Original Release Date (Netflix): Friday April 19, 2013
Just when you think Hemlock Grove is weird, the show gets even weirder! This episode is brought to you by visions, drugs and dragons!
After Roman leaves Ashley’s place, he throws up and drives off in a rage. While driving he does more coke and curses Peter. A fallen tree blocks the road, causing Roman to walk to the white tower he happens to see in the distance. Credits roll…
And what follows is Roman charging through the facility. A guard tries to stop him, but Roman demands the guard, “Sit the fuck down.” He takes a key card from the guard and starts looking at some of the strange experiments in tanks. After passing those, he sees a man in scrubs injecting a ferret with something. He goes through a restricted area and finds a blowtorch. Dr. Pryce finds him and Roman turns the blowtorch on him. Dr. Pryce tries to talk some sense into Roman, and tells him they would not enjoy explaining this situation to Olivia. Roman demands to know what Ouroboros is. He draws the symbol out on the door behind him and asks him why he dreams about it.
Dr. Pryce’s response is, “What a fascinating thing to ask.”
In the end Dr. Pryce gives in, and shows Roman what Ouroboros is. He takes him on a long walk until he sees a box with a dull blue light glowing from a slit at eye-level. When Roman looks inside, he is stunned at what he finds. So stunned, that he doesn’t see Dr. Pryce come up behind him until it’s too late. Dr. Pyrce lifts Roman like he is weightless and injects something into him, causing Roman to fall into a coma.
He says to Roman as he drops him, “You can see why we are rather sensitive about it.” Damn that doctor is CREEPY.
The next scene we see Peter tossing and turning. He wakes up and smiles a little, then goes to have breakfast with his mother. Peter tells her, “You know that feeling you get when you have a toothache and you don’t know how bad it is until it’s gone?” Lynda says, “Yep.” And they know it’s not a tooth they are speaking of. She finds a cup with Letha’s lipstick on it and questions him about her. When he tells her it’s Letha Godfrey, she gets worried. She asks him if he’s doing it on purpose.
We then go back to Roman, who “awakens” in an empty pool. Flashes of visions flood his mind as he tries to stand. He demands to be let out, and remembers looking at Project Ouroboros. We then realize Roman isn’t awake, and we see Olivia hovering over his bed, as he lies there connected to a bunch of machines. Dr. Pryce explains he was agitated, and that with all the drugs in his system the sedative he gave Roman could not cause the coma he’s in. He tells her he believes Roman has suffered a psychic break. He’s preventing himself from waking up. Does Olivia buy this? Who knows. If not she won’t show her cards until she’s ready to strike. Olivia is a viper after all.
Olivia demands he be brought back to the manor, his home. Dr. Pryce thinks that is a terrible idea, but Olivia will hear none of that. Her demands will be met.
The next scene is with the ever curious Clementine, as she examines Roman’s car. This time when the sheriff shows up, he is tired of her imposition on crime scenes. He tells her that her Fish and Wildlife badge can only take her so far. He tells her that her trip to the Godfrey house didn’t go unnoticed. He makes it plain for her that unless it’s about Fish and Wildlife, it’s none of her business.
We then get a tender moment as Shelley carries Roman up the staircase to her room in the attic. They put Roman in bed by the window, so as Olivia says, “The first thing he will feel when he wakes up will be the warmth of the sun on his face.” Olivia seems to be in a slight state of shock, just by her expression in this scene. Like she’s barely functioning. She takes Shelley by the hand and says solemnly, “Strength and sorrow. Give no less to those you love the most.”
Shelley types on her phone, “Come back. You promised you wouldn’t leave me. I need you.” And inside Roman’s dream state he hears her. He’s stuck in some sort of dark tunnel, panicked and scared, and then sees an image of Shelley. Then suddenly Shelley vanishes and a small pretty girl with the earrings Shelley bought appears. Of course we know it’s still Shelley, even if Roman is a little thick. He asks her several times who she is and then where he is, and she laughs and tells him, “You’re in my room, breaking my heart, you jerk.” He then realizes this beautiful girl is Shelley. Roman tells her Dr. Pyrce drugged him and her reply is, “That’s not the reason you are here.”
“Why am I here?” He asks. She hands him her phone and says, “Why not ask your razor the next time you cut yourself?”
