Wellspring

**"Wellspring"** is the second episode of Season One of the Archive 81 Netflix TV series and the second episode of the show overall. It first aired on January 14, 2022.

## Summary

*Messages from the dead arrive while Dan follows Melody on her investigation into the Visser. But who's watching the watcher - and what lies below?*

## Plot

Dan reaches his lace and calls Mark, telling him he saw his father in the footage at the Visser in 1994 in some kind of ambush. Mark thought his father was a psychology professor at NYU, which makes it strange that he was there. Dan says that Davenport was a liar, because he must have known that his father was involved. Mark tells his friend that he could keep his cool or try to fight, but Dan simply asks him to go to his aunt's house and gather his father's files, which Mark agrees to.

Dan grabs another tape and starts working on it and playing it. In it, Mel is with Jess as they walk on the street. Jess was doing a client services run and says that she does not remember what she was about to say. At a store, Father Russo greets Jess and Melody, who Jess says is who she used to talk to. Jess records Melody and says that she makes movies as well, but says her mom does not know about her camera.

In the Visser building, Jess gives Ms. Wall something of hers and gets invited to tea. Jess introduces Melody to Ms. Wall, who smells her and does not answer if she wants to be interviewed. After that, Jess greets Beatriz, who already knew about Melody's film and invites her in.

With Beatriz Reyes, Melody is told that she had come to stay with her cousin who ran off with some pothead. She prepares to read Melody's cards as she tells her that residents there are very strange because there was a sex club, meeting in the community room at night. Melody cuts the cards and is told that her past was full of grief and pain; in the present, there was something hidden and had guided her to the building - someone. Melody mentions that she is trying to track down Julia Bennett, who she could not find. Beatriz tells her to check mailbox 4G and tells her that her future contained death, but she tells her not to take the card literally, which shocks Dan.

Melody does to the mailbox when she is found by a man who surprises her. He introduces himself as Samuel and asks her what she wanted to steal, but she says that nothing in particular. She says taht she would walk away and says that it was nice to meet him, but he stops her and asks if she likes music because he would like to know if she listened to opera in case she wanted to go to his friend Tamara's first act. She accepts and is told to go to the Sanctuary at 9pm.

At night, Melody is getting ready to go to the opera, but gets a voicemail from Dr. Turner, which surprises Dan. Turner wonders if she had been getting his messages and said that he talked to her roomate Anabelle, knowing they did not end on a great note, but felt like they had made great progress together. Melody walks up to her phone and deletes the message before static covers the screen.

Dan runs to the woods and sees a small sort of cellar, but is not able to open it. He sees a ladder to the side and calls Mark, telling him through voicemail that Melody did know his father, as she was his patient, so he wanted him to look for patient files. Suddenly, he sees someone in the distance in a red jacket and calls out, running towards the person, who manages to lose him.

Dan calls Virgil, but is told that he was "in the field". However, he does not want to leave a message. He says he needs to know if there was someone else in the compound besides him. The woman asks if he was in mental distress, but he says that he is not in mental distress and tells her to have Virgil call him back. Dan talks to the rat and wonders if he was just some sort of board game beta-test for LMG. He watches a movie after that and turns around to see his father in the red jacket standing behind him.

Dan's father turns around, so Dan walks after him, but loses him in a large hallway. Footsteps echo and Dan walks towards the noise and sees a woman using keys to walk into a room and closing the door behind her. Dan knocks on door 2D and sees Melody open up. After that, Dan wakes up shocked and sees he had fallen asleep watching TV. After this, he takes a pill and keeps watching Melody's video.

Melody gets ready to see Tamara's opera and walks in. In the Sanctuary, she greets Tamara, who laughs when Melody she tells her that Samuel had invited her. She orders a beer and is greeted by Samuel. They watch Tamara's play, which makes Melody start to feel bad, so she goes somewhere quieter with Samuel. They go back to the bar and start talking about each other, guessing what they do for a living, which makes Melody realize why he was able to afford a penthouse. Melody tells Samuel that her camera was a present from her mom, who had died two years ago. She asks about the secret sex club, so Samuel says that she was probably talking about the Visser Historical Society, of which he was not officially a member, but he was sure that they would be more than happy to help her with her project.

Samuel and Melody head back to the Visser building, where he hands her a spy key. Melody starts kissing him, so asks if she wants red or white and she asks for whiskey. She walks in and opens the mailbox, but Jess sees her and tells her that nobody lives in that apartment since she was born and says that the mail that was in there was probably thrown away by Mr. Smith. She says that there was somebody looking for her, so she had let her in.

In Melody's apartment, she finds Anabelle waiting for her. She says that she she missed her and the two hug. Anabelle records herself saying that Melody had been kissing a man outside, so Melody starts making some tea. Melody turns around and asks why she had given Dr. Turner her number to which anabelle replies that he had asked for it and wonders if she had had sex with him. Samuel walks in and leaves the whiskey on the counter, saying they could have drinks some other night.

After watching the tape, Dan rolls it back to when Anabelle closes up on Melody's face. He walks out and sees the rat, which he calls "Ratty" had made a mess with paper. As he grabs a broom, he sees that the pantry wall is very thin, so he clears it out and uses a big tool to hit the wall and break it. He shines a light through the hole and sees a big space and some stairs which lead underground. In there, he sees a lot of files locked behind a bunch of different doors. At the end, he makes it to a big room, where he looks at a pew with engravings in it.

