Summer DVR Dump: The River 1.08: "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"

“There are signs of the impossible everywhere in this place. And now I know they are signs to get out. The Boiuna does not want us here.”
-Emmet

The series finale of “The River” was quite a ride, for sure. We learned more about the way the Boiuna works, and the crew finds themselves in more danger than ever before. We learn more about the characters, and there’s just a whole lot of creepiness going on. And there’s a murder, but that doesn’t really stick for long. It is the Boiuna, after all. In some ways, this was a satisfying finale, and in other ways, it most definitely wasn’t. There was certainly a heck of a cliffhanger, which would be the unsatisfying part. Another unsatisfying part was how Lincoln and Lena’s relationship was left. Things between them basically went from uncomfortable (because of Lincoln saying he had a girl back in Chicago) to much, much worse. The satisfying aspect was that we now know (sort of…that cocoon was still damn strange) what happened to Emmet Cole. And we know what all the crew wanted to do if they escaped the Boiuna. Of course, they don’t actually escape (sorry…spoilers), but I like to think that they extra time they will have to spend there will help resolve all the interpersonal issues.

We’re back to opening the episode with classic Undiscovered Country footage. This particular clip comes from 1988, Lincoln and Lena are trying to sleep in bunk beds in one of the Magus’ cabins. Lena crawls into Lincoln’s bunk, says she can’t sleep, and asks Lincoln to sing to her. He sings “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” and it’s kind of adorable and creepy at the same time. Back in the present day, the crew is all in a going home mindset. Clark is doing interviews with all the crew, asking them questions about what they’re going to do next and how they feel about having risked so much to rescue Emmet. Everyone seems kind of pissed off except for Tess and Emmet, who are going at it like rabbits in Tess’ cabin. I think I feel for Lena the most. She’s lost both her father and her childhood sweetheart all in one rather terrifying trip.

Clark’s final personal interview is with Emmet, and after putting on a happy face for a little bit, Emmet suddenly says it was a mistake to come to the Boiuna and abruptly cuts the interview off. Emma and Lena then have a rather earnest chat in the next room. Lena wants to know what the purpose of Emmet’s who expedition was. She basically wants to know that her dad didn’t die in vain. Emmet says that Lena is better off if she doesn’t know, even if that means she hates him. In the other room, Tess and Clark are having a similarly emo conversation. Tess tells Clark that their affair is most definitely completely over and she’s never letting Emmet go again. Clark, predictably, throws a huge tantrum once he’s by himself, destroying some stuff in the editing bay. Meanwhile, Emmet is trying to make amends with Lincoln for basically not being around for much of Lincoln’s life. Lincoln’s really not having it, but I guess actions speak louder than words. Lincoln sees someone trying to shoot Emmet out of one of the Magus’s windows. Lincoln saves Emmet but gets shot himself, and he doesn’t survive.

There’s a bit of a classic “j’accuse” meting among the Magus crew, where they go over the motives everyone would have to kill Emmet. The conclusion is that Kurt probably pulled the trigger, and the suspicion only grows when Clark spills the beans about Kurt’s mysterious phone calls. Kurt insists that if he had been the shooter, he wouldn’t have missed his shot, and he probably has a good point there. It keeps the rest of the crew from locking him up immediately, but there’s still a lot of suspicion. After things calm down, Jahel is back at the helm, and she hears something in the radio static. She rushes to tell Tess and Emmet that she thinks they can bring Lincoln back from the dead. The catch is that Jahel is going to have to channel the Boiuna herself. Emmet (rightfully) thinks this is a really bad idea, because the Boiuna is kind of the ruler of all the nasty spirits they’ve run into so far. Tess, however, wants her son back, so she goes behind Emmet’s back and tells Jahel to perform the ritual anyway. Things start to go really crazy on the Magus as Jahel performs the ritual and channels the Boiuna. The boat shakes and the lights turn on and off. Emmet is really angry and runs below deck to find out what is going on. His anger subsides, however, when he sees that Lincoln is indeed risen again.

Lincoln and Emmet have a bit of a heart to heart, and when Lincoln tells Emmet he loves him, it starts to make Emmet a little suspicious. That suspicion, sad as it is, turns out to be justified, but more on that later. Lincoln and Emmet aren’t the only father/offspring pair having issues on the Magus. Emilio and Jahel have their own major argument over Jahel using her powers. Emilio wants Jahel to go live with a relative in Montana and get out of the Amazon. Jahel wants to stay and embrace her gift. Emilio says he doesn’t want Jahel to end up like her mother, who also heard spirits and ended up disappearing. Jahel didn’t know that her mother shared her gift, and that information (especially the fact that her mom is actually still alive) quiets her down for now. I imagine that if there was a second season, Jahel would have been reunited with her mother, but alas, it was not meant to be.

Lincoln and Jonas have a confrontation in the kitchen where Lincoln tells Jonas he knows Jonas was the gunman. Jonas wonders why Lincoln is letting Kurt take the rap, and Lincoln explains that it’s because he wants to kill Jonas himself. And Lincoln proceeds to do just that by snapping Jonas’ neck. As a big Scott Michael Foster fan, this development did not make me happy. Although it’s not like there are more episodes of “The River” for him to appear in anyway. Emmet sees this confrontation go down from the edit bay, although for some reason the sequence of events looks completely different and doesn’t involve Jonas’ death. What Emmet sees still makes him suspicious, though. Lincoln, meanwhile, continues his reign of terror, going to where Kurt is imprisoned and beating the crap out of him. Lincoln tells Kurt that he (Lincoln) is “guardian enough” of the Boiuna and Kurt needs to back off. Elsewhere in the Magus, Clark is brooding and A.J. tries to goad him into acting out while filming. This doesn’t last long, though, because blood starts dripping on top of them from the ceiling (Jonas’ body, I presume).

Things take an even more sinister turn when Lincoln starts hitting on Lena. Lena appears to be really responding, and they start making out. Things seem like they’re going to go even farther, and Lena hands Lincoln what looks like a beer to drink before joining her in the bedroom. It’s not beer, though. It’s some sort of potion that reveals a demon has entered Lincoln. When Jahel called his soul back, the Boiuna entered Lincoln’s body in addition to his own soul. The crew ties Lincoln down, and Emmet and Jahel start performing what looks like an exorcism. The Boiuna is too powerful, though, so the exorcism doesn’t work. What ends up working is Emmet tryng to talk to Lincoln to give Lincoln the strength to expel the Boiuna himself. Things are quite uncomfortable between Lincoln and Lena after the earlier incident, but none of that really matters since the Magus is close to the exit of the Boiuna (the section of the Amazon, not the demon). There’s a problem, though. The exit isn’t where the GPS said it should be. Clark has A.J. send up the “eye in the sky” camera, and it confirms everyone’s worst fears. The Boiuna itself is changing (the trees are moving), and it’s not going to let the Magus leave any time soon.