The Midwich Cuckoos – Season 1 Episode 4 Recap & Review

Sunny Delight

Episode 4 of The Midwich Cuckoos begins at Midwich Prep as Paul deliberates over Sunny’s statement about her mum. Something doesn’t add up, and it’s not helped by the fact the CCTV cameras from the parking lot have completely short-circuited for 6 hours. In fact, all the other cameras en-route have also gone out too, which adds to the suspicion.

Meanwhile, the mums gather and discuss the hive mind of their children. Cassie speaks up and believes that Amrita left on her own accord and, also, that they too need to start joining together as one just like the kids are. Tellingly, Zoe doesn’t attend the meeting.

There’s a clear rift growing between Zoe and Sam though, with Hannah working as the dividing wedge between then. She’s suffering from bad dreams and Sam is happy to let her sleep in their bed. Juxtaposing that are Jodie and Paul, with the latter asking her to stay and not move out.

In the morning, Paul re-examines the CCTV footage and finds a lead in the form of a broken freezer van. It would appear that in those 6 hours, one of the vehicles there has changed. Paul tracks it down and eventually finds Amrita’s frozen body locked inside the truck.

Speaking of cold, there’s an incident involving Curtis and his children in the midst of this. Curtis forces Joe off the swing so David can play, but in doing so the swing is telepathically controlled and he’s forced to swing higher and higher. David falls off the swing, blood-stained and crying. Hannah also telepathically controls Zoe in the wake of this chaos, forcing her to bash her head on the wall. As a result, Zoe speaks to Sam in confidence and admits that she doesn’t love Hannah.

Another mystery here stems from those aforementioned bad dreams that all the kids are suffering from. Susannah tries to learn more but when she gets closer to Eve, reaching out a hand to touch her forehead, she’s stopped.

Zoe manages to leave Midwich in the morning, overwhelmed that she’s around ordinary people again. Unfortunately she realizes later on, shockingly, that the kids know she’s left. Susannah speaks to Nathan in confidence and tries to get answers. He seems to open up a little, which allows Susannah to speak to Paul and Bryony about what she’s fund out. Specifically, about their recurring bad dream involving winter, frozen ground and a locked room.

Bryony chalks this up to Susannah projecting her own issues  onto the kids, forcing her to go home. Why? Well, according to Bryony they’ve done some background on Susannah and realize she holds a big secret.

Back in Midwich, and without Zoe around, Hannah controls Sam and forces him to hurt Curtis. When Curtis starts hitting him back, Hannah stops him. Off the back of this, Sam realizes that this is Hannah’s doing and that his partner was right.

At the same time, Evie encourages Susannah to head out into the woods for a walk to discuss her dream. It’s unnerving, especially when she’s encouraged to Play a game of hide and seek. Thanks to Nathan’s confession to Paul just prior to this, the latter realizes that Evie intends to hurt Susannah, believing she’s going to do the kids harm.

Paul scrambles to find the good doctor, who ends up chasing Evie up the train tracks. A train is en-route too but Paul arrives and manages to stop Susannah and Evie. We still don’t know what Susannah’s big secret is but for now, we cut across to Paul who heads home, kissing Jodie which leads to the pair making love. Nathan though, happens to be on the stairs listening in. Is he controlling them?

The Episode Review

Things are starting to go awry for our residents, as Amrita is found in the freezer van, Zoe is essentially shunned by Hannah while it seems Curtis may well be the next person to meet a grisly demise. Either way, the series is just starting to tighten the screw and become much more intriguing, with a good deal of tension whenever the kids show up.

It would appear that Nathan is the weak link in this hive mind chain and it’ll be interesting to see how the series tackles that going forward. Specifically, the correlation between the bad dreams, the parents and ultimately what the goal of these strange kids actually is.

The inter-personal familial drama is still interesting though and the ending hints that Susannah is hiding a big secret from the others. What could this be?