“You shouldn’t have come,” Van says quietly, handing Tai a cup of drugged tea. Tai drinks it anyway.

No. That’s a trick of the light. She blinks, and it’s a root. A gnarled, twisted parsnip.

Text on screen: NEXT WEEK: The hunt begins.

No one asks what. They already know.

Two eyes. A human face. Pale, wet, and screaming silently.

Lottie leads them to the “purple room”—a soundproofed, padded space that once was a racquetball court. Candles line the floor. A dead bird hangs from the ceiling fan. “We’re going to play a game,” Lottie says. “It’s called Qui. ”

The room stops breathing. Shauna’s jaw works. Her eyes flick to the hunting knife. “No one,” she says. But the card burns. The group votes. The offering: Shauna must drink a cup of Lottie’s “calm tea,” which is less tea and more a tincture of psilocybin and dead forest loam.

The cold open doesn't prepare you. Misty Quigley, present day, stands in her basement. Not her makeshift dungeon—her actual laundry room. She’s folding a beige cardigan. Her hands move mechanically, but her eyes are dead. On the table beside her: a half-empty mug of chamomile tea, a piece of paper with “ Adam’s torso is in the woods ” crossed out, and a brand-new, pristine gardening trowel. She looks up at the camera, cocks her head, and whispers, “ Qui. ” Then she stabs the trowel into the dryer. 1996 — The Wilderness