Syfy’s Channel Zero
Season 2, Episode 3: “Beware the Cannibals”
Directed by Steven Piet
Written by Don Mancini & Erica Saleh

* For a recap & review of the previous episode, “Nice Neighborhood” – click here
* For a recap & review of the next episode, “The Exit” – click here
Jules (Aisha Dee) keeps seeing the room with huge, white, semi-translucent orb. She touches it and something all but reaches out. She flashes back to her childhood briefly. Then, nearby, her sister grows out of the memories in one of those black pools we saw last episode. Last thing he sees is the thing in the orb, reaching out.
Jules and Seth (Jeff Ward) are both awake now, as the former wants to make sure Margot (Amy Forsyth) is safe. Speaking of Margot, she’s waking to another day at home with her father John (John Carroll Lynch), as well as a strange house. Her closet’s become like a hallway to… nowhere, or who knows. She closes it and heads out into the hallway, hearing her father talking to himself, practising his “Morning, Margo!” He has to seem like a real person, her real dad. Spooky.
Meanwhile, J.D. (Seamus Patterson) is burning in a fire, after his double killed him. All the eerie nastiness is lurking just beneath the surface. Like dad, and his cannibalism.
Our mysterious drifter is Dylan (Sebastian Pigott), husband to Lacey (Jess Salguerio). He has her strapped into a chair, trying to get her to remember her life. But in this house, there’s pictures of her and another man, married. Troubling. Is that part of the illusion of No-End House? Or, is Dylan the one feeling its illusory pull?
In the meantime, J.D’s double arrives to see Jules and Seth. Uh oh. I wonder if he’s a cannibal, too. I’m sure he is. That leads me to also wonder if he’ll try and kill/eat his original self’s friends.
The hardest part for Margot now is dealing with her father being back, how he left them, killing himself via allergy. She talks about how death feels distant until it’s there, before your eyes. She wonders how it felt, what he was thinking, everything. Then she finds mom’s face in the garbage. Suddenly, her memories of her mother have no face. Margot wants to go for a walk, but dad won’t let her. Instead she goes to her room, terrified. She can’t get out of there, either. The windows are sealed, they won’t even break. She’s trapped in that house. Afterwards he admits that what he eats is in the trash, he thinks it’ll make him “lose control.” And this means he must be fed, some other way.
At the empty home, J.D. version 2 is talking with Seth and Jules, trying to figure out where the No-End House has gone. But Jules needs to make sure Margot is okay first.
When John goes nuts, it prompts Margot to go into her closet. When she pushes through the clothing she’s underwater, swimming up to the surface. And after a moment, she emerges from the pool in the yard, as dad watches from the window. Margot runs down the street, only finding odd people. Then J.D. the 2nd, Jules, and Seth watch John chase his daughter, fighting violently with a neighbour before jamming the hose into the guy’s face, blood spurting everywhere.
Margot runs into a nearby school, looking for refuge in its dark halls. She only finds a woman shushing her endlessly who falls to the floor, repeating something similar to Russian. In fact, there seems to be Russia everywhere. She runs deeper into the building, where she meets Jules. They hide from John in a classroom. Soon, Seth and J.D. start making noise, which sends the father to investigate. For now, Margot’s safe.

“You know when you loose a tooth, and you, like, push your tongue in the spot where it used to be? There‘s this mother-shaped hole in my brain. I mean, I know I have a mother, but I can‘t remember anything about her. It‘s like he took the memory and ate it.”

Lacey’s husband (Sean Skene) arrives at home to find his wife tied to a chair, Dylan pointing a gun. But this husband is tough. Until he has a knife planted in his neck. A gruesome scene, as she watches him die. Her supposedly real husband tells her not to worry, it’s not real. Down the road, Seth and Margot see what they believe is “the edge of the world” – on the horizon is an inky, cloud-like formation, dark and shadowy. This is the border of the No-End House’s dreamworld, whatever that means. In a clearing at the middle of the border, it looks like the No-End House standing in the distance.
On the streets, Jules is searching for Margot. So is the father; and he’s hungry. When Margot and Seth go to her, John’s coming, too. They have to flee. They go into a house’s garage, discovering a hole in the floor where they might drop dad inside unknowingly, like a pitfall for a bear in the woods. While he tries apologising to Margot, she understands he’s essentially feeding off her memories, even just as he talks, let alone his dietary habits. For now, they manage to let dear ole dad slip away into the hole under the garage.
When the friends get back to their hideaway, they find Dylan. He explains a bit more about the No-End House, what’s happening, the hungry memories. People in the neighbourhood rambling, they’ve been inside too long. The message from the wall in No-End House “Beware the Cannibals” becomes very clear to them all. He says some people aren’t “ready to leave.” Such as his wife Lacey. He wants to get her back to the real world, hoping it’ll fix her. The No-End House moves, to stay out of sight long enough people become “so hollow” they forget to even look anymore.
How will they escape?
During the night, Jules has more visions of the orb, of whatever’s inside. She dreams of her family, her sister. Suddenly there are several black pools around her, growing. Holy shit. That’s not all. The second J.D. is picking his skin off, he’s falling to pieces. This also makes me wonder, is Seth also a double, a cannibal? The way he asks J.D. if he’s “falling apart already” and how he looks next to Margot in bed certainly makes it seem that way.
Another fantastic episode, this season is exceeding expectations. Just can’t wait for more macabre, unsettling plot. “The Exit” comes next week.