Enemies

"**Enemies**" is the seventh episode of the Prime Video series *Tales from the Loop*. It and all other episodes of the series were written by series creator Nathaniel Halpern. It was directed by Ti West.

## Plot

A journey to a mysterious island leads to a monstrous discovery.

## Summary

### Telling tales

Thunder rumbles from a storm on an island and there is a sound of radio static. A young boy, George, fiddles with a radio in his room. Another boy, Chris, asks him if he has something. "Almost," replies George. He tunes a bit more as Chris turns to look at another boy, Adam, who shakes his head. They both get up and walk out. George hears garbles voices and shouts "Guys!", but they're gone. He gets up to follow. There is thunder crashing again, but now the sound is from a movie, an old black-and-white film. In the theater, the group of boys are all watching and eating popcorn. A man in a monster mask appears on the screen.

The boys are now outside. George lifts up a rock and underneath it is a snake. Adam stuns it using a metal shock prod. Chris squats down and examines it, and Adam asks if it's dead. In response, Chris picks up the snake and tosses it at George. Chris and Adam both laugh at his reaction and he tosses a stick at them. Paul then playfully zaps the prod at Chris. That evening, George is back messing around with the radio, still getting an indistinct transmission. He turns up the volume and hears a strange screeching sound. Sometime later, he and the other boys are sitting at a pier by the lake. Adam, looking towards the island, asks if they've heard about the monster. George asks what monster he's talking about and Adam sits next to him and tells him that his sister said that the monster lives on the island. Chris asks what it looks like and he says that it's big and its claws can tear through anything. "Even bone?" asks George and Adam agrees "That's why no one goes there." George asks how it got there and Chris seems to think it's a good point. Adam replies that his sister didn't say, that it just came from underground and murdered people. George asks when this was and he replies "A long time ago." He states again that it murdered people and George asks who it murdered. Adam just shakes his head and says "the people" and so they just left it there. George asks why they didn't just kill it and Chris replies "Let's find out." He asks if they're in. George tells him that his father told him to never go there. Chris makes crybaby motions. George shouts for him to stop and he says that they should go then. Chris and Adam take off and George reluctantly follows.

### The creature on the island

They board a speedboat and together head for the island. They find a wrecked canoe on the shore of the island. Chris wonders what it's doing there and Adam suggests that maybe it's how the monster got there. Chris wonders why it would just be left there and George points to a large hole in it. Chris asks if Adam sees anything and he points out something in the distance. Chris hands George the shock prod, indicating he should go investigate. So, he does so, Adam patting him on the back. George walks forward and finds rocks hanging from strings. He reaches out to touch one with the prod and then hears the sound of a motor. He runs back, only to find Chris and Adam headed off and away in the speedboat. He shouts for them to wait and to stop, but they do not. "Say hi to the monster for me!" shouts Adam. George sits atop the ruined canoe. He empties his shoes of water, then takes off his socks to dry. He picks up some sort of metal object with wires from the shore. He finds the remains of tubing and circuit boards along the rocks. He sits on the canoe, tinkering with them, but they are very rusted and his efforts are for naught. Then, he hears a screeching in the distance, the same screeching from the radio. As the screeching grows louder, he feels something bite him on the arm and turns to see a snake swimming away in the water. He groans in pain and puts some water from the shore on it, then uses one of the socks as a tourniquet. He stares out to the sea, then starts heading inland. On the ground, he finds a dead fish surrounded by flies and as he heads further in, he finds a tripwire with rattling cans. He sees what appear to be large claw marks on a tree branch. He puts his hand into it and whatever made it has a hand considerably large than his own. He keeps walking into the forest of the island and passes more rocks on strings. He comes to what appears to be an encampment, with a tent.

He explores the island some more and a storm starts up. He pulls off the sock and sees no improvement in the insect bite. He hears the screeching in the distance again and it begins to pour rain and flash lightning. He takes refuge in a hollow log. He props up some sticks to keep out the rain as best he can and hunkers down. He falls asleep and when he awakes, he is at home in bed. He looks over and sees ants crawling on his window. They scuttle faster and faster and then he opens his eyes. It was just a dream. He emerges from the log and the sun has come out. He pulls the sock off his arm. There is green pus oozing from the snakebite and a large, nasty red rash surrounding it. Worse, there are ants crawling all over. He slaps them away. He walks off a studies a spider's web, then hears a clanging nearby. He pulls out a switchblade knife and goes to the tent from before. There is a fire burning in a can outside. He opens a flap on the tent, but finds nothing there. He steels himself before the fire, then sees a figure in the distance and hears the screeching from before. He runs through the woods in terror, before getting caught in a trap that sends a barb with spikes swinging at him, his leg caught in a loop of rope. He scrambles for the knife and then hears footfalls approaching. He hides in the foliage and the creature, whatever it is, passes him by. He frees himself and goes to hide again in the hollow log, picking up the shock prod for added protection. He hears Chris shouting his name. He watches figure stalking in the shadows as Chris shouts his name again. He exits the log, ready to make a break for it.

