The Mist Episode 9 Recap: “Waking Dream” was Filler to Force the Finale

The Mist never fails to deliver on flipping my expectations and this was arguably my least favorite episode of the season. With all broth and no beans, we aren’t even left with any “big reveals”, which even if they were predictable they moved the story.

In a series where none of the main family has died, it makes dramatic sequences with Kevin lose flavor. With a mob chase that turns into a shouting match, and Nathalie spending the entire episode in a sewer philosophizing about rats and nature, we can’t help but feel uninvested at this point.

So here is a quick recap of the filler episode that served to push all the pawns to the mall-end of the chess board to fear up for a finale we can’t even be excited for at this point, because we doubt they can effectively tie up 8+ character lines and provide a satisfying ending to the Mist itself in roughly 40 minutes.

We will open with Nathalie‘ s storyline:

Oh and I guess that includes Connor and the two other church parishioners that followed her and she didn’t kill at first. The only major event is that one of her followers falls while climbing a ladder and breaks his leg [it was gross]. When his wife begs her to save him and carry him with them Nathalie refuses and after some words Connor let’s her stay with her fallem husband, by stabbimg here and shoving her down in the sewer with them.

There were moments were Connor seemed remorseful but before climbing out of the sewer and into the mall at the very end of the episode he has a consoling moment where Nathalie seems to get him past it and assure him that killing is what the Mist and Mother Nature want him to do to restore order. We can’t get behind it but we have a feeling his hesitation will come into play and by his son some time to possibly survive.

Speaking of Jay, he spent the episode locked up in a hideaway room the whole episode while the mall group turned feral this episode but somehow also uncharacteristically holds off just enough to save all the drama for the last second when all the characters unite.

Tl;Dr: Gus killed Shelley in the last episode and blamed Alex. It caused a mob mentality and they decided she needs to die or be tossed out and they hunt for Eve and Alex who knew to hide because of the baby monitor Eve hid nearby.

We also see the resurgence of the gun Eve has been stashing since early in the season. Eve and Alex are reunited with Adrian, who made it to the mall with Mia ans Jonah who are off in the mall “gathering supplies.”

Eve, Alex, and Adrian get cornered and Eve shoots a security guard, only grazing his shoulder and doing more harm to her reputation (and she stupidly left the gun behind on the floor, and she didn’t even take the Cannock. Double stupid.)

 Although Gus does hit Eve with a baseball bat when she calls him out on lying about her daughter and accurately accusing him of murdering Shelley, the entire ordeal is tame and more of a shouting match that leads to Eve revealing where she was hiding Jay and the episode ending with the entire group in there teetering on the edge of madness.

Jonah and Mia have no idea any of this is happening but are potential cavalry with Mia waiting in what appears to be camping world, whereas Jonah did a supply run and was captured by the lasting army guy. Army man recognizes Jonah and assaults him, winning the fight [no shock considering he has been well fed and safe, whereas Jonah is already battered and exhausted]. He restrains Jonah and we are left with more mysterious military related dialogue, ending in a salute and calling Jonah “sir.” Dialogue also indicates he expectrs them to get out alive with the response to Jonah’s amnesia being “the captain isn’t going to like that.”

And last to the party at the mall is Kevin:

Adrian left him for dead in episode 8 and that was the little monsters biggest mistake considering Kevin’s luck throughout the series. Vic ends up leaving their group and returning to Adrian’s house and finds Kevin and helps him hop to the next house and scavenge supplies. They do this until they find a house with dead soldiers in it and are jumped by a scared and more survivalist citizen of the town. They are able to loot keys from a military vehicle off the soldiers and now have a way to the mall before they are found.

Edgy dialogue and then shooting ensues. When they think they’ve knocked him out and are safe when Vic goes to find the military vehicle. Kevin makes pot choices as always and tries having reassuring dialogue with their victim who is crazier than the average citizen and pulls out a grenade. Kevin manages to hind under/behind a corpse and survive only slightly worse for the wear, but the guy was sure the military was up to something and he didn’t want them finding him or coming back for him.

Minus a little more dramatic mist running until Vic finds him, it’s all filler to get Kevin to the mall.

And that’s all we get until the finale and hopefully a little resolution for all these hyper delayed plotlines. It just isn’t believable and we are hoping for more than a little he said she said dialogue and actual high stakes where we actually fear a character will die and not have to survive by default to make it to the finale.

Special criticism:

We are highly disappointed with the warping of Mia’s character from bad was and witty to weak and dependant on Jonah. Her detox and ocercomijng of drugs should’ve been inspirational, not washed away her personality and turned her into a trope.