666 Park Avenue "The Dead Don't Stay Dead" Recap/Review [Spoilers]
Christopher John Falcioni ’16 & Kristina Carroll ’16 / Emertainment Monthly Staff
When we last we left Jane she went into the basement door, despite our screams at the TV screen yelling “DON’T GO IN!!!”, and after examining the room filled with awful broken dolls, she encounters the Creepy Girl, whispering “Go, go away” just as her boyfriend Henry opens the door and everything seems normal… until the camera pans over too the little girl hiding in the corner. Our first scream of the night.
The main character for this episode is Annie, who writes obituaries, though her wish is to write news that is actually happening and not, well, dead. When Gavin comes to her aid, Annie begins to try and spice up her life by writing more enticing stories for those whose lives were less than earth-shaking. When these stories come true, she gets more than she bargained for…
Meanwhile, Lisa’s getting out of the hospital and husband Brian is trying to keep away from the sensuous Alexis, the embodiment of lust. Jane continues her pursuit of restoring the hotel to its former glory, but it is the anniversary of the death of Gavin and Olivia’s little girl, Sasha, presumably the creepy one living in the basement, and Jane is put on babysitting duty for Olivia (who cannot be trusted with a credit card and an expensive coping method).
Meanwhile, Henry goes to a club to talk with Gavin about his future. While Henry says his major goal in life is to marry, Jane, Gavin insists that Henry “aim higher”, insisting that he takes what he wants. Gavin tells Henry to go and meet with the City Councilman, whom he scheduled an appointment with later in the week to apply for a job as campaign manager for his candidacy for mayor. After some small threats, Henry gets an audience with the Councilman and Gavin gets a chance to see Henry taking the first steps towards sin and possible apprenticeship as a lackey of the devil.
While Jane is with Olivia, she reveals that she’s been having some very strange, very vivid dreams since her check-in at the hotel. Jane continues to ramble on and eventually says that she’s beginning to feel like “the dead won’t stay dead” – which is probably not the best thing to say to a mother mourning the loss of her only child. Olivia soon begins to take a dangerous joyride through the city, telling Jane that Sasha, a teenager wanted to kill herself as she drove into a concrete divider in the middle of the street. Olivia begins to act this out but stops herself from hitting the concrete by just a hair, yet another scream-worthy point in the episode.
Annie, after the success of her obituary re-write, decides to change her own life through death. When she changes her mother’s obituary to read that she was a renowned children’s author, Annie’s life completely changes (along with her clothes) and she is contacted to write her most important story of all: a longer story on the person she wrote the obituary on, a man named Kaminsky. When Annie gets a bit overly violent with the details, making him a serial killer who used awful implements to torture his victims, Kaminsky also comes to life. Before you know it, Kaminsky is tearing down Annie’s door, and she’s trying to escape through the window. Ultimately, Annie is added to the list of victims that she herself created.
Jane continues with her bad luck streak as she keeps exploring incredibly sketchy places: When Jane hears a creepy ringing sound coming from the basement, she goes downstairs and sees a bloody wall and the Creepy Girl, both of which promptly disappear when Gavin creepily appears behind her. And to make her luck even worse, Henry is facing some trying times too. Henry meets up with Brian and they take their dates out to a club, but not before Alexis and her sensuous ways distract him. At the club, she makes another appearance and the boys begin to get suspicious and uncomfortable as fidelity is tested for both.
Though the “celebration” for Henry is not going very well, it’s much better than what’s going on with the Councilman and Gavin in his apartment, in which it is revealed that the councilman has other plans for the plot of land in which Gavin’s new Green Point Towers are to go… and when that happens, he obviously gets sucked into the elevator shaft much like the man in the wall in the first episode… the second death of the night. It makes it even more poignant when Olivia burns Sasha’s suicide letter (surprise!), which says “He’s Evil”. While she burns the note to protect Gavin’s feelings, there’s definitely something to this note…
The fates for our main characters are still on edge; Henry, now without a job, is being convinced by Gavin to run for Mayor (a position in which Gavin can use Henry to evil ends) and Jane continues to explore the ringing noise, which comes from a suitcase which Jane (stupidly) brings to her room, especially since hands begin to press out of the suitcase at the end of the episode… Next week, we have got a suitcase to open, a man with the knowledge of Gavin’s shady dealings, and a killer who obeys the Devil… and we always got a creepy girl in our back pocket in case all else fails to scare…