The figure suddenly emerges, a hooded figure in a cloak with one glowing eye. George jabs the shock prod at it, causing it to screech in pain. It rises again, sparking. There is a metallic creak and one of its arms falls off. It screeches again and George turns and runs, wincing at the pain in his arm. He sees the boat taking off in the distance and shouts again for them to wait. "Wait!" he shouts again, then flops down into the water in despair. He passes out as the boat comes back around.

When he awakes, he is in a hospital. A nurse comes in and opens some blinds to let light into his room. She tells him that his mother is there to take him home. He rises. His arm that was bitten is now nothing more than a stump, having been amputated. His mother, Klara, enters, and gives him a lengthy hug. Back at home, George again fiddles with the radio. Outside, he hears Chris shouting. He sees him walking up with Adam, but he closes his blinds. Chris shouts, asking if he's there, and bangs at the window, but George hides behind the furniture. Adam tells Chris that they should go.

George eats a meal and his father, Russ, asks him if he's getting on okay. He asks him if he saw something while he was on the island. George nods and he asks if he told anyone. George shakes his head and Russ tells him that he should not have gone there, but now that he has and seen what he saw, he must not tell anyone about it, ever. George replies that's okay and Russ asks if he promises. George nods, telling him that he promises. "Good," replies Russ and leaves.

### It's just different

George is fitted with a mechanical arm by a technician of the Loop. He tries it out from a distance and it seems to respond well. George chuckles at the coolness of it. The mechanical arm is snapped into place and he uses it to place a ball in a cup. He smiles at it and returns to school, where a girl, Uma, sitting next to him, passes him a note asking if he's a robot. He turns the note over, sighs, and goes back to his schoolwork. That evening, he puts up the arm to charge before going to bed. He hears the screeching in the distance and stares at the arm, then settles down to sleep.

Many years later, he is the adult George Willard, sleeping next to his wife, Loretta. He sighs and gets out of bed, and puts on the mechanical arm. He has his morning drink and Loretta tells him that he was talking in his sleep again. He asks what he said and she tells him that he was upset. He asks what he was upset about and she replies that she keeps meaning to put a pad by the bed to write it down. She leaves, telling him she'll see him that night. He goes to the sink, having trouble using the mechanical hand to turn the knob. He hears an electrical crackling in the distance and goes upstairs to find his son, Cole, inside a closet and holding the shock prod. He tells him that it isn't a toy and he could have gotten hurt. Cole asks what it's for and he tells him that it's for nothing. Cole asks why he has it, then, and he tells him to get going, then places it on an upper shelf of the closet, still having trouble with the hand. He returns to the lab from before, where a technician named Audrey works on the hand. She states that the old model is a real workhorse, but there are new ones if he wants one. He tells her that he rather likes that one, that it's his. She tells him it'll be as good as new when they're done. He goes to the barbershop for a trim from the barber, Lenny. The phone rings and he steps away to take it. A little, Laurel, comes over to look at the mechanical arm. Her mother, Ruth, calls for her to come back, apologizing. George, however, tells the girl that it's okay. He tells her that it's nothing to be afraid of, that it's just different. She smiles as he gives her hand a little squeeze using the mechanical one.

### Making peace

At home, he and his family watch an old black-and-white movie, the same one that he watched with Chris and Adam in the theater so long ago. He has a flashback of the strange figure from the island. Loretta sits, reading the *MCEP Courier*. That evening, as he and Loretta brush their teeth, he comments that he never told the boys what happened. She asks if they asked and he says that he thinks their afraid to. She suggests that he tell them, that it doesn't have to be a big mystery that a snake bite went septic. "Yeah, all right," he agrees. That evening, he lays awake in bed. He goes to the closet and pulls out the old radio. Tuning it, he hears static and then, once more, the screeching. He turns it off and the next day heads to the pier, where from the island the screeching can still be heard.

