The Whispers answers more questions in “Broken Child,” showing us the backstory of Thomas, revealing a Drill vulnerability, adding more creepy kids to the mix and giving us a phobia of paper plates. This one is a fast-paced, scary, music-filled episode with a satisfying ending that gives us hope that Drill can be stopped. But at what price?
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Mission: Kill Drill
Kill Drill is the mission at hand, with Claire, Wes and Lena spending much of their time collectively trying to find the how-to manual on how to get it done. Yes, Lena just shot Thomas, but Wes somehow gives her a reprieve, even saying, “It’s what any parent would have done.” Hmmm, maybe talking to your husband and telling him what Drill’s up to should have been option number one. Well, Thomas did live, so there’s that.
Lena’s dumbfounded expression (emphasis on dumb) and Wes’ lack of concern over the attempted homicide are a little far reaching, but we’ll overlook it so that we can enjoy the awkward trio’s investigation into killing Drill.
Wes, Claire and Lena check out Thomas’ basement looking for a hint as to how he killed the alien (?) being. Their first big clue comes in the form of an old photograph of young Thomas at an asylum. They’re off to the land of padded rooms and straight jackets.
Thomas is the Key
As Thomas fights for his life, we get to know young Thomas through a series of flashbacks. The first one is in 1982, with the boy’s dad searching for his two sons in the rain. “Where’s Elliot?” he asks Thomas.
“He made me do it, daddy. I had to. I had to,” Thomas answers. We find out the little boy was telling the truth. More on that later…
Sean and Dr. Benavidez take watch over Thomas, trying to keep him away from electricity and little kids. Rollins, Claire’s partner, is also at the hospital showing more IQ points than the whole lot of them. He gets the doc to cut all electricity to Thomas’ room and tells her to have the nurses keep an eye on the children. Good man.
Things go south when he spots a little girl at the bedside of her sick brother. She’s wearing a creepy paper plate mask that can mean only one thing — she’s a Drill disciple.
Rollins gets in an elevator (okay, those IQ points just went down) and who creeps in? That little paper plate loving girl! The elevator stops and the lights start Drill flashing.
Dr. Benavidez lets Sean know that Rollins was found unconscious in the elevator, knocked out by Sodium Pentothal, injected at little girl level. Those nurses didn’t stand a chance wrangling those kids.
Alien? Evil Spirit? Both?
Drill isn’t just any old alien trying to take over the world. We learn he has special qualities that make him even more sinister than before.
Lena plays the role of third wheel as Claire and Wes talk to each other like she’s not even in the same room. She inadvertently helps make a Drill discovery when she heads to the hospital chapel alone, running into a rabbi who knows Thomas from his time there.
Meanwhile, Wes and Claire run into a patient who says something about eyes following her. They rip some wallpaper away (logically), revealing a scary drawing of two people/things. With perfect timing, Lena and the rabbi rush into the room, the religious man saying it’s a picture of a dybbuk, some evil spirit who can possess the living. Once he inhabits a body, that’s it. So Thomas didn’t kill Elliot; he killed Drill, who possessed his brother.
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RIP Thomas
Sean and Dr. Benavidez do a terrible job of keeping Thomas alive. We see all the lights go on where the doctor has Thomas hidden as scary music begins playing. She rushes around, leaving Thomas, and calling out, “Sean? Sean? Who’s in there?”
Thomas is now face to face with another paper plate mask wearing kiddo; it’s the little girl’s sick brother. One minute he’s intubated, the next he’s doing Drill’s dirty work.
The boy says he’s just there to ask a question for Drill: “How did you kill the first one?”
Thomas refuses to answer, so the little boy stoically delivers a life-ending shock to the man, plugging in a device that delivers the fatal shot of electricity.
It’s flashback time again … we see young Thomas rigging some electrical device during a violent storm. He traps his brother, Elliot, into an enclosure, refusing to let him out despite his bro’s pleas.
“It doesn’t matter, Thomas. The others. They will come,” Elliot says cryptically right before Thomas delivers a life-ending shock to Drill/Elliot.
Good News/Bad News
Wes, Claire and Lena finally discover how to kill Drill! They head off to the place of Drill’s demise and figure out it was the lightning strike that did him in.
They come to the disturbing realization that the only way to kill Drill is after he’s taken a child. Claire has an ugly cry complete with tormented scream before she says, “Frommer can never know about this.” You think?
In the very next scene, we see Frommer meeting with the President and telling him all about how Drill has to possess a child before they can kill him. What?!
Just when you think The Whispers has revealed most of Drill’s secrets, it pulls out a wildcard, entering the world of evil spirit possession (can you say The Omen?). The ho-hum of Drill being an alien needing to phone home for reinforcements is thrown on its butt with the realization that he can’t be killed without killing the child he inhabits. Monday nights just got more interesting with a moral dilemma thrown into the mix. Any bets on which child will be the sacrificial lamb? We’re hoping for Minx (that sounds so wrong), but our money’s on Henry because that would make for a super tragic, tear-jerking, heartstring-pulling finale.
The Whispers airs Mondays at 10pm on ABC.
(Image courtesy of ABC)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
