The Mist [Finally] Hits it’s Stride with Episode 4

Now that we are into episodes that aren’t free on spike.com and that weren’t “leaked” three weeks ago, we are finally getting into the show we wanted.

We are learning more about the Mist, we have a group traveling through it, groups dividing and turning on eachother, and the religious fanaticism we’ve been waiting for from the start!

Unfortunately the group traveling IN the Mist is the least exciting of the episode. Kevin Copeland is an ineffective leader, Mia and Brian never get enough lines, and Adrian gets annoying and they write his dialogue likes he’s a scared 12 year old and not a scary manipulative older teen (we still theorize he’s lying about the rape and the way he scammed the priest was a little too masterful).

Case in point when he describes what happened with the moth in the last episode and does a crap job relaying the story and flaps his arms.

We start with them exiting the church and reaching a car. Not only will it not start but the ignition isn’t even clicking…weird indeed. So they regroup and chat and we learn a new bit about the Mist: it gets thicker when people about real in it and that’s when it materializes whatever is in it. So they “wait” for it to thin before running to a nearby gas station. But during their 200 meter dash they trip over a few bodies including this unfortunate kid–

Don’t worry, you don’t have to try remembering this detail long. Spike knows we are all too dumb to remember any detail for more than 5 minutes and we quickly meet the kids father who is out searching for him. But the man, Clay, is eligible for the best The Mist cosplay with his brilliant gas mask and the failed proof car that he bought from a survivalist years ago was a great touch.

They lie to him about knowing his son is dead in hopes he will like totes give them  ride to the mall. Literally nothing happens in the gas station over night and he anounces he can’t help them. Mia decides to do the right thing in the crassest way possible and tell him the truth. He handle the news well but with a pinch of denial and GIVES them his car, while he walks out into the Mist to find his son[‘s body and presumably die next to him]. This story arc was our hope for most exciting but left us the most disappointed.

Our favorite group was THE CHURCH

There is a direct defect with Father Romanov and his vercompensating for self doubt and his belief that they’re facing the End of Days™.

His behaviors almost make Natalie Raven seem normal, though Frances Conroy does a great job in her portrayal of the recently widowed hippie and we would probably follow her naturist cult in this crisis situation, logic be damned.

Nothing actually happens in this setting, but we see Natalie crawl on the floor looking from a sign from her “friend” the moth [that massacred her only human friend she’d made at the church, but who’s counting?]

She surprisingly starts bonding with aggressively stereotypical cop Connor, but the congregation took his gun, and without prisoners he’s much more tolerable when not in a pissing match with Kevin Copeland. He even curtains the priest from being too agressive with his mentally unstable friend

If he’s actually a super effective cop and handling her for everyone’s safety and he becomes a savior that was right all along I will lose it, but we think he might be losing it himself.

Natalie finds a priest’s journal from the 1800s that chronocalized the actual events of Black Spring. She believes mature is turning on them for some reason and finds a gnarly pregnant spider and freaks everyone else while collecting it IN THE MOST RANDOM JAR EVER.

It’s boggling and gross but it freaks Father Romanov out and he eventually is very rude in the name of “saving her soul”  and squished her spider. He stepped on her only friend. Remember that. But Connor takes her side when she presents the jar now full of its thousands of babies, and you can tell other are intrigued and split on their religion.

 The MALL GROUP left us hot and cold:

Eve and Alex have a small group set up away from the rest of the mall group, and are doing their own thing seperate thing. We waste time in the regular group distributing board games and over estimating the communities interest in a football but we were given this gem when American pie footballer jay walks past the #Smarty group: “If I want date raped I’ll invite you into the conversation.”

While inappropriate it was nice that some people are not letting him play hero (he isn’t proven inoccwnt or guilty but we digress).

Alex stumbles by for some unknown reason and tosses him his runaway football (some star) but honestly her character can’t help but make horrible choices any situation that involves herself and only offers good ideas to others. Minus in this episode.

That night after dinner she takes a little girl to the bookstore to find a book her dad wrote or read or plagiarized about conquering her fear of the dark. So they stroll into the dark to get it, in a mall with a guy she thinks raped her, alone, with a deadly fog surrounding them.

What a shock when this goes horribly wrong. The stupid store owners from the smarty group that had put the soldiers outside decide to bring the bodies back in since “nothing took the bait.” Those charmers stolw a harpoon gun from the hunting supply store to reel the bodies back in while having some good ol bro fun. Until one goes out when it gets snagged and then gets Misted and tossed back in a  bloody mess. Remaining guy closes the door but too much Mist is in and it wants victims. So it follows him out of shipping and into the bookstore (the layout out this mall seems unrealistic as hell) and he psuhes past Alex and locks her and the scared girl in with the thickening cloud.
We get to watch the Mist swirl and materialize into a shadowy figure. Presumably this is a manifestation of the little girls fear and it has been infecting people’s minds and learning their fears and killing them more creatively with it. This is corroborated by producers saying their adaptation isn’t a “monster movie” setup but more psychological and and so Connors statement that it felt like the Mist “knew him.”

The Mist closes in in Lila and her mother and the others watch on in horror as it infects and suffocated her, but imagine The Weekend’s “I can’t feel my face” While watching her die and it’s less sad

We are sorry the joke was in poor taste, but it felt ridiculous when the Mist then confronts Alex but doesn’t attack. Maybe because she’s over her “fear of the dark”? Or does she have no fear as implied in the prior episodes because she’s overwhelmed and numb? Regardless she lies and says she fought it, then hours layover confesses she lied and has a mini freak out and Lola’s mom LITERALLY can’t even and goes an rejoins the other mall group and spreads that Alex is a liar.

We hope Kevin gets there before they riot against her and throw her out of the mall for endangerment liek they did the guy that survived letting the mist in. The mob mentality is growing and self preservation is their only goal.