2026 Crystal Lake S01E05: The New Blood

• Directed by: Logan George, Celine Held
• Written by: Victor Miller, Karl Taro Greenfeld
• Stars: Linda Cardellini, William Catlett, Gwendolyn Sundstrom
• Run Time: 49 Minutes
  

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

The camp is fully open for business now with loads of kids and counselors and Pam working there. And is that Jason wandering around in the woods? Pam is finally starting to wonder about that a little, the sheriff and Dorf are still trying to figure out the dead bodies. So much happening and still kind of stretched out a bit to fill the episodes. But it continues to be cool enough to entertain. We still approve.

Spoilery Synopsis

After finding Willow in Ralph’s shed, Dorf goes outside to throw up and runs into Ralph. He arrests Ralph on the spot. Ralph tells Lev that there’s something in the woods, even Enos saw it. Credits Roll.

Grace is still hanging with the hippies, and Pam still doesn’t approve. Lev questions the hippies about Willow. Grace figures out that hippies are weird people, especially when on LSD. Still, they invite her to come along with them to the commune up north.

The camp finally opens, and a zillion screaming kids arrive. John gives the rules, and this year, there are a lot of them.

A little boy tells Pam the legend of the little boy who drowned and now haunts the woods. She says that Jason would never harm anyone. He insists he saw Jason watching him.

Grace tells Claudette that she saw Barry having sex with Harmony. After the inevitable fight, she goes to Pam for consoling. Every time she;s had sex something bad happened, like last year with Jason. She’s just confessed to exactly the wrong person, and now Pam knows why Jason drowned.

Brianna continues the search for the people behind those two kidnappers by questioning Dr. Landau, who refuses to cooperate.

All the hippies take LSD “for Willow,” but Harmony would rather do Barry. Barry mentions that it’s a crime to cross state lines with a minor, so now Grace can’t go with them. She ends up trying several doses of LSD before going off into the woods.

Barry ends up going back to Claudette as Plan B. They sneak off to a cabin to have sex, and Pam follows them. What we get next is a re-enactment of the opening scene from the first film, as someone interrupts them and then kills them both. Except it’s not who we were expecting: Grace did it because of what they did to Jason. Pam comforts Grace and finishes the job.

Brian’s Commentary

With the end of this episode, we’re heading into the territory of the first film. It’s starting to look like maybe Pam wasn’t behind all the killings after all. We know the actual Jason is out there killing in addition to what Pam’s been up to.

Let’s see when the next episode brings.

Kevin’s Commentary

It was well done making us wonder if Pam or Jason were going to do a kill that we knew was coming, and then finding out it was Grace. I like how they’ve expanded the story to make it a little more complicated with multiple killings and multiple killers. I’m still digging it.