Devil in Ohio – Season 1 Episode 4 “Rely-Upon” Recap & Review

Rely-Upon

Episode 4 of Devil in Ohio begins with Suzanne waking after a bad dream of her heading through the cornfields. She’s been reading “The Cult of the Cult” which probably hasn’t helped her vivid nightmares! She’s had a lot on her mind with the whole Mae situation and unfortunately, her work at the hospital is suffering as a result. Dr Hawkins returns her call to discuss Mae’s pentagram but as soon as Suzanne mentions Amon County, she hurriedly hangs up and says they need to speak in person.

Dani is not exactly happy about her mother spending so much time with Mae, especially after the latter helped her during those stretching exercises. Suzanne takes her daughter along to her meeting with Dr Hawkins, leaving the girl to wait outside while she speaks to the doctor alone.

Apparently, very little is known about the community in Amon beyond the fact they’ve been isolated for about a century. They also refer to themselves as ‘Sliocht an Diabhail’, which is Gaelic for “The Devil’s Own.” No one ever leaves their community but the fact that Mae has, paints a huge target on her back – and presumably those who have taken her in too.

Hawkins decides Suzanne should try and find someone else who may have escaped. On the way home, she gets spooked about a white van and almost crashes the car. When she eventually heads back, she finds Peter there, who reveals all about the investment falling through and working with Cheryl. Although he tells the truth, Suzanne does not and lies about where she’s been.

As for Detective Lopez, he continues to investigate the farm, noticing a number of men getting in the back of a white van and taking off. Naturally he follows, leading him up into the woods alone. He notices the white van parked up alongside another. Frantically snapping photos, he starts to draw up exactly what this community may be hiding. Those strange sigils appear to be “wishmakers” which are sacrifices for the Devil.

Mae continues to worship at her strange altar. She also snatches up a picture from Jules’ wall too. For now though, these two besties continue to take photos, with Mae joining her in the dark room as they develop the pictures.

Suzanne speaks to Mae and tries to find out who else may have tried to leave Amon town. She brings up a boy called Enoch, who tried to leave when she was 7. Unfortunately he “broke the chain”, and with no funeral either, he was “struck down”. Continuing on, Mae mentions that if somebody breaks the chain, everybody suffers – meaning that Mae’s sisters may well be suffering right now.

Suzanne relays this information on to Lopez and he decides to look through the files. The pair spend time together, relaying some exposition about their history. Lopez actually immigrated from El Salvador when he was 5. Lopez always wanted to be a detective while his hard-working mother wanted him to be a priest. As for Suzanne, she’s distracted by seeing the white van within Lopez’s pictures, and realizes it may be the same one she saw on the road.

At school, Mae manages to help Jules excel, agreeing to take photos for the class president after her article in the school paper goes down a storm. Unfortunately Isaac is not happy and hits out at Jules, pointing out that she’s clinging to her 15 minutes of fame.

When Suzanne learns about the newspaper column, including that picture of Mae with her scar out, she’s not happy. Mae is the one who submitted it but Suzanne lashes out at her daughter and tells her to take the picture down. Helen sees all of this from afar and speaks to Jules in confidence, telling her to be careful as Mae isn’t the person she seems to be. Jules sees this as Helen’s jealousy, ruining what she has going on and the pair have a big fall-out.

While all this is going on, someone breaks into the family home and leaves a flower on Mae’s bed. However, the attention here turns to the farms. It turns out the five farms in Amon County are each owned by a different corporation. They’re Shell Corps and list the same primary contact – William Untermyer. The Dodd’s lawyer. The Dodd family essentially have stakes in the whole place and the five farms form a pentagram. Not only that but Mae is actually the daughter of Malachi, the cult’s leader, which only raises the stakes further.

As the episode closes out, Mae heads out in the middle of the night holding that flower, chanting “the chain shall not be broken.” Jules helps her back inside, but when she drops the rose, someone happens to be watching from the white van.

The Episode Review

Unfortunately it seems Suzanne has doomed the family as they now know exactly where she live and where Mae is too. This could well culminate in a dramatic second half of this series, which has zipped by at a pretty good pace. The short episodes definitely help that, and it’s certainly been an enjoyable watch.

Of course, the premise and the general plot is quite cliched, especially as I mentioned the perfect family set-up and the rifts growing within that. As Mae’s history starts to align with what’s happening right now, it’s becoming increasingly clear that there’s more going on here than first meets the eye. What else is she hiding? We’ll have to wait and see!