Nocturnum
Episode 7: Apocalypse When?
Original Air Date: 10/29/2006 and 11/12/06
Synopsis
Drake and John make a few phone calls and manage through their connections to unfreeze the assets that the Cast has had frozen for the past four years, including the Tudor fortune and Katherine's inheritance, which reverts back to John. The Cast spends some time reveling in their return to "normal" society, save for Drake, who is utterly devastated at the loss of his second beloved to the forces of darkness. With him as the sole holdout, they journey to a local diner and gorge themselves on "real food." Later that night at the hotel, they watch TV to re-acquaint themselves with the world, where World War III is going on, with the Church of Revelations having conquered almost all of Europe, Africa, and South America, and much of Asia, with the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, and Great Britain the lone holdouts of freedom in the world; Denmark is a continual battleground with both the CoR and the free-world-led Alliance desperate to control the ports of Copenhagen. John is somewhat surprised to notice that technology has hardly advanced at all over the past 20 years.
Upon discovering a televangelist preaching the divine word of Leviathan, Klaus smashes his TV, leading to an interesting run-in with hotel security and Matthew, in boxer shorts and brandishing a sword.
Seeing Drake in such torment, the ghostly Cyan seeks Anita's permission to share Anita's body so that she might offer words of consolation to the devastated man. Anita agrees, on the condition that whatever Cyan may learn while she is inside of Anita, she will never reveal to another soul. Cyan begins to bring Drake out of his funk; even dead she seems to be able to provide morale to the group. Katherine is bitter that Cyan didn't visit her while in Anita's body; John is somewhat relieved Cyan didn't visit him looking like Anita.
Following Cyan's visit with Drake, he receives a final message from Amara, who is fighting to hold together in the netherworld. She implores him to continue on, to fix the time stream and restore her that way. She tells him, "it's time to go to work," at which point he shakes off his despair and becomes all business.
The next morning, John calls in a favor from the Templars, looking for a pilot to get the Cast to Copenhagen, where they hope the fixer Curtis Franklin is still alive and can help them. The Templars confirm that last they heard, Franklin was alive, and say that they do have a pilot crazy enough to fly into Europe in the middle of World War III. Unfortunately, the pilot, Reginald "Reggie" Leland, was assigned to infiltrate a CoR organization encamped uncomfortably close to an air force base in Coraopolis, PA, and discover their plans. The Templars lost contact with him several days ago. They task John and the Cast to bust Reggie out and find out what they can about the CoR operations. If they pull it off, Reggie is theirs if he's willing to fly them.
After acquiring all manner of weaponry and survival gear from local outdoors and hunting stores, the Cast sets off, having determined that Leland is likely being held in an old hospital in a nearby abandoned mining town. They infiltrate the hospital, where Anita and Matthew have a run-in with a gigantic spider from the Outer Dark known as a Spider of Leng; Klaus and Drake do battle with a winged Deadite, somehow released from Pittsburgh. In the main office, the group discovers CoR plans to use mystical portals to take over the local air force base and assault the U.S. from within. Worse, the U.S. operation is under the supervision of Claudia and Heinrich Kaltenbach...Klaus's parents, who abused and tortured him for the purpose of Tainted rituals when he was a child, then sold him into slavery.
Klaus works out his issues by dismantling the office in which the information was discovered.
John calls the Templars and informs them of the information; the Templars assure him they will have people in place to take care of the problem. The Cast continues their exploration; in the basement, they discover a temple devoted to Leviathan, occupied by fifteen cultists. Matthew dismantles the temple (and cultists) by means of a crossbow and stick of dynamite.
In the inner complex beyond the temple, the Cast finds Reggie, beaten and bloodied but alive and able to walk. After a pitched battle with a gigantic tentacled horror, during which Reggie passes out and soils himself in terror, the Cast manages to escape, destroying some sort of mysterious doomsday machine in the process, and get Reggie back to the hotel.
Next stop...Denmark.
Great Quotes:
Anita: We should leave the waitress a nice tip.Matthew: Not if John's paying.
Cyan: Can I use you to comfort Drake?
Anita: Uh...how exactly do you want to comfort him?
Cyan: Anita!...Anita, you need therapy.
Anita: Yup.
Cyan (through Anita): Drake, it's Cyan. I wanted to offer some comfort...not in a sexual way.
Drake (drunk, thinking it's Anita): And who's been hitting the bottle, here?
Cyan (seeing Matthew in his boxers): Anita, he's not bad!
Anita: Yup.
(Klaus smashes his TV; everyone runs out in the hall)
Cyan (Through Anita): So what was with the big Bada-boom? That was my schtick!
Klaus (recognition dawns): ...Cyan?
Anita: No, it's the tooth fairy, you asshole. What did you blow up?
(Re: Matthew)
Anita: Oh, if I wasn't so traumatized...the fun I could have with him...
Klaus: Loving Jesus and guns keeps you safe from the CoR.
Klaus: I just want to be clear on one thing. If we go in there, I don't know that I am going to be able to control myself and not kill everything I see.
Matthew: And explain to me the downside of that plan?
Drake: I'm with you. We have to collect information, though.
Klaus: Hey, Anita can talk to dead people!
Anita: Yeah, about that...Leviathan likes to collect on his investments, and I'm not about to play tug of war of souls with him. I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt and the handbag.
Matthew: and the hand job.
Anita: Hand job, tongue job, tentacle job...I got it all and I ain't getting it ever again!
Matthew: You know, I really wanted to intervene with that whole situation...
Anita: Thanks, but I'm not sorry it happened. I mean, except I love him and now he's gone. But it serves as a constant reminder that it could happen to any of us, anyone we know, at any time. Keeps us on our toes.
(John calls Drake's cell phone)
Drake: Yes?
John: Do you want a fully automatic assault rifle?
Drake...yes.
(Upon seeing Matthew's '64 GTO, just brought out of storage)
Anita: Damn. Things always go bad when I meet a man with a really nice car. That's just all emotional turmoil and trauma galore.
(Regarding the abandoned town the CoR has taken over)
Matthew: So it's just an old town?
John: Yes. Old mill town. Abandoned in the 60's.
Matthew: Are there houses?
John: Yeah, they're just off the map, over this way...
Matthew: Okay...so what are the houses made of?
Drake (Deadpan): Hopes and dreams.
Matthew: I am the angel of sneak.
(After Katherine executes three cultists, John kisses her on the cheek)
Matthew: Hey, how come you don't kiss me when I kill people?
(Anita, Klaus, Drake, and Matthew come downstairs, clothes ripped, a few fading bruises and cuts)
Klaus: There was nothing up there.
(John opens a door to see a gigantic tentacled horror in the room beyond)
John: Oh. Sorry, wrong door. (closes door, turns to group) Uh, there's a tentacled horror in there.