'Cult' Season 1, Episode 1 'You're Next' (Pilot) Recap

‘Cult’, season 1, episode 1, ‘You’re Next’ (Pilot)

“Cult” is a very interesting show, and it’s extremely hard to summarize and explain in just a few lines.

The way “Cult” is set up is it’s a show within a show. That is to say, while you are watching The CW’s “Cult”, the main characters in the show are also watching and/or starring in The CW’s “Cult”. Sound confusing? Well, it kind of is. But you quickly get used to it.

The show centers on Jeff Sefton, an ex-journalist who was fired from The Post for falsifying stories and sending 6 cops to jail. By doing so, he has Lost all credibility. He is contacted by his ex-junkie brother, Nate, and is begged to meet him in public. His brother explains that he made contact with the people behind the show, and now they’re after him. He fears that something’s going to happen to him, and, if anything does, his brother has to contact a woman named Merriam.

Later, Jeff gets a call from his brother, which is cut off. He goes to his brother’s house and can’t find him. Instead, his chair is covered in blood. The police are called, as an episode of “Cult” plays in the background. One of the detectives is weary of Jeff from the beginning, clearly not buying into this whole “Cult” thing.

Jeff decides to go to the set of “Cult”, and try and get some information. He’s turned away, but one production assistant, Skye, overhears him.

Skye has been put in charge of the fan response of the show. Earlier in the episode, she raises her concerns to the production team on just how… fanatic… these fans really are. (Just think “Lost” fans, times 10.)

She pulls Jeff aside and offers her help and insight.

Skye takes Jeff to the Fan_Dom_Ain, a bar/club/something for serious fans to gather and watch their favorite shows. This happens to be the place that Nate frequented, and a place where many “Cult” fans gather to meticulously dissect every frame of the show.

When they look around the admittedly creepy room, Jeff finds a picture of his brother cosplaying as “Cult” leader Billy Grimm, accompanied by a mysterious woman, cosplaying as Meadow… The kidnapped sister of “Cult” character Kelly Collins.

This brings up another point. There seems to be a parallel between the characters of “Cult” and the characters of the show within the show. Kelly Collins is an ex-cult member of Billy Grimm. She escaped and turned into a detective. Recently, Billy’s cult following seems to have kidnapped Meadow, Kelly’s sister. Jeff Sefton is turning into a detective to hunt down his brother Nate that was seemingly kidnapped by “Cult”’s cult following. You might have to read that a few times for it to sink in.

So, back to Jeff’s “Cult”, Skye locates a group that is LARPing (Live Action Role Playing) as characters from “Cult”, and they decide to pay them a visit. When they get there, most of the characters flee. They run inside of the building they were fleeing and find the woman from the picture, who happens to be Merriam. When Jeff asks her about his brother, she shoots herself in the head.

So, cue the police and the skeptical detective (Detective Sakelik) once again.

Jeff goes back to his brother’s house and looks through his belongings for some other clue. He finds a CD hidden amongst the junk, and recognizes it from an episode of “Cult”. So he calls Skye. She comes over and says that the CD in the show is used to take over a computer and send the contents of the hard drive to Billy Grimm’s cult… but she doesn’t know what happens next, as the script hasn’t been released yet.

So, Jeff puts the CD in. And it does exactly what Skye said it would. Several images from “Cult” flash on the screen, and he notices something is off. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pair of 3D glasses (that his brother happened to give him earlier that day), just like Kelly Collins did in the show, and notices an entry screen, waiting for the magic password. He enters the same message that everyone was saying on “Cult”, and in his real life.

Et Voila, his brother calls. Nate is very angry that Jeff is looking for him and tells him to get away while he still can. He says he doesn’t want to be found, and the call ends.

On the computer screen, Billy Grimm’s face appears and repeatedly says, “You’re next.”

So, then the end happens, which contains several hooks for upcoming episodes.

First: You see skeptical detective (Detective Sakelik) has a “Cult” tattoo. Or rather, a marking that appears in the show several times. Is she just a fan, or is she more than that?

Second: You see the TV Executive get kidnapped. I didn’t mention him in the rest of this little tale because he seemed extremely minimal, so we’ll see what the point of that was. Either way, the kidnappers drive away in a car that happens to appear on “Cult”. Coincidence? Probably not.

Final conclusion: This episode, being a pilot and all, is so packed full of information, that you will be lost for the first 20 or so minutes. Once you adjust to the format of the show (the show within the show), things will start to get easier.

If you like “The Following”, and you like “LOST”, and you love mysteries, you will probably like this show… but it’s really too early to tell. Fingers crossed it turns out to be good.