Diksha Sundriyal
In Netflix’s ‘Remarkably Bright Creatures,’ a woman named Tova forms an unlikely bond with a young man, named Cameron, and an octopus, named Marcellus. She works as a janitor at the aquarium in her town, Sowell Bay. While she doesn’t really need the job, it does help distract her from the grief and sense of loss that have haunted her since the death of her son, Erik. Thirty years ago, he went out into the sea and never returned. While his boat was found, the truth about what really happened to him never came to light. Over the years, rumors and speculations swirled about what may or may not have happened. It is this not knowing that eats at Tova her entire life, but eventually, she does get some answers, even if not all of them. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Rumors and Questions Swirl Around Erik’s Death
Erik was eighteen when he went out to sail one morning and never came home. His relationship with his parents, especially his mother, had always been a good one. In fact, Tova says that they never fought, except that one time before the day he died. While she and her son had always been able to talk to each other about everything, in the last days of his life, he turned uncharacteristically uncommunicative. He started stealing his father’s beer, he would be out late at night, and his mood also became very erratic. Tova particularly remembers the fight where he broke one of her mother’s dala horses, which he knew Tova cherished. He locked himself in his room for the rest of the day, and the next morning, he went out for sailing.
This wasn’t the first time Erik went out into the sea, so Tova didn’t give much thought to it. It wasn’t until hours later, when he didn’t return, that she got worried about him. Three days later, Erik’s boat was found, and the rope was cut in a way that suggested, to the police, that he may have tied himself to the rope and jumped into the sea. While his body is never found, his death is ruled a suicide. Or at least, that’s the talk around town. Without any proper answers, the rumor mill of Sowell Bay works endlessly, painting Erik’s troubled last days as the reason behind his decision to take his own life. Tova, however, refuses to believe this. In her heart, she knows that her son’s death was an accident, but she has no way to prove it.
It isn’t until thirty years later, when she puts her house on sale, that one of the buyers approaches her. He turns out to have been Erik’s friend and tells Tova that her son was seeing a girl named Daphne Cassmore at the time. At the time of Erik’s erratic behavior, Tova’s husband, Will, suspected that their son was seeing a girl. But Erik never told them about her, and the girl herself never came forward either. But now, Tova has a name, and she eventually finds the girl’s name in the school yearbook. Daphne had been new to town, which is why she didn’t have many friends, and no one really knew her well enough to remember her. She also left town shortly after Erik’s death, which explains why she never got in touch with his family.
Erik’s Death was an Accident
The discovery of Erik’s girlfriend makes Tova surer about the fact that her son did not kill himself. But since there is no way to trace Daphne, it becomes impossible to understand why Erik’s mood had been erratic on the days before his death. Just when Tova seems to have given up, she finds Erik’s ring with his initials “EELS” engraved on it. The ring had been in Daphne’s possession all these years, and following her death, it fell into the hands of her son, Cameron, who came to Sowell Bay, looking for his father. When his efforts to find his dad failed, he dumped the ring in the wolffish tank at the aquarium in frustration. Marcellus the octopus got the ring out of the tank and left it for Tova as a final parting gift.
When Tova sees the ring, she realizes that Erik is the one Cameron had been looking for all this time. Daphne and Erik had been dating secretly, while in public, she pretended to be with her closeted gay best friend, Simon. When she got pregnant, both she and Erik became nervous. She was scared she couldn’t tell her family about it, and he was, too. This was why he was stressed and had stopped talking to his mother. However, this fear did nothing to dampen his happiness. He was happy at the prospect of being a father and even chose the name “Cameron” for his son. The morning he went out to sail, he most likely wanted to clear his mind and figure out what to do next. Had he come home that day, he would have told his parents all about Daphne and their unborn child. But he never got to do that.
The morning he went out to sea, a major storm likely capsized his boat. It is possible that he got entangled with the rope and cut it off in an effort to free himself. He didn’t deliberately kill himself because, despite the stress, he was in love with Daphne and happy about her pregnancy. He was looking forward to their life together. Tragically, fate had other plans, and he did not survive the accident. He drowned, and his death hit Daphne hard. She skipped town without telling anyone about her pregnancy, most likely because she was afraid. She could never recover from Erik’s death, which led her to abandon Cameron and turn to drugs. She eventually died of an overdose, drowned in her own grief, and was never able to tell Cameron who his father was.
Read More: Does Marcellus the Octopus Die in Remarkably Bright Creatures?
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