Book 2: Psalms
The sheriff, mayor, and everyone else wants to see the dead cats on the beach. The island of cats must’ve flooded for the first time in twenty years. Except, the sheriff points out, these cats didn’t drown; their necks are broken and there’s no blood anywhere. We see that Mayor Wade is a know-it-all jerk who brushes off the cats as nothing to be concerned about.
Father Paul does a daily service and only three people attend. When Leeza asks him where he came from, he’s a bit evasive. Riley goes to an AA meeting on the mainland. Father Paul goes to see Dr. Gunning’s mother Mildred, who hasn’t gone to church since her dementia set in. He gives her personal communion. She confuses Paul with the old Monsignor.
One of Warren’s friends sees something big flying in the sky. It also sees him…
Sunday rolls around again, and Father Paul gives a rousing sermon that really hits the people in the audience. Afterward, the whole town has a potluck picnic. Everyone talks and does normal drama until someone poisons old Joe’s dog, and he suspects it was Bev, the church lady. The sheriff follows up with Bev the next day who denies the whole thing vociferously.
Father Paul sets up an AA branch on the island, and it’s only him and Riley. Awkward!
Erin sees someone outside her window. So does old Mildred. Bowl, the drug dealer, hears something and investigates— something large “gets” him.
The following Sunday, Father Paul performs a miracle. He gets Leeza to walk and leave her wheelchair.
Comment: It’s clear by this point that it’s gonna be a really slow burn, but the characters are interesting, the location is fascinating, and the situation is strange. There’s only one scene with the drug dealer that involves anything monstrous, but it’s good enough for part two!
Book 3: Proverbs
We hear Father Paul reminiscing about old Monsignor Pruitt and how bad off he was even before he left for his trip. His dementia was more advanced than anyone realized. The old man wandered away from the tour group and got lost in the desert.
We then flash forward to when Leeza walked for the first time. Paul runs out of the church to his home, and Bev follows. Paul vomits blood after the “miracle.”
Dr. Gunning is at a loss to explain Leeza’s recovery. She recommends further study on the mainland, but the parents are against the idea. Riley wonders how Father Paul knew she could walk. How did he know? Paul doesn’t have much of an answer.
Mildred can suddenly climb the stairs. Ed’s back is feeling better; he even dances with Annie for the first time in ages. The church is packed the next Sunday. Three weeks pass, and things are good. We see Bev with her rat poison again, and then we see Father Paul collapse at the pulpit.
We flash back to Monsignor Pruitt in the desert, where he found a cave.
Dr. Gunning pronounces Paul as OK. Leeza confronts Joe, the town drunk who shot her in the back years ago. She’s not forgiving, but she also is. The Muslim Sheriff complains at a town meeting about his son, all the students, being given a Bible at school. Bev is about as hypocritical and racist as can be. With the recent miracle, the community doesn’t pay much heed to the sheriff’s concern. Erin is repulsed at the whole mess.
Dr. Gunning’s mother Mildred is getting more and more lucid. And is she looking younger too? Joe shows up at Riley’s AA meeting, and they have a nice talk. The sheriff and his son have a long discussion about belief and religion and miracles, and then he sees a face in the window for just a moment.
Father Paul collapses again, this time with bloody convulsions. This time, he dies.
We see old man Pruitt in the cave once again. He lights a match and sees glowing eyes in the darkness. He lights another, and is attacked by a winged demon-looking creature. Pruitt thought it was an angel. It gave Pruitt some of its own blood. Later, the old man crawls to the entrance to the cave, and we see that he’s much younger now— he’s Father Paul. Pruitt got younger and became Father Paul. Paul then brought the “Angel” home with him, smuggled in that big trunk we saw in episode one.
Will he stay dead? Nope. Paul sits up, feeling much better now.
Comments: It’s a natural progression of events after the previous episode, but not much happens in the overall story once again. It’s as much a soap opera as a monster movie. The “twist” with Father Paul turning out to be the reinvigorated Monsignor Pruitt wasn’t really a huge surprise, we had suspected that.