Anatomy of Crystal Lake: Episode 2: Part 2

 Psychology is often explored in Horror films and television series and can be a very crucial component to developing the what and why for someone who commits heinous crimes. In the Halloween franchise, many fans prefer the reasons for Michael's madness to be ambiguous and attempts at humanizing the character with solid motives has met with much anger over the years. In the case of the origins of the Friday The 13th franchise, it all started with Pamela Voorhees and not her iconic son Jason who eventually found his way into the cultural zeitgeist and remains there four decades later. For the Crystal Lake series, it is crucial to showrunner Brad Caleb Kane that the audience really understand the why of Pamela and what eventually translated to creating the unstoppable killing machine of Jason Voorhees.

SPOILERS...

In Episode 2: Part 2, we start with a great homage to one of the greatest ending sequences in horror history. A setup that any longtime fan could see coming as soon as Pamela jumps in that canoe to go into the lake. It's a nice little prologue where Pam imagines an adult size Jason lunging from beneath the surface of the lake to grab her. Afterwards, the opening credits roll, with a new opening montage of scenes from the series and Harry Manfredini's newly created score. 

A good portion of the second episode is spent with Pamela joining local Crystal Lake townie Rita on an out-of-town excursion to a self-help class. The trip is purely meant as a distraction for her loss of Jason nine months earlier, but we soon find that there is something inside Pamela waiting to break out.

Before she leaves town, Pamela receives a mysterious call from someone connected to the company that seemingly sent Ed Shobani and Benny to kidnap her. The person warns Pam that there may be more people coming to look for her.

Jason's friend Grace is dealing with what she knows about the day he disappeared and Claudette's failure to keep him safe. At school, she comes off as an outcast and desperately wants to fit in with the other kids. She says hello to Pam, who is the school cook, and asks how she is doing. Grace feels some guilt for what happened to Jason and Pam begins to take a maternal interest in her.

Meanwhile, some people walking their dog stumble upon partial remains of one of the assailants that tried to kidnap Pam and the previous episode. They alert the authorities.

After Pam leaves Crystal Lake for the self-help class, fans get more character development with Sheriff Brooks, Officer Dorf, and Ralph. The focus of these characters is fun, especially as we get a more expanded personality of Dorf as he is portrayed as much more of a naive and idiotic person than we could have ever guessed from our brief introduction to the character in the original Friday The 13th film. Cameron Scoggins is having a blast, though, embodying the personality of Dorf who also has a great affinity for martial arts films.

William Catlett once again is the calming and rational energy of the show thus far as the Sheriff of Crystal Lake. His tense encounter with his sister Briana, however, begins to reveal that his time in law enforcement in the city prior to his tenure in Crystal Lake has a past to dive further into and may shape his entire existence in the show. 

His tenacity motivates him to further investigate the remains found of Pamela's victims in the woods and that leads him to visit Ralph at his wilderness home to see if he has seen anything. It is in this great encounter between Levon and Ralph where the beloved prophet character continues to grow and offer his familiar crazy rhetoric. In typical Ralph fashion, he mutters under his breath to the Sheriff that there is more out there in the woods than killer bears. Ralph is not just crazy; he is truly a prophet of doom and knows what is about to befall Crystal Lake. 

Meanwhile, as Pamela attends the self-help class with Rita at a hotel called Packanack Lodge (Part 2 reference), her personality and psychological deconstruction begins to take place. As she confronts the class's instructor over his harsh treatment of others who are attending, she becomes front and center of the class and begins her realization that she is stronger than she thinks and that a bigger rage is definitely brewing inside of her. This sequence also shares even more small glimpses of the company she is hiding from and what happened to her and Jason. 

The last few minutes of the episode give fans what they want and that is kids partying at camp. Teenage Steve Christie has invited everyone to party at his parent's temporarily closed Camp Crystal Lake. It is there that Jason's young friend from camp, Grace, confronts Claudette about her having sex while Jason disappeared in the lake. Claudette forces Grace to leave the party, and Grace does so only after removing her shows due to Claudette making fun of them. 

As it begins to rain, everyone leaves the party, except for Barry and Claudette as they begin to make out in a car. They, however, are interrupted by knocking around the outside of the car. When Barry opens the car door to see who's out there, he witnesses an ominous and threating figure staring at him through the rain. Scared, Barry jumps into the car as the POV of Jason begins walking towards the car as we hear the Ki Ki Ki Ma Ma Ma sound affect utilized in all of its glory. Before the car leaves, Jason throws one of Grace's shoes through the back window of Barry's car. This will definitely setup a confrontation between Claudette and Grace in later episodes.

This episode does not have any killing, but the self-help guy gets a good bloody clobbering for his antics which affords Pamela her line "some of us are meant to wear masks". "Part 2" is meant to be a character study of Pamela and further development of the main players of Crystal Lake. For most fans of the Friday The 13th films, this episode may not satisfy your taste for the franchise, but this entire season is meant to be a journey and the payoff based on episodes like this hopefully will be bloody carnage that the films have always delivered.