He then pushes play on the video on Shelley’s phone. The video is of Roman asleep in class as his teacher explains what a Catabasis is. It is a Greek ritualized decent into the underworld to accomplish a necessary task or defeat a dangerous adversary. He tells her that he’s a scorpion and Shelley tells him to be care what he says, or that what you are. “What do I do about it?” he says, and she tells him, “You need to turn those pretty eyes inward toward the monster ripping you apart. Destroy the Dragon before its fire burns you alive. We then get a flash of Roman back in the bed hooked up to machines.
The scene changes and we are back in the trailer with Clementine. Lynda and Peter are gone. Clementine is skulking about when the bishop who called her while she was drinking before shows up. She almost pulls a gun on him until she realizes who he is. He teases her about the gun she is using and about her very talented skills with it. She asks him what he’s doing here and he begins to tell her his concerns after their last call.
Their conversation is cut and the scene changes to Letha and her mom. Letha says Dad never really talks about his brother, and her mom explains it’s not an easy thing for Norman to discuss. This causes Letha to try to teasingly impersonate her dad, taking his glasses he left on the table and putting them on her face. Norman comes in just as she’s doing this, and chuckles a little. He tells the ladies, “It is said that what women fear most from men is violence, but what men fear most is being laughed at by women.”
Letha responds with, “Hmm…I am deeply concerned by that.” A phrase that if you’ve been watching the show to this point, you know Norman says quite a bit.
Norman gets a call from Olivia and realizes the gravity of the situation. He says he’ll be right over, after telling Letha and his wife Roman is in a coma.
Right after, we are transported back into Roman’s head space. He asks Shelley if this image he sees of her is how she sees herself. She tells him. “This is how you make me see myself.” Roman thanks her and tells her she was the only thing holding “us” together. Shelley responds with, “I just wish I could teach you how to see yourself.”
We then see Norman and Letha gathered around Roman, with Olivia standing there, looking empty. Letha asks what happened, and Olivia replies with, “A drug overdose.” Norman asks if they can talk downstairs, leaving Letha alone with Roman.
Norman explains that he hadn’t been in that attic for 30 years, and reminds Olivia that he should be in a hospital. She demands he stay there, and when Norman asks about what drugs did it, she says, “A number evidently.” They stand on the staircase, as Olivia explains Roman was causing a scene and Dr. Pryce sedated him. Norman isn’t buying the “sedation” at all, and basically accuses Dr. Pryce of causing the coma. He asks her why she left him still breathing, and she tells him that the coma is Roman’s doing. They of course don’t know why Roman was there. Norman questions her further until he realizes it’s futile, and then kisses her hand. Shelley sees it, as she stands above them at the top of the stairs. Olivia leans into Norman’s arms as he wraps her up.
The next scene is Norman driving with Letha. Letha tells him he doesn’t have to protect her from the truth anymore. Norman apologizes and Letha asks if he is going to wake up. Norman says, “I think that’s up to Roman now.”
The scene changes and we are back with Clementine and the Bishop. Clementine tells him that Roman is in a coma. The bishop makes a comment about the picture of Nicolai, and calls him an “Old leg humper.”
Clementine says there are better places to have a conversation, and the Bishop tells her they have time. Clementine has made herself some tea as she and the Bishop make themselves comfy in Peter and Lynda’s home. He chastises her for exhausting the patience of the local law enforcement. She tells him something is happening in the White Tower. That Dr. Pryce is playing lair’s poker. “Francis Pullman saw his hand, drove a titanium syringe three inches into his temporal lobe.” The bishop asks about Peter, and she tells them he and Roman were at the mill and that they found the rest of Willoughby. The Bishop replies with, “Or left her there.” Clementine says she’s not so sure. She tells him no sooner did the boys break up, and then their mothers start seeing each other. For business. Clementine mentions how Olivia was at the mill too. She gives the bishop a full report, telling him about the history of the mill and so forth. The Bishop gets tired of her talking about all the different “animals” here. He says, “I sent you hear to hunt an animal.” And her reply is, “And I found a whole herd.”
He tells her “Dante had his Virgil to guide him let me be yours.” And then tells her to forget Olivia Godfrey. That she’s a diversion. But Clementine isn’t convinced. “Clear your head, “ He says, “And bring me Peter Rumancek.”
The scene to follow that intense talk is Peter, walking alone. Then it shifts to Norman driving to Olivia. When he arrives she thanks him for coming back. They tell each other they love one another and make love.
