Shudder’s Slasher
4×03: “In Trust”
Directed by Adam MacDonald
Written by J.P. Larocque

* For a recap & review of 4×02, click here.
* For a recap & review of 4×04, click here.
We see a flashback of Seamus getting fucked in the ass when he’s interrupted by Spencer. They were supposed to be headed out hunting together. It was just more disappointment in the old man’s eyes. Back to present day, Jayden’s been drawn and quartered into bloody bits. The rest of the family are left shocked. Everyone wants to figure out what to do next. Liv suggests maybe it was only about Jayden, but why would anyone want to hurt him? Liv offers to lead a group back up to the boathouse while Grace refuses to leave her dead son; Seamus also stays behind with Grace. But Grace blames Seamus for her son’s death. In the woods, the rest of the family stay close together as Christy recounts the “creepy as fuck” masked figure. None of them realise Merle’s already been killed, so obviously he isn’t at the boathouse.
Worse, they have no cell service out there; Spencer always used a satellite phone.

The group get back to the house, safe for now. They’ve found the sat phone smashed up. Everybody’s scared and they’re all arguing. Florence accuses the “sham doctor” of being involved, since she showed up and people started dying. Christy doesn’t agree, which only gets Florence and Grace and others yelling. Dr. Trinh says the competition keeps going, despite the recent gruesome events. They’ve got to stick it out together. But Theo says the killer could actually be inside the house with them, so they ought to sleep as a group.
Later, Liv and Seamus talk alone together. She mentions her “birth father” and asks whether he knew about it. He calls the situation complicated, though that could probably be said about the family as a whole. Seamus tells Liv he never said anything about it because he and her mother “laid it to rest.” Whoa. Liv wonders why he never gave her any indication before, when she was younger. He thinks she’s probably just concerned about the money. The young woman simply wants connection with her family. Sadly Seamus isn’t quite the one to go to for bonding.
Grace is grieving when she gets a visit from Birgit. They bond over being women of colour amongst a rich, white world. They’ve obviously had tensions together over the years. Yet now these women are finding common ground, and perhaps that’ll keep them alive, at least for longer than they might survive otherwise. Meanwhile, Dr. Trinh has an axe for protection while she’s in the middle of this family of vipers, and she has to deal with Florence’s anger, which turns physical and almost ends with the doctor getting chopped with that axe. Florence chases the doc through the woods and threatens the woman. We get a proper look at Florence’s terrifying personality when she knocks Dr. Trinh into a wood chipper, turning the machine on and watching as the doctor turns into a red mist. Good lord! If Florence isn’t the actual killer, that means there are two killers on the island.
Plus, the game’s out of control. Dr. Trinh was running it for Spencer. Now, nobody’s running it.

Seamus admits to Christy that he’s Liv’s father. She was expecting him to admit to killing Jayden. Their relationship’s clearly not built on a great foundation, considering Seamus kept a very large secret from his wife. Flashback to Grace and Spencer with the family at their bougie dinner table. Spencer lamented his son’s lack of interest in hunting and his love of George Michael. There was a brief conversation about being gay, and it didn’t give Seamus any hopes of acceptance among his family. There was also an obvious disconnect between classes, when Grace complained about cold soup, likely gazpacho, then Seamus and Florence laughed at her.
Returning to present day, Spencer comes alive on the TV screen, surprising the family in the living room: “You look like you‘ve seen a ghost.” He taunts his son Seamus, then gets on to talking about the next game in the competition. He explains they’ll go to the basement, where they’ll have to prove themselves. After that the family’s curious about where Dr. Trinh has ended up, and, y’know, Florence isn’t going to admit to the murder. So they all head out to search the grounds. Vincent and Liv run into each other, talking about family and the potential inheritance. He apologises for what his family put Liv and her mother through. He says he hopes she’ll win if he’s not the one to get the money. He comes onto her hard and she tells him to fuck off; yikes.

