Everything In Its Place
We begin episode 4 of Equinox right at the heart of this ritual involving Ida in the past. The cultists chant eerily as Ida is forced to crack her egg and consume its insides. Breathing heavily, Ida looks up at the sky as this cultist smears her face in white facepaint. Jakob immediately gets into the swing of things too, with a maddening look in his eyes. The others try in vain to get through to him as Ida is made the centerpiece of this uneasy ritual. As night consumes the world, Falke steps up alongside Ida who tells him to “do it.” She strips down naked and await what’s to come next. Back in the present, Astrid shows up at the meeting spot and is immediately blindsided by the man who’s been following her. Upon closer inspection, it turns out he’s actually Falke. He beckons her to follow as they walk through the eerily abandoned amusement park together. He brings her to his hideout where Falke discusses the number 21 and how the song on the tape player is the most important part of this puzzle. “Ida is Ostara!” He bellows as Falke mentions how Ida drunk the egg before “everything in the book” started to come true – including her sister’s sacrifice; Jakob was punished, Amelia lost and Falke himself is suffering. As Astrid presses for answers, he explains what happened with Ida up to the point we’ve seen before of her being stripped down naked. He points back at the driver, Torben, who apparently has the answers she seeks. Just before she leaves, Falke tells her to listen to the song backwards and forwards. Astrid heads back to the hospital where Torben is in a bad way. However, Doris arrives and tells Astrid to leave, especially given Torben seems to be brain dead now. Doris shakes her head, telling Astrid she’s to blame for what’s happened to him. Defeated, Astrid heads home where Lene happens to be sitting in her bedroom. Astrid confronts her about Ida and how she knew something would happen to her sister. This is especially true given the argument they had prior to Ida leaving on Graduation Day. Astrid loses her temper but Lene sees through her frustrated façade to realize her daughter is starting to experience visions again. “You have a special gift” Lene tells her, reinforcing that bond she has with Ida. In Ida’s room, Astrid finds that strange bird necklace her sister wore at the ritual inside a wooden egg. That’s certainly not a coincidence! Anyway, Astrid deliberates over Falke’s words, especially as she recorded their entire conversation. The number 21 is a repeated theme here but also 22 and 23 too. As Astrid lays out all of her clues out on the floor, the pattern soon becomes clear. 21 students went missing. Jakob died on the 22nd December. On March 21st the students were on the island during equinox. June 21st they disappeared and around all these solstice dates is one crucial clue – the Autumn solstice which takes place on the 23rd September. That date just so happens to be Astrid’s birthday. As she remembers the “backwards and forwards” clue from Falke, Astrid plays the tape recorder again but this time plays it backwards. A ghostly voice rings through, telling her she’s next. When Dennis shows up, Astrid feeds back to him everything she’s learned so far. As Astrid begins sobbing, Dennis holds his daughter and tells her to let it go as this Ostara is just a fantasy. A distraught Astrid phones home and decides to leave. It’s clear she sees echoes of Lene’s madness in her. Only, on the way she receives a call from Mathias who reveals there’s a letter from Jakob for her. It was sent from Romania too – the place Jakob died. Opening the letter with trembling hands, Astrid leaves the ominous note which reads “Ostara flows in the blood as water flows in the river.” It’s something that certainly rattles her, as Astrid struggles to focus on the plane home. In the past, Dennis and Lene take a young Astrid to the doctors, believing something is wrong with her after the visions and fainting. However, the doctor finds nothing. As Astrid sits with puzzle pieces in her hand, another vision takes hold as she sees that strange faun from before grab her. Only, this happens to be Dennis who shakes her awake and lies with her back in hospital again. Further back through time, the ritual continues as a naked Ida sits atop the stoned pedestal and awaits her fate. That fate comes from the makeshift faun, the one wearing a scarecrow-esque mask we saw before. As the episode closes out, an erratic Falke steps out in front of a subway train and sacrifices himself. When he does, Torben awakens from his comatose state in hospital.
The Episode Review
With another solid episode of mystery, the various puzzle pieces are starting to make a lot more sense now as the repeated numbers of 21, 22 and 23 all show up throughout the series. It’s clear there’s a lot of cult-like mythology oozing through this one and so far Equinox has done a decent job balancing its flashbacks with the present-day investigation. Equinox captures its eerie, unsettling tone beautifully. I’ve said it before but the sound design in this series is fantastic. That ending will almost certainly see you scrambling to watch the next episode though.
