This week's episode is more about how, not unlike US health care “we are out of time” and begins with the differences between 18th Century notions of cooperation and "the common good", with modern notions about dreams nocturnal and national. Unfortunately the opportunity to play with the differences between cricket and baseball were lost but the central theme of this episode, the congealed connection between the First Horseman, death, and Crane must be separated. This episode comes with the requisite dream sequences that appear as a day vision while driving and this week features the Freemasons and Latin Ordo ab chao (order out of chaos), although its historical codification is slightly out of sync. The Sin Eater represents a person who can derive order from chaos, that is unfortunately unknown to the present day Masons who identify and abduct Crane in order to determine his true genealogy. Underlying the story is the notion that the American Revolution represented the concept of alternative conceptions of choice as referenced by using the Cicero pamphlet pseudonym that Alexander Hamilton adopted. Just as sacrifices were made in our Revolution, the sin-eater "refers to a person who, through ritual means, would take on by means of food and drink the sins of a household, often because of a recent death, thus absolving the soul and allowing that person to rest in peace."
Abbie and Jenny find where the Sin Eater, Henry Parrish lives, and pay him a visit. Another fun fact, Henry Parrish is played by John Noble (Walter Bishop from Fringe!). Henry explains that he doesn’t do that kind of work anymore. He does give them a description of the type of (or rather the masonic sign on the) room Crane is being held in (he’s able to use Abbie’s connection to Crane to see some images). This reminded me of that Christopher Walken skit on SNL where he can see the future by touching them, but only mundane things like a man leaving his coffee in a cab.
Sanctification and transubstantiation features in much of this episode as do notions of embodied power and its legacies as with the notion of carrying them forward with the following rule-bound action:
The main Freemason read Crane’s life story from Katrina’s writings. The Mason and Katrina’s coven were partners until Katrina moved Crane’s body. Katrina knew the Masons would kill Crane to kill the Horseman. Since they are blood tied, if Crane dies, then the Horseman dies. The Masons give Crane a bottle of poison to drink, to give himself up for the greater good. Abbie and Jenny find Crane, and Abbie tries to convince Crane not to do it. Crane says there is no other way. Freeing his tie to the Horseman does not stop him, whereas killing himself does.
This is no a simple win-lose trade-off and the choices represented by the narrative continue our expectations for coming weeks.
We see Crane resolve his allegiance to Crown or Revolution as a matter of consummation and consecration also features in this episode. For Crane, "revealing what you refuse to see" or the loss of false consciousness as gaining a conscience which precedes the moment of choice where Crane must execute the transformational agent and reflect further on how "destiny is a matter of choice. This further reflection on the power to bear witness in the war between humans and demons reveals the role of Crane and Abbie/Jenny as not remnants/remainders but differentiated with an insight into the unconscious seen as a gift. This form of the miraculous is as with all supernatural secular action, a transgression of divine law not unlike the fears that demarcate and oppress secret societies like the freemasons. All disclosure and action are enabled by Crane's resolution of the guilt of his complicity in killing Arthur Bernard. And as this week ends, we know that to avert the apocalypse, other choices are possible "there’s always another way". The episode closes as the Horseman comes to the original crypt and next week's preview introduces the Horseman with automatic weapons again. As always there is the lingering hope that some of the historical details get integrated a bit more without eliding too far afield. The effects continue to be interesting, albeit still within the genre. Sanctification, like Hope springs for another week.