When Mike, the main character of Syfy’s unsettling new horror show Channel Zero: Candle Cove, casually announced that he was the one who killed his twin brother back in 1988, it was a shock. Maybe our protagonist was actually the villain — or at least much more messed up by Candle Cove than we thought.
Spoilers from here on out.
Turns out he was actually the one who put a stop to the Iron Hill murders because his brother Eddie was the one killing the other kids — with Candle Cove’s supernatural help, of course.
When the last episode ended, Gary had come to take Mike down to the station after learning about his fratricidal confession. Except, he wasn’t going to the station. He was taking him to a vacant house so that the surviving siblings of the other Iron Hill murder victims could have an extralegal confrontation. Tim and Daphne are very, very upset, since they assume that Mike killed their siblings along with his brother.
What really happened, according to Mike, is much creepier. Somehow, Candle Cove gave him the power to control the other children — like Tim’s bullying brother Gene. In 1988, Eddie lured Gene to the top of the big creepy hill, and then forced him to lick his hand like a dog. At first, Mike thought this was funny. But when Eddie had him pull out his own teeth to “pay the toll,” and commit mindless suicide by “walking the plank,” things quickly became horrifying.
"Walk the plank."
We’re told that Eddie killed the other children the same way, and at some point, Mike put a meat hook in Eddie’s heart to stop him.
Tim, and to a lesser extent, Daphne, don’t quite believe Mike’s story about Candle Cove and mind control. However, they both soon learn just how real — and deadly — it is. The evil show turned a bunch of children into murderers, who dispatch of Tim in the woods. Meanwhile, Daphne gets her throat cut by the mysterious woman who was feeding the still-creepy-AF Tooth Child. She’s also a teacher, and appears to be leading the evil children. After killing Daphne, she told her corpse not to “fuck with Mike Painter,” suggesting he’ll have a bigger, fated role in all the horror to come.
It’s odd that she’s the only adult that’s been affected by Candle Cove, since all the other characters were introduced to its evils as children. She appears to have had some sort of seizure back in 1988, so maybe that’s when Candle Cove got to her.
The episode closed with the unexpected appearance of Mike’s daughter. Candle Cove really has it out for him — will he have to kill a loved one again?
