Pam reached a whole new level of latching onto Grace as Crystal Lake nears the halfway point of the season. By the end of episode 3, she crossed the line on protecting Grace by killing her mom. Was Grace’s mom abusive and harsh? Yes. Did she deserve to be ambushed at work? Equally yes. Was she to blame for all of Grace’s abuse? No.
We saw in the last scene with Grace that she burned her own smoked cigarettes on her wrists while her mom wasn’t even home. I can’t be sure that wasn’t always happening, but she’s not all innocence in how she was viewed by Pam. Regardless, Pam couldn’t protect Jason, so she put all that energy into protecting Grace even if it meant killing her only family.
Throughout the rest of the season, Grace’s mental state will be determined by this one event. Although she doesn’t know what really happened to her mom, she’s alone in the world. Other than Pam trying to protect her from her mom, the world, and the new hippies that arrive in Crystal Lake. After a three-part tale from episodes 1-3, episode 4 dives into the aftermath of what just happened and creates whole new problems for our characters.
Pam’s alibi and Levon’s cases
After confronting Grace’s mom and setting the restaurant on fire, Pam gives herself an alibi by going over to Levon in the middle of the night. She immediately apologizes for how wrong she was about them the other night when they kissed. Not wasting any time, after she confesses she wants to feel alive again, she grabs his face and kisses him. As firetrucks and police cars go by the window, Pam and Levon finally give in to their urges.
The next morning, she wakes up in his bed and takes a minute to remember what happened. She walks downstairs to him, making coffee, already in his uniform. He was going to make her breakfast in bed, but he got called in for the restaurant fire. We finally learn that the authorities now know the identity of the fire victim: Grace’s mom, Valerie Snell (Tonya Glanz). Pam plays the concerned, motherly type when she worries about Grace, who is safely with Dorf, and the Christys (at the camp) will take her in for now. In other news, Enos (Daniel Stewart Sherman), who was shot while hunting the bear, is in the hospital, but he's okay.
He tells her she can stay as long as she likes and kisses her goodbye. Before he leaves, he turns back and admires how passionate she is. As soon as the door closes, her happy face turns into something else that I can’t quite pinpoint. Either way, for now, she knows she has an alibi for the fire last night. For Levon’s sake, I hope she actually likes him and isn’t just using him.
Levon checks in on Enos, who tells him what happened in the woods. They were tracking when he bent down and saw something through the trees. He tried to get a shot off, but Gus fired and hit him first, and the mysterious thing got away. After Enos collapsed, the mysterious thing stood over him, curiously watching him bleed. Enos tries to tell Levon he knows how it sounds with him losing blood and all, but he knows he didn’t see a bear. It was a tall, twisted-looking man. Something besides a bear is in those woods.
Dorf rambles on about winning back Rita by trying to set up a double-date with Levon and Pam. Levon shuts him down by trying to get Dorf to stick to the case at hand. Dorf needs to follow up on a report, and Levon thinks the bear has most likely moved on. They need to know for sure, so Levon goes into the cave and then yells at Dorf to come down there when he finds another left foot. Levon starts to realize that, along with the metal in the pelvis and finding two grown men’s body parts, a bear couldn’t have taken them down alone. He guesses it is more likely the bodies were dumped postmortem, especially after seeing the blade mark in the skull.
A combat boot print in front of the cave leads them to Ralph as he’s chopping wood with an axe. He doesn’t make things better for himself when he says someone could lose a body part by sneaking up on someone swinging an axe. Dorf gets directly to the point, but Ralph thinks he is talking about the PTSD episode he had with the dead bodies. He again makes things worse by requesting a warrant for them to look around due to knowing his rights after fighting in two wars. They warn him not to leave town in case they have more questions.
Hippies arrive in Crystal Lake
An angry man drops Willow (one of the hippies passing through) off in Crystal Lake to walk the rest of the way. As Rita leaves, Willow enters the diner, looking for her nomadic hippie friends. The guys at the bar let them know her friends came in a van looking for work. He sent them to Camp Crystal Lake, figuring John Christy might need a hand fixing it up so it could reopen in time. Trudy points her in the right direction and spots her at the house to apologize for all the men staring at her.
Willow (Oona Roche) heads out and takes a shortcut through the woods. She’s enjoying the journey when something spooks her. Her first attempt is to warn the unknown that she’s got a knife, but then she sees something, and she breaks into a run. She’s knocked to the ground with her leg caught in one of Ralph’s traps. Finally releasing her leg, she cries in pain as the mysterious figure approaches her.