We then get thrown back into Roman’s dream state, seeing flashes of images before we watch him and Shelley walk through the tunnel. They stop at a door and he asks her if this is where the Dragon is. She tells him she doesn’t know. He walks through it, after asking her to come with him. She says she can’t, but he won’t be alone. Everyone he blames for his mistakes is waiting for him on the other side.
Roman tells himself, “I’m a warrior!” and Shelley says, “Prove it.”
He agrees and walks through the door. He is transported into a huge courtyard, once very lovely but now fallen to decay. There he finds Clementine, with blood markings on her face. He tells her he can help her. She turns and tells him, “Biologically young girls have a blood rite that initiates them into adulthood, whether they are ready for it or not. To compensate, all tribal cultures put their young males through some ordeal at puberty, separating the boy’s world from the man’s.”
She then tells Roman he’s weak. He of course takes this well. She tells him, “You think Peter would cry over you?” then dips her hand in a urn full of blood. She comes towards him now; hand coated, and draws the snake eating its own tail on his shirt. As she does so she says, “It’s unusual for the knight to take the king. The bishop has far greater talent for the end game. Kneel.”
Roman does so as she shoves a silver spoon in his mouth. He spits it out and she says, “You think the Dragon gives a shit about your nobility? He’s gonna eat you alive.”
I love vision quests! Don’t you? They are so friggen ripe with symbols!
After Roman runs away from Clementine, he finds Norman in front of the Godfrey manor. Norman asks him to sit, as he fiddles with a plate of brains. He stops cutting it up and licks his fingers as he sits with Roman in the bright sunshine. He asks Roman how he can help, and Roman tells him he’s looking for the Dragon. Norman says, “Let’s see what my Swiss colleague has to say about this, and lifts open his laptop. The two doctors start to psycho-babble at Roman, and I doubt he understands the full extent of what they say, but for us I will repeat it so we can process it. Norman tells his colleague, “The subject here is in an unconscious condition, which he believes to be his catabasis, and he won’t be able to reach the surface if he doesn’t confront the Dragon.” The other doctor replies with, “All consciousness separates, but in dreams we put on the likeness of the more universal, truer, more eternal man, in the darkness of primordial night.” Norman tells him, “His sister’s appearing to him in the form of a guide doctor.” The other doctor says, “To deliver a classic messiah archetype. We know that our Shelley lends herself to this.” Norman responds with, “Then you believe the purpose of this episode to be redemption.” The colleague replies, “It is recommended that the subject search for clues within the dream landscape. In this instance, the Dragon is clearly the subject’s own shadow, the most repressed of his inner thoughts. As for the oft-mentioned representation, Ouroboros, the snake consuming its own tail, I could go on and on. But ironically, it will not be apparent to a young boy with such a sense of self-fellatio.”
The two doctors laugh about that one, leaving Roman with a perplexed look on his face.
Norman then asks, “What are the stakes in this narrative? I mean, if this is all in his head, what’s the worst thing that can happen to him?”
The Swiss doctor asks Norman to step a little closer, and we don’t get to hear what is spoken. After the two doctors share their secret, Norman flips the computer so Roman can face the Swiss doctor. The doctor gives him a word of advice, “Too much of the animal dislocates the civilized human being. Too much culture makes a sick animal.”
Roman of course is just aggravated by the whole talk. He gets up to leave when Norman says, “What I’m curious about is, if you’re dealing with repressed unconscious contents, what exactly I’m doing here? It seems you’d have more to say to Olivia.”
JR shows up now, asking where is Roman’s mother. He looks like he did the day he died. No wounds, but he is in the same tank top and slacks combo. He tells Roman he’d love to give his mother a piece of his mind. Norman laughs at that statement. JR tells Roman to sit down again, and tells him he was only a few years older than Roman when he took over Godfrey Steel. He confesses it was close to insolvency. He goes on to say how he saved it, was the hero of the town. Roman of course doesn’t give a shit, looking to Norman. Norman merely shrugs it off and let’s his brother ramble on about how he saved the town. Roman cuts him off and says, “Fuck your legacy! You’re a coward! Why did you do it?”
JR talks about Roman’s older sister, Juliet and how Olivia had no interest in her. When Roman was born, all she wanted was to hold him. JR then shows Roman his mother in bed, practically manic about holding Roman. She screaming, “Give him to me!” as a nurse holds a baby with a strange skin over its head.
