So, apart from one gruesome scene, The Mist does a lot more telling than showing this go around, but tensions are on the rise as our little church and mall groups start to fracture more and more. We start at…
Church
Everyone is waking up after spending the night in the church, as Natalie spots Mikayl cleaning himself up and sport a humongous back tattoo of a moth (that kind of looks like the moths from Silence of the Lambs). Meanwhile, Kevin joins Adrian in a pew, reassuring him that everyone is still alive and okay. Adrian is worried most about Alex, his only friend. Kevin takes him to the church tower and shows him through a window the car he plans to hotwire (with Mia’s help) and drive to the mall to get Alex and Eve. How is he going to do that with Mia handcuffed to a railing? He’s going to talk Connor into letting her and Bryan go with him.
Mall
Alex stares out the front doors at the mist, as Eve approaches and tries to reminisce about bringing her to the mall as a baby. She tells Alex it used to put her to sleep as a baby and when she was older, her dad (Kevin) would be her a balloon every time. Finally, Eve begs Alex to talk to her and tells her it’s ok to be scared, and Alex asks, gee what could she be scared of? The dead bodies that were just found? The mist? Being in a mall with her rapist? Eve just wants to know what she’s feeling, and Alex asks what if she’s not feeling anything at all?
In the bathroom, mall manager Redman, the security guard, and Jay are cutting down the corpses (Why are they making a teenager help?!). They spot the dog tags, and wonder why the military is around. Then they wheel the bodies out in shopping cars to the main group (again, why?), and reveal that the dead people were part of the military. Redman wants them put in a freezer for health reasons, but says they need to search everyone for dog tags. A young, twitchy guy, who we saw in Clint’s little group last week, starts to make a run for it, but is quickly stopped and his dog tags are revealed. He says he’s just a private and that officers tell him nothing except where to drive. When asked why they would kill themselves, he has no answer. The security guard says it’s because they knew why this was happening.
Church
Mikayl, the man with the giant back tattoo, joins Natalie as she stares out the window. She recounts the happenings from the first episode, when she spotted a moth and then all of nature fleeing, as well as the article she found about the Black Spring of 1860. He tells her it’s actually a local bedtime story people in town used to tell to keep kids behaving. Some say it’s a curse from when a young woman was murdered, others say it’s Native American in origin, but either way nothing good happens. Natalie suspects it’s another Black Spring happening, but Miakyl admits he was in jail for six years for bad things, so if it were another Black Spring, he would have been the first to go. He asks what she’s looking at, and she says the gray shape outside the window is her husband.
Kevin approaches Connor, saying they should put aside their differences and that he’d like Mia to be set free to help, along with Bryan. Connor scoffs, why would he let them go, they’re prisoners? Then he says Mia is wanted for murder, but he didn’t think about that did he? (Connor is well aware of Kevin’s idiotic tendencies.) Kevin insists she won’t hurt anyone and that he needs her help. The two men start arguing about how they’ve known each other forever, and Kevin snaps that Connor became a cop so he could feel important and arrest people. Connor shrugs Kevin off and moves Mia and Bryan to the basement, handcuffing her to a pipe.
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Bryan starts going through boxes in the basement, as Mia shivers and asks for her jacket. He puts his on her, but she begs for her own jacket because it’s like a security blanket, so he hands it to her. She fumbles around, and he asks, “Looking for these?” revealing the pills she had indeed swiped from the evidence locker last episode. He gets close, and puts the bottle in her hands as he undoes the lock on the handcuffs with a paperclip, telling her he needs someone to trust, so why don’t they trust each other.

Mall
Eve tells Alex they should find a new spot to camp in the mall, far away from Jay. Elsewhere, two gamer guys who run a games store in the mall, who earlier had been scolded for being useless, suddenly get the idea to take the two dead bodies outside as bait for whatever is in the mist. Yeah guys, rock solid plan.
Church
Mia is feeling better not being handcuffed (I don’t think she took the drugs, based not he trust conversation). She thanks him, and asks if he’s looking for something more in the way of thanks. Bryan admits he doesn’t know if he’s gay, straight, married, or anything. All he can remember are the events we saw in the first episode, waking up in the woods and running from the mist. Mia starts to cry, saying he’s the lucky one because he can’t remember his past.
