Summary
The Institute reveals a lot of key information in Episode 5, as things start to really pick up in the titular facility and back in Dennison.
Well, we finally know what the black smoke belching out of the Back Half chimneys is coming from. This is perhaps the least of The Institute Episode 5’s key revelations, but it’s the one that lingers the most. Burning rubbish that’s surplus to requirements isn’t unusual, but when that rubbish is dead children, it’s a little harder to swallow.
This is the purpose of the Institute. It uses children like batteries, draining them of all their power to make something else work and then discarding them. That “something else”, as far as we can tell, is assassinations. The Back Half’s so-called “Movie Night” sees all the kids assemble behind one nominated “conductor”, putting their combined psychic might to use in compelling a Russian Mafia-approved doctor to salve the capo’s knee pain with a deadly dose of fentanyl.
I’m not sure this constitutes saving the world, which is the line Sigsby keeps feeding the kids whenever they become recalcitrant, but based on the relative excitement that the senior staff all seem to share, I think we’re past the point of the Institute’s overall objective being of any real concern. It’s a power thing for Sigsby and Stackhouse, a sadism thing for Tony, and morbid scientific curiosity for Hendricks. Only Maureen seems to realise how abhorrent what’s going on really is, which is why it’s she who becomes integral to Luke’s escape plan.
And that escape plan becomes more pressing than ever in The Institute Episode 5. Nicky’s “graduation” to the Back Half is expedited, and Sigsby manipulates Luke into revealing that his latent TP has become activated by leaving the news story of his parents’ apparent murder-suicide open on her computer. When he senses its contents, he can’t control his rage, giving the game away. It’s a deft move on Sigsby’s part, if an indescribably cruel one. Tim can’t shut this place down soon enough.
While he doesn’t make a great deal of progress here, Tim is nevertheless refusing to be dissuaded. His theory that Annie’s death wasn’t an accident leads him on a “hike” right to the Institute’s gates, which puts him in the ambit of the facility’s security cameras. Sigsby and Stackhouse are watching him with growing concern, since a man with a military background asking uncomfortable questions is unlikely to be a plain old night knocker. It’s probably a consequence of their demagnetised moral compasses that it never occurs to them he might just be a normal guy who’s concerned that someone he liked has ended up dead in mysterious circumstances.
Stackhouse tips his hand by paying Tim an unsubtly threatening visit. Sigsby wants to have him killed, which would create more mess and suspicion, so it’s perhaps the more calculated option, but it does nothing other than convince Tim that he’s barking up the right tree. His focal point is the mysterious drowning of the high school students at the Red Steps, which he’s beginning to think wasn’t a drowning at all, and instead a dumping of trespassers’ bodies made to look like one. He mentions this to Stackhouse and to Wendy, who remains his only real ally, even if he’s risking that friendship by constantly using her car without permission.
If nothing else The Institute Episode 5 proves me right. I got the sense in the previous instalment that things were going to start picking up, and here we are, much the wiser about what’s really going on, and considerably more invested in seeing the villains receive some kind of comeuppance. There’s still plenty that could go wrong, especially with Luke now on his own after Maureen’s assistance, but at least he’s faring better than Iris, who looks due for the furnace any time now. Look out for the smoke.