When the Wolf Comes Home

Cookie lives at the Sky Blue Senior Freedom Residences, a luxury retirement home. She leaves a residence party out of frustration with her neighbor, Mona, who keeps bragging about her son, a neurosurgeon. Cookie is concerned for Jess. She understands that Jess’s grief is unique from her own because Tommy was her father. She is afraid of losing her relationship with Jess, especially since she is anxious about a secret she has been keeping from Jess.

Cookie sees a voicemail from Jess and returns Jess’s call. Jess explains her situation but stops before explaining why she cannot turn to the police. They argue over Jess’s evasiveness. Finally, Jess tells Cookie that she needs a place to stay. Cookie books her a room at a Radisson hotel near where she lives. Cookie plans to follow Jess to the hotel to check on her. Instead of returning to her condo unit, Cookie returns to the party to distract herself from thinking about Jess’s well-being.

Jess is relieved to reach the Radisson after the boy has fallen asleep. She checks in and carries him to the room to rest. It takes Jess an hour to fall asleep, during which she has intense nightmares of being pursued as a child in a dark forest. In the nightmares, she bleeds heavily from where the syringe pricked her finger, and the wound causes her body to rot. She jolts awake and takes some time to relax.

The boy wakes Jess up the next morning to tell her he is hungry. They order room service. While they eat, Jess assures him that they are safe at the hotel and that they simply need to wait until the creature is contained by the authorities. She asks him his name. The boy doesn’t know what it is because his father never used it. Jess asks him what name he would be comfortable with her using, and they settle on calling him “kiddo.”

Jess tells the boy that she needs to run an errand without him. The boy doesn’t understand what “errand” means. Jess suggests that the boy should take a bath, but he has a violent reaction to the idea of taking baths because he fears the bath drain. Before Jess leaves, she turns on the television to look for news reports on the creature. The reports frame the events of the previous night as a “bear attack.” The boy is awestruck, never having seen a television before. Jess explains that it is a box that shows moving-picture stories. The boy is thrilled to have another picture book in his life, especially since his father never allowed him to read any picture books.

While flipping through the television channels, Jess explains her work as an actress to the boy, telling him that she is a “super famous” celebrity. Jess looks for a channel to keep the boy occupied while she is away. She lands on a channel showing the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which she loved as a child. The boy watches the film, enrapt.

Jess grapples with the mixed sense of panic, relief, and purpose she feels as she goes to a nearby health clinic. The clinic receptionist can hardly contain her glee upon seeing Jess. She explains that she is a fan of Jess’s work, which confuses Jess since she has not been in any major role. It occurs to Jess that everyone in the clinic is treating her as if she were a major celebrity. In the lobby, the television shows a news report focusing on the incident at Jess’s apartment. Jess is identified by the anchor as an “icon” and a person of interest. The other patients in the clinic flock to Jess to ask for photos. Jess flees from the clinic.

When Jess reaches the hotel, the clerks and guests are similarly starstruck by her appearance. Jess retreats to her room. To her surprise, the television is off, and the bathroom door is shut. She finds the boy hiding under the bed. The boy explains that he was frightened by the movie, so he had to shut it off. When Jess expresses her confusion with the mob outside their room, the boy explains that they are there because she is a celebrity, just like she told him. She asks him to make them leave. He thinks about it, and the crowd disperses.

Although Jess is relieved, the boy calls her a “liar” for making him believe that she was famous. Jess apologizes, explaining that she was trying to amuse him. She also apologizes for making him watch a scary movie. The boy refuses to acknowledge her until she goes to the bathroom door. He tells her not to open it. When she does, she is surprised to find the animated villains from Who Framed Roger Rabbit waiting on the other side.

The movie villains rush at Jess, forcing her back in fear. The boy explains that they came out from the TV because he got scared of them. The main villain’s hand transforms into a pair of buzz saws, which he uses to cut into Jess’s back. Jess and the boy barely escape from the room. In the hallway, they encounter paparazzi, who still vaguely recall Jess’s celebrity. The animated villains kill the paparazzi with their weapons.

Jess and the boy get to the elevator, but it is too slow to reach them in time. They take the stairwell, but the boy runs up to the roof instead of down to the lobby. Jess follows after him, worrying that there will be no way to escape if they get cornered on the roof. Just before the villains reach them, Jess tells the boy that they need to jump off the roof. She tries to convince him that they will float down like balloons if they fill their lungs up with air. The boy trusts her statement and takes her hand as they leap off together.

Jess is amazed that her idea worked. Having landed safely on the ground, she and the boy escape in Margie’s car.

Michael “Mickey” Santos, a special agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), experiences an odd sensation on the back of his neck. He is summoned to meet with Arthur Allen, director of Department 925, a secret division of the Bureau. They discuss the “bear attack” in Los Angeles. Allen shares evidence of related incidents: a 911 call reporting a giant spider chasing a car and hotel surveillance footage of animated figures killing people. Looking at a map of the incidents, Santos deduces that the party causing the incidents is moving east.

