Mike's Past in 'Candle Cove' Is Much Darker Than We Thought
As a kid, he did something very, very bad.
Syfy’s delightfully creepy new horror series, Channel Zero: Candle Cove just released a shocking revelation about its main character, Mike. Turns out, he’s much, much, much more screwed up than we thought. Let this be your spoiler warning:
Mike was the one who killed his twin brother, Eddie, back when they were kids.
We knew that Mike, played in a subtly off-putting manner by Paul Schneider, was deeply troubled by the events of his childhood. It seemed, though, like that was damage that had been done to him, and he was a nominal hero in this ghost story. Even in the beginning of this episode, he comes back to his Iron Hill hometown even though he’s clearly disturbed by it out of a sense of duty. He wants to save children like Katie — who gored her brother with a hook — from the same fate he suffered. How noble of him … maybe.
As a brief upsetting flashback to Eddie lying on the grass with a similar hook hanging from his bleeding heart hints, Mike knows that particularly gruesome fate very well. After Mike finds Eddie’s body, he’s motivated to tell his mother the truth.
Eddie's body.
The tone-deaf confession shows just how unwell and deep into Candle Cove madness Mike really is. He’s telling his mom that he killed her other son, but seems confused that she’s hung up on a little fratricide, rather than the fact that somebody moved Eddie’s body after he buried it. That, admittedly, is creepy, but it’s understandable that his mom has more pressing concerns.
As we saw with Katie, Candle Cove can compel children to do unspeakable things. Mike was almost certain driven to kill by the show, but there’s still something deeply creepy about just how calmly he’s disassociated himself from the murder. The next episodes will hopefully explain what happened, and what Mike’s role in it all was … and what it will be.
Also, what's going on here?
Hopefully, future episodes will also explain what the deal is with that frickin’ Tooth Child, since it came back on Tuesday night. Even the characters in this show know that teeth, even if they’re not in the form of some terrifying dental monster, are scary as all hell.
