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It’s Damien Against the World in Ep 7 ‘Abattoir’

By John Gustafson

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Episode 7 of ‘Damien’ packed a lot of punch and this time, unlike last week’s episode, it was all real.

WARNING! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!

Last week in Damien, we thought we had a jam-packed episode. The type of episode that shakes up the entire season. Instead, the Devil tricked us and in one swift motion, revealed that it was all simply a vicious nightmare.

Episode 7 titled “Abattoir” maybe didn’t have the same level of excitement but there was surely enough here to make up for the disaster from seven days ago and best of all: it was REAL.

We pick up with Damien bedridden in a psychiatric ward of a hospital after having just tried to commit suicide. In the few minutes we see him here, he truly does look like he’s lost his damn mind but he is eventually released. Obviously, Damien made a lot of new friends in the psych ward who didn’t want him to leave. Take a look at his exit.

Meanwhile, Detective Shay is still feeling the effects from his son nearly drowning in their pool. His husband is worried about him and wants Shay to go see a shrink. This added with the fact that he thinks he’s being watched in his own backyard indicates that he too is starting to kind of lose it.

Despite the events from last week’s episode being an entire hallucination, Damien is calling this an epiphany and no longer trusts anyone, including Amani and Simone. He confronts John at his house and accuses him of working with Ann against him. John’s mother, Margot, speaks to Damien although John claims she hasn’t spoken in years.

Let’s take a step back and recap a conversation Ann and Shay had in episode 4. Ann filled Shay in on some events from Damien’s past including an incident in school where he “attacked” a fellow student named Charles Powell. Flash back now to episode 7, Shay’s investigation leads him to Charles. At first, Charles denies any altercation with Damien and instead describes him as a quiet type who kept to himself.

Simone starts looking back into the video of Damien’s interaction with the elderly woman in Syria way back in episode 1. A couple of supernatural instances occur including Simone pausing the video and when she does this, the old woman moves in the frozen picture and stares at her. Is Simone flying too close to the sun here and about to be burned?

Shay brings in Cray Marquand, who also went to school with both Damien and Charles, for questioning. Feeling the heat, Cray shifts focus back on Charles and describes him as a “needy puppy” and says he was “maybe even in love with [Damien].” Cray explains the three were a part of a secret club at school and during initiation, an accident led to Charles being horribly burned.

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Back at John’s house, he meets with Ann and confesses that he’s starting to feel threatened by Damien and asks her for one of the daggers to use for protection. While this is going on, Damien snoops around John’s house and finds Margot. She tells him about the “Dark Church” which is located near John’s house. He finds the “Dark Church” which turns out to be a slaughterhouse where John sacrifices animals.

While walking through a park, Simone notices she’s being followed by Sister Greta who hasn’t appeared since episode 5. Greta approaches her and asks Simone to follow her to a church so the two can talk privately. After the discussion, it appears as though Simone agrees to help Greta save Damien though the two may have very different definitions of the word “save.” Greta will almost undoubtedly murder Damien if she has to which Simone certainly doesn’t want. I expect these two conflicting goals to clash at some point.

Now knowing the truth about Charles, Shay goes back to talk with him. Charles tells him how he tried desperately to get on Damien’s good side but to no avail. He then goes into detail about the incident and how Damien forced him to light his hands on fire but it spread to nearly his entire body. Instead of doing something to help, Damien stood by and watched.

Ann goes to meet with Damien at his apartment and presents him with one of the daggers. She explains how each of the seven daggers are meant to pierce a specific point of his body and when this happens, Damien’s spirit will be gone forever (basically if he’s stabbed with all seven daggers at the same time in the exact places, Damien will be dead and there will never be another anti-Christ).

However, this particular dagger that Ann has is the one meant for his heart and he could commit suicide but his spirit will find another body to possess. Fighting through tears, she offers him this way out because she’s meant to serve Damien no matter what he wants. He places the dagger over his heart and puts her hand at the other end but she can’t bring herself to take the plunge.

The final scene shows Cray and Charles in a gym locker room. Cray goes to take a shower and Charles stabs him repeatedly in the back with a pair of scissors. As he lies on the floor dying, Charles leans in and whispers, “You should have kept your bloody mouth shut.” This must be referring to Cray giving Shay information. Charles then proceeds to cut Cray’s tongue out of his mouth as the episode comes to a close.

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Let’s start with the newest character, Charles Powell. It must have been years since the fire incident happened and it looked like, at first, as though he truly did move on from it. That being said, the moment it’s brought back up he flips a switch.

The fact that he killed someone and cut out his tongue shows that there’s more to this story that he doesn’t want told. What does Charles’ reappearance mean for Damien? If he’s not afraid to off Cray, what’s he going to do to the guy who supposedly didn’t save him when he suffered third and fourth degree burns?

I’m going to come out and predict that John will not make it out of this first season alive. We’ve already seen what happens when he tries to cross Ann. Now Damien is skeptical of him. Furthermore, Ann has made it clear time and time again that her one and only concern is Damien and she will do what it takes to protect him. The fact that he asked Ann for the dagger for protection could mean he may be trigger happy in the near future and try and take out Damien. I think we can all predict how that battle will turn out.

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What were your takeaways from this week’s episode? As we wind down to the season finale, how do you think things will end? You can join the conversation by leaving a comment below. Make sure to check back in next week with more break down and analysis from episode 8.

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