The Changeling Episode 8: Plot Summary and Review
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The Changeling
Episode 8
6.5
Where to Watch The Changeling?
The Changeling Episode 8 Plot Summary
The episode begins with a story of a Norwegian boat fleeing to America in 1825. 52 men and women fled, taking on an impossible journey. One that is impossible without help.
We jump back to Apollo and William. The creepy man has lost his mind, and it seems something bad is coming. Apollo rushes back to the puppet show and Cal. The buildings around him explode as if they were being hit by a mortar attack. The library and most of the buildings are destroyed. Greta, William’s Ex-wife, was killed in the attack.
Cal appears from the shadows, having survived the attack. She and Apool flee the village with the remaining women and children. The sounds of demonic voices fill the air. Apollo wishes to go attack the men, but Cal convinces him to stay quiet and retreat with them. The group moves quickly and quietly until they reach a cliff.
To reach the ocean, the group must lower themselves down the cliff face one by one. Nearly everyone makes it down the rope before the creatures hunting our group find them. The rope starts to give way and Cal nearly falls to her death. Apollo catches her, but then the rope is cut. Apollo hits the ground, but they both survive the fall.
The island has a massive boat, and the group climbs on board. Cal and Apollo stay behind to buy the others time. Cal sends Apollo out on the little creek boat to find Emma, staying behind to take out William and his friends.
Cal climbs back up the cliff and fights William. She wins, killing the evil man. She then jumps off the cliff, and we see a new constellation form. William’s body is dragged away.
The story flips back to Emma, who is in the forest of New York. The narrator reads the lines from “To The Waters & The Wild” as both Emma and Apollo fight to reach their destinations. Apollo lands on shore, exhausted. Emma finds a merry-go-round in the forest.
The episode ends with an individual walking down a creepy tunnel surveyed by Kinder-Garder, the group William belongs to, reaching a massive eye at the end.
The Changeling Episode 8 Review
And with that, season 1 of The Changeling comes to a close. Episode 8 puts some life back into the show after a terrible episode 7, but the short run time makes it difficult for the finale to accomplish much.
LaKeith Stanfield puts this show on the map, and he continues to carry it in this episode. I didn’t mind episode 8, but a runtime of 30 minutes is pathetic for a show that was consistently 40-60 minutes. The episode also feels short, running through events faster than they can come up.
There’s intrigue in this episode, things happen, and that’s definitely an improvement over episode 7. I enjoyed all of our characters getting some screen time, but it needed more. The runtime didn’t allow for Emma’s side of the story to develop much at all, and the ending felt rushed.
The scenes on the island were good, they further the plot of the Wise Ones and built up the fantasy elements that were missing in the show. Jane Kaczmarek was great as Cal and brought some balance to a character that was either really important or invisible depending on the episode.
The visuals were good and I liked the atmosphere this episode brought back. It started to feel like episodes 2,3, and 4, the high point of the season, but it was still lacking some juice. Episode 7 is the downfall of episode 8. It didn’t need to feel so rushed and thin, they had an entire 55-minute episode that they wasted.
Instead, episode 8 feels like a quick island escape paired with a trailer for season 2. There are no conclusions, nothing gets resolved, and I’m left with more questions than answers. We actually get introduced to more things as the episode comes to a close, which is usually fine and dandy as a cliffhanger for the next season, but it just doesn’t work when you don’t finish anything in your final episode.
Overall, The Changeling starts off fantastic. The atmosphere is great and the story is interesting. The show gets slightly worse as it reaches the back half, and then it takes a nose dive for the final two episodes. I really liked the characters and the plot, and I would welcome a season 2, but only if it resembles the start of this season and not the end. The Changeling might end up a weird meme if season 2 never comes based on the goofy way season 1 ends.