Let’s get shaking with 11.22.63 Episode 2 The Kill Floor Recap!

We’re gonna see more of Frank Dunning and I’m scared! Hold me!

We begin on October 29, 1960. A young Harry Dunning is being chased through the woods of Holden, Kentucky by three little thugs. They catch him, hold him down and do the old loogie in the face trick. They pants him, and then throw them in the river. Harry reacts by zoning out, and just lying there on the river bank. They leave him be, and he makes his way back through the town to the drug store in just his underpants and t-shirt. Jake is sitting at the counter when Harry comes in and asks the owner for his spare pair of shorts so he can get to school. Jake watches, concerned that this is obviously a regular occurrence. Harry gets his shorts, and walks out, only wearing the one shoe.

Jake asks the owner if he knows of anywhere to stay in Holden, and he tells him there’s some nice places in Lexington, about an hour down the road. No one stays in Holden, what with the nuclear power plant just over yonder, hell people don’t even like to stop for gas here. As Jake gets up to leave, he relents and tells him of one family who rents out a room, Edna and Arliss Price, devout Christians.

Jakes heads on over to the Price’s, and is met by Edna at the door. She quizzes him as to his intentions in Holden, and he tells her he is a writer, working on a book about the common man. “Are you a Communist, Mr. Amberson?” says Edna. She gives him the rules, no women, and no food in the rooms. And he’ll have to pay for the FULL week, and whole THREE dollars. In ADVANCE.

He sits upstairs, recounting the story Harry told the class about his father, trying to make sure he has the details right. He remember Harry saying that Frank was always drunk, and heads down to see Arliss, asking about seeing the sights. Arliss picks up what he’s putting down, and tells him where the nearest tavern is, but also gives him the heads up that Edna is not to be trifled with.

Out at Sammy’s tavern, Jake arrives just before the rush and settles in for a beer. He asks the bartender if Frank Dunning comes here, as a friend of his told him to look him up. The bartender is suspicious about his motives, but doesn’t let on any more about Frank. The working men arrive after their shifts, and the bar instantly gets rowdy. Jake sits back and watches, until he hears someone call out to Frank.

Exuding menace, he makes his way to the bar, and they other guys flock around him. Bill the bartender tells Frank that Jake says he knows him, and he heads over for a chat. Super charming and friendly, he takes a seat, and quizzes him about his writing and his life outside of Holden. They drink on, and Jake ends up quoting literature at them about little guys at the bottom, struggling in the dirt, guys like them.  Err, Jake? I don’t think Frank’s smiling anymore.

Jake asks him about his separation from Doris, and Franks tells him it’s not for long. Jake tells him that he’s divorced, and sometimes walking away is the best thing to do. Frank denies that he has any problems to sort out, and decides that he’ll give Jake a great first chapter for his book. Jake, you in danger girl.

Frank takes Jake, and two friends out in his car, and asks how he knows him again? Jake says a friend told him to look Frank up, and spotting his military tattoo, makes up a fellow serviceman he met. Frank plays along, for now. They arrive at their destination, Frank’s family’s slaughterhouse, he being the town butcher. Frank shows him around, from the absolutely indescribably disgusting hide room to the kill floor, where the tour finishes. Frank’s friend goes to get a cow and puts it in the stocks. Frank says it’s time to see what makes a real man and hands him a sledgehammer. Now, my eyes were covered for most of this bit, but I’m pretty sure that Jake threw the hammer away and refused to play Frank’s little game. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my ears covered as well, and Frank finishes the job. “I guess some men don’t have what it takes, do they boys?”

The next morning Jake is pale and clammy, still in shock over what happened at the slaughterhouse. I’m feeling a bit green myself. He heads over to the Dunning family home, and tells Doris that the family has won a prize. A family trip to the Lexington Halloween festival, on Halloween night. Harry appears at the door, pretending to be sick so he doesn’t have to go to school. “They got 28 ice cream flavours, momma!” She tells Jake she doesn’t know what they have done to deserve this, and Jake replies that sometimes fate just steps in. Orrrr, a dude from the future, same difference, right? Doris tells Jake it’ll be just for one adult and three kids, eager as Jake to get them all away from Frank.

