Teacup episode 2 recap: Don't cross the blue line

Spoilers ahead for Teacup episode 2

Teacup delivered a strong start with its premiere episode but episode 2, "My Little Lighthouse," is where it feels like the plot is really kicking into gear.

Episode 2 picks up right where the first episode left off, with everyone surrounding Arlo after he comes stumbling out of the woods. Maggie and James immediately want to transport their son to a hospital. Problem is, none of their cars are working. Actually, none of the electricity is working. Everything is on the fritz. Lights flickering. Cars stuttering. You name it. They're stuck for the foreseeable future or until they figure out what's going on.

Most of the group heads back into the house to look after Arlo and hunker down until they can come up with a better plan. Don is all gungho and ready to go after the person doing this to them with his gun locked and loaded. He makes it clear to James that he's not waiting around. Someone is out there and they need to stop him.

With Don forging ahead into the woods alone, James and Ruben saddle up their horses so they can travel the old-fashioned way while their cars remain idle.

Inside the house, Meryl and Nicholas continue flirting while Maggie patches up Arlo. He goes back and forth between acting and weird and normal, at one point even attacking his mother with a pair of scissors. Thankfully, she's able to stop him before he does any real harm. He continues repeating those words and garbled phrases we've been hearing since the start, except this time he's able to use a dictionary in his room to show his mother what he's trying to say. Trap. He says the "man in his head" is telling him that they all need to run and get out of there because someone is coming for him.

There is also a subplot revolving around James and Valeria's affair comes up again. Valeria makes a comment about the time Meryl hid and her parents found her in the oven, something James told her in the previous episode. Maggie hears Valeria's comment and later tells Arlo the story, mentioning that she'd asked James to never tell a soul and keep it a secret between them. When Valeria recounts it, Maggie realizes that James told her and broke that promise, and likely realizes that Valeria is the one he cheated on her with.

Leaving the farm soon becomes impossible. In the forest, Don stumbles upon the menacing dog that's been lurking around and trips over the woman's dead body. He sprints out of the woods and runs directly into James and Ruben, who try flagging down the mysterious man wearing a gas mask. The man doesn't speak, only writes messages on a whiteboard. He makes it clear to the three men that they cannot cross the blue line, using a gun to threaten them.

We soon find out why they can't leave. The dog that had been chasing Don sprints over the line and immediately starts to turn inside out into a gory mess. Basically just completely disentegrating into a pool of blood and guts. So it seems like the gas mask-wearer is trying to keep the men from dying.

Unfortunately, Don's wife Claire doesn't know that. She grows increasingly restless inside the house and eventually decides to leave so she can return home and use their landline. Before Don, James, and Ruben can stop her, Claire falls over the line and becomes the next victim of whatever is going on out there. Don also gets hurt as his arm crosses the line in a bid to save Claire and immediately starts to dissolve.

Teacup is now streaming on Peacock. Two episodes will drop each Thursday until the Halloween finale.