Stitchers – Just The Two Of Us

By starrymag | July 31, 2017

By: Jessica Wolff

Kirsten Clark (Emma Ishta) bounces from the stitch to find that the lab is deserted and all of the screens are filled with static.  She remarks that she smells gas, and gets more nervous as she looks around the lab.  She finds Cameron (Kyle Harris) lying on the floor and rushes to him.  After calling out for help, she tries to shake him awake.  When that doesn’t work, she slaps him and tells him that it’s only a little bit personal.  He wakes up and questions what is going on.  Kirsten asks him what was the last thing he remembers, and he doesn’t remember anything since prepping for the stitch.

 

They investigate and they find a freshly made coffee mug on a table.  Kirsten tries to touch it, but it is too hot.  They see that the body is missing and neither can remember what case they’re supposed to be working on.  Kirsten tries to call the NSA, but the line is dead.  She then tries to call Camille Engelson (Allison Scagliotti), but gets her voice message.  She leaves her a message and asks who’s behind this.  Cameron lists possible suspects and then assures her that they’ll work out this problem if they stay calm.  They start by looking up the case they’re working on, but only their previous case comes up.  Kirsten hears a noise and believes that somebody is watching them.

 

They arrive at Kirsten’s house, but Camille isn’t there.  Kirsten finds another hot cup of coffee that she’s unable to touch.  She is worried that somebody took Camille, but Cameron tries to comfort her.  Checking Camille’s room, she finds blackout curtains on her windows.  Cameron gets through to the NSA, who tells him that the situation is under control and ‘Mother’ is looking out for them.  Cameron has no idea what that means.  She tells him that she doesn’t want to talk about their issues right now.  As he is about to leave, Kristen tells him to stay, arguing that they should stick together.

 

Cameron makes them dinner and they realize that they are unable to recall anything about the case.  He reminds her that ‘Mother’ is supposed to be taking care of them and Kirsten comments that Cameron doesn’t talk about his mother.  He tells her that she was difficult to read, and that he didn’t know how to communicate with her.  She asks how she dealt with that, and he tells her he did puzzles.  He tells her that his mom’s boyfriend Bill didn’t like him and gave her an ultimatum to send Cameron away or break-up.  She empathizes with him, and he thanks her for listening.  She reaches for his hand, but he pulls it away.

 

Kirsten tells Cameron that she’s going to bed and offers him Camille’s room.  As she walks into the other room, she sees a mysterious figure staring into the window.  Cameron doesn’t see anybody, but Kirsten is adamant about seeing her.  She wonders if she is ‘Mother,’ but Cameron believes that this is a side effect of the gas.  Cameron recommends that she go to bed and she agrees, asking if he can sleep in her bed with her.  In the middle of the night, Kirsten asks Cameron if he’s awake and then turns the light on.  She admits that she feels weird about them and how there are a lot of things she doesn’t know about him.  He tells her that he knows her pretty well and she tests him with questions.  To her surprise, he is able to answer all of them, even things that she has never told him before.

 

In the morning, Kirsten wakes up to find herself in bed alone.  She bumps into him in the hallway and is relieved to see him.  He reports that he hasn’t heard from anyone and they decide to go back to the lab.  They find the lab still deserted and Kirsten finds that the coffee mug is still hot.  She slams it down and hears a jiggling inside.  She pours out the coffee and finds a key.  Kirsten looks at the screens and recognizes faces in the static.  She asks if Cameron can make them stand out more and he believes he can.  She looks around the team’s lockers and finds a black puzzle piece in Cameron’s locker.

 

The lights go out and Cameron uses her phone flashlight to find her way up to the lab.  She finds that Cameron has created a series of flashing lights to help bring the images out.  Kirsten recognizes the pictures as flashcards used to help autistic children recognize emotions.  Cameron is confused, but Kirsten believes that it’s a message from ‘Mother.’  She configures the lights in a different setting to reveal a series of arrows pointing to the stitch tank.  Inside they find a puzzle with a missing piece and Kirsten holds up the piece she found in his locker.  She accuses him of having something to do with this, but Cameron doesn’t understand any of it.  She strips down to her underwear and then swims into the tank to finish the puzzle.  Once the piece is in place, Kirsten asks him what it means.  He sees another puzzle after the first one and goes under the tank to check it out.   He is impressed by what he sees, but Kirsten thinks that he’s checking her out.  He tells her to look at the puzzle and they see that the picture is of a house that is circled and marked with an address.