Kevin is in the kitchen filling up water bottles, getting ready for his big move. Adrian finds him and is surprised he still wants Mia’s help after the reveal that she may be a murderer. He tells Adrian it’s more complicated than that, and Adrian asks if that’s the case with Jay. Kevin ignores the question, saying that her willingness to do bad things is useful in a time like this. (Dumb Kevin is back in the game, everyone!)
He approaches the basement door to get Bryan and Mia out, and asks if she knows how to hotwire a car. She’s incensed at first, but then chuckles and admits she does indeed know how.

Out in the main church area, Adrian distracts Father Romanov from finding Kevin by asking for comfort. Father Romanov tells him about his mom coming to the church from refuge, and Adrian assumes from his dad. But Father Romanov insists she just wanted to feel unconditional love from God. Adrian says God doesn’t love him for being gay, but Father Romanov says God’s love is everywhere and he should accept it. When he asks how, the priest explains it can be done with a baptism to remove sin. Adrian shoots back that being gay isn’t a sin, and that’s when Connor interjects that lying is. He comes forward and tells Adrian he knows he was lying about Jay, asking why didn’t he help Alex when she was being assaulted. He says he was held back by football players, but Connor says that it’s a lie, because nothing happened, and that Adrian just hates Jay because he’s cool and popular.
Kevin shows up and takes Adrian away from the confrontation, but Connor snaps that his son could go to jail for the lies. As he goes to move past Connor, Kevin says that’s where Jay belongs because he’s a rapist. Connor says Alex was just sleeping around, which isn’t a surprise when you think about her mom, and taunts Kevin, “like mother, like daughter.” Kevin attacks him, and Connor knocks him down, draws his gun, and arrests him for assaulting an officer, locking him in the basement with Mia and Bryan. “So glad you came to save us,” Mia quips, placing her firmly in best character territory.
Mall
The gamer guys wheel the bodies outside and wait and watch for something to attack.
As Alex and Eve look for a new spot, they split up, and Alex wanders through a flower shop with balloons. Jay finds her and corners her, asking to hear him out. He won’t let her leave until she does, but then he promises to let her get past him. She reluctantly does, and he explains that nothing happened. He took her upstairs, took off her shoes, tucked her in, and left her there to sleep off the alcohol. Then he asks to touch her hand, to prove he’s not going to hurt her. Alex is frozen and nervous the whole time, and his hand brushes against hers, but she makes no big reaction. Then, as he promised, he leaves her alone in the store.

Church
Natalie is strolling to the doors, as Mikayl offers her some wine. She turns it down, telling him she’s going to go home and be with her husband, and she’s not just talking about her old house. She is ready to die in the mist. Mikayl tries to stop her outside, as a moth, like the one on his back, flies into his ear and starts burrowing into his body. He begs for help as she watches, and the group inside begs her to come back inside. The moth burrows along his back, making his tattoo bulge and split until wings pop out, and more moths fly out of his mouth. Connor and Father Romanov drag Natalie back inside, and she insists she’s fine and happy now, and that she’s seen God and doesn’t want to die. Father Romanov snaps that what just happened was not from God, and she replies that she wasn’t talking about his God.

Mall
Eve is at their new spot in the warehouse area, and Alex arrives, crying, and tells her mom that Jay confronted her, but isn’t going to hurt her.
The gamer guys are still watching and waiting as it gets dark out, and the twitchy young private finds them and sees what they’ve done with his friends’ bodies. They start to fight, and Redman, Jay, and the security guard break up the fight. The gamer guys say they were trying to help, but the private is offended at the mistreatment of their bodies. Redman looks out the door and decides that they really can’t bring them inside now, and declares that they should lay some ground rules as a group.
Church
Adrian is listening to Father Romanov sniffle in horror at what they all just saw. The priest explains he’s trying to understand what God is telling them, and thinks it’s Him asking everyone to believe. Adrian asks why wouldn’t God send something good, and Father Romanov explains the story of Job and the tests of faith he endured. He then asks if he was serious about God loving him, and Father Romanov says this is a sign that God is begging him to accept his love. That’s when Adrian decides he’d like to be baptized.
