'The Mist' Just Dropped a Clue About What Caused This Mess

Spike’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Mist is sticking close to its roots with a few intense exceptions. But the biggest connector so far between King’s 1980 novella and the new series has arrived sooner than some might have anticipated.

This post contains spoilers for The Mist Episode 2, “Withdrawal.”

When the residents of Bridgeville, Maine, who are trapped in the local mall realize they’re better off staying indoors, they make a plan to reach the radio inside the security office. The only problem with that is that the hallway leading to the office has been filled with mist due to an open window, and the body of a mall employee is visible through the door. Something killed him, but they don’t know what.

Using a drone from the electronics store, the group determines that whatever monster killed the employee is gone. And rather than go himself, the mall manager — who’s been appointed the leader — decides they’re going to draw names from a hat.

Surprise, surprise: one of the protagonists, Eve Copeland (Alyssa Sutherland), is chosen to retrieve the radio. But she’s not alone, as an unknown man volunteers to go with her, though his friends beg him not to.

After a panic-inducing run to the correct room, Eve and the man reach the radio without incident. The man takes over, trying a couple of channels before glancing at Eve and regretfully typing in “3122” to the radio and asking for “Arrowhead” before identifying himself as “Shadow-4-1.”

Eve, immediately suspicious, demands to know what Arrowhead is. When the man refuses to bring the radio back to the group and Eve sees that he has a gun, she panics and runs, throwing the case the radio was in at him and sprinting down the hall. Clearly not wanting her to say anything to the group, the man catches and tries to choke her, but she wins and ends up shooting him in the head with his own gun, immediately killing him.

Eve lies about how the man died to his two friends and, later, they’re found dead in the bathroom that night by Jay Heisel (Luke Cosgrove) after hanging themselves.

Something very similar happened in King’s novella, as two soldiers from the nearby military installation, the home of “Project Arrowhead,” committed suicide after seeing the mist and what it could do. The move in the novella led a lot of people to believe that the military and Project Arrowhead were responsible for the mist and the creatures creeping through it.

Everything in Episode 2, including the man’s military-esque focus, the use of the word “Arrowhead,” and the fact that none of the other townspeople had ever seen the trio before leads to the conclusion that the mist in Spike’s series is from the nearby military installation. The first episode of the series opened with a soldier waking up with no memory of himself or what had happened to him. Clearly, the military is involved. So, maybe the military will roll in at the end of this just like the 2007 film The Mist after everything has already gone wrong.

The Mist airs on Thursdays at 10 p.m. Eastern on Spike TV.