 

At the house, they check out the garage.  Kirsten sees nothing worth investigating, but Cameron rips the cover off a vintage car.  He identifies the car and tells Kirsten that he’s always wanted a car like this but his mom said it was too dangerous.  Kirsten realizes the key in the coffee mug is for the car and Cameron is excited to drive the car.  They climb into the car and Cameron buckles up his seatbelt.  Kirsten tells him that they’re not driving, but investigating for clues.  Cameron finds a Rubik’s cube in the glove compartment and Kirsten starts the car.  She finds that she is unable to turn it off again and the car’s exhaust fumes leak through the garage.  They try to open the garage door, but find that it’s locked.  They then try to open a door, but finds that it’s locked as well.  The fumes start to affect Cameron and Kirsten pulls a metal rod from the trunk.  Cameron collapses, but Kirsten tells him that she needs his help.  She assures him that he can do this and they work together to open the door and escape.

 

They go to Cameron’s apartment and Kirsten comments that he feels the same as she did when she woke up in the lab.  Kirsten decides that she needs a shower and Cameron offers to make them dinner.  He asks her what she wants and she tells him to surprise her.  He checks out the Rubik’s cube and makes a discovery.  He rushes to tell Kirsten his findings, but she covers up and tells him that this isn’t what she meant by surprising her.  She tells him that despite the last couple of days, she’s not ready to be with him.  He tells her that the Rubik’s cube was tampered with to be unsolvable.  Kirsten is frustrated by the amount of puzzles they’ve had to solve and Cameron admits that he’s enjoyed figuring out the clues with her and that he’s missed working together.  Kirsten realizes that the situation is deliberately forcing them to work together and has an epiphany.

 

Back at the lab, they discover that there are several panels with many different faces on them.  Kirsten assumes that Stinger is involved since his plans are extreme and he’s adamant about Kirsten continuing to stitch.  Cameron reminds her that ‘Mother’ is looking out for them, but Kirsten doubts her existence.  He believes that Stinger isn’t involved and she gets suspicious of Cameron.  She believes that this is an elaborate plot by him and the NSA to bring them back together.  Cameron expresses his frustrations with being unable to make social connections and Kirsten points out that he’s the most outgoing person she knows.  He suggests putting the panels together like puzzle pieces, but rejects her offer of help.

 

Kirsten finds a strange keyboard and asks what the last case they worked on was.  She gets the previous case and then asks what the current case is.  She reports to Cameron that their current case is Tom DeWitt (A.J. Danna), an autistic man who died of car exhaust asphyxiation.  She tells Cameron that he is not real, and that she is in a stitch right now.  He thinks that she is crazy, and argues that they’ve been traveling together.  Kirsten argues that they’ve been bouncing from place to place like in a stitch.  Cameron questions why Tom would have memories of them, but Kirsten explains that they are experiencing Tom’s memories through a filter of her emotional state.  He implies that she thinks that he is her imaginary friend, and she responds that he is her projected friend.

 

Cameron pulls out a gun and asks her to shoot him if he really isn’t real.  She doesn’t want to shoot him, admitting that he can’t bear to see any version of him shot.  She tells him that she cares about him, and Cameron believes that she loves him.  He takes the gun from her, but it goes off in his hand and shoots him.  Kristen is distraught, but he vanishes seconds later, confirming that she is in a stitch.  She tries talking to the real Cameron, and realizes that she is there alone.  She prepares to make the bounce, and several victims of her previous stitches appear to her.  She tells them that she wants to speak for Tom the same way she spoke for them, but she can’t do it alone.  Ed Clark (Hugo Armstrong) steps forward and tells her not to give up, and that Tom is the most silent of them all.

 

She figures that the images on the panel are all part of one image and she works on arranging them.  She realizes that the memories and emotions that Cameron was using in the stitch were actually Tom’s, and that he also had heat sensitivity.  She realizes that ‘Mother’ was Tom’s mother.  Looking at the images, she realizes that the panels have parts on them that reveal a face.  After several tries, she puts together the puzzle to reveal Tom’s killer.  She recognizes the face and makes the bounce out of the stitch.

 

In the lab, the real Cameron and Maggie (Salli Richardson-Whitfield) are concerned about her.  She tells them that she solved the case after several days.  Camille remarks to Linus (Ritesh Rajan) that he finally broke Kirsten.  She announced that Bill Kurland killed Tom, but Detective Quincy Fisher (Damon Dayoub) tells her that he has an alibi.  She explains that he locked Tom in the garage and started the car before he left, giving Tom a tampered Rubik’s cube to keep him occupied.  Maggie argues that Tom could have started the car himself, but Kirsten explains that his mom kept the keys in a coffee mug that he would never touch due to his heat sensitivity.  She explains that Bill killed Tom because he was getting in the way of his relationship with Tom’s mother.  Cameron asks if she’s okay, and she realizes that she must have been so worried about her.  He is confused, and she reminds him that she’s been in the stitch for days.  Cameron tells her that she was only in the stitch for three seconds.  She says that it was all the time she needed before kissing him.