Mother – Episode 5 begins with Tracy Whitehead’s (Anna Camp) parents asking The Reverend (Garret Dillahunt) for help. They briefly explain their situation with Tracy and tell him about the Bergrens referring him. Although it appears that he is willing to help them, The Reverend spends a few minutes stressing the seriousness of his work upon them. When The Reverend asks for more information on Tracy, the footage abruptly switches to what appears to be a memory from 1969 where a girl is shown smoking a joint with a boy at a commune.
A week before the disappearance of Ryan Hudson (Brandon Butler), Tracy is at home contemplating calling someone named Alvin when Faith (Nikki Hahn) returns from the mall with some type of neck injury that she claims happened during gym. After briefly questioning Faith, Tracy returns to her earlier memory, where she and her companion briefly discuss religion. He ends up giving her a hit of acid and claiming that it will reveal who she really is.
The next day at school Faith confronts Jesse Patton (John Henry Ward) after learning that he’s been spreading rumors of them sleeping together. Faith soon learns that the rumors have spread all the way to the school’s stay when a bad case of cramps lands her in the Nurse’s (Kristi Taylor) office. The Nurse gives her some tablets along with a birth control pamphlet.
Tracy becomes frustrated after waiting over 40 minutes for no one to show up for the weekly church meeting. Abigail (Jennie Page) eventually shows just as Tracy begins cleaning up but only adds to her frustration by sharing what she’s heard about Faith.
Despite learning that her locker has been vandalized, things start to look up for Faith when Ryan uses the opportunity to ask her to come to the football game. She is so excited by the offer that she forgets all about the evening church service with Tracy. Although she tells him that she can’t come to the game, she offers to hang out with him after which he agrees to. Much later that night, the two of them wind up lying on the 50-yard line discussing life and becoming your own person. At the same time, Tracy will scour through Faith’s room where she eventually finds the birth control pamphlet hidden in her bible.
Tracy confronts Faith when she returns home later that evening. It isn’t long before the confrontation turns physical and Faith smacks Tracy. Despite all the yelling and hysterics, Tracy handles this rather well by simply walking away. Tracy calls the Reverend for help.
As time passes, Faith takes Ryan’s advice. One particular evening, she decides to skip church service with her mother and asks Ryan over instead. When Tracy says goodbye to her she also ominously tells her that everything she does, she does to help her and keep her safe. Faith pretty much tells her to shut the door on her way out. Before Ryan comes over, Tracy briefly remembers the night she took the acid at a bonfire and saw what could be construed as the devil or a demon. The scene ends with her being kidnapped by The Reverend.
When the footage returns to the present, Faith wakes in the back of a van while Gilbert (Kevin Saunders) and Bob (Eric Tiede) argue upfront about their predicament. Faith begins to freak out and bangs on the interior when she notices Ryan having trouble breathing. Although the two men will pull over and remove Ryan from the van, he appears to die of an asthma attack. They will eventually load him back into the van and give Faith a sedative.
Before the present story continues, there is a brief scene that shows The Reverend’s and Tracy’s first meeting. After he explains knowing her parents and what he was hired to do, she becomes more comfortable with him but attempts to escape several times.
In the present time, The Reverend is beside himself with the situation that Gilbert and Bob have put him in. Despite this, he appears more concerned with the fact that they’ve lost Faith’s trust and might not be able to deprogram her. He orders Gilbert to watch her and give her a sedative every hour while he and Bob strategize. This turns out to be a major mistake due to Gilbert discovering a bottle of liquor in the cabinet with the sedatives.
In the next several minutes, the story fluctuates between the past and present, focusing on The Reverend deprogramming Tracy while Gilbert feeds Faith sedatives. When things return to a normal pace in the present, Faith wakes to finds herself free of her shackles but trapped in a small room. She bashes her head several times against the two-way mirror until she knocks herself out. In his panic, Gilbert accidentally leaves the door open allowing Faith to escape. Surprisingly enough, the first place she goes is home.
By this time, The Reverend has deprogrammed Tracy and returns her back to her parents. From what she says, it would appear that she has bought entirely into his claims that she was possessed by demons and he was hired to free her.
In the present timeline, Faith wakes to find a drunken Gilbert at her home. As soon as he confesses everything and reveals Tracy’s involvement before she returns home. It is only when Tracy returns that Faith realizes her mother is responsible for her kidnapping. Gilbert’s insistence to turn himself in leads to a huge argument in which Faith kills him to save Tracy. This is where the episode ends.
Hysteria Review
It was incredibly helpful for the overall development of the story to learn about Tracy’s past. And, the way it was unveiled alongside Faith’s was incredibly effective, but the episode was a big miss for me. As simplistic as Ryan’s death turned out to be, it actually felt as if it made the story more believable. A lot of so-called murders are probably accidental and end up being blown out of proportion with the suspect trying to fix or hide time. The episode wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t great either. I’d give it a 5 out of 10.
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