A show about nothing. (Spoilers)

After watching the first episode of Silent Hill: Ascension I understand why I have yet to watch Silent Hill: Ascension.

If you don’t know the basics of Silent Hill: Ascension, the show is billed as an interactive story driven by viewer choices. Players take part in puzzles and mini-games that give them influence points and let them vote on outcomes, and each scene is livestreamed on a daily basis until the end of the week when it’s all wrapped up in a nice bow and broadcast as a full episode. There’s a chat so people can shit up what might otherwise have a chance at being a show with serious undertones and losers can let the world know that mommy and daddy didn’t give them enough attention. Oh and the website gives you the option to create a really ugly looking avatar with very limited options with contests that include a potential cameo.

As I’m writing this piece there are seven chapters and the show has been on hiatus for the last few weeks. The fact that the fandom wiki only has a summary for episode 1 tells me everything I need to know about this show’s fanbase. Chapter 8 is set to premiere later this month so I need to catch up.

Chapter 1 is less than an hour long but it took me over two hours to watch, namely because I found a few other things I’d rather be doing in that time frame. Preparing dinner, cooking dinner, eating dinner, showing memes to my roommate. Checking on the snowstorm outside, checking on the wind outside, and checking on the new towels I bought from Target earlier today before the snowstorm hit. It’s not that I’m naturally inclined to dislike Silent Hill Ascension, it’s just that the show is boring, confusing, and meandering in its first episode. I did pause it whenever I left the room however.

I know enough about Silent Hill to think that I understood the premise of the show. Silent Hill is all about people fighting monsters in a place called Silent Hill, but those monsters are equal parts analogous to the mental trauma of the game’s protagonists and equal parts just spooky monsters. For example Pyramid Head, probably the most recognizable dude next to Silent Hill’s sexy nurse monsters, represents James’ inner desire for punishment. Also he’s a big dude with a buster sword who will murder you to death, and doesn’t respond well to bullets.

The A plot of Silent Hill Ascension, that I’m calling the A plot not because it’s more important but because it starts first, follows Norwegian farmer Karl whose wife Ingrid is bedridden and also a miserable bitch. She spends the first part of the episode being nasty and berating the family, calling her grandson Orson useless and stupid despite the kid being like seven years old. We learn that she’s a miserable old hag because she’s dying of some condition and then she dies. Karl’s daughter Astrid comes upon a syringe of morphine and the police suspect that Karl may have had a hand in euthanizing her. How the community votes will determine how well Karl defends himself I guess.

Meanwhile in the B plot our main character is Rachel Hernandez. Rachel is a member of a religious cult in Hope’s Junction, Pennsylvania who gets into a bit of a pickle when a ceremony goes awry and the woman she’s trying to cleanse, Joy Cirelli, dies. Not only does she die, she gets murdered by a tentacle creature. Rachel sends her husband Eric to go deliver the news to Joy’s brother Toby, who gets drunk at the bar because alcoholism and trauma go together like peanuts and butter. Oh and there’s a C plot where Toby gets drunk and sees a vision of Joy who tells him to burn down the Foundation.

I don’t want to say that Silent Hill Ascension is dumb, but I want to say it’s really really dumb. There are enough concepts that are pretty easy to follow. The Blight is a bad thing, the Purifier is this strange deity the cult worships that they think will bring them to salvation. But then we get into the abstract, like how both Rachel and Karl see monsters walking around and barely acknowledge them. Karl will be running away from an armless flesh monster one minute and then about two seconds after it suddenly disappears be completely back to normal. It’s weird seeing monsters stalking the hallways and nobody really noticing them. Who are they for? Is this supposed to scare us or make us think people are at risk? Right now outside of the first monster in the opening minute, they all seem to be harmless apparitions and visions.

Which admittedly makes the scenes with monsters a whole lot less tense when you’re pretty confident they aren’t real. Also there’s the whole subplot with Rachel grabbing her family and going to the Foundation only to five minutes later freak out and grab her family and tell them they need to go back home. I forgot to mention the plot in the prior paragraphs. Rachel’s plot will evidently be the Foundation determining whether or not she was responsible for Joy’s death.