Mall
Redman says he won’t let this group sink into chaos like in Hurricane Katrina, so he takes suggestions from the group for some rules. There’s standard food rationing, no looting, etc, and then the security guard throws out that endangering the group gets you booted out into the mist. People disagree, and Eve and Alex arrive back at the group, where Kimmy catches them up. Raj, the Middle Eastern store owner, asks Eve if they’re ditching this group, could he tag along, because he doesn’t think this kind of scenario is going to end well, especially “for people like me.” She’s cool with it, and a few others join her before Redman stops them and says they should all stay together. The security guard says why even have rules if they won’t apply to everyone, and Redman backs him up saying it’s for everyone’ safety. Eve practically rolls her eyes at him, and Jay steps forward, asking why she’s so paranoid, and also begging Alex to tell everyone what he told her. She yells at him to stay away, and the security guard tries to stop her rushing Jay, but she pulls out her secret gun from the last episode. Redman lets them go, but says don’t coming running to the bigger group if things go bad in their little group.
Church
Adrian gets baptized in Father Romanov’s office, thanking him, but the priest gets real insistent on having Adrian repeat the repent portion of the ceremony, forcing him to yell that he’s a sinner. Father Romanov is happy and hugs Adrian, who sneaks the keys out of the priest’s pocket.
He sneaks off and lets Kevin, Mia, and Bryan out of the basement. The not so stealthy group almost makes it to the door, when Connor spots them as he’s coming out of the bathroom. He fumbles for his gun, but Kevin knocks him down, and they leave. Father Romanov and Adrian share a pained look, as he realized that he was being lied to about the baptism.
Mall
Alex has balloons and cards, which confuses Eve, until she sees that Alex is writing S.O.S. messages on them to send up on the balloons, and not regressing into childhood memories of the balloon story from earlier. Eve helps, and as a group, they release the balloon messages into the mist. Kimmy asks what made Alex think of the plan, and she responds, “I miss my dad.”
As the balloons seem to make it safely in the air, that’s where we leave our crew in The Mist.
Questions for Next Week
- So if it wasn’t Jay, who did assault Alex? My suspicions, unfortunately, remain on Adrian. He has proven to be pretty shady, given that he lied to a priest about wanting to be baptized, just to steal a set of keys.
- But did Adrian start to believe? I think we’d all believe in something if we saw moth wings shoot out of a guy’s back in a town covered in an unrelenting mist.
- What will Natalie do now that she seems to be firmly on the side of nature? Sabotage? There’s an interesting faith off happening between her and Father Romanov.
- It is obvious that Eve cheated on Kevin at some point, but with whom? And when?
- Did Mia actually murder anyone?
- Who is Bryan?
- Will the balloons make it anywhere?
Points of Interest
- New Mist Power: Infecting people with moths and making them sprout wings. Yuck.
- Jay failed miserably at NOT being creepy when he tried to prove to Alex he was a good guy.
- I’m no expert on baptisms, but Father Romanov’s seemed a little intense, and very focused on repenting.
- Mia called Kevin “the whiny guy from the police station,” and I laughed and laughed.
- Kevin is hilariously trusting of the (potentially) wrong people. I think we all know Mia is going to be proven innocent, but come on Kevin, aren’t you slightly suspicious of why she was locked up in the first place? He doesn’t even know about her drug problem!
- If he’s not in the military, Bryan should be revealed to be a sleight of hand magician, because he was really good at picking the lock on the handcuffs and palming that pill bottle. He probably could have Houdini’d out of the basement if they let him.
- I do not love that they are making Adrian, their only LGBTQ character, this shifty and shady and sneaky.
- I groaned at Eve’s line after she pulled the gun on Jay. He said, “This is a democracy,” to Alex, and she replied, “I’ve always been an anarchist.” Face palm.
- What’s it’ going to take for Alex to stop hating her mom? The lady is only trying to do right by her, and she just shuts her down at every turn. Is it because her dad is an indulgent dope? Probably.
RELATED: Read all The Mist Recaps here.
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