Meanwhile, Willow’s friends are laughing while they fix up the camp as Pam looks on. She’s returned to the camp wanting to work and to apologize to John Christy for her past words towards him. Although she says she feels closer to Jason at the camp, I also know she wants to keep an eye on Grace after Levon told her the Christys were taking her in. John reveals that the campers will be here in a few days, and he wishes the hippies would hit the weeds a little less so they can get more work done. Even though they are a little unconventional, John sees the good in them and wants to give them a chance.
Pam spots Grace alone as Harmony comes up and checks in. She doesn’t like Harmony staring at Grace, so she walks over to Grace and lets her know she’ll be working in the camp kitchen this summer. As she did with Levon, she plays the concerned mother role to help Grace know she can talk to her about her mom’s death. Harmony interrupts their moment and invites Grace to help them paint the boathouse to get her mind off things.
Brianna tracks down a lead
Brianna finds documents on Bellflower Corporation, and things seem fishy. She writes down a name to contact: Noah Feldman, as her coworker calls her out for working unusually late. She confirms she put her latest writing assignment to bed hours ago and is working on helping her brother solve his unknown bodies case. The only connection to Subsan Solutions (the ghost company) is Noah Feldman, who worked at Bellflower Corporation in 1964. It is possible that Subsan Solutions serves as a shell company to hide the terrible things the actual company is doing. If that’s the case, why were those men in Crystal Lake?
She visits Levon and presents her findings. Bellflower and Subsan are connected via a pretrial deposition where some research scientists decided to testify against them. The case never went to court and was covered up, and now she has to get the guy to go on the record about what really happened. She pushes him to identify the bodies so she can press the whistleblower for information. He’s not too happy she’s rushing him, as if he hasn’t been trying to solve this case that could take months.
Levon goes to a bar and meets up with an old contact. He brings him a redacted file for Benny, giving him a little more insight into his case. The file confirms Benny isn’t someone to mess with. He thanks him for the intel, but the guy tells him to call someone else next time. They leave things on a sour note yet again.
New summer at Camp Crystal Lake
Claudette and Barry arrive at camp, free from their parents for a summer of fun. His hopes for sex are crushed when Claudette reveals she doesn’t want to go all the way anymore, not just during school but summer break, too. She decided to start listening to Pastor Ryan and to stop giving in to sexual temptation outside of marriage. All the bad stuff feels like punishment for her sins, so the only way she’ll do anything with Barry is if she puts a ring on her finger.
As Barry drags out the canoes, his eyes wander over to the hippies. Meanwhile, Claudette gives Grace the stink eye as she’s helping fix up the camp. Grace gets compliments on her artwork as Claudette walks over and wants to talk to her. I love how Grace isn’t a fan of this life turnaround that Claudette is trying to do. No amount of apologizing can make Grace forgive Claudette for what she did to her.
Meanwhile, Grace latches onto Harmony and her friends as she tries to cope with so much loss. From afar, both Claudette and Pam worry about Grace’s new friends and their influence. Pam is caught staring, and then the other hippies compliment her on her treats and outfit. She’s ready for a night of bowling with friends. She ends up calling the night short after some unsettling updates on the case that she overhears from Dorf.
Grace and Dorf uncover mysterious happenings
After overhearing Dorf’s update on the case, Pam rushes home to find the machete and get rid of it. She admires the blade and throws it into the lake. After an impressive throw, she hears a noise and has to lie to the hippies about why she’s out in the woods at night. They’re dancing, playing music, and singing with Grace joining in. Her alerts go up when she asks Grace why she’s so far from camp, but Grace says she lost track of time. Her answers reveal that Grace has been let loose to think for herself and drink.
Grace begs her to stay so she can have her reading and talk to her mom, but Pam is upset about it. Harmony zeros in on Pam’s loss and somehow gets her to stay. As the night goes on, Grace’s mom’s spirit doesn’t have nice things to say about Pam and wants her to get away from her daughter. Harmony, as Grace’s mom, attacks Pam, choking her, with the others having to pull them apart. Pam tries to tell Grace she didn’t do anything and the hippies are pranking her, but Grace isn’t buying it. She finally tells Pam to stay away from her.
Dorf’s ego takes a hit when his and Rita’s moment isn’t going the way he wants it to. At first, he grabs a beer from his glove compartment before realizing he needs to take action. Noticing his gun, he heads to Ralph’s to get evidence. In the pouring rain. Dorf creeps around Ralph’s property and stumbles upon his skinning shed. He finds more than deer and other animals. Willow’s body hangs upside down with only her head left to identify her.
All eight episodes of Peacock’s Crystal Lake are streaming now.
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