It was smart of the mall manager to alleviate tension by letting people relax and have fun using the location's resources. It also made for a nice, light hearted scene as the people just relaxed and had some fun for the first time in what likely feels like a long while.
Sadly, that's where this chunk of the episode peaked. They try to deliver another big scare moment, as a young girl is attacked by a shadow monster. It fell flat, though, and ends up looking sillier than it should. The effects budget (or more specifically, the limitations of said budget) were on full display. The fact that the way the monster kills a young girl is by latching onto her face for a moment also does little to instill fear.
The episode does strongly suggest that the mist itself is the monster and everything else is just an extension of its being. The creature only appears in the mist and said mist appears to chase people. It's still fairly early, but things do seem to be going in that direction.
There's a fair bit of humans being monsters as well to balance it out. Frances Conroy's Mrs. Raven continues to shine. I like her better than Carmody. Her more subdued presentation is much more unnerving than the raving lunacy of the character in the source material.
As unnerving as she is, there's still a sympathy there. You can see why she's cracked the way she has and it makes for a more compelling character arc. The episode also does a better job of showing how she acquires her disciples as we see the cop become her first in this new spiritual(?) view of the world.
I also found the talk of this being the prophesied end times made manifest rather unnerving. It's supposed to be and it's just conjecture, but it does add some weight and scope to what the characters are up against.
On other fronts, we see the mall banish a person for accidentally letting the mist in. While the rule about doing things that hurt the group was well established, this did seem like a case of extenuating circumstances. I don't think they've even established that the mist itself was dangerous. I mean, people have been walking around in it and been OK...for the most part. It just seems inconsistent.
I actually kind of side with the banished guy and think that he got a bum rap. The group does give him a couple of days food and a means of defending himself (a baseball bat, but it's better than nothing) but it still seems like a cruel thing to do.
On the plus side, I was right in the fact that I couldn't "unsee" Bulldog. Oddly, enough, that worked in the episode's favor. The show was already doing a pretty good job with his character but seeing him in the new light made his scenes more entertaining for me.
This episode actually branches into a third camp as Mia, Kevin, Adrian, and Kevin camp out in a garage after fleeing the church. They run into a man looking for his son, who they know is dead. It was a bit too coincidental that they had come across the corpse just before he showed up.
While he does eventually come into conflict with the main group, you can certainly see his side. He was really low on gas and he even notes that Kevin would do the same thing to find his kid. It's a shame that they couldn't find a way to keep him around as he had been generally likable up to that point. Who knows, maybe the show'll keep following him and a fourth group will form for the show to follow.
Alas, this was the weakest episode to date. It had moments here and there, but overall it was lackluster. Hopefully things pick up as the series (season?) moves into its second half.
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