Teacup (2024) – Season 1 Episode 8 Recap, Review & Ending Explained

Episode 8

Episode 8 of Teacup begins with a young woman digging a bag up from the ground in the forest. She gets a phone call and tells the other person on the line to tell her where McNab is. McNab is currently with Ruben and Donald near the glowing tree. He gives Ruben instructions and Ruben drinks the rainbow liquid which allows him to approach the tree. He then breaks off a piece of branch and runs back, putting it in a glass jar where it melts into a pool of rainbow liquid.

Back home, James talks to Maggie about Travis and his tragic death. He then talks about how he felt like Travis, like he didn’t have control over his life. He and Valeria got close at work and bonded over this feeling of having no control. He wants to reconcile with Maggie now but all she can give him is a ‘maybe’.

Upstairs, Meryl hears a knock on her window and sees Nicholas trying to get her attention. She goes down and tries to help Nicholas, but he gets close and Assassin transfers to her instead. Assassin Meryl knocks Nicholas out and goes back to the house. Luckily, Arlo sees it all from his window and warns Maggie and James.

When Assassin Meryl gets back inside, Maggie points a gun at her. James, wearing a mask, tackles Assassin Meryl. Maggie puts on hers as well and they submerge Assassin Meryl into a filled bathtub.

Meanwhile, Ruben, Donald and McNab return and find Nicholas. Ellen warns all of them not to go inside the house. After a terrible struggle, Meryl finally drowns. The parents pull her out and Maggie begins to try and revive her. In a harrowing few moments, Meryl wakes up. They head back to the living room where James seems to be struggling…against himself. He yells at them to run.

The rest of the group decide to take the rainbow liquid and head for the road. They find Valeria’s body and Nicholas is devastated. A shrill sound alerts Harbinger and he (Arlo) moves away from the group. James is attacking Ruben when Arlo lures him away to the barn.

Maggies hits Assassin James with a ketamine syringe and runs with Arlo but he stops her. Arlo tells her to remember the wasp in the teacup. When James follows, Maggie manages to trap him inside a large freezer despite the fact that he’ll suffocate.

Afterwards, everybody drinks a bit of the rainbow liquid and they walk over the blue line. Ellen decides to stay back to tend to the animals, hoping Maggie and the others will be back soon with a solution.

The group get into Olsen’s van and head towards a fire station. A few minutes down the road, they find their way blocked by the woman from the beginning of the episode. She introduces herself as Carol and turns out to be a woman that McNab had been chatting with online. Just as McNab says these people are safe, an orange car drives up and knocks both of them down.

A man in a gas mask and a woman get out. McNab recognises the man as Hayden, whom he used to work with but then went different ways. They empty the contents of Carol’s bag to show zip ties, ketamine and a jar of rainbow liquid.

The woman tells them that Visitors are waking up all over the world and Carol was one of them. She tells Maggie and the others to join them and fight as a group. At the end of Teacup Episode 8, Maggie says they aren’t going anywhere till they explain what’s happening.

The Episode Review

Teacup Episode 8 sets the ball rolling and brings things to a head. No more vague signs and mysteries. The Assassin is out in the open. The entire scene with Meryl being drowned by her parents is extremely harrowing and all the actors have done such a good job.

Unfortunately, the emotional impact is diminished by the fact that Assassin simply moved to James. The drowning isn’t a foolproof concept in the first place, as Maggi and James discuss. What’s annoying is that the show brings this up but doesn’t offer a solution.  

The rest of the finale moves at a quick pace and has the team find a way to leave the area. It’s still unclear why James had to be locked in a freezer and not somewhere he could survive while affording the group enough time to get away. The focus is entirely on the group’s escape and while it makes for a decent episode, I’d still hoped we’d finish Season 1 with more answers about the aliens and what they want.