Oh wait, the episode starts with the physical embodiment of Joy being corrupted and murdered. I get it, so subtle. At the very least the monsters look pretty good so far. The voice acting is borderline laughable and goes perfectly with the wooden acting of the character models. It’s very obvious that this animation was pumped out very quickly so the creators could record multiple branches depending on what the players voted for, and I also get why it had to be that way. You can either have timely-delivered episodes with player choice or lose player interest in the downtime.

Is it good? Not particularly. Am I going to watch more of it? Sure, why not.

Chapter 2: “Blight”

We’re back for Chapter 2 of Silent Hill Ascension.

Karl is interrogated by the Norwegian police who reveal that he is free to go, as the autopsy revealed his wife died to complications from her illness. Astrid finds herself briefly in the demon world before being pulled back into the real world. Now that Karl is free of his boring subplot, we get the boring subplot of Astrid having child services called on her because she lost him in the big fog of ash floating from the sky. In a world where we cared about Astrid or Orson this might be interesting and tense, but we don’t.

Meanwhile Eva, Karl’s other daughter, comes to town. Eva convinces Karl to teach her how to shoot a gun setting her up to potentially be one of the few useful characters in this show. Karl finds a woman named Meta sneaking around his house and invites her inside for what will surely be a boring conversation.

Meanwhile Toby continues  to be haunted by what is either the spirit of his dead sister or maybe it’s part of the Withering or something. Xavier gets the idea that Toby could be recruited into the Foundation because he’s integral to stopping The Withering for some reason. In a world where Xavier commanded some presumption of knowledge and expertise these weird decisions might seem intriguing, but we don’t live in that world.

Over on Rachel’s side of the story, Rachel chose Krista to perform the ritual on her. Toby kicks in the door at the ritual and throws a Molotov cocktail in the corner of the room. The group is transported to the demon world. A demon monster shows up and attacks the group only for…it to turn out to be another vision. This show feels like a fetish genre for edging horror, always teasing but never pleasing.

You may notice I’m putting screenshots of women with mustaches, and that’s because there’s two side characters who are women with mustaches. I assume these are cameos of player avatars but I’m not completely sure. I’m not sure what’s worse, the game sticking in terrible player avatars or the possibility that they were created by the showrunners.

The only part of the episode that caught my attention was monsters showing up in the non-monster world. Is that plot progression? Nah, I’m probably just hallucinating like every character in this show.

Chapter 3: “Penance”

Everything we need to know about Silent Hill Ascension can be explained by the fact that the show still doesn’t have a Wikipedia page and doesn’t even have the kind of community that adds simple plot synopsis to the episodes on the Fandom website. The community has been all out on this show being written and performed by AI, and I can understand why. The alternative is admitting that Konami really cares so little about this IP that they let this be created and go to print.

Mette and Astrid have a full conversation with the cadence and smoothness of a bad Norwegian porno. Mette is discovered with morphine and Astrid immediately assumes she killed Ingrid because she’s a moron and can’t conceive of two people having a very common drug. It’s funny that Karl is keeping secret from Astrid that he saw something around the house the night Ingrid died, because he’s told basically everyone else in Norway. The bartender suggests a magical approach to protecting the house.

Olivia delivers the bad news that they’ve lost track of Ingrid’s body at the morgue. On a completely unrelated note, the fundraiser bbq rib dinner is happening the following week. Karl continues his descent into becoming bananas cray cray and becomes increasingly paranoid that there are monsters attacking his home, probably because of the monsters attacking his home. He’s also convinced at this point that the town and police are all against them. He almost shoots a guy picking berries and then goes home. Jesus Christ.

Karl shoots and kills berries and cream man under the hallucination that he’s a monster. Eva starts talking like a psychopath. Then Karl calls the cops and both Eva and the berries and cream man disappear. Or maybe they were never there in the first place. Or maybe Eva is a figment of Karl’s imagination. And so is the berry man. Or maybe this is all written by AI and this is a continuity break.