The family stumble onto the remnants of Dr. Trinh at the wood chipper, where Birgit steps in human remains and Theo’s able to pick out a piece of the doctor’s jewellery. This has everybody terrified. They assume it was the same killer as the person who murdered Jayden while Florence is among them. Nobody knows where Liv is, but Seamus tells nobody to go looking for her, even when Theo and O’Keefe try to leave. Birgit doesn’t like Seamus choosing “the right kind of family,” accusing him of not caring about Liv. She points out the fact that all the victims so far have something in common: they’re both not white. Of course NOBODY knows about Merle, either.
We get a flashback of Grace feeling sick at the dinner table; there’s been ipecac put in the food. She rushed off, only to get mocked by Seamus for not having a refined palette and having trouble with the “high quality” food. Even Birgit seemed to laugh at her, too. Cut back to current day. Grace and Birgit are locked in the kitchen with Florence, accusing her of killing Jayden and Dr. Trinh. The white lady doesn’t help herself any, talking shit. She gets thrown to the floor by Grace, but she uses a broken beer bottle to stab the latter in her leg. Absolutely vicious. The fight wakes some of the others; we see Vincent’s brought a gun to the party. Luckily the stabbing goes no further, yet Birgit attacks Florence, getting her nose broken for the trouble. Grace grabs a knife and slashes Florence, beginning a nasty knife fight. Grace gets cut again, her arm and leg both bleeding. Birgit decides to haul out a cutting board, cranking Florence in the head with it but receiving a couple stabs in the foot. Seamus and the others burst in, as he pulls Grace off Florence. But Grace bites off a few of Florence’s fingers before it’s over.
What a wild scene. Utter madness.

In the basement, the family find their next challenge. The room is full of hanging wires and an open, sparking electrical box. Chastity reads the rules: again, no winner, only a loser; last person to cross the room gets eliminated. If you fall down you have to start over once again. Liv isn’t there, because nobody went to find her, so Florence wants to know whether the young woman’s out of the competition. Regardless, they’re all prepared to “suffer pointlessly” for Spencer’s fortune. The family members start, jumping from one platform to the next, attempting to avoid the hanging wires. Vincent gets shocked and falls to the ground, meaning he must start again. O’Keefe hits the floor and gets electrocuted, starting over. There are no rules against helping each other, so Vincent and Theo work together, but Seamus won’t help Grace. Theo’s first to get to the finish, then more follow.
A flashback shows Birgit and Seamus together, laughing after Grace throwing up. Birgit felt for Seamus, she didn’t like seeing the family mock him over George Michael. She told him he didn’t have to hide with her. But that’s also when they fell into bed together, having sex. Surely what led to the conception of Liv. They were being watched the whole time through an outlet in the wall; Spencer knew everything that was going on in his house. The old man broke in and yelled at them both, angry Seamus was fucking “the help.” A horrible old bourgeois piece of shit.

Back to the current competition. Seamus falls off the platform while the rest of the family make it to the other side. He refused to take O’Keefe’s help and now he’s out of the competition, in turn he’s also out of the will. He’s devastated. That night, Christy suggests they just get out of there. Seamus thinks his wife’s going to leave him when they go home. He thinks she was in it for the money. She obviously loves him for more than that, sitting through all the psychopathy of his family. However, it isn’t only the family that’s been messing up their relationship, because we know Seamus is gay, or bisexual at the least, and he’s holding all that inside, along with other secrets.

What about Liv? Is she still alive?
Flashback to Seamus offering Birgit emergency contraceptives, casually just suggesting abortion without saying it.
In current day, a knock comes at the door of Christy’s room. She goes to the door with a fire poker, opening it to see O’Keefe, who came to check on Seamus. O’Keefe can see Christy isn’t okay, so they offer to come in. They both lament the competition and the reunion. At the same time, Seamus is in the halls, seeking out the secret passageway behind the house’s walls. He gets a peek at Christy talking to O’Keefe about how much she loves her husband. Christy thinks she needs to get Seamus away from that family.
When Christy and O’Keefe leave the room Seamus sees the plague doctor killer enter.
The killer looks around, eventually spying Seamus and putting the fire poker through the guy’s skull. Damn, son.

“In this world, there is us and there is them.
If you give them anything of us, they will run with it.”