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"Election Night" is the first episode of Cult. It premiered on September 5, 2017.

Synopsis[]

After the announced presidency of Donald Trump, the lives of multiple residents of Brookfield Heights, Michigan will never be the same.

Plot[]

The history of the American 2016 Presidential election unfolds in the media and comes to a climax on Election Night. Watching horrified, Ally Mayfair-Richards is incredulous. Elsewhere, Kai Anderson is elated that "the revolution has begun." Ally's wife Ivy comforts her; their son Ozzie is concerned that his mothers will no longer be able to stay together with him as a family. Kai fills a blender full of cheese puff snacks and a covers his face in the orange paste in tribute to Donald Trump's victory. His sister, Winter Anderson is depressed, having dropped out of Vassar College to work on the campaign for Hillary Clinton. Kai enters her room with his orange face and they bond over the idea that everyone is scared in the wake of the results.

A contemporary man and woman are getting intimate on a picnic blanket in a park, but are set upon by Twisty. Despite the man shooting Twisty multiple times, Twisty slashes the man with shears and chases the woman into an abandoned bus, where he severs her tongue. This tale is inscribed in a graphic novel that Ozzie is reading under his bedsheets. Ally confronts him and is triggered by her coulrophobia.

Kai delivers a speech to the Brookfield Heights City Council, of which Ally and Ivy's neighbor Thom Chang is a member. Kai emphasizes that chaos should be encouraged so that fear can help the community organize. Kai is rebuked and overridden on his motion to suspend a police presence protecting the local Jewish Community Center.

Ally lists her many triggered phobias to her therapist Rudy Vincent, from clowns to small holes. He reminds her that she overcame these and more, including agoraphobia, previously. She credits Ivy and President Obama's term, and her therapist prescribes her medication and a social media purge.

Later, she interacts with a MAGA-hat-wearing Trump-supporter cashier at the grocery. She becomes increasingly paranoid and affected the longer she spends shopping in the otherwise-empty store. She sees a pair of clowns in the convex security mirror that vanish when she turns.  In the produce section, she envisions a pair of clowns having sex among the melons. She's pursued by more clowns in the aisles, she wields and thows bottles of wine to defend herself, until she runs terrified into her car. She calls Ivy for comfort but realizes that there is a clown in the back seat. In a panic, she drives into a the concrete lightpole base and passes out.

At home, Ivy relays that there is no evidence to support Ally's experiences in the store. The next day, Ally and Ivy discuss the state of their shared business (a restaurant) and their marriage. Ivy feels like Ally has been obsessed with the election to the exclusion of their lives. Ivy reminds Ally that for all her political protests, that she voted for third-party candidate, Jill Stein, not Clinton, thereby contributing to Trump's victory. They encounter Kai on the street, who unapologetically, possibly intentionally, spills coffee on them. Later, Ally and Ivy interview and hire Winter as Oz's new nanny. Privately, Kai interviews his sister, who reveals that among her other secrets, her deepest fear is of him.

At night, Kai taunts a gathered group of Hispanic men from across a parking lot.  While doing so, he urinates into a condom before hurling it at them, where it explodes.  They rush and beat him, unaware that they are being recorded. While the wives spend a night at the restaurant, at the house, Winter bonds with Oz over his fascination with Twisty.  She shows him a dark web site of horrors to desensitize him to violence and mayhem. In a moment alone, Ozzie peers through the window and observes an ice cream truck parks across the street and the same group of clowns that Ally saw in the grocery exit the vehicle and gaze at the house. He rushes to get Winter.  Meanwhile, the date at the restaurant falters quickly when Ally sees a clown in the restaurant, and has further hallucinations about the food Ivy prepared. 

The wives arrive home to a cordoned crime scene. The neighboring Chang family was murdered by the clown gang while Ozzie watched through a window, guided by Winter. Winter disputes Ozzie's recollection of events, and Detective Samuels tells the wives it was a murder-suicide. During the night, Ally calls out for Ivy but encounters a clown instead.

Featured Characters[]

Thom Chang[]

Thom Chang was one of Ally and Ivy's neighbors and a friend, as well as Marylin Chang's husband. He was a member of the Brookfield Heights City Council and attended a meeting where Kai Anderson presented a motion. Since Kai's speech had disturbed the members of the council, they voted against the motion. As a retaliation, a gang of assailants masked as clowns invaded into Thom's house and slaughtered him and Marylin.


Marylin Chang[]

Marylin Chang was one of Ally and Ivy's neighbors and a friend, as well as Thom Chang's wife. During the revelation of Trump's victory, she and her husband were together with Ally and Ivy and she was verbally attacked by her husband, who blamed her for being partially responsible for the Trump's victory. Marylin, in fact, had not gone to vote preferring to spend her time on Etsy.

Several months later, Marylin was tortured and killed in her own house by a gang of assailants masked as clowns.

Quotes[]

  • Kai Anderson: "The revolution has begun."
  • Winter Anderson
    I'm just so scared now.
    Kai Anderson
    Everyone is.
  • Kai (to Winter): "Was there blood? And poop?"
  • Kai (to Winter): "What was the most physical pain you have experienced?"
  • Kai (to Winter): "What fills your heart with dread?"
  • Kai Anderson: "La Cucaracha, la cucaracha!"
  • Ally (to Ivy): "I know what I saw!"
  • Ivy (to Ally): "Are you insane?!"

Notes[]

Raised Questions[]

References[]

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