#I'm tagging that in the hopes that some poor soul looking for help or commiseration on their high school English reading assignment

[ieatmypizzawithaforkandknife]

MAG 020 - Desecrated Host (part 2)

Summary: Jonathan reads the second half of the statement of Father Edwin Burroughs, regarding “his claimed demonic possession.”

I’d like to propose an alternate title for this one: “Bartleby”. I couldn’t help but see the parallel between Bartleby the Scrivener’s “I would prefer not to” and Father Burroughs saying, “seeing those bound corpses before me, I made the decision to take no action ever again.” Ah, Burroughs! Ah, humanity!

I mentioned in my last post that this episode was very heavy in the “altered reality” theme. I’d like to amend that: this entire episode was one long, terrifying fever dream. I’ve never been high but I think this might be what a bad trip feels like.

Jonny Sims et al. really outdid themselves on this one though, in both the writing and the performance. So many episodes really suck you in (not literally, fortunately - we’re luckier than some of the characters that way) and grip you ’til the very end. But this was one of the best so far for that. We get more than standard descriptions of things - we get things like that small, whispered “it was bright...so bright” in Father Burroughs’ description of the “church” and the resounding, gonging bell sound accompanying the bell-speech Father Burroughs hears. You can almost feel his throbbing head and blurring vision, and at times it just feels so real.

But it wasn’t. At least, not in the way that we like to think of reality. Whatever an outside observer might have seen that night, this statement was Father Burroughs’ reality. We do know that at least some of this episode was real in the normal sense of the word though. There are snippets, like Father Singh’s reaction to seeing Father Burroughs in the small chapel, and Father Burroughs later seeing Father Singh in the hallway, that seem like they were part of objective reality. Was this slip between reality and the illusion just so that we, the audience, knew that it wasn’t real? Or was it because whatever was affecting him couldn’t keep an airtight grip on his senses? I’d like for it to be the latter, but I’m worried that’s not the case. I do not like how powerful this thing seems to be.

During the “confession”, “Father Singh” recounted all of Father Burroughs’ past sins...so this thing either actually knew about all of those events, or it made Father Burroughs imagine that “Father Singh” was naming all of his sins (a la the psychic paper in Doctor Who). Also disturbing was the detail about its accent during the “confession” - it had “a crisp and clipped RP accent”, as opposed to Father Singh’s Indian one. The change in accent made it obvious for us that it was not Father Singh speaking, but otherwise it just makes no sense to me. Was it unable to imitate Father Singh’s accent for some reason? That might fit if it’s the same thing that spoke in a “low, grating voice” to Laura Popham in episode 15. But those are the only two times (that I recall) that the person making the statement has noted a change in the person’s voice when that static appears.

There are two possibilities I’m seeing for how this thing operates. Either it’s little more than an illusionist, or it can actually alter reality itself. The first would certainly be easier to deal with, but I’m leaning towards the latter. My main reason for thinking that is not strictly things seen in this episode, but more how things in this episode seem to relate to things in the rest of the season so far. We hear that recurring creepy static/interference twice in this episode, once when Father Burroughs reads Genesis 4:14 (after opening his Bible to Luke, no less) and once when “Father Singh” says, “Spiritual pride that has led to quite a fall.” And of course we have another appearance of creepy eyes: “the church’s large round window shifted as I watched, as though it were a tremendous eye that were turning to focus upon me.” The eye and the staticky voice tie these events to many others from the first half of this season, including a few times when reality itself seems to have been affected, rather than just people’s perception of it.