JR tells Roman, “I knew I couldn’t protect you from her. She wouldn’t let me.” He then tells Roman that his only chance is the fact he is half of Olivia. Roman is still mad at the decision JR took leaving him, despite the fact JR is trying to explain why things happened as they did. JR reveals to Roman that Norman is actually his father. After that Roman is transported back to the dark tunnel with Shelley.
The scene changes and Peter is telling Letha to stop letting Roman get away with shit. Letha tries to comfort him but he brushes her aside. A teacher walks by, glares disapprovingly and tells Peter as he walks away from Letha, “No petting in the halls, Rumancek.” Letha walks away annoyed, as the lights flicker and things take on a strange glow. Roman appears down the hall, still marked by the snake eating its tail on his chest. He goes into a classroom in the dark and sits down, watching a video projected on a screen. The video is of Letha dancing. As he watches for a while, he’s interrupted by Letha’s mother, screaming, “You paid your money!” Over and over. She then opens her mouth and her tongue elongates, looking like a snake tongue. This freaks Roman out, who jumps out of the desk. He runs across the screen of Letha into the hall again, where he meets up with the remains of Bluebell, the first victim. She’s standing there, guts trailing out of her, as she says to him, “You said you’d give me a ride.” He then remembers Francis saying, “It was you! I don’t wanna see that!” And he runs down the stairs behind him.
Suddenly Roman is on that bridge again he saw in the dream with Peter. Things start to play out over again. They talk about Roman’s shirt, the birds, and Peter freaks out about the growling sound again. Only this time it plays out more. This time Roman laughs at it, and tells him again that they are in this together. Peter says, “Why do you want that to be true so badly?” And Roman responds with, “why can’t you admit it?” Peter reasons, “I guess we’re both scorpions.” Roman implores Peter, “Is there anything I can do to fix this?” As Peter rubs his face and answers, “It’s like the hottest, wettest pussy on earth.” Roman looks at him funny and asks, “What?” and Peter replies with, “That’s what fear smells like.”
The scene changes and we see Peter sitting outside the trailer. His mom joins him and hands him a beer. She says he heard about Roman. She tells him how she never wanted Peter mixed up with that family in the first place, and as she goes on about it Peter just tells her, “We had the same dreams. I thought it meant something.” She tries to comfort him and tell him he is the man his grandfather would want him to be, and tries to tease him to make him smile.
What follows is Clementine visiting the Godfrey manor. Olivia opens the door, looking unimpressed. Shelley spies on them as Clementine asks a few questions. When Clementine spots her, Olivia decides to take her outside away from prying eyes. They walk the grounds as Clementine chats her up about the discoveries at the mill. Olivia doesn’t take it well. She calls Clementine a cunt and brings up Roman being in a coma. Olivia calls her out on what she discovered, and says, “Now say something to me worth my time, or go sniff out your animal and directly fuck off back to whatever Ohio tragedy birthed you.”
Clementine is surprised she knew about Ohio, but Olivia doesn’t answer the question about her knowledge of it. Clementine tells her she’ll pray for her son, but Olivia snaps back with, “You’ll do no such thing.” Clementine just shoots back, “You afraid he’ll be saved?”
Olivia is definitely not someone to mess with! But neither is Clementine!
After that tense scene we are thrust back into Roman’s dreamscape, where Shelley is telling him he has to hurry. He gets annoyed with her and asks her why he should trust you, that even though she is his guide they are not going anywhere. Shelley explains the difference between a labyrinth and a maze. “A maze is designed to mislead. A labyrinth, no matter which way you step you’re always going in the right direction. It’s leading you to center. You have to hurry Roman!”
She tells him he’s running out of time, and points in front of her. Roman sees an image of a grandfather clock chiming. Then she looks ahead, as a huge full moon comes towards them. She tells him people are going to die, that he is going to die. The moon comes closer, as she scolds Roman to grow up. She steps away into the dark, and Roman freaks out. He tells her he’s sorry, pleads with her to stay, but as the moon approaches, she gets farther from him.
He looks at the moon and breaks down, repeating the word no over and over as he falls to his knees and starts rocking. Finally, as the moon gets ever closer, he rises, and decides to face it. He declares to the moon, “I’m ready for you! Here I am!” as his voice echoes off the tunnel walls. Thunder rumbles and he walks towards the moon.
