror). “There’s much more to this case than just Freddie Hopkins, we keep pushing this to the end, agreed?”

Then Alex casually mentions Gareth and his belief Molly has a thing for him. They start discussing their previously relationship and Alex semi-apologizes for bailing on her. Molly forgives him, “We were kids,” and invites him to sleep on the couch since he’s tired. Later, Alex crawls into bed beside her and they cuddle. Omg, my heart. But he leaves early in the morning, writing a note for Molly.

The Gloaming Episode 6 recap: The church performs a ritual

Alex returns to Grace’s house again and finds some weird ritualistic set-up in the yard. He sees a a stone circle and lifts one up, finding what looks like a jawbone beneath it. Ovehead, the birds start swarming.

Molly wakes up to a phone call from Maggie. Maggie says she looked into Valerie’s post-mortem results and she’s not Dorothy’s daughter but Gareth’s daughter! She connected it to the blood found at Jacinta’s crime scene.

As for the church and weird ritual, they start performing some strange incanctations involving Grace and William and a woman’s body covered in a veil. “Leave the dead to bury the dead.” The camera pans out and… there’s Lewis in the shadows! What’s he doing there?!

What did you think about The Gloaming Episode 6? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

New episodes of The Gloaming air Sunday nights at 8 p.m. ET on Starz.