Teacup episode 2, “My Little Lighthouse,” begins with the lights and radio flickering all around the Chenoweth’s property. No one can get a signal on their phones, so they decide to drive to the fire station. But the cars won’t start, either. Donald (Boris McGiver) says he can get them to the hospital, but his truck won’t start either. Suddenly all the lights go out.
Maggie (Yvonne Strahovski) wants to take Arlo (Caleb Dolden) inside and she starts shouting out orders to everyone. James (Scott Speedman) asks Ruben (Chaske Spencer) to help saddle the horse so they can ride to get help. Donald wants to go out and find the person who hurt Arlo, despite Claire’s (Kathy Baker) protests. Inside, Maggie looks over Arlo and doesn’t see anything wrong with him. Valeria (Diany Rodriguez) can’t believe how calm Maggie is, but Meryl (Emilie Bierre) says she gets calmer when things go wrong. Arlo comes around and says he doesn’t have a concussion as Nicholas (Luciano Leroux) thinks he was faking it. Valeria mentions the story about the oven and Maggie notices, but she doesn’t say anything. She asks Meryl and Nicholas for supplies, then she sends Valeria downstairs to check the locks.
When they’re all gone, Maggie asks Arlo to tell her what happened and who hurt him. He says he doesn’t know who left the marks. His eyes lose focus and he tells her that he knows one thing: “we need to go away from here.” She tells him to calm down but he starts rambling hysterically again and runs from the room, knocking into Nicholas. Maggie grabs him and holds her son tight as he continues to ramble, telling Meryl to tend to Nicholas’ injuries.
Ellen is in the kitchen with Valeria, sharing an awkward silence. Claire tries to keep busy, suggesting that she could walk home and call for help. Ellen thinks they should all stay where they are. Claire can’t stop thinking about Arlo and the noises he was making. She wonders if he might have hurt himself. Ellen pours herself another drink and starts talking about how she got sick when she was younger. She swelled up like a balloon and they ran all kinds of tests before discovering that she had cat scratch fever from an outdoor cat that bit her. Weird things happen to kids, she says, and they end up being ok. Claire points out that sometimes it ends up really bad, too.
Nicholas winces as Meryl tends to his bleeding head. He asks if she’s scared, so she turns the question around to him. He’s petrified. Meryl wants to think there’s a logical explanation, but it’s all too much for Nicholas. He can tell that Maggie is Meryl’s hero and that’s why she tries so hard at school. She points out that he’s always goofing around. He tells another joke, and eventually she admits she’s also petrified. “We can be petrified together,” he says.
Ruben wonders if whoever hurt Arlo cut their power. James is just happy that Donald is on their side. They both wonder if there was an electromagnetic pulse or a nuclear bomb that knocked everything out. James looks outside the barn and sees a car’s tail lights. They run after the car and the man inside puts his gas mask back on and steps out, holding up a hand to stop them from getting closer. He then points out the blue line on the ground and holds up a sign that says “Don’t cross the line.” James tries to explain what happened, but when he steps closer the man in the mask pulls out a gun, using the muzzle to point to his sign.
Maggie cleans up Arlo’s wounds, watching him out of the corner of her eye. He’s staring at her. When she turns her back on him, he grabs her scissors and tries to stab her. “Woman, go!” he yells. She grabs him and holds him. “It’s not me, mom, I’m not doing this,” he whispers. When he asks what’s happening, she admits she has no idea. Arlo says she’s never scared, but she says she has been scared before, like when Meryl got lost before he was born. That event scared her for a very long time. She says she was so scared that she made James promise to never tell anyone about it; it was their secret. He asks her to sing “My Little Lighthouse” and while she’s singing he grabs his jar of marbles and pours it on the floor, laying them out in a very specific pattern. He then places the teacup over it and says that he’s the little lighthouse.
In the woods, Donald notes that it’s like dominos are falling. He’s going through all of the things happening between the animals and cars, and he blames Covid. He trips over the woman who grabbed Arlo, then he turns and sees a snarling black dog standing over the gun he dropped.
The man in the mask draws a circle with two Xs in it. They try to understand what it means and how it connects to the line of paint. The man fires his gun into the air when they approach. Donald comes running out of the woods with the dog chasing after him, and once he gets through the fence the dog runs past him and over the line. It whines and cries and suddenly seems to implode in a very painful death. “Don’t trust anyone,” the man writes on his sign before walking back to his car. He drives away, leaving the three men with lots of questions and the mangled corpse of the dog.
Claire says it’s stupid to sit there and wait. She grabs her keys despite Valeria pointing out that they heard a gunshot. She has the dog, she says, and they have a landline phone so she can call for help. She grabs Duke as Valeria hands her a lantern, promising to return shortly. She goes walking down the road with Duke, who’s whining as she approaches the blue line.
James, Ruben and Donald see Claire approaching the line as Duke runs away. They call out to her and try to make her stop, but she doesn’t listen. Donald tries to grab her but she falls on the other side. His arm, which crossed the line with her, starts to melt as her body twists and contorts until she’s a mangled mess, like the dog.
Maggie stares at Arlo’s teacup, wondering what it means. She hears a commotion outside and says she has to go downstairs. He grabs his dictionary and points at the word “trap,” then he says “trapped, run, hide.” Arlo says that “the man” in his head is telling him that they need to run and hide because “it’s coming” and it kills everything that gets in its way.
New episodes of Teacup air on Thursdays on Peacock.
