If you wanna take these kids to a better place, take a look at yourself and make that change.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Don and Gilda freeze in fear when they hear the door open…only to see Phil hiding from the other kids. Next, they lift the key to the secret door from Isabella and find her radio to her superiors, but also all the toys that other kids left behind when they were taken. This confirms that Conny was killed, but also that Norman lied to them that they could save her. They hear steps again, this time from Isabella, but manage to escape and leave the key before she catches them. She does sense that people were there, though.

Emma, Ray, and Norman plan their next step: learning more about the outside so they can survive once they’re out there. Emma has a new source of knowledge for this, a selection of books once owned by William Minerva. It’s not certain what significance the books hold, but each book contains a picture of an owl with a circle that says a word in Morse Code, like “Harvest”, “Monster”, and “Farm”. A couple of books stand out from the group, one with a solid circle and one that says “Promise”. But the main gain from this is that the kids might have an ally on the outside.

Later that night, Don and Gilda report on the secret room and confront them on Conny, so Norman gives the whole story, including the children’s eventual fate and Ray being a spy. This ends up leading to a fistfight as Don yells at them that he and Gilda are being treated as weak, though he actually thinks he is weak for not being able to protect Conny. He runs out to the field to cry, but Emma and the rest follow him and commit to trusting them in the future. But Ray also senses someone watching them from the shadows…

With one week left till they escape, they continue to plan, with Emma telling Norman a plan that he deems reckless. Don and Gilda pick up detergent and herbicide for Norman’s plan. He also sends Ray to give Isabella misleading information, but she also tells him that the next shipment will be him on his twelfth birthday. Back with the other four, Krone jumps out from a tree and tells them she saw them planning but surprises them by asking to join forces.

OUR TAKE

WOO! It didn’t seem like it at first, but this actually turned out to be pretty eventful when I typed it all out. Don and Gilda finding the out what they didn’t know before, Emma, Norman, and Ray finding the books and their message, Ray giving Isabella stretched truths, and Krone’s spontaneous alliance request. And all of these sections of the episode have one theme in common: information.

Don and Gilda seeing the secret room and uncovering what both the adults and their siblings had been keeping from them finally breaks down the wall between them and the main three characters in that they’re all on the same page now. Stringing them along with the possibility of rescuing Conny was never going to last very long, but it also serves Don by finally giving him some development like Gilda got a few episodes ago. I also like how it gave what is essentially the cast’s B-Team some time alone to do their own thing while the A-Team focus on gathering knowledge from the books.

Speaking of which, the Minerva books introduce a whole new set of answers and questions that flesh out the situation even more. Being smart kids, they’ll probably speed read them for any pertinent information if they haven’t already, but it’s the Morse circles that might be puzzling to an even greater secret they haven’t uncovered yet. As for William Minerva himself, an easy first guess as to his identity is that he was an orphan who lived in the house, an adult who wants to take down the harvesting operation, or something else entirely. He also might not even be alive anymore, but anything’s possible regarding him at this point.

And lastly, the moves of the adults. Isabella and Krone are both mostly aware that the kids know the truth about the house but not aware of the other things they’ve found out. Isabella seems pretty much pacified for now as long as Ray is feeding her lies that run parallel to the truth, but Krone is taking a more direct approach. Like with Gilda, she sets bait for Emma and the rest by telling them she knows that they know, but needs confirmation from them in order to do anything. It’s also no secret that she is after Isabella’s position and wants to use the kids to catch her slipping up, but then it becomes a question of if the kids will choose the devil they know, Isabella, over Krone’s request for help. With us officially reaching the halfway point, I can’t wait to find out.

Score 8/10