'Cult' Season 1, Episode 3: 'Being Billy' Recap

‘Cult’, season 1, episode 3, ‘Being Billy’

In the show within the show, Billy Grimm ties a woman to a car, and parks the car on a set of train tracks. He’s upset by her betrayal, so as a train comes, he exits the car, leaving her behind. The train destroys the car.

Outside the show, three men recreate the scene, and kidnap a woman. They tie her into a car, put her on the train tracks, and play the pre-recorded Billy dialog. She struggles to get free as the train approaches. The train turns out to be them in their car. They jump out, with their camera, and laugh. The girl inside, Jill, was in on it as well, and had a blast.

In the fan_dom_ain, Jeff waits for E.J., who he had asked to hack his brother’s email. She says that his entire email account was wiped the day he was kidnapped.

In the studio, Peter shows Skye a symbol that the mysterious Steven demanded be added to the set. She recognizes the symbol from the before. Jeff calls, and Skye tells him about the symbol, and how it was never used in the show before. Jeff tells Skye that he found his brother logged into his email that morning, and Nate sent out a mass email with an ambiguous message.

At a college party, we see Jill and the boys again all thanking Laura for her awesome game of “Being Billy”. She says she wasn’t responsible for this time, and it must have been Nate, since she’s the only one with the list of players.

Outside the party, Jill gets a pre-recorded message from Billy who tells her she’s next. As she hangs up, she gets run down by a car and dies.

When Jeff returns to Nate’s apartment, he finds Laura there digging through Nate’s stuff. She tells him she has a key and that she used to live there, being Nate’s girlfriend. She tells Jeff they were together for a year, but she hasn’t seen him in over a month because they fought all the time. And because of the game they ran, “Being Billy”.

Jeff and Skye visit the campus, assuming Nate must be around in order to run the game. They happen upon the shrine built for the recent victim Jill, filled with Cult memorabilia.

In the show within the show, Kelly’s partner asks if she knows a Libby, the woman who was killed by the train, and she reveals that Libby was very close to Billy.

Outside the Cult studios, Kirstie awaits Billy Grimm/Roger, who invited her to the set for the day.

Jeff and Skye go to Laura’s apartment, and talk to Carrie, her roommate. She tells them about Laura being too wrapped up in the game. Laura reveals that people suspect Nate is responsible for Jill’s death.

Jeff is forwarded an email from Nate’s account addressed to Laura, asking her to meet him alone in a basement classroom. So, naturally Jeff and Skye go investigate it, but no one is there. Instead, they find the props from the last “Being Billy” game, in addition to a hard drive. Jeff concludes it wasn’t an accident. As they are there, he gets another email from Nate, indicating another game of “Being Billy” is starting.

On set, Kirstie and Roger get hot and heavy.

Jeff and Skye go back to Laura’s apartment, and Carrie lets them in. She says Laura ran out and most students are fleeing campus so they don’t get killed. They plug the hard drive they found into Laura’s laptop, and it only contains a video file; a clip from “Cult” mixed with the scenes of Jill’s “Being Billy” game and her death. A set of numbers flash on the screen, and Skye thinks it might be a date. Then the film continues to show video of Laura, and then another set of numbers, indicating Laura is the next victim.

On the show-within-a-show, Kelly confronts Billy about killing Libby because she was going to reveal where Billy was holding Kelly’s sister.

Skye focuses on the numbers, and with Jeff’s help, they realize they are time codes for scenes in episodes. They know that Laura is likely to be buried alive in a greenhouse, like the scene the code indicated.

They rush to the horticultural center to find Carrie in the process of burying Laura alive while filming it. Skye calls 9-1-1, but Carrie says if they hang up, she’ll tell them about Nate. He showed up a week before looking for Laura, and tweaking out about messages hidden in the show. He made contact. Carrie filmed herself killing Jill and attempting to kill Laura in order to become one of the True Believers.

Carrie hits Jeff with a shovel and flees.

On set, Roger bids Kirstie farewell, and she makes a call to a mystery person saying everything went to plan.

In his apartment, Jeff tells Skye that the police got Carrie’s laptop and confirmed that she hacked Nate’s email.

Then Skye shows Jeff some sound clips she edited, and revealed them to say “true believer” and “kill for us”. Jeff shakes his head in disbelief, saying you can find words in anything you’re looking for.

On the run, Carrie is picked up by a white van. She’s brought in by a man with a ‘cult’ tattoo on his arm. She’s happy they finally found her.