Later, Jake is eating dinner with the Price’s, when Frank appears at the door. Edna is not pleased to see him, recognising Frank for what he is. Frank just wants to apologise, tells Jake they got off on the wrong foot. All smiles and charm once more, he wants to make it up to Jake. Sensing that it’s not an invitation but a demand, Jake goes with him and they end up at Frank’s butcher shop. His pride and joy. The thing he likes most? It’s his place, which means his rules. Okay, rules in a butcher shop? Everyone’s sausage has to be over 9 inches? Apparently, these rules hold the universe together, and when rules are broken there’s a price. This does not sound good, Jakey.

Frank tells a bruised and battered Doris that she can come out the front now, and she’s holding the prize envelopes Jake gave her. He accuses Jake of trying to screw Doris, and he agrees, trying to diffuse the situation. Jakes says that Doris was not interested and shut him down. Kidney punch. Gut kick. Frank scruffs him and throws him out the door, telling him to get the hell out of Dodge. Lucky break, man. Bill the bartender, still suspicious of Jake has witnessed it all from across the street.

Jake heads to the Sporting Goods store that is just closing up, and offers the owner double the going rate for a gun, a cool $40. She wants to know what he is planning on doing with it, no one that desperate for a gun is up to anything good. He can’t give her a good reason, and starts to freak, almost on his knees begging. She starts to laugh, “Can’t you take a joke? I’ll sell you five guns!” At the Price house, Jake loads his new weapon gets ready for Halloween night.

In a flashback, Jake remembers Al telling him more about the past pushing back, and that he is convinced that it gave him cancer. He had a full checkup the month before his last trip through the rabbit hole, and nothing was wrong. Two years later, terminal cancer. Jake wakes Halloween morning with the cold sweats, the spews and the poos. That biotch The Past, is not gonna make this easy, or pleasant smelling. What do we say to the God of Dysentery? Not today.

He heads for the drugstore and stocks up on incontinence pads and some ghastly looking medicine and goes back to the house to get ready. Pants bulging, and not in a good way, he pockets the gun and heads over to the Dunning house. It’s Halloween night and he has a date at 8.00pm.

Trick or treaters are out and about on the streets of Holden, and at the Dunning’s Harry is waiting impatiently for his brother and sister to get ready. Jake watches from across the street,  a few minutes to go, when he is grabbed around the neck from behind. It’s Bill the bartender, with a knife to his throat. Jake tells him that Frank is on his way to kill them, and Bill tells him that he hates Frank, he killed his sister. They were married and Frank killed her, and their baby but no one could ever prove it, or find the bodies. Jake ends up telling him he knows it’s going to happen again, because he’s from the future. Hey, me too! *waves to Northern Hemisphere friends*.

Jake pulls his gun, and Bill tells him he won’t stop him. But there is one little problem with his story, its 8.05pm. Cue the screaming from the house, Frank has gone in the back. Jake races in and the house is quiet, he heads upstairs and finds Harry peeking out of his room. He tells him to not come out, no matter what he hears, and the screaming starts again. Jake interrupts Frank looming over Doris with his sledgehammer in hand, and he says “You shouldn’t be here.”

Jake shoots him in the chest but it barely even slows him down and he comes for Jake with the hammer. They fight and Frank clearly has the upper hand, but Jake manages to tell Doris to run. Harry appears, and Frank tells him to hand him his hammer, but he takes it and runs down the stairs. Frank tries to follow, and Jake get him around the neck with the cord from a lamp. He manages to hold on, and Frank dies.

Jake heads down to check on everyone, and tells them not to go in the bedroom. Trick or treaters have started to arrive, and they are all shocked to see Jake leaving, covered in blood. He gets to the Price’s and Edna confronts him, wondering whether she should call the Sheriff. Jake tells her “No matter what this looks like, I didn’t do a bad thing.” She tells him that God will be his final judge, and she hopes he’s prepared for that. A siren starts to wail, but Edna lets him leave.

He heads off through the pouring rain, driving to the outer limits of Holden. He gets out, and finds a roadside rest stop, and uses the faucet to try and get the blood off his hands. “Doris, Tugga, Ellen. They’re still alive.”

He hears a “Hey!” from behind him. It’s Bill, holding his gun on him. He raises his hand, and he’s holding the scorched cover of a newspaper. The one reporting JFK’s death three years from now. Bill points to the car and says “Get in.”