Over in Pennsylvania, Rachel is propositioned by a stranger to give a drop of her blood for help finding Toby. The guy is also seeing the monsters in the fog and thinks Rachel’s blood will protect him. At least he didn’t ask for feet pics, or he probably did off-camera. Rachel asks Toby to join the Foundation and you’d think “wow, the guy who has dedicated his life to destroying the Foundation would surely never soften given his sister was murdered by that group like two days ago.”

You’d be wrong. Toby joins the Foundation. Faith is chosen as a needle bearer. Faith starts throwing a tantrum that her mom doesn’t play with her enough and slaps her, only to run into the basement. This is really stupid. The episode ends abruptly and with no cliffhanger, like they just cut the scene off mid-way. This whole show feels the lines are being improvised and then the scenes are being animated over that. Scenes are completely directionless, it never seems to be building up to anything, and there’s no structured cohesion. Like an AI is writing it line by line.

There weren’t any women with full beards, so that’s a plus.

Chapter 4: Severance

My opinion on Silent Hill Ascension hasn’t changed. Actually it has, I’m feeling a little better about it because this episode was thirty minutes instead of 45-50.

I wanted to know why mustache lady showed up with the detective to Astrid’s house to explain that Ingrid’s body was found desecrated, but then I compared the screenshots and realized that it was a completely different but very identical looking cameo person. Another reminder that the user-created models in this show suck, which makes it all the more obvious how pathetic the monetization in it is. Astrid and Orson head out to find a good place to bury Ingrid as though they haven’t faced paranormal danger every single time they’ve left the house for the last week. Meanwhile demons play ding dong ditch with Karl.

Astrid gets chased by a spooky demon before being confronted by an even spookier demon; child services. She gets hold of some high power homeopathic medicine which she refuses to take despite consistent hallucinations. Karl gives Ingrid’s family ring to Mette and the two of them start smoochin despite Astrid being against the idea of Mette getting the ring. Mette is Ingrid’s sister which I never really considered her relation to the family up until now. I actually thought she was Karl’s sister.

On Toby’s side, he joins the Foundation in order to destroy it from within. Xavier sends him to the steel mill and Toby naturally gets drunk before going. The spooky rust world gives Toby a “blight fetish,” aka a rusted wrench and he goes back to demand Xavier haul in Rachel so he can shove it up her ass. Xavier meanwhile explains that Toby is the source of the Withering that is destroying the town and possibly the world, and suggests he eat shit and die hard for the betterment of humanity. A couple guys whoop Toby’s ass on the street and he looks in a window to see how others see him; as a spooky monster. Seems like the hallucinations are spreading.

If you played a drinking game on how many times Toby drunkenly says sorry this episode, you’d be dead or as drunk as Toby. It’s still amazing how little people react to the reality of vivid visual and auditory hallucinations.

Chapter 5: “Vanished”

Silent Hill Ascension has hit a level with me where I’m still watching just to see where the story could possibly be going.

Toby, who has spent the last few episodes absolutely despising the Foundation and blaming them for the death of his sister and actually joined them to destroy them from the inside is now willing to sacrifice himself because the Foundation told him he was a source of demon evil. Truly nobody has any consistent personality in this show. Toby lets the Foundation kill him in order to stop the Withering because they told him to. The guy who knows the Foundation tricks people into ruining themselves for its probably evil goals.

We are five episodes into what is supposed to be a 24 episode series, so I’m fairly certain that killing Toby isn’t actually going to stop the Withering like they thought. Rachel asks Xavier what happens next and he doesn’t have the heart to tell her a lot of really boring, emotionless dialogue. Faith disappears from the room because every child in this show has the inexplicable power of silent departure.

Meanwhile on Karl’s side of the show, he gets caught attempting to bone down with Mette. Astrid gives a eulogy where she says what we’ve all been thinking; that Ingrid was a miserable bitch and everyone is better off with her dead. Orson disappears at the funeral and Astrid continues to hallucinate her mom. For some reason Astrid thinks the hallucination of her mom can tell her where her son is.

