REVIEW: Dead of Summer, Episode 108
Dead of Summer starts to wrap up the season with this eight episode entitled “The Devil Inside”, finally Jessie’s centric episode, and in it we find out that in Camp Stillwater things really aren’t so black and white.
In flashbacks we learned that Jessie’s dream was to go study in Northwestern University and she was definitely very focused on this goal: she studied a lot and she worked part time jobs to get money for it. But right from the first scene we find out that Jessie’s mother, Renee, was never a good influence to her daughter. Some scenes in these flashbacks even made it look like Jessie was the responsible mother, while Renee was the rebel daughter. To get to the interview she had been preparing for weeks, Jessie would obviously need a ride, but her mother showed up really late, or she didn’t even show up at all (it isn’t clear which of these options actually happened). In a later scene, I really got the idea that Renee did that on purpose so that Jessie wouldn’t get in, because if she did Renee would be alone. This is definitely not mother-like at all. Fortunately for Jessie, she got in, even though she arrived very late to the interview. But the bad parenting definitely does not end here. After going out to celebrate this, Renee got a little bit (lot) drunk. She still insisted in driving, and they had an accident. Looking out for herself (since that is what she seems to do best), Renee told her daughter to switch places with her, to make sure she wouldn’t go to jail. Of course by doing this, Jessie’s dream was shattered. These flashbacks scenes were really amazing. In present day we usually see Jessie doesn’t really care, but now we found out that is not really her, she is simply still upset since all this is a recent thing. In fact, Jessie definitely deserved so much better. She really deserves a mother who will love her more than herself.
In present day, Deb announced that, because of the recent events, she is going to close the camp because when the story goes to the papers there will be reporters everywhere. Of course no one is happy about this, but it does seem like the best choice to make, since they wouldn’t really be able to have fun when dozens of reporters started showing up, asking everyone questions, taking pictures, filming…
The reason it took so long for this centric episode is because, with the demon on the rise, Jessie is now crucial to stopping it, and the reason why will be revealed in the next episode. As we saw, Jessie definitely started to matter a lot more in this episode, especially during the eclipse: Cricket told her she must dump Holyoke’s bones in the lake. Jessie really does believe what she saw was real, but after telling what happened to everyone, not a lot of people seemed to agree. She spent a part of the episode wondering if the person she saw was actually Cricket or if it was someone else pretending to be her, in an attempt to trick her. Fortunately, in the end, Jessie realized she must start listening to herself, so she ended up doing what Cricket asked her to do. The moment she threw the bones, she and Joel (because he was very close to her), saw a projection of the past, realizing that things are very different from what they initially thought. Those people we saw right in the beginning of the series weren’t killed by Holyoke, but by Malphas’ worshippers. There are definitely some very different forces at work at the lake, but Holyoke represents the good side. If we think about this, it really does make sense. All this time Holyoke wanted to stop Malphas from ascending, he was simply misunderstood.
After finding out Malphas is already inside Amy, and they were actually deceived when they tested her, the counselors and Garrett go searching for her. They even explain everything that is going on to Deb, who realized her perfect summer back in 1970 wasn’t as perfect as she remembers. They find Amy in the fifth spot of the map they had and, after letting Alex go, Amy killed Joel. Ready to take on more of them, Holyoke gets her and takes her to his cabin, where he intends to purify her.
This was definitely a great episode. I really loved the twist of Holyoke being good all this time, not to mention that Joel’s death was another shocking one. The flashbacks were also a great contribution because we finally got the chance to see who Jessie truly is. I am giving this episode a 9.3/10.
Even though some questions were answered, there are others who still need to be, and episode nine, “Home Sweet Home” is definitely a very enlightening episode. It is, in fact, my favorite one of this show, so don’t miss my review.