Episode 4 of ‘Channel Zero: Candle Cove’, titled ‘A Strange Vessel’, has just aired. This series is nightmare inducing, in the best possible way. The series took a darker tone than the previous episodes. Mike (Paul Schneider) is spiraling deeper into the mystery of Candle Cove, as his his daughter who is channeling Eddy, the brother Mike murdered as a child.
Several things have now become clear, Mrs. Booth has been connected to Candle Cove for the past 30 years. In a flash back we learned that she may have had a hand in her son’s murder. We witnessed in this episode and in episode 3 that she is very protective of Mike and she does not mind committing murder. A group of children seem to not only flock to Mrs. Booth, but follow her murderous commands. She is hiding a very dark secret. As a teacher she leads her class not only watch Candle Cove, but to embrace it.
According to showrunner/creator Nick Antosca we will learn more about her connection in episode 5. Here’s a neat fact, Ms. Booth is named after Antosca’s favorite school teacher. This is what he had to say about Mrs. Booth.
Mrs. Booth is the character who if you grew up in a small town, you had her as a teacher, right? Like she’s the one who knows everybody, knows everybody’s kids. She’s the sweet, friendly lady. And in this particular story, she has a very, very dark secret.” He continued. “Mrs. Booth is named after my favorite high school teacher who’s the person who told me that I should be a writer and keep writing my weird little short stories. So, that’s going to match to somebody who had a huge influence on me.” He continued on about the character. “She has a particular interest in mike. And what – the line that she said to him when we met her him in Episode 1 has some fanatic significance. And we’re going to find out in the next couple of episodes why she is interested in protecting mike.
I asked Antosca, “Can you kind of give us an idea of just how deep Mrs.Booth’s involvement is?”
He answered: “I will not give a specific idea of what Mrs. Booth’s involvement is, but I will tell you that she knows what Candle Cove is and she has been involved with Candle Cove since 1988. And she’s been waiting for Mike to come home for quite a while.” He continued, “…you will learn a little more about what was going on in her character as a person that leads her to be connected to Candle Cove. And actually, I would say you’d probably learn a little bit more about that from her directly in the present day than we do on flashback. The actress who plays Mrs. Booth, Marina Stephenson Kerr, is really wonderful. And she’s got a scene that I love coming up in Episode 5 where she talks a little about how this came to be.”
Antosca makes it clear that the show, while it may have supernatural tones, is really about human nature.
I really wanted to preserve a sense of mystery but also have the source of Candle Cove and the evil that it represents — the fundamentally human in nature. And when I say human in nature, I don’t mean not supernatural because there is a supernatural in this story. I just mean rooted in human nature. And the distinction was in part that the earlier version — the version, you know, before I came on board — was Candle Cove and the forces behind it were in fact benevolent and not evil at all. And that’s a – it’s a kind of horror story that always sort of disappoints me. It like lets the air out of the threat if I get to the end of the story and find out that it’s actually a misunderstood benevolent thing. So, I really wanted it to be genuinely terrifying and scary and also rooted in some way in human nature and the ways that it can be malignant. So, yes. And in terms of being faithful to a kind of a nightmare logic, I want to – by the time that we get to the end of the season for us to understand who or what the source of Candle Cove was, who or what made candle cove — the TV show but also still have questions.”
In this episode officer Amy Welch (Luisa D’Oliveira) goes to Mrs. Booth’s house to ask a few questions. When she realizes Mrs. Booth is not home, she lets herself in. Upon entering the basement, she finds a cat eating the dead body of Beth (Rachelle Casseus), who had her throat slit by Mrs. Booth for messing with Mike in episode 3.
You know, she’s a small town cop, she’s never had to deal with anything more serious than, you know, people acting crazy on a Saturday night. And now she’s going to be plunged into a very, very dark, strange case. And she’s going to see people that she knows end up dead.”
Mike’s daughter discovers the puppet Eddy made. Antasca stated that the puppet will be very important in upcoming episodes. We also witnessed Mike’s mom, Marla (Fiona Shaw), see the Tooth Child. Marla will be experiencing more from the world of Candle Cove in the two episodes remaining this season.
She’s going to see some other stuff that is very disturbing. I don’t know if you’ve gotten to – if you have the screener for Episode 4. But she’s got to deal with, you know, really directly some memories of her son — her dead son and the lost that she experienced back in 1988.”
Jessica and Mike have grown closer since he returned home. While her is husband is in jail her and Mike’s relationship has continued to develop. It has been revealed that the two have been having an emotional affair for sometime, since his return it has only grown stronger.
“Well, I think what I would call it is an emotional affair. And I think they already have it, right?” Antosca said. “It comes from their childhood romance that was cut short when Mike was sent away and the fact that when you reconnect with somebody from your past who knew you as a child there’s a kind of innocence that’s recaptured and a sense of hope and potential. And I think that they probably found a hint of that in each other when they corresponding. So, for both of them, there’s just a sense of, you know, what might have been and reconnecting with the person who knows the most basic — innocent version of you. And I think in another life they would have been together. So, there’s something bitter sweet about how they relate to each other now and a kind of compassion that they have for each other and knowledge of their fundamental selves.”
Jessica is not like the rest of the adults who saw Candle Cove as a child. She was never personally affected by the mysterious show. Antosca explains:
I think that people who see Candle Cove, it’s like the more troubled you are, the more it’s able to influence you, you know, the more vulnerable you are to it.And Jess, even as a kid, I think was a pretty, happy, well-adjusted kid. And so, she saw Candle Cove and like kind of remembers it. But it hasn’t haunted her in the way that it’s, you know, planted the seed in some people’s heads and haunted them. And so, whenever they’re sitting around the dinner table and like reminiscing about Candle Cove, she’s the one who’s like genuinely like, “Oh god, yes, I haven’t thought about it – that in a while but that was a weird show,” you know. Whereas other people are sort of hiding the reality of like, “Oh yes, of course I remember Candle Cove. I think about it, you know, a couple of times every week. I have nightmares about it to this day.
Unfortunately it appears things did not end well for her this episode. The attack by the children looked absolutely brutal.
Schneider stars alongside Fiona Shaw, Shaun Benson, Natalie Brown, Luisa D’Oliveira, Abigail Pniowsky. and Cassandra Consiglio who plays the role of “The Tooth Child”.
The fifth episode is titled ‘Guest of Honor’. Antosca gave us a little preview of what we can expect to see.
The episode that you just saw is kind of – up until things go crazy, it’s kind of the calm before the storm. And the storm hits Iron Hill late in Episode 4 and there’s a casualty and the consequences of that are going to reverberate through the next two episodes. And by the end of Episode 5, you will have a much clearer idea of what is behind the evil that is affecting Iron Hill. So going into the final episode we and Mike are going to know exactly what he’s facing.”
I did ask if the puppets that were on the bookshelf in Mrs. Booth’s house were the actual puppets from the show that the kids were watching. He explained that we would know more in episode five.
You will have that question answered in the next episode. It is a very, very good question. And I can’t give you a definitive answer without spoiling stuff that’s coming out. I will say that throughout the show we have kind of meta-fictional commentary on fandom.”
. Be sure to tune in to Syfy for episode 5 on Tuesday, November 9th. And don’t miss the season finale on November 16th.