Allen swears Santos to secrecy and tells him about the existence of a military experiment called Project Albatross. The experiment involved administering substances to volunteer soldiers in an attempt to enhance their combat skills and attributes. Allen identifies one of the subjects: Sergeant Peter Calvert, Sr. Although the experiment was expected to render all volunteer subjects sterile, Calvert and his wife had a son, Peter Calvert, Jr. Calvert allowed the military to monitor his son after it became clear that he had developed side effects inherited from his father.

Allen explains that the boy is known to make whatever he fears real, though it is unknown whether other emotions trigger his abilities as well. When the boy stops thinking of the things that scare him, his projections disappear. It is suggested that the first time the boy manifested this ability was during childbirth, which resulted in the death of his mother. At some point, Calvert forcibly removed his son from military custody. The two of them were living in secret until the “bear attack.”

Allen briefs Santos on his assignment: Retrieve the boy. He shows Santos a picture of Jess and identifies her as the boy’s accomplice. When Santos faintly recognizes Jess as a celebrity but isn’t sure why, Allen confirms that this connects her to the boy. Before the meeting ends, Santos asks if he is being sent on a “suicide mission,” given the risk he’s facing as a lone agent. Allen subtly confirms his suspicions.

While going through Jess’s social media accounts, Santos learns about Cookie and deduces that she is why Jess and the boy are heading east. Santos is determined to catch her and prove that he is worth keeping alive.

Jess considers abandoning the boy but fears that he will use his powers against her. As she thinks back to their escape from the hotel, she suddenly realizes that what the boy was telling her was true: The creature chasing them is his father. This increases her terror, making her think twice about protecting the boy.

They stop at a gas station and then enter the convenience store to get new clothes, first aid supplies, and snacks. The store clerk notices Jess’s injuries, so Jess explains that she fell at an embankment. The boy speaks up, calling her out on her lie. The clerk wonders if Jess needs help, but Jess declines. Afterward, Jess explains to the boy that she needs to lie to other adults to protect them, which she admits is “complicated.” She promises never to lie to him.

Jess administers first aid on the wounds she sustained at the hotel. She asks the boy for help in putting on the bandages, which he has experience doing since he has helped his father with them before. Jess assures the boy that he is safe with her. On their way to pick up more supplies from Target, Jess gets a call from Cookie.

The boy watches Jess talk to Cookie. Cookie is alarmed to hear that there was a reported carbon monoxide leak at the Radisson. Jess tries to catch Cookie up on their situation, but this escalates into another shouting match, which makes the boy anxious. He starts thinking about his life being complicated. He feels that he can’t do anything to fix the damage he has caused and is reminded of his father yelling at him to “be normal.” He misses his father when his father isn’t angry, but that feeling is complicated by the revelation of how much bigger the world is than his father had let on.

When they reach the Target parking lot, the boy sees a family in another car with a dog. The boy gets the dog to say “hi.” Tired of hearing Jess argue with her mother, the boy says that he needs to use the bathroom. This is the first time Cookie registers that Jess is with someone else, so Jess admits that she is taking care of a child.

Jess continues to talk to Cookie while they enter the Target. The boy is bewildered by all the colors and shapes he registers inside the store. He takes a closer look at an object that catches his attention.

Jess is relieved to argue with Cookie over the phone, if only to distract herself from her anxieties. Cookie has always supported Jess through every part of her life, especially when she was adjusting to her move to Los Angeles. Jess does not tell Cookie things about the situation that she knows Cookie won’t believe, and she avoids mentioning the officer she shot. When Jess tells her about the syringe, Cookie urges her to surrender the boy to the authorities and proceed to a hospital. Jess refuses; Cookie calls her a masochist because she doesn’t always do what is right for herself. Cookie suspects that Jess does this to compensate for her abandonment issues. Jess ends the call to avoid a discussion about her father.

Jess realizes that the boy is gone. She finds him playing tag with a boy-sized mannequin that, among other mannequins in the store, has come to life. He explains that he did this because he didn’t want to be scared of mannequins. Jess tries to get him to stop the mannequins from moving, but the boy explains that the mannequin reminded him of a friend he brought to life when he was living with his father. He says that his father had forced him to stop his friend from being alive.

Jess brings the boy to the stationery section to distract him from the mannequins. He slips away and reaches the toy section. She tries to keep an eye on him as he inspects the various toys, but he slips away again, reaching some Halloween products. Jess finds him in front of Halloween masks, which stun him with their grotesqueness. Jess tries to reassure the boy by showing him that the masks are made of harmless plastic. This stops the boy from bringing them to life.

Before they leave Target, Jess makes one last stop at the store pharmacy. She is unable to buy a blood test since it is out of stock. She picks up a few more supplies and then proceeds to the self-checkout counter, where she hears a child screaming. Another boy is bullying his younger sister with a Halloween mask, and their mother is reprimanding him. Jess’s boy is frightened too, which causes the mask to come to life and bite the little girl’s shoulder. The other Halloween decorations come to life and attack the other customers, causing chaos at the store. Jess shouts at the boy to stop, but by then, it is too much to contain. They escape Target with their supplies.