Astrid’s mom gives her what I assume is another blight fetish. Rachel has a heart to heart with a random dude about how her cult might not be as benevolent as she thinks. Then the dude has his face ripped off by a demon dog. Eva is inexplicably back and the show has essentially confirmed that she is a figment of Karl’s imagination. A surprising amount of subtlety from this show given how she hangs out in the background and nobody other than Karl acknowledges her.

Toby is a great example of why I find this show so mesmerizing in its shoddiness. Is Toby’s complete 180 in motivation and character traits the result of the AI writer not being able to string together multiple scenes and keep characters consistent? Or is it supposed to be a show of how competently manipulative the Foundation is as a cult but also just really poorly written?

The Tubi recordings are finally referencing cameo characters, who are now relegated to background non-speaking roles barely in focus on camera.

Chapter 6: “Fractured”

If there’s one thing Silent Hill Ascension loves it’s characters ignoring the spooky demons they saw and spooky demons appearing only for the viewer’s benefit. If there’s another thing Silent Hill Ascension loves it’s characters experiencing time jumps. Astrid and Karl come back home to discover that while they think they’ve been searching for a couple of hours at most, they’ve actually been missing for three days. The cops show up to inform them that since Orson has been missing for more than 72 hours, that there is probably little hope of finding him alive.

Karl and Mette kiss and bone down because Karl’s wife died and as her sister-in-law Mette is basically the next best thing. Also Karl is drunk. Astrid meanwhile is dealing with a demon prank phone caller who poses as Brit and accuses her of hurting Orson, threatening to go to child services. They also imitate Orson who explains he’s at the ice palace hotel. Astrid shows up at the meeting place and incriminates herself by shouting like a nutcase at Brit and proclaiming she doesn’t hurt her child, a calling card of child abusers everywhere.

Brit doesn’t have Orson, but now she’s pretty sure Astrid had something to do with his disappearance.

Meanwhile Rachel showcases just how stupid the characters in this show are. In one scene she says that the Foundation failed her and failed to keep Faith safe, given her child too has been missing for several days. And then in the next scene she is suggesting they go to Xavier for help finding Faith, because he’s the only one who can help them. We learn that Xavier has disappeared since the ritual and hasn’t been answering his phone, but given nobody in this series answers their phone it’s not that concerning. Rachel suddenly becomes ultra-devoted to the Foundation because the writers are idiots. Or AI.

This may be crappy writing or it may be intentional but I did laugh when Krista looks right past Rachel and asks Eric if he’s okay. If that shade is intentional it may be the best written line in the series. Xavier eventually shows up in a catatonic state and refuses to answer questions, although he does have a letter that puts Krista in charge of the Foundation and casts serious shade on Rachel calling her untrustworthy, unfaithful, and noting what a lazy asshole she is for bringing store-bought macaroni salad to the Foundation picnic. Maybe Krista wrote it. We’ll probably never know because this show doesn’t explain shit.

Oh and I just realized something; the Foundation failed Rachel and made her question her commitment, by losing track of her daughter. Faith. The Foundation killed Joy and lost Faith.  Rachel is told to never lose hope. Hope is probably going to be the name of a character we’ll meet next season. Krista meanwhile is clearly coming on to Eric for some reason. Perhaps they can go find somewhere warmer to look for Faith, like between her thighs.

We’ll have to wait until the next episode to see if they bone down however, and there’s only one left before we catch up to the hiatus. We’ll see what happens, and I’m guessing it won’t be interesting.

Chapter 7: “Qualms”

The bearded woman returns. Astrid is hauled off for a psychological examination and is officially a suspect in Orson’s disappearance, on account of his glove making its way attached to her tire. There’s really no sense of telling time in this show because the scene shifts straight from Astrid being hauled to the hospital to her at the police station being cleared for release, but then later she explains that the time at the hospital was terrible because the orderlies kept trying to force her to take pills. I don’t even think the showrunners could explain how much time has passed over the course of this series.

