Before – Season 1 Episode 6 Recap & Review

Fever Dream

Episode 6 of Before begins with Eli speaking to the board about what’s happening with Noah. He claims that he leaned into Noah’s delusion by cutting into his forehead. According to Eli, this has been clinically proven to work in the past to help certain patients, making them better and improving their psyche. However, there’s the matter of liability and it could end up with a lawsuit.

Eli is still struggling and he too is suffering from these visions and hearing the echoey voices. With Noah stable, the only way to handle this situation is for Eli to go home and stay away from the kid. At least until things blow over.

Unfortunately, Noah appears to be drifting further and further away from Denise. This is only made worse by the fact that the doctors are at a loss over how to help him. They theorize moving Noah to a special care facility and doing what’s best for him. However, the only person who could actually know what’s happening is Eli.

Noah’s visions continue back home, as he notices wasps all over his foster mum’s face. It’s a pretty unnerving image and he eventually screams and knocks her back. He continues to sketch though, and even though Denise brushes off the earlier knock-back incident as her “slipping and falling”, Noah is entranced and even ends up shedding a tear onto the paper.

Eli meanwhile, heads home and finds that Sue Ann is in the midst of arranging his house for the stage-in. She also broaches dong psychic cleanse too, although he scoffs at the idea. He refuses to let her into the office downstairs, and eventually lashes out, telling her to leave.

Eli continues to check through the audio logs to try and figure out what’s happening to Eli. Remember the Dutch language? Well, Eli has actually encountered this before in the past.

During flashbacks, we see him first meet Lynn when a guy called Benjamin is brought in to the clinic, hysterical and muttering in Dutch. According to Lynn, they were on a trip together and he wanted to take pictures of a farmhouse. However, he’s been suffering from wild visions for a while. This explains why he was brought there in the first place.

Eli promises to take care of him, and reassures Lynn, but this also begins their journey together. Lynn believed (according to Barb) that it was fate the pair of them met and that they were destined to be together.

A message from Cleo brings more details for Eli. Cleo is here and she’s got Benjamin’s hospital records from 1977. He needs to figure out the connection between Benjamin and Eli, as this could crack the case wide open. First port of call – Benjamin’s brother. According to him, Benjamin has no history of speaking Dutch, and it appears a clue may actually be with Benjamin’s necklace. It turns out his brother is wearing an identical one. Alas, the plot thickens!

Denise is rattled and shows up at Eli’s place, where she’s shocked to find all the pictures up on the wall. As for Eli, he realizes there may be a proper connection between Benjamin and Noah. After doing CPR and breaking the guy’s ribs, the pattern that formed on Ben’s chest is identical to what’s on Noah’s right now, which Eli confirms that night.

The Episode Review

Before returns this week with another slice of horror and much like before, this show is starting to really drag its heels. Either the episodes should have been tightened up, or the run-time reduced to make this a more pacey affair. Given how brightly this one started, the investigation is taking an age to get anywhere, and we’re only now starting to see the connective tissue bridging all these issues together.

The show has been a compelling watch at times with a good atmosphere, but hopefully the episodes ahead can speed up a bit and really deliver on the horror front for the rest of the run-time.