Dead of Summer – Mix Tape

By starrymag | July 13, 2016

By: Yana Grebenyuk

 

The episode starts with Cricket (Amber Coney) in the showers. She hears a noise as she is going outside and while she walks through the woods to get to her cabin, she gets more worried.

 

Flashback to Cricket having breakfast with her mother when their neighbor comes in and essentially makes her feel bad about her weight. Cricket tells her dad that she doesn’t think she could get a guy because of her weight. He tells her that men will see beyond that like he did with her mother. That was probably advice that was supposed to sound encouraging, but it came out more like an insult than anything else.

 

In present time, Blair (Mark Indelicato) walks in on Cricket writing about herself again. She is hoping that Alex (Ronen Rubinstein) sees the sexual note and gets inspired to finally make a move on her. Blair tries to get her to see her worth beyond a hookup, but Cricket isn’t here for that.

 

The group talks about movie night and how some of them might get to go out instead. Amy (Elizabeth Lail) and Alex fight when he brings up that it’s hard working alone in his cabin, with Amy reminding him that it’s all his fault. Joel (Eli Goree) shows up just in time to tell them that Blair, Jessie (Paulina Singer) and Drew (Zelda Williams) are the ones on movie night duty. Cricket tries to tell Alex to go check out the wall in the art room, but he brushes her off yet again.

 

Flashback to Blair catching Cricket writing that she’s a slut in their school bathroom. He tells her that she deserves more than just sex, she deserves someone who would make a mixtape. But Cricket isn’t listening to any of that, instead deciding that she really only needs sex.

 

Present day, Cricket notices that someone answered her message on the wall and she thinks it must have been Alex even though Blair warns her against it.

 

Deputy Garrett (Alberto Frezza) and Sheriff Heelan (Charles Mesure) talk about the case, with the Sheriff not wanting to buy into the idea of Satanists being behind all of this.

 

Cricket has a dream about a group of people in masks approaching her near the campfire. She manages to run away, but not for long as she gets stuck in the dirt and then falls which helps the group catch up to her.

 

The next morning Cricket shares her dream with the girls, but tells them that her boots were missing which has her worried that it wasn’t a dream at all. Amy shares that she saw something when they first got to the camp, but it was all in her head. She tells Cricket that she might have to deal with some personal stuff to help the hallucinations go away.

 

Garrett comes to the camp and talks to Amy about her night off. She mentions going to the Plaza which he finds interesting, only to then turn around and ask Jessie if she will be going too.

 

Cricket is still on edge after her dream, but she brushes it off because she still wants to go see if Alex really was the one to write that message for her on the wall.

 

Flashback to a party where Cricket is sitting alone. Blair shows up and promises that in a few months they will be at camp, far away from the school and from the people there who don’t notice her. Just as they are about to leave, the owner of the house shows up and offers to show Cricket around. She says yes and leaves Blair behind.

 

Deputy Sykes goes into the woods to check out the cabin where Alex took Amy on a date in last week’s episode. He looks around and doesn’t find much except for a symbol on a piano key that was also in the pictures that Dave had in his cabin before it burned down. Garrett thinks he hears a sound, but he doesn’t see anyone there, even though there is a masked figure in the woods.

 

Cricket goes out to the lake thinking Alex will meet her, but instead comes face to face with Damon (Andrew J. West). He tries to hit on her, but Garrett shows up and helps her get rid of him.

 

Flashback to the day following the party, Cricket thinks Travis (Harrison McDonald) will talk to her, but he just laughs at her with his friends. Blair rushes to her side to hug her, like the great friend we know him to be.

 

Present day Jessie interrupts Blair and Cricket talking to ask her for some help with something.

 

Deb (Elizabeth Mitchell) and Joel are getting ready for movie night, choosing what to play which starts a conversation about their favorite movies. Joel and Deb realize that they share the same favorites, with Joel telling her that he feels like he can talk about anything with her. Before anything more can happen though, Cricket shows up and tells Deb that Jessie’s grandmother died.

 

That night, as Cricket is getting ready to leave, she feels like someone is watching her. She has another hallucination and then one of the camper’s toys starts repeating ”don’t go.” Cricket only catches the start of it, walking away before she hears the rest of the warning.

 

Cricket is hoping Alex will notice her as they are about to leave for The Plaza, but he goes for Amy yet again. Thankfully. her plan with Jessie works with Deb asking Amy to stay back so Jessie could have the night off. It turns out the two schemed and lied about Jessie’s grandmother dying so that Amy would stay behind where she can’t talk to Alex or Garrett.

 

At The Plaza, Garrett is calling to try to get access to the archives from the 1800’s. He is hoping to get documents that have more information on what happened during the time that those pictures in Dave’s cabin were taken. Jessie shows up right after he ends the call and the two hang out a little together.