He sits with his mother, Klara, and has lunch. She asks how the children are and he tells her that they're good, and that Jakob starts at the Loop soon, doing panel repair, as a place to begin. He asks her if his dad ever talked to her about the island and what was on there, because he never did with him. She agrees that they never did talk very much. She asks if he'd like more iced tea. He says he's fine and asks again if he did say anything. She asks why and he replies that it's because he isn't there anymore. She agrees that he isn't and tells him that what was on the island was like a child to him, but people wouldn't accept it, what he made. She tells him that it was alive, in its own way. "It still is," replies George. She asks how he knows and he tells her that he just does. "All this time, alone. Poor thing," comments Klara. George is shocked by the comment, asking if she has any idea what happened to him out there. As he talks with her, he is shown simultaneously grabbing a shock prod and heading back out to sea. He asks Klara why Russ didn't just kill it and she tells him that it was the first, that the next one would have to be more like them. He put it on a boat, feeling guilty, but he realized that it was too different. People don't like things that are different.

George arrives on the island. During the conversation with Klara, he comments that Russ put the creature on the island so that it wouldn't hurt anybody. "No," Klara replies, "he put it out there so no one would hurt it." On the island, he places his mechanical hand in the print on the tree. It is a near-exact match. He looks inside the hollow log, considering the place where he once slept. He approaches the tent of the creature, the Vagabond. The fire is again burning in the trash can. There is a rustling and the Vagabond appears before him. In the light of the fire, it is clearly an android. It screeches and George flinches slightly, but does not leave. He asks if the Vagabond recognizes him. He tells him that his father made him, put him on a boat to hide him there. As George narrates, a flashback is shown of the Vagabond riding to the island, at that point still with two blue eyes. George continues that it was to keep him safe. The Vagabond seems to consider this and steps forward, showing him his missing arm. George tells him that he's sorry for hurting him, that he didn't know. The Vagabond screeches again, seeing the shock prod in George's hand. George tells him that it's alright and tosses the prod by the fire can, offering it to him. He then raises his mechanical arm, then detaches it, leaving that for the Vagabond as well. The Vagabond creaks quietly in response, seeming to accept George's offering.

## Cast

### Starring

* Rebecca Hall as Loretta Willard
* Paul Schneider as George Willard
* Duncan Joiner as Cole
* Daniel Zolghadri as Jakob (Danny Jannson)
* Jonathan Pryce as Russ Willard

### Guest starring

* Emjay Anthony as Young George Willard
* Jane Alexander as Klara

### Co-starring

* Stephanie Sy as Audrey
* Callum McAllister as Chris
* Keenan Lehmann as Adam
* Danny-Jo Luprypa as Paul
* Quinton Boisclair as Vagabond
* Liliane Chretien as Paul's Mother
* Daria Puttaert as Klara (40s)
* Toby Hughes as Russ Willard (40s)
* Roger Clown as Lenny
* Neil Shah as Lab Technician
* Rooj Ali as Uma
* River Price-Maenpaa as Laurel
* Alicia Johnston as Ruth
* Gwendolyn Collins as Nurse In Hospital

## Scene breakdown

*The following are the scenes of this episode, as indicated via Amazon's X-ray feature*:

1. Amazon Original (00:00:00)
2. Title Sequence (00:00:05)
3. Messing around with friends (00:00:27)
4. Investigating the legend (00:05:11)
5. Exploring the island (00:11:26)
6. Trying to survive (00:17:54)
7. Adjusting to a new way of life (00:24:57)
8. Keeping a secret (00:26:41)
9. Life with a new limb (00:27:57)
10. Bad dreams (00:31:35)
11. Disciplining Cole (00:33:14)
12. Getting his arm fixed (00:34:41)
13. Different isn't scary (00:35:30)
14. The choice to share a secret (00:36:20)
15. Legacy lives on the island (00:39:34)
16. Confronting the island (00:44:42)
17. End Credits (00:48:50)

## Behind the scenes

* While the series *Tales from the Loop* was filmed in Winnipeg, CA, its fictional setting is in Mercer, Ohio. If the island featured in this episode existed in real life, it could be found in Grand Lake (and could be one of several small islands found within the lake, including Anise Island and Safety Island). However, since no far shore is visible, it’s most likely that it’s meant to me a fictionalized version of Lake Erie. Within the series itself, there is a road-sign seen in the episode "Transpose" with an arrow that points to Lake Ernst, though there is no Lake Ernst in the real Ohio.
* In a scene commentary for this episode titled "George's Past," showrunner Nathaniel Halpern states that the robot seen in the episode is known as the Vagabond, a name which is also given in the episode's closing credits. He also describes the creation of the robot, describing that it took a lot of design work to create a face for it that viewers could look at and feel empathy. The robot was created using both practical effects and CGI.

## References

1. ↑ Writer's Guild of America West - *Tales from the Loop*
2. ↑ *Tales from the Loop* on Amazon