Home Before Dark Season 2 Episode 4 Recap and Ending, Explained

‘Home Before Dark’ season 2 episode 4 is tumultuous and finds the small town of Erie Harbor home to a new aeronautics company whose CEO seems suspiciously well informed about The Magic Hour Chronicle. The mysterious man that’s been following Hilde also seems to be getting uncomfortably close as she digs deeper into the shadowy forces behind the pond that’s poisoning their town. The episode’s tense finale raises more questions than its answers when the investigative reporter finds a mysterious plane. Let’s try and get some answers from ‘Home Before Dark’ season 2, episode 4, which is aptly titled ‘Dark Rooms.’ SPOILERS AHEAD.

Home Before Dark Season 2 Episode 4 Recap

The episode opens with Hilde finding the ominous man she’s long suspected standing behind her at a vending machine. Unable to contain herself, she asks the man about who he works for, but he ignores her and walks away. The young investigator then follows a lead to an aeronautics company that anonymously funded the park that buried the pond she was investigating. The head of the company is surprisingly cooperative and has been a devoted reader of Hilde’s newspaper— The Magic Hour Chronicle for a long time.

Despite her checking their records, she is unable to find the mysterious man amongst the company’s employees, but a clue catches her eye on the way out. She finds the same symbol at the company’s offices as the one she saw at the mansion a few nights ago and decides to check the old house’s basement again for clues.

Meanwhile, Matt discovers his father looking at an old photograph and realizes it is a picture of his father and his friends in their younger days. His father is unable to remember any of their names so Matt decides to track them down. To his dismay, all his father’s friends have died, some tragically early.

Home Before Dark Season 2 Episode 4 Ending: Why is there a Plane in the Basement?

Hilde arrives at the abandoned mansion with her companions and the trio proceed to sneak in through the rear kitchen. They soon find the only way into the basement, which is where Hilde found the symbol, is through the dumbwaiter. The reporter is the only one brave enough to go down, but the other two soon have to follow her when their mysterious stalker enters the house. In the basement, the young sleuths find a dismantled airplane that’s been damaged in a crash.

Once again leaving us with questions that seem to expand the mystery, the episode’s closing scenes can perhaps give us some clues. For one, the only other time that a plane has been mentioned so far is by the CEO of Stratatech Industries, who is also Erie Harbor’s mysterious benefactor. His family company started out making airplanes, and though we are not told exactly what the company does now, we do know that they helped cover up the poisonous pond.

Considering Hilde found a matching “WM” symbol outside the Stratatech offices like the one in the basement where the plane is found, we can be certain that the plane is connected to the aeronautical organization. The “WM” symbol, which stands for the faceless company Wayne Management, also provides a connection between the plane and Stratatech Industries. Since we don’t know how long the plane has been in the basement, it’s difficult to tell what it was used for. But the fact that it is hidden in the basement of an abandoned mansion has definite ominous overtones. The good news is that Donny manages to extract the plane’s black box, which has a record of the flight data and will hopefully give us some more answers.

What is Hilde’s Grandfather Hiding?

Hilde’s grandfather, who apparently has dementia, seems to be going through more and more instances where he regains his memory and faculties. Most strikingly, we see him talking to Izzy about his younger days and also see him highly alert when he replaces Hilde’s broken camera with his own with surprising speed. Bridget seems to think that they are just random bouts of lucidity that he’s having, and doesn’t want Hilde to raise her hopes about her grandfather getting better. However, it seems like her grandfather is holding on to some secrets.

We first get a glimpse of Hilde’s grandfather’s clandestine activities when he accesses a hidden compartment behind his bed. In this episode, we also find out that he was an elaborate prankster, who spent weeks planning his highly convincing gags. This might hint at the fact that the frail grandfather might be pretending to be losing his faculties whilst secretly remaining alert. Considering he has had a long history with the disease, if it truly is all a sham then this would be the old prankster’s longest-running gag.

Hilde’s grandfather seems to remain particularly lucid whilst around his granddaughters and subsequently seems lost whenever Matt and Bridget are present. He is likely holding on to some of the town’s deepest secrets, which might even help Hilde crack her case. However, his notorious secrecy also means that he will not easily give up the secrets that he holds.

The deep-seated secret is most likely connected to the old photograph, which shows a group of friends who are all dead except for Hilde’s grandfather, and not from old age. This also supports Hilde’s hypothesis that her grandfather (and his friends) suffered from some form of ill effects from the pond. Like her grandfather, his friends also undoubtedly spent a lot of time fishing at the poisonous pond in their younger days and most likely died from its toxic effects. Hilde’s grandfather somehow seems to have survived, but for now, his methods and motivations remain unknown.

Read More: Is Home Before Dark Based on a True Story?

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