Astrid comes to the worst realization any woman can have; no, not that her son may be dead. That she’s becoming like her mother.

Rachel continues yelling at a catatonic old man. This show really has the worst buildup and release of tension. Monster roaches come into the room and start crawling all over Xavier and then when Rachel yells at them to go away…they do. Krista gets dragged away by a spooky demon monster because the rust world monsters can be tangible and dangerous when they really want to be. No wait, Krista shows up later at the Foundation building unharmed like nothing happened.

Mette shows up at Astrid’s work and says that she’s taking shifts at the hospital because it’s chronically understaffed, a nod to the fact we never see anyone else at the hospital. I didn’t know Mette was a nurse, and I’m sure this hasn’t been brought up before. Brit drags Karl to alcoholics anonymous to wring his ass out in front of a crowd, while Karl hallucinates monsters in the room who walk around while only Karl can see them and they pose no threat and provide absolutely no tension.

Eric and Xavier meet each other in the rust world and Eric gives a pep talk to Xavier to bring him out of his catatonic state. He saves Xavier from the mist world and returns him to his body in the real world I guess. Eric briefly gets his ass whooped by one of the armless demon monsters before also coming back to the real world. Xavier thanks Krista for taking over in his absence, although we don’t really know how long that was because nothing happened and all of this is stupid and ridiculous.

Barbara returns to the Foundation with a book and explains that either Rachel or Eric must sacrifice an eye in order to save their daughter. Like a good mother, Rachel refuses to do it. Astrid calls the police to confess that she thinks she killed her son and may be a danger only to fight the police officer and refuse to accept being arrested. Rachel and Astrid find themselves sharing the rust world as both are looking for their kids at the same time I guess. Rachel explains to Astrid that if she doesn’t come with her the monsters will kill them.

I don’t know about that, I saw one kick the crap out of Eric just a few minutes ago and he turned out fine. But the big question is; are Orson and Faith still alive? Is Eva real? Will Rachel and Astrid make it out of the demon world safe? Does anyone except me care at this point? Tune in to find out.

Chapter 8: “Vision”

Let’s get back into it.

The characters of Silent Hill Ascension are slowly starting to understand what’s going on in the world, that the rust world full of spoopy monsters is more of a cross-worlds where people to go experience their self-inflicted punishment for past sins. Astrid and Rachel briefly meet one another in the rust world and kinda save each other but as always get away  for some reason the show doesn’t bother to explain. Actually Eric starts to break the fourth wall by channeling the audience and demanding to know how Krista managed to get away without a scratch from the rust world when he literally saw her get dragged away from a monster.

“I care about you,” he says referring to script coherency. “I can’t explain,” she says, because the script writers haven’t come up with an explanation either.

Meanwhile Astrid has been cleared of suspicion in Orson’s death as Helgen has been suspended from the case. Isn’t it great how everyone’s investigations end abruptly and with no plot thread or payoff? Astrid goes to find Helgen in the Ice Palace who naturally refuses to answer any of her questions. Britt enters the bar only to be kicked out by the bartender who accuses her of destroying a couple of tables, I assume an implication that the Withering continues to screw with reality. She denies the claim and in defiance of him banning her from the premises, leaves.

Meanwhile on the Pennsylvania side, Rachel is becoming suspicious of Eric given he pledged his devotion to Krista and those two (Rachel and Krista) need to have hate sex if they’re going to work this workplace tension out. She also can’t get that strange Norwegian woman she saw during her trip to the demon rust world out of her head, and those are words I wrote on a website. Rachel explains that one of them is going to have to give up an eye for a ritual that she knows will definitely work, despite Eric pointing out that literally zero percent of the rituals have worked up to this point.

Eric really is a stand-in for the audience right now.