Virgil shows up behind Dan, telling him he did not know he was religious and holding the pipe wrench Dan had used to break the wall. Dan asks him what that place was and is told that Virgil's family had a nominal relationship to Christianity. He tells Dan that he was in the debate club and chose Jesus in his last debate, telling the audience to imagine Jesus' death as a blessing because his light was a dangerous one and believes that Jesus was a demon. Virgil says that he did not win and got expelled, which Dan says did not hold him back. Virgil asks him why he should not just fire him for going into areas which were clearly off-limits, but Dan says that he knows that Virgil would not fire him since he knew he was only hired because his father was in those tapes. Virgil invites him down and asks him if he had ever used genetic services, pointing out that he had started Wellspring in 2006 since he believed that it was a gift being able to let people know who they really were. He tells Dan that he did not know for sure that his father had been involved and did think that there was a connection.

Virgil tells Dan that he knows that by now, he should know that Melody was a patient of his father's at NYU, which he did not mention before because he did not want to make him a promise he could not deliver on, not considering it right to get his hopes up. He tells Dan that he does not know what is on those tapes, but understands if it is too much for him or if he was too afraid of what he might find because he had read reports in which authorities believe that his father started the father himself, but Dan says that the fire was undertermined. Virgil tells Dan that he might not be aware that NYU had opened an investigation into his father shortly before the incident and says that he had found a notice of temporary leave. He tells Dan that he needs the work done quickly, and there would be a bonus for an accelerated timeline if he decided to stay. Virgil tells Dan that the area they were in was off-limits for him going forward.

While saying good-bye, Virgil tells Dan that there were a couple of bikes in case he wanted to use them and the nearest town was 14 miles south with a good coffee. Dan says that he knows how to ride, and Virgil says that they are very much alike since they liked putting puzzles together.

After that, Dan goes to work on the next tape in which he sees Melody breathing shakily hearing some faint chanting coming from the air conditioning. She tries to wake Anabelle up, but she does not listen, so she turns the light off and walks downstairs. She reaches the community room and hears a woman sepeaking an ancient language through a speaker. As she keeps walking, she sees the tenants chanting. Samuel opens his eyes as Dan is confused while watching. The tenants are all chanting while looking forward at statue of a creature in the middle. They start breathing heavily until they stop suddenly and get up, greeting one another afterwards. Melody hides in the coat closet and walks out once everyone leaves. When she heads up, she heads to the statye, but hears a Samuel and Tamara approach, so she hides. Alone, Samuel and Tamara make out and start moaning until Samuel climaxes and suddenly there is a large buzz, which hurts Dan's ears.

Melody walks back up to her apartment, waking Anabelle, who thought she was back from visiting Samuel. However, Melody says that there was something happening in the building - something very fucked up. She tells Anabelle about the tenants singing their horrible song and the statue, so she says that they should leave, but she says she cannot leave. She tells her that the reason she was there was because of her birth mother, who was not Lila. She shows Anabelle a letter that was given to her by St. Joseph's, saying that a woman named Julia Bennett was looking for her. She needs to find her because she really wants to know who she is, so Anabelle tells her that they would stay and find her.

Melody gets a knock at her door, which Anabelle tells her not to answer. However, she gets up and sees nobody there. Dan remembers when he knocked on a door in his dream and Melody opened up as the tape cuts.

Dan walks up to the piano and plays the melody he used to play as a kid. After that, he grabs a bike and heads to the nearest town in order to meet up with Mark. There, he tells Mark that he believed that his sister had come up with the melody he used to play, which he thought she had made up, but now it turns out it was the "Visser Historical Sex Society's sex cult theme song". He hands Mark a piece of paper which says Kalaygo, which he thinks is creepy. Mark tells Dan to keep investigating the house, but Dan knows it is under surveillance, so he asks for the other stuff he asked for. Mark tells him that Legacy Management Global is an iceberg because he could not find anything. He says that at Dan's aunt's house he was not able to find any patient records for Melody Pendras, but he has his father's recorded patient sessions and has the ones marked with Melody's name. He wonders if Melody had filed the complaint against Dan's father, but Dan does not think so even though he knew that Melody was mad at him. Mark says that maybe he could ask for himself, since Melody Pendras did not die in the fire and was alive and well in Pittsburgh, so she could know what happened to his father.

## Cast

### Main cast

* Dan Turner - Mamoudou Athie
* Melody Pendras - Dina Shihabi
* Samuel - Evan Jonigkeit
* Anabelle - Julia Chan
* Jess - Ariana Neal
* Mark Higgins - Matt McGorry
* Virgil Davenport - Martin Donovan
* Cassandra Wall - Kristin Griffith
* Tamara Stefano - Kate Eastman
* Beatriz Reyes - Sol Miranda
* Father Russo - Martin Sola

### Additional cast

* Camera Repair Shop Owner - Ken Bolden
* Sanctuary Dancer - Ebony Cunningham
* Sanctuary Dancer - Kaylin Horgan
* Sanctuary Dancer - A.J. Libert
* Sanctuary Dancer - Taylor Robinson
* Sanctuary Dancer - Dominique Ross
* Sanctuary Dancer - Olivia Tarchick
* Sanctuary Dancer - James Allen Washington
* Sanctuary Dancer - Darbey Rose Waters
* Visser Tenant - Arjun Kumar
* Visser Tenant - Nupur Charyalu
* Visser Tenant - Debbie Norrell
* Visser Tenant - Jamie Agnello
* Visser Tenant - Daniel Johnson
* Visser Tenant - Johnna Leary
* Driver - Roger Petan