There were two Bible passages referenced in this episode. The second was Mark 9:14-19, which appears to be a pretty straightforward reference to Father Burroughs’ situation, as that passage tells the story of a boy “who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech” (NIV). But the first, as mentioned in the paragraph above, was Genesis 4:14: “Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the Earth, and from they face shall I be hid. And I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the Earth, and it shall come to pass that everyone that findeth me shall slay me.” And the writing around it seemed to swirl and was “obscured by dark stains”. This is obviously significant, given the static and the unexplained stains and the fact that this verse is actually quoted in the text (unlike the passage from Mark also in this episode, which was referenced but not quoted). But I can’t figure out the significance of this verse. Cain says the text of this verse to God after God banishes him for killing Abel. Cain is more or less saying that his punishment is too much to bear and that he fears for his life, presumably from others who will surely be angry about him killing Abel. The only possible parallel I can see between Cain and Father Burroughs is that they’re both cut off from God. If there’s anything more to this verse, I’m not getting it.

I’ve also been wondering about the various figures Father Burroughs sees throughout this hallucination. He sees shadowy figures along the street that “were always gone when I approached” - and then there were the parishioners in the pews at the “service”. Were the shadow figures the parishioners? Or were the shadow figures actual, real people, and his inability to reach them just a reflection of how trapped in this hallucination he was? And why did the parishioners come and go like that? Why were they leaving before the “service” was over? If they were real people then I think they had to have been members of the People’s Church of the Divine Host (episode 9). I just feel like there was something else going on at the “service” that Father Burroughs wasn’t privy to.

At the end of the episode, Jonathan calls attention to the man who met Father Burroughs at the Oratory door: “the altar server he described seems out of place with most of his other delusions, in that he appeared to have active agency.” We aren’t given much of a description of the “altar server” - he is tall, pale, and has thin, bony arms. None of that rings any particular bells (haha) to me, but I guess I’ll be on the lookout for a tall, pale guy with thin, bony arms. *shrugs*

“Cause of death was listed as blood loss from multiple lacerations all over their legs and torso, as well as removal of both their faces with a sharp blade, possibly a scalpel.” However, no tools or weapons were found at the scene, and “at no point did he perform any actions that might be analogous with the binding and actual murder of the students,” leading Jonathan to believe a second person was there. HMMM. I WONDER WHO THAT COULD HAVE BEEN.

The cause of death is very unusual, though, when you consider it from a real-world standpoint. It’s pretty easy to die of blood loss if, say, your carotid or jugular is cut. But lacerations on the legs and torso? Those lacerations would have to be extensive to cause fatal blood loss. It just doesn’t sit right with me - and it reminds me of another death we heard about previously. In episode 8, Ivo Lensik says his father was found dead in his study “with deep gouges along his wrists and arms”, and the coroner couldn’t identify the tool used on his arms. Robert Montauk (episode 9) also bled out, but that was after being stabbed 47 times, so it’s similar but not quite the same. The common threads I’m seeing in all three deaths are (a) cause of death being blood loss and (b) the idea that someone committed the murder who was not known to be there at the time.

Coincidentally, Father Burroughs was imprisoned at Wakefield Prison, the same place where Robert Montauk died a few years prior. I thought something might be up with that prison, so I did a quick search and apparently it’s a high-security prison for those who’ve committed crimes such as murder, rape, armed robbery, and kidnapping (Wikipedia). So there may not be any kind of supernatural connection there, but now I’m wondering if we’re going to get statements from or about anyone else in that prison.

One last observation. The sickly yellow color seen so many times in episode 18 made two appearances in this episode. Father Burroughs describes the parishioners at the “service” as having “fevered, jaundiced yellow” skin, and the stole that Mystery Altar Server gave Father Burroughs was “a pale, sickly yellow.” Oh, and that stole from Father Burroughs’ fever dream? An identical real one was delivered to the Oratory a few days prior to these events by Breekon and Hope Deliveries. And it must have been one of their last deliveries, since they liquidated some time in 2009, the year these events occurred.

Curiouser and curiouser...

This post is part of a series where I write my thoughts about each episode and obsessively connect dots in an effort to figure out The Big Mysteries of the series. All posts in this series are tagged “is this liveblogging?” Comments and messages are welcome but I have only listened to season 1, so I ask that you not spoil me for anything beyond episode 40. In the words of Jonny Sims…thanks for listening!