Karl and Eva get accosted by people in town, and once again I’m pretty sure Eva is a figment of Karl’s imagination because it doesn’t look like the trio acknowledge her presence nor do they directly interact. They are both yanked into the rust world  as is common when people start feeling immense guilt. Only something starts attacking the spoopy demons with fireballs, and you know what? The show has my interest now. The monsters continue to be the best looking part of this show.

Eva tells him “you need to let me go,” and disappears into the fog. How long ago did Eva die that nobody else mentions her even in memory? Or did she ever exist? Is she the Purifier in disguise? Did Karl kill her? Maybe she is Pyramid Head!

Rachel tears her eye out in a ritual and shockingly it doesn’t accomplish anything except to ensure she’ll never be able to fully enjoy Avatar 3 in 3D. Xavier and crew burst in and remind her what a stupid moron she is before letting her know that a tribunal will now discuss the consequences of her acting a fool and performing unapproved rituals. Mette reveals that she has been euthanizing people at the hospital, which is why she’s insistent on Karl leaving with her. I saw a theory way back in episode 3 that Mette probably killed Ingrid and I’m pretty sure that’s where we’re headed.

Nils shows up at the Ice Palace and invites Astrid to be on his podcast so they can talk about how the Withering was created in a lab in China. Krista shockingly comes to Rachel’s defense at the tribunal, only for Rachel to announce she’s leaving. She tells Xavier to shove their sacred texts up his ass, probably still mad that the whole “sacrifice your eye for sight” thing didn’t work out. And that’s where the episode ends.

I’ve noticed that the Fandom Wikipedia page for this isn’t even being updated anymore and makes no mention of chapter 8’s existence.  I truly am the only person left on earth writing commentary about this show. I’m not confident the showrunners are bold enough to murder children for shock value, so it’s only a matter of time before Orson and Faith show back up or get “lost to the fog” in a nonviolent way. Rachel needs to find her Faith so this stupid analogy can finally reach its conclusion. Or she needs to sacrifice herself in the name of Faith so Eric can have his daughter back and bang Krista and inexplicably have a daughter who looks like Rachel.

My screenshots for this week’s episode were taken from the Ascension app because they haven’t uploaded it to Tubi yet. My favorite cameo character looks like the star of a Spanish soap opera. Is anyone else still following this show?

Chapter 9: “Deceit”

Xavier sure does give good speeches for a guy who is always wrong about literally everything. In this week’s chapter he proposes a merging ceremony between Krista and Eric. It involves a merging of the physical forms so that the minds can be fuller together and fight off the demons or something. What it means is that Xavier wants to get his camcorder and film Eric and Krista having sex. In order to finish the ceremony Eric is also expected to drop a load of his merger juice on the small of Krista’s back.

Karl announces that he’s going to support his daughter and the search for her son the only way he knows how; he’s going to abandon them both so he can move somewhere warm and perform a merging ceremony with Mette and perhaps their spiritually big booty Latina maid on a ritual beach with vodka drinks.  Unfortunately his conscious gets the better of him and he tells her to get off Vent or he’ll have her bent and sends her away for the whole “euthanizing patients” thing. They are both pulled into the fog and Mette is apparently killed by that artillery monster in the rust world.

Rachel, who still inexplicably hasn’t bandaged over her face or applied some salve, gets visited by a missionary from the Foundation while spoopy dogs crawl around her yard. The guy gets mauled by dogs outside out of sight so they don’t have to animate it. Olivia shows up to reveal that she’s been fired from the force. She says she thinks Orson is alive and she might know how to find him. She also thinks her daughter is alive because the fog is driving everyone in town crazy.

Eva is back, explaining that she thinks the monsters killed her mother. She decides to go Rambo on the monsters so we can understand even less how the demons in this world work. In episode 14/15 Rachel finally bandages her friggin eye. Faith shows up at the house and explains that Rachel has been tasked by the Purifier with a holy mission. She needs to watch her daughter and keep her safe. A seemingly simple concept, but one that Rachel has screwed up horribly so far so let’s not assume the best.