 

Cricket gets brushed off at the bar by Alex again. but Damon shows up just in time. He tries to talk to her and again she blows him off. Jessie notices this and tells her not to push Damon away so fast. She tells Cricket that the best way to get Alex to notice her is by making him jealous. Cricket listens and goes to flirt with Damon. He calls her out on using him to make Alex jealous, but then invites her to take a drive with him in his car. She says yes and that’s when Alex finally decides to look up and notice her.

 

Back at Camp Stillwater, Amy and Joel are looking through the old movies when they realize that have something in common when it comes to their taste in films. Amy clues Joel in on Jessie’s obvious plan to get her out of the way. Joel asks why Amy isn’t upset, to which she says that she came to camp to make friends. She isn’t focused on finding a guy, so she doesn’t mind that Jessie tricked Deb to get her to stay back.

 

Meanwhile, Cricket is in the car with Damon when she remembers the day she came home with Blair after Travis blew her off. She was home early and after she sent Blair home, she went upstairs to find her dad with the ”skinny, beautiful” neighbor next door.

 

Back in present time, Damon is driving the car way too fast and the sudden movement opens up his glove compartment where she sees a red marker. Cricket figures out that it was him who wrote the message and punches him to try to get out of the car. Damon loses control behind the wheel and they end up crashing, just in time for Garrett, Jessie and Alex to catch up with them in their car. Damon tells Garrett that Cricket was begging for it, even calling her a slut. Alex punches him for saying that and the two end up in a physical fight. Garrett breaks it up and takes Damon in again.

 

Back in the woods, Blair and Drew are talking about movie night. Blair keeps rambling on as they walk, which turns into Drew pulling him in for a kiss.

 

Cricket is back in Alex’s cabin where she finally manages to make a move. They make out, accidentally fall off the bed and continue to kiss. As they are kissing, Cricket bumps something and a mixtape with her name on it falls. She asks Alex if he made it, but he denies it and makes fun of Jason for it.

 

Flashback back again, we see Cricket telling her mom what she saw between her dad and the neighbor. Her mother says that she knew, but there isn’t anything she can do. She also tells Cricket that women like them sometimes have to settle.

 

Back in present time, Cricket realizes that her mother is wrong and that she deserves better. She pushes Alex off of her and runs away from his cabin. As that is happening, Garrett is walking Jessie back to her cabin. They talk about the past and that leads to an almost kiss that Garrett pulls away from last second.

 

Blair finds Cricket at the lake where she tells him that he was right about Alex and Jason. She talks about how he’s gone now, with Blair reassuring her that it doesn’t mean forever. As they are walking back to their cabins, a group of people in the masks from Cricket’s nightmare show up at the lake. They drop the boots she thought she lost in the lake, where we see a hand holding a baby bottle which we can only assume is Jason’s.

 

The next morning, Amy brings Jessie cookies and talks about when her grandmother died how it helped being with a friend. Jessie clearly feels bad about lying when Amy walks off, smiling to herself about tricking Jessie.

 

Garrett and the Sheriff talk about what was found in the archives. The Sheriff doesn’t think there is anything important there, but Garrett shows him a journal from the 1800s which talks about a satanic ritual. There was a deer killed in exactly the same way as at Camp Stillwater. Garrett is sure that history is repeating itself, with the Sheriff coming around to the idea as he goes through the journal himself.

 

Joel goes to Deb’s cabin to return the equipment from movie night. They talk again about her box and about how she took a wrong turn before, but now it reminds her never to do that again. As she is putting it back, Joel sees a mask that we know to be just like the one the group of people wore in Cricket’s nightmare and later on in the woods.

 

While listening to the mixtape, Cricket gains the courage to put on her bikini and wear it in front of everybody during a game of volleyball. Her taking off her shirt opens Alex’s eyes to her once again, which she doesn’t even notice because she is officially over trying to impress him.

 

The scene goes back and forth between the group playing volleyball with their campers and Damon performing a ritual with his friends. They are revealed to be the men in the masks. They pull out the deer heart, the skull from the Tall Man’s remains and the knife that Damon used to get a bit of Cricket’s hair. Damon tells the spirit that he is trying to awaken that he can take her.

 

At that moment, Cricket is throwing the ball but it ends up in the lake. Amy offers to go get it for her. As Amy is getting the ball, she sees blood start to form in the lake which is followed by an imagine of a person wearing that mysterious mask.

 

A storm starts to brew and lightening follows right after. The group is trying to get all the campers inside and soon the only people left outside are Amy in the water and Cricket yelling for her to come back from shore.

 

Damon and his friends are hiding in the bushes when they notice Cricket calling for Amy to get back and that’s when lightning strikes Amy. She falls into the water and she looks to be dead. Damon realizes that Amy got struck even though the ritual required Cricket and he tells his friends that it appears they were wrong, it’s her.