NOS4A2 Episode 8 is all about mothers. After finding the candy cane under the windshield wiper of Joe’s cruiser in the previous episode, Maggie calls her mother and asks if she can come home. Maggie’s mother replies that she is always welcome as long as she follows their three rules: weekly drug tests, no girls, and church on Sundays. For Maggie, that means giving up her identity and being the person her parents want her to be, not the person who she wants to be.
Maggie cleans up Joe’s house after having made a mess of it when looking for more pills and booze. Taking out the trash, Maggie finds her Scrabble tiles in their bag on the back stoop, in spite of the fact that she threw them in a trash bin at the bus station in Haverhill. Maggie asks the tiles where Joe is. The tiles spell out DEAD.
With no better options, Maggie heads to a club where she drinks, pops pills with, makes out with, and ultimately steals pills from another woman.
Parnassus
Manx heads to a bar called Parnassus, the inscape of a guy named Abe. The bar is filled with a number of horror Easter eggs, including Freddy Krueger, Pennywise the Clown, and Lloyd the bartender from The Shining. The other customers leave when Manx enters the room, leaving him and Abe to discuss Vic McQueen. Abe tells Manx that the best thing for him to do is to kill Vic, but Manx disagrees. Manx believes that Vic is different. Special. That if she could just see Christmasland for herself , then she would want to live there and be the mother to Manx’s “rescued” children.
Downward Spiral
Vic receives the news that she has been accepted to RISD on a full scholarship. Vic’s mother isn’t in the mood to celebrate. Linda looks for any excuse to try and talk Vic out of going. She tells Vic that in spite of what Vic thinks, she’s not better than her friends and family in Haverhill. Linda says that a girl like Vic is looking to be raped in a big city like Providence. When she returns home and finds Vic’s booze, drugs, and condoms, she forbids Vic from going to RISD, causing Vic to storm out of the house.
The Word is “Petrichor”
Bing has decided to get back on Manx’s nice list by kidnapping and killing Vic. Bing sneaks up on Vic in the woods and gasses her. Vic wakes in Bing’s basement, where she keeps him talking while using the Bike Week souvenir pin Craig bought her to cut through the duct tape binding her hands. Vic tries to convince Bing that Manx doesn’t want her dead, he wants her to live in Christmasland. Bing needs to release her before Manx finds out that he has abducted her.
Bing doesn’t believe Vic when she says she’ll keep her abduction a secret from Manx. He knows that if she tells, he’ll never get into Christmasland. Bing wants to get into Christmasland because his best memories are of Christmastime. Bing tells Vic about the Christmas his father gave him the gas mask and his mother baked him cookies and told Bing that she loved him most of all. Bing also tells Vic about the Christmas he killed his dad, then raped and killed him mother, just like he did with Sharon and like he plans to do with Vic.
Vic cuts herself free and attacks Bing, leaving him in the basement while she escapes.
Miss Trixie’s
Maggie, still drunk and downing all the pills she stole, asks her tiles the location of Vic’s bike. The tiles spell out THE BRAT. Maggie, barely coherent, calls Vic and tells her that the tiles never lie but sometimes mothers do. Vic confronts her mother about the bike. Vic says that she doesn’t think her mother is stupid, but that she’s scared. With Vic and her father gone, Linda will be all alone and have no one else to blame for how her life has turned out. Vic finds the bike hidden in the garage and rides it out to the Shorter Way. Crossing the bridge takes Vic to the bar where she finds Maggie overdosed and lying on a mattress between dumpsters. Vic forces her fingers down Maggie’s throat, gagging her and making Maggie vomit the pills and booze in her stomach. Vic says that they’re a team and need to work together to take down Manx.
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