CULT Recap: Episode 1.03 "Being Billy" – Are you a True Believer?

[Follow this link to read the recap for last week’s episode “In the Blood”.]

Fake CULT

Though just last week Billy Grimm told Kelly that he has never personally murdered anyone, after this week’s episode he can no longer claim that. Billy (Robert Knepper) finds out that Libby, one of his cult members, is going to “betray” him. As Libby (Louriza Tronco) was so high up in his  “family,” I guess Billy deems her worthy of being killed by him personally. He ties her up in the driver’s seat of a car and leaves the car on railroad tracks to be hit by a train.

Kelly‘s partner Paz (Kadeem Hardison) finds out about the death and informs Kelly (Alona Tal) of the details, at which point she tells Paz that the victim was supposed to meet up with Kelly that afternoon to confess everything – including the location of Kelly’s still-missing sister. She also reveals that Andy [who you’ll remember as Kelly’s nephew from the pilot episode] only has good memories of his time with Billy’s cult [that information may end up being relevant later, I’m sure].

Kelly, once again, goes and meets up with Billy to confront him about killing Libby. He denies involvment, but presents her with a gift – Libby’s feather earrings, which she was wearing when hit by the train. She and Billy talk about how Libby became involved in his cult thanks to Kelly. Apparently Libby was homeless when Kelly approached her and recruited her for Billy, which makes her death that much harder for Kelly.

“The Real World”

Roger, the actor who plays Billy Grimm, takes Kirstie the creepy waitress on a tour of the Fake CULT set. He shows her around, introduces her to Marti, who plays Kelly on Fake CULT, [who is actually played by Alona Tal in real life – complicated, I know, just go with it and it’ll get easier]. Marti finds Kirstie to be a little strange [now if only Roger would notice that], so she doesn’t stick around.

It isn’t long before Kirstie and Roger, left alone on set, break out into a bit of roleplaying. When Kirstie (Marie Avgeropoulos) pulls out her “Billy” knife, Roger is initially creeped, but soon just goes with it, and the two hook up. Kirstie leaves the next day, telling Billy to call her [I’m not sure whether he’d be safer to do so or to blow her off, honestly].

Anyway, during their tryst, some other fans are busy doing some roleplaying of their own. Apparently, a group of people at a local college like to get together and stage reenactments of scenes in Fake CULT, a game they call “Being Billy”. The strange thing is that this group was led by Nate (James Pizzinato) and his girlfriend Laura, but the girlfriend later tells her friend Carey (Spencer Locke) that she did not set it up, someone else did – though only she and Nate had the e-mail list.

That revelation brings us to E.J., who met up with Jeff at the Fandomain Cafe after having successfully hacked into Nate’s old e-mail account. Jeff hopes to read through Nate’s old e-mails, he will be able to figure out more about Nate’s disappearance, but the day he disappeared, all of his e-mails did as well. The good news is, E.J. logged into the account in time to catch someone sending an e-mail out through Nate‘s account – telling everyone the reenactment games were back on.

E.J. suggests an idea to Jeff: that Nate is actually fine, and is in fact playing Jeff somehow. Past experience with Nate makes Jeff think that might be the case, but he still goes with Skye to try and find out more about the reenactment games. Their investigation takes them to Laura (Elizabeth Rice), who gives them some insight into Nate‘s life – one that was going really well before Nate got so wrapped up in the True Believers [which is the term for the hardcore Fake CULT fans] group.

Laura shows Jeff some pictures of the two together, and tells him that Nate was planning to tell Jeff all about it – to prove that Nate had really turned his life around. The group tries to figure out what is going on, who is organizing the reenactment groups – and killing people for it. Eventually, their investigation leads them to the basement at the university Nate, Laura, Carey, and the rest of the reenactment group attends. Inside, Jeff and Skye find the evidence that someone is staging murders, videoing them, and creating a reel.

They decipher the information in the video clips, which leads them to the university’s greenhouse where they think the next murder is to occur. Jeff and Skye race over there and get there just in time to stop Carey from burying Laura in the greenhouse. Fortunately, Laura is still alive, but Carey manages to give them the slip after explaining that she was creating the videos to show the True Believers that she was worthy of being in their inner circle.

Carey admits to Jeff that there really are messages in the Fake CULT show, and that people who find them have formed a group – the True Believers. She tells them all that she was murdering members of the “Being Billy” game because she was mad they had turned the serious game into a glorified drinking game – as they had parties after every reenactment.

Back at Nate’s [and now Jeff’s] apartment, Laura says goodbye to Jeff and heads home for a while. Meanwhile, Skye had investigated a quote Carey referenced that Billy said in an episode: “As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end”. She pulled the audio for the episode where that quote was said.

Skye combined the first and last words of the episode and sped the audio up which then sounded like “True Believer“. Then she did the same for the audio during the pilot episode scene with the man buried in the wall, and found a strange sound. She reversed it and slowed it down, which revealed a phrase “kill for us” – which is why Carey set her murder plan in motion to prove her dedication to the True Believers.

At the end, Carey is shown standing by the side of the road when a mysterious van rolls up to her. She recognizes it as the group of True Believers and hops in the van with them, taking off into the night.

———————-

Now, after all that emphasis Skye placed on the hidden audio tracks, there was an obvious, strange soundbite at the end of this week’s episode. So, I clipped it and tried to decipher it. That skill set evidently takes some practice because I heard something along the lines of “you’re a believer, drink more tea” – which is obviously weird and probably not right.

UPDATE: Having spoken with some other people who did the same [namely Brendan Bradley and the Cult Fansite group], it seems as though the audio is saying “If you’re a believer, follow my cult.” That certainly makes more sense, right? Right.

———————-

Episode 1.04 “Get With the Program” Synopsis: Jeff and Skye meet a man who finds and deprograms cult members. Later, Kelly locates Professor Patrick at Billy’s compound.

“Get With the Program” will air next Friday, March 15th at 9/8pm on The CW.

Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcpY7DzAuPc