Krista agrees to the merging ritual because she’s curious what Eric can do with that mouth. Suddenly seeing Eric stricken with doubt, she goes off to collect her merging ritual lubricant as well as some champagne and a porno to get them both in the mood. And that’s where the episode ends, with Eric ready to bang his co-worker behind his wife’s back with the free pass that it’s for the safety of his own daughter. An excuse many men have tried to use before and the first to have potential to succeed.

See you next week, dweebs.

Chapter 10: “Regret”

Silent Hill Ascension is an exercise in frustration, like how many times characters can hear the voices or see the visage of a loved one, follow it, not find anyone, but still presume the person was actually there.

Meanwhile on Karl’s side, he returns home with Eva to look through his window and see…himself. He shoots two times into the room at something off camera and probably doesn’t destroy anything. Evan continues her weird gaslighting of Karl and tells him “it takes a monster to kill a monster.” Eva walks off with plans to kill the monsters despite being unarmed and a five foot one little girl whose weight is predominately in her sweatshirt. I’m not sure what her plan is.

Olivia and Astrid look for their kids, and what I assume is a player choice Astrid backs her up that she saw her child but it was really a monster. Astrid acknowledges that the monsters are starting to spoop more people and can change their looks to confuse people. She doesn’t state that the monsters are prone to not doing anything even when kicking the shit out of people or carrying them off into the darkness.

Meanwhile on the other end of the world, Krista and Eric discuss Eric stuffing his ritual salami into Krista’s I’m not sure what metaphor to use here. Unlike Rachel who was willing to sacrifice an eye in order to find her daughter, Eric is not willing to bang his coworker to do the same. What a bad husband. Incidentally, Faith confirms that Rachel’s sacrificial ritual did work in order to find her, so maybe Eric should take Krista to spiritual pound town.

Eric fantasizes about popping Krista’s taco, and Krista asks if he thinks Rachel would do the same thing for him which probably causes Eric to think about Rachel and Krista banging. Maybe the two of them can do the ritual and he can watch, and film it, for instructional purposes of course. Nothing perverted. After being told that the Purifier will kill her if she loses Faith, Rachel takes the next logical step and agrees to her daughter’s recommendation of hide and seek. She then suggests they sleep in separate rooms.

Xavier is pissed that Eric won’t do the merging ceremony with Krista, especially since he just got back from the store with new batteries for the secret camcorder and a new pack of tapes. He explains that Eric not only has to do a merging ceremony with Krista, but a merging ceremony with everyone. It was only a matter of time before the cult had a gangbang, and Eric is going to be the center of the ceremony. Silent Hill Ascension is going to transform into hardcore porn so gradually nobody will notice. Mostly because they’re not watching it.

The running theory has finally been confirmed, as we learned that Eva was in fact a figment of Karl’s imagination this whole time. Turns out Eva was a murderer who killed several people because she was mentally ill and was abused by Ingrid. Karl admits that he screwed up before confronting the mortar monster. He splodes the monster, apparently coming to terms with his past and we see a “Karl is redeemed” message on screen. Karl takes a boat to anywhere but here, assuming his daughter will conclude he died. I’m sure that’ll work great.

The real Eva being his daughter who disappeared fifteen years ago. Rachel wakes up with Faith putting a knife to her throat, who explains she was having a bad dream and Faith wants to “cut the bad dreams out.” Faith is attacked by demon doggos and begs her mom not to leave her, to which Rachel promptly says “good luck, idiot” and books it out of the house the Purifier said it would kill her if she left, leaving her daughter behind. And that’s where the episode ends.

So where does that leave us? Rachel is presumably going to die, Faith is presumably already dead. Karl is going away, and I assume the showrunners just forgot about Orson. There’s a dude who appears to be manipulating the world like a weird David Lynch character, and Xavier really wants the cult to run train on Eric’s bussy. This is all canonical. The show’s audience is clearly mostly bots at this point, given the YouTube channel is getting fewer views than I do per-video.

Konami is going to have to do something really stupid with the Silent Hill franchise to top this mess.