Maxine reveals to Barbie her nefarious goings-on: All of a sudden at the cement factory there is a black market with a little fight-club action going on, where people barter away their batteries and salt for booze and eggs and a little piece of the action, of guys bare-knuckling each other while the occasionally upstanding members of Chester's Mill place bets.
Seriously, this has sprung up in just a couple of days and is packed, but none of the main cast know anything about it, even the people like Linda and Junior, whose job it is to know. When Junior catches wind of it, he hilariously undertakes an ill-conceived undercover mission and is soundly rebuffed because the bouncer knows who he is and knows he's a cop, after all (what with there being only a couple hundred people in Chester's Mill, three-quarters of whom are letting their bets ride on some buff dude with the eye of the tiger).
But Maxine didn't bring Barbie here just to boast; she wants him to fight, against some guy he collected from once. Since she's holding over his head the Julia-boner-killer revelation that Barbie killed Dr. Shumway, Barbie fights, but he throws the fight. Except Maxine knew he'd try to screw her (figuratively), so she bet against Barbie, even though she's the house and doesn't really need to do that.
Meanwhile, Big Jim goes out in search of Maxine's insurance policy, which leads him to a house on an island owned by Maxine's legitimate real-estate company. There he finds Mare Winningham, who we learn in short order is Maxine's mother, and the two of them have a grudge against Chester's Mill for ostracizing Mare (named Agatha at first, but is actually Claire) when she became pregnant at 16 with Maxine. Big Jim quickly realizes that Claire — with her knowledge of every detail of Maxine's dealings — is the insurance policy, and he kidnaps her to bring her back to the mainland. Her ill-advised escape attempt involves her jumping into the water, hands bound and all, from his boat. Big Jim realizes that letting her drown would solve the problem he has, and he leaves her screaming in the water. But come on, you're not bringing in Mare Winningham and then leave her to die but not actually see her to die. She's still alive and she'll be back.
Linda and Julia keep digging into the Rapture thing, with Linda discovering that yes, Duke was a part of it, but his part was to be involved so that Maxine would keep Rapture and all other drugs out of Chester's Mill. That raises the question of why people in Chester's Mill are suddenly going crazy for the shit, but whatever. And their investigation takes them to the safe-deposit room of a local bank, where Julia finds her husband's insurance policy…
…so that when Barbie comes home from Fight Club and confesses — presumably to negate the power Maxine has over him — to killing her husband, she's already figured it out, due to the absence of her husband's gun, but no bullets. She's already figured it out: her husband provoked Barbie into killing him so she'd clean up on insurance. Too bad the local economy is salt-based after a goddamn week.
Oh, and Junior is the fourth hand. Because of course he is.
Daniel is a writer in Newfoundland with a wife and a daughter. First Rob Lowe is really mean to Mare Winningham, and now this. Follow him on Twitter (@DanMacEachern) or email him at danieljdaniel@gmail.com.
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The Seizure Triplets are sleeping in the barn around the mini-dome, oblivious to the caterpillar crawling around on it (or in it, as it turns out), until Norrie wakes up and notices, with approval, that Joe has tethered their wrists together to prevent him from sleepwalking. She’s almost too freaked out when she sees the caterpillar (given the dome comes with a hefty helping of forest dirt) but wakes the other two to show them. It’s Joe who points out that the caterpillar is the kind that turns into a monarch butterfly, and we remember that Julia is the one who heard "the monarch will be crowned." His resolve to not tell anyone else about where the mini-dome is doesn’t even last a day, because he wants to bring Julia in on it, figuring she’s the fourth hand. The girls are more skeptical, given that Julia hasn’t had any seizures -- Note: not that they know about -- so they decide to just go around finding out who’s been having seizures, I guess. (After they all put their hands on the dome for the cool little light show).
So off they go… only Dodie is apparently watching them and she immediately goes into the barn after they leave and pulls the blanket off the suspiciously dome-shaped object in the middle of the barn. (And it’s not like those stupid kids even came up with a blanket that covered the whole damn thing anyway).
Speaking of Julia, she’s coming downstairs in her home to find a note, presumably from Barbie, that says "BACK LATER" and weighted down with a coffee cup so it doesn’t blow around from the gale force kitchen winds.
Barbie has gone over to Big Jim’s place to talk about Max. "Sounds like someone’s not too happy to see her yesterday," says Jim, who admits that Maxine is "a piece of work." They dance around finding out how each other knows her, but neither is talking. They do agree, though, that something needs to be done, but they need to get rid of her supposed insurance policy first. As to where it would be, Barbie thinks Maxine’s too smart to keep it at the house she’s staying at, and Big Jim tells him about the legitimate real-estate company she’s got, the Osiris Corporation, which has a few houses in Chester’s Mill. Big Jim decides to mosey over to the town clerk’s office, where they’ll have records of which houses they are, but Barbie doesn’t trust him to go alone, figuring Big Jim will just bury his own secrets. "You think I’d screw you over?" says Big Jim. "You’re a used-car salesman, Jim," says Barbie. Big Jim doesn’t react with anger to the insult or point out that Barbie isn’t exactly Captain Ethics 2013, but says Barbie can come along.
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