Suddenly he is now walking through the gates of the Godfrey manor, and down its halls. Lighting lights up the manor, making ghostly shadows. Roman looks determined. He sees a grate with fire and smoke coming out of it, and the sounds of battle. He looks up at the grandfather clock, and then sees a shape of a creature lying in the darkened room in front of him. He grabs and axe resting on a side table and goes after it, as it growls and disappears. He looks around for it and hears Shelley scream for him. He charges up the staircase to her room in the attic, where the beast has her concerned. She screams as Roman enters the room. He runs the axe through the wolf-beast, but it turns to smoke. Shelley vanishes, and is replaced by the named form of Ashley, the girl he raped. She comes up to him and presses herself to his body, wrapping his arms around her. She kisses him and says softly, “You are ugly Roman. You’re looking for a monster? Then look in the coke mirror.” He pushes her away but she grabs at his hardness sticking out of his pants. When he looks up to meet her gaze, she is now Olivia. Olivia says to Roman, “What does that mean?” And steps away.
Suddenly he’s alone, sitting on the end of Shelley’s bed. She comes back and sits next to him. He asks her, “Can I go up yet?” She replies with, “Oh sweetie, you’ve barely scratched the surface.”
He asks her what the Dragon could want from him, and her only reply is simply, “What do you want from him?” Again she tells him he’s running out of time and warns him to make his heart steel.
Back in the real world Olivia is petting Roman’s head asking for forgiveness. “I was so fixated on the man I wanted you to become, that I missed the boy you still are.” She’s weeping, and confesses her fear of losing everything. “It’s not the first time I lost something excellent and beautiful because tightening my grip comes more naturally to me than letting go.” She sounds so fragile here, so terrified of loss.
The doorbell rings and Peter is there, offering her a statue of Ganesh for Roman. “I thought it might help him with his travels.” He says he doesn’t do these kinds of things well, even though Olivia is actually offering to let him in. Olivia tells him, “Perhaps if he met someone like you sooner he…wouldn’t be where he is now.” Peter just nods to that and leaves.
As Peter goes to leave Letha pulls up. They go off for a walk on the grounds of the Godfrey manor and sit on a hill, the manor behind them. They don’t realize as they chat that Clementine is watching them, taking pictures. She plays with her medallion and says to herself, “They are all just children!”
The next scene is Norman driving in front of his own house. He doesn’t go in and just stops there for a moment. It’s like he’s trying to make a decision greater than just going inside the house. He even looks at his wife in the window before deciding to drive off.
Then we see Olivia again by Roman’s bedside, holding the statue of Ganesh in her hands. She puts it down by Roman’s side as Norman comes into the room. He grabs her in his arms and starts to kiss her passionately. Roman doesn’t even stir.
Then the scene completely changes and we see Dr. Pryce. He’s talking into his tape recorder again, “The alchemists believed a creative work has a sort of life all its own independent of the creator, comma, straddling the worlds of matter and psyche of both and neither. Full stop. A subtle body they called it. Full stop. Can you think what you would do to protect it? Question mark.”
Behind him as he dictates is the big steel box containing Project Ouroboros.
“The sedation of the boy was unfortunate, comma, but in his condition as necessary as his witness of the work. Full stop. Should he awake a report of Ouroboros will never be believed; Semicolon. And knowing the truth he is invalidated. Full stop.” He then turns his attention to the box, touching the dimly glowing window affectionately. He tells it, “They won’t stop me. Then it will all have been for nothing.”
Now we are brought back to Shelley, writing a letter about her feelings. She’s trying to be strong, trying to not lose it. She explains how she wishes she had a voice so she can scream. As she says this the scene changes to Roman and Letha making love. She narrates over it saying, “Others can love without hate—no conditions. But not you, not my proud brother Roman. You’d rather die first, so you take it out on everyone around you.”
As she continues to speak, we see her now, revealing her true face and taking off her wig. “You promised you’d always be here for me, but you’re a liar! You’re selfish and…and you know how much I love you, but I hate you for making me see it.” She declares that he is not allowed to remove himself from her life. As she says this, Dream Shelley takes Roman into an elevator. She holds him by the hand as the door of the elevator closes on them.
*inhales deeply* Well… That was an intense episode. I apologize for all the narration, but there is a lot of talking and symbolism in words during this episode. I really enjoyed it, and I hope you did too!
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