CULT Recap: Episode 1.04 “Get With the Program”
[Follow this link to read the recap for last week’s episode “In the Blood”.]
Fake CULT
Kelly drags Rebecca (Jennifer Mawhinney), Joey’s wife [the one who killed himself back in the first episode], to Dr. Hayden Patrick‘s house. His specialty is deprogramming cult followers, so Kelly is hoping that Dr. Patrick can help deprogram Rebecca like he once deprogrammed Kelly. Unfortunately for them, Billy’s “family” is a step ahead, and they show up at Dr. Patrick’s house, gas the place and tase Kelly. They then drag Dr. Patrick back to Billy’s compound.
Back at the compound, Billy is busy instructing the cult children on the reasoning and logic behind killing – which he demonstrates by slaughtering a pig right in front of them. About this time, the followers drag Dr. Patrick in, who then spends the day with Billy. As if a day-long conversation with Billy isn’t torture enough, Billy (Robert Knepper) first had his followers nail Dr. Patrick’s hands to the picnic table so that he would be unable to move. Billy talks to him the entire day about the book Dr. Patrick has been writing – all about Billy. Apparently, Billy‘s son died, which caused Billy to create his 
cult “family” – and Dr. Patrick was leaving that entire part out, which angered Billy.
In the end, Billy threatened Dr. Patrick’s own family, at which point Dr. Patrick (Jonathan Holmes) agreed to forget about the book he was writing about Billy – and never mention Billy or his cult ever again. Kelly shows up at the compound just as Dr. Patrick is being let go, but when Kelly (Alona Tal) tries to get Dr. Patrick to tell her what Billy and his cult did to him, Dr. Patrick assures her nothing happened at all.
“The Real World”
Jeff is doing his thing, having breakfast – as all badass investigators trying to take down a crazed fandom do – when someone starts a chat with him in one of the Fake CULT fandom sites. The person tells him that her husband has gone missing like Nate, and they’d like to meet up with Jeff (Matt Davis). Naturally, Jeff picks a meeting place and promises to talk with her about the situation.
Skye meets up with him at the designated meeting place after spending the morning on set, where her co-workers were giving her a hard time for always running off to see Jeff. They think he’s her new secret lover, though Skye (Jessica Lucas) tries to assure them that is not the case [yet, anyway]. Once there, she and Jeff chat for a bit before noticing a strange man staring at them from across the room.
Soon enough, the man approaches them and asks Jeff about his notebook [the one about the Fake CULT TV show Nate left at the apartment], whether he’s a fan of the show. Jeff tells him that he is, but the strange man drops the charade and introduces himself as Terrance (Adrian Holmes), telling the two that he is there to scope out the place for the woman they’re supposed to meet – to make sure Jeff wasn’t part of the True Believer crazy.
That question settled, Terrance introduces them to Ama (Neelam Khabra), the wife of the missing man Rami. They talk and Ama reveals that she has a copy of the disc that destroyed Jeff‘s computer – but apparently her data was not compromised because she used the disc on her work computer, a public network. With that knowledge in mind, they believe there might be some information still on the disc that could tell them more about Rami‘s and Nate‘s disappearances.
They leave and agree to meet up with E.J., who they hope will be able to decode the disc. Once separated from Terrance and Ama, Skye and Jeff run into the sketch Detective Sakelik (Aisha Hinds) who is back this week – and further tossing herself into the True Believers category. She sees Jeff with Terrance and questions Jeff about how he knows the new guy in town. Apparently, Terrance has some issues with the law – mostly in that he doesn’t obey it and thus makes local police a bit nervous whenever he’s in their area.
Brushing her off, Skye and Jeff head off to meet up with Terrance and Ama. They check out what is on Ama’s copy of the disc thanks to some help from E.J. (Stacey Farber). E.J. uses the disc to figure out where the disc was burned and finds out that the location is a hacker’s hostel – a place that computer hackers can find a place to stay if they need one.
Jeff, Skye, and Terrance go to this hacker’s hostel to try and question some of the people there. Once they arrive, they quickly realize that it looks as though just about everyone there is somehow involved in the Fake CULT crazy. All the hackers are immediately suspicious, so they gather up their belongings and try to run. All but one manages to escape – and the only reason that one doesn’t escape is because Terrance pulls out a gun and shoots him!
Understandably shocked having just watched Terrance shoot a man – particularly after hearing Detective Sakelik’s warnings – Skye and Jeff are momentarily speechless. Terrance informs them that he didn’t actually shoot the guy with a bullet; after all, they need him fine enough to question him once they get him somewhere off the streets.
Terrance and Jeff sort of team up to question the guy back at Terrance and Ama’s hotel. Terrance brought a drug that he uses to make Gil (Kis Yurij), the new prisoner, tell them everything the knows about the True Believers – and Rami’s and Nate’s disappearances. The information he gives them leads the group to the location where scenes of Billy’s compound is filmed, which is actually a ranch out in the middle of nowhere.
They find Rami (Lee Majdoub) in the ranch’s old, abandoned [thank goodness, because otherwise: gross, right?] septic tank. They realize that the septic tank is a place the True Believers throw potential new recruits as a sort of initiation. If they can solve the puzzles all over the walls of the tank – which can only be seen by using glow sticks – they are presumably allowed into the ranks of the True Believers, or at least, able to progress to the next step in the recruitment process.
However, thanks to Gil, who the group dropped off somewhere, and Detective Sakelik, the True Believers are informed that Jeff and the gang are aware of the ranch’s location and thus head out there to try and stop them from finding out what’s going on out there. Fortunately, the group hears the True Believers coming and manage to get out of there in time – dragging Rami along with them.
The next day, Skye tries to check out the septic tank while the Fake CULT is filming there, but finds it completely filled in with concrete. Meanwhile, Jeff says goodbye to Ama and Terrance, who are taking Rami home for deprogramming. Though they learned that 
Nate had been in that tank himself at one point, he had clearly passed that part of the initiation, so he was already moved before they could get to him. Terrance has a parting comment for Jeff about how much this “cult” scares him because of the fact that “there is a TV in every house”.
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The surprise action of Terrance shooting Gil could be put to some good use on this show – it certainly marked the beginning of “the good guys” resorting to some “bad guy” methods to get stuff done. It was great seeing how far Jeff is willing to go to find his brother – and interesting to see Skye‘s reaction to his decision. She clearly didn’t approve of the methods, but she is obviously willing to stand by while Jeff engages in some sketchy behavior.
Of course, the Fake CULT was interesting in that we are starting to get more information on Billy – and it was great getting introduced to the guy who helped Kelly break away from his cult. Billy, for his part, really got his hands dirty this week with his participation in the cult children’s education – and, obviously, the torture of Dr. Patrick.
This week’s episode may well be a turning point, and I can’t wait to see where we go from here. Until next week!
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Episode 1.05 “The Kiss” will air next Friday, March 22nd at 9/8pm on The CW.
Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbOL199lFbw