Dead of Summer – The Dharma Burns

By starrymag | August 4, 2016

By: Yana Grebenyuk

 

The episode starts out with a flashback to Camp Stillwater in the 1970’s. Young Deb (Tiera Skovbye) is talking to a guy named Keith (R.J. Fetherstonhaugh) at the masquerade dance. He asks her to come with him into the woods where they pack up the time capsule that Deb (Elizabeth Mitchell) showed Joel (Eli Goree) a few episodes back. They then watch the stars and talk about their future. After camp ends Keith plans to travel the world, something he offers to Deb, but she wants to save the world. She asks him to send her postcards from everywhere, and they say that they won’t give up on their dreams.

 

In present time, Cricket’s mom (Lidia Porto) comes to pick up her stuff with Blair (Mark Indelicato) helping pack it all up. Joel asks Deb how she is after Cricket’s (Amber Coney) death, to which she says that she’s feeling better than the group. Joel lets her know that Garrett (Alberto Frezza) is done taking statements and he ruled it all an accident. That doesn’t make Deb feel better. It makes her think that it was a mistake to open the camp back up in the first place. She tells Joel that if she just left the past in the past, Cricket wouldn’t have died. Once Deb returns to her cabin she sees muddy tracks headed towards her room. She opens the door and Keith (Dylan Neal) surprises her from behind.

 

Meanwhile, Jessie (Paulina Singer) asks Drew (Zelda Williams) if he talked to Blair since he really needs a friend right now. Blair says he can’t because he burned that bridge, which Jessie doesn’t buy and just tells him to fix that bride.

 

The group gets together and talks about the accident. Alex (Ronen Rubinstein) says Cricket knew the woods and the traps too well to get caught in one. Amy (Elizabeth Lail) thinks it was just an accident and Joel thinks it’s connected to the Tall Man threatening him. Joel says they have to find out for sure. This leads to Alex and Blair going into a basement to look for something. The lights flash and the door shuts while they are inside, but they manage to find the Ouija board that Blair thinks will help them contact Cricket. The group talks about the board and decide that after lights out they will try it out.

 

Deb and Keith talk about her wanting to recreate the past with this camp. Keith brings up the capsule, but Deb says that the last time they went to that spot in the woods he broke her heart so it’s too late. We flashback to Deb looking at Keith’s book from his travels. She talks to her friend about him while they sit outside a building trying to collect signatures to help a children’s hospital. When Deb approaches someone, the guy tells her not to try because she doesn’t understand. Deb points out that she is a Harvard lawyer just like him, which impresses him and he asks for her number if he signs the petition.

 

Garrett is looking through his father’s things when his mother comes up to talk to him. They talk about what Garrett found in the box and his mother tells him that his father was never sloppy. He wouldn’t leave a cufflink in the box unless he wanted it to be found. That’s how Garrett ends up noticing that there is a note inside of it, which has a file number written on it. Garrett thinks that his father looking into all this is what got him killed.

 

Back in her cabin Deb starts to play some music. We flashback to Deb looking at a postcard from Keith, which has him inviting her to Paris. She’s sitting in a big office when Fred (Jesse Hutch) comes in and mentions that she was made partner at the firm. He then proposes and she says yes.

 

Garrett is going through the case files when he finds a note. At the same time Alex and Blair are in the kitchen getting ginger and chicken’s blood for the ritual. Deb finds them and Blair goes off on her. He says that she is doing nothing and giving them a day off isn’t the way to face this tragedy. He storms off after Deb threatens to fire him.

 

Flashing back, we see Deb about to get into a car when Keith gets out of it. They go for a drink and he mentions that he hasn’t gotten published since that last book she had in a previous flashback. Deb tells him he should take everything he wrote her on the postcards and publish that, revealing that she kept them all these years. They talk about how the world changed them over the years. Keith asks if she wants to go to camp to dig up what they buried, mentioning that there are no kids because it’s closed now. Deb says she needs to go home, but Keith gives her a key to his hotel room before she goes.

 

In the present the couple meets in the woods, dancing and talking about the future. Deb asks him to stay forever and it looks like he will finally say yes when they kiss.

 

In the cabin, the group sits around the board while Blair invites the spirit with the Ouija board. Joel tells them not to do this, with Alex and Amy agreeing that this isn’t the best idea. Blair doesn’t listen and calls for Cricket. At first nothing happens, but then the table moves and something enters Amy. It’s Cricket talking to them, but then something dark takes over. Cricket says that someone pushed her, the dark spirit takes over to add that they should have killed Amy when they had the chance because she is the doorway. Then, this dark spirit has Amy grab for a knife, ready to kill her but she is held back from hurting herself.

 

The board moves and Blair gets the spirits sent back before any more damage is done. The group then sees Jessie unconscious writing some symbol out on paper. She wakes up, but doesn’t stop drawing out of her own free will until the picture if finished. Jessie freaks out because she now finally believes that something is happening at camp. She blames Blair for this, but Drew comes to his side. Joel says now they know it’s real and it’s time for them to deal with it. Jessie goes to call Garrett.

 

Deb and Keith sit by the campfire after sex. Keith says he can’t stay and runs off into the woods. Deb isn’t sure if he’s joking so she runs after him.

 

Garrett is in the woods too when Jessie finds him. He says that he went looking for the buried skull, deer heart and lock of hair that would confirm that this group is performing a ritual, but it wasn’t where he thought it would be. Garrett is starting to lose hope that this all adds up when Jessie shows him her drawing and explains what happened with the Ouija board. Garrett compares it to the map he found and says he knows where they might have buried the skull.

 

Deb finds Keith by the lake where he tells her she shouldn’t have followed him. Deb answers that she can’t lose him again. We flashback to Deb going into the motel that Keith left her a key for. She walks in and sees Keith passed out on the floor with a needle in his arm. It looks like he died from a drug overdose.

 

In present day Deb asks him to stay with her, but Keith says he has to go. Deb asks if she can come with him, possibly suggesting suicide. Keith comforts her by saying it’s not her fault that Cricket died. He also makes her realize that she has to stay for the kids. Deb thinks she can’t do this without him, but Keith reminds her that she left Fred and is at Camp Stillwater because of herself. She wants to be herself and that’s why she will be okay. Keith disappears into the fog, suggesting that he is a ghost, but not before mentioning that she will always see him and she couldn’t save the world yet she could maybe save the kids.

 

We flashback to Deb coming back to Camp Stillwater with Keith’s ashes. She sees the for sale sign and that’s the moment that led her to buy this camp and try to start over.

 

The next morning Deb talks to the campers saying they will look out for each other. She says that talking to a ghost isn’t the best way to remember them and that this summer holds the last memories of Cricket. They then put things that remind them of Cricket in a box to be buried at the camp ground. Drew gives Blair peanut butter cups and they both apologize before hugging.

 

Garrett and Jessie are further in the woods digging around for the box that holds the sacrifices needed for the ritual. They find it and realize that Jessie’s picture shows where they bodies are buried. It’s all on the drawing, which leads them to dig for number two. They find blood there meaning someone was buried there, but the body was moved when they realized that Garrett was on to them.

 

Meanwhile, Damon (Andrew J. West) is sitting in a car with his friends talking about how someone named “the teacher” is helping them and they need to thank them for it. There is then a scene where someone in that mask, presumably the teacher, is digging and then dropping Blotter’s head in a new location.