When the Wolf Comes Home

Santos arrives in Scottsdale ahead of Jess and the boy. He once again feels the strange sensation in his neck and briefly forgets his own nickname—Mickey.

When he arrives at Sky Blue Senior Freedom Residences, Santos fails to notice another man waiting in a nearby car. The other man, Calvert, has a gun. He watches Santos interact with Cookie.

Cookie is so worried about Jess that she forgets that she is supposed to host bridge night at her condo. She doesn’t want to cancel because it will reflect poorly on her reputation. Her guests start calling in to let her know that they will be arriving soon.

Santos knocks on Cookie’s door and introduces himself. He asks about Jess, suggesting that she is in trouble. Cookie acts like she and Jess are close, though Santos insinuates otherwise based on his findings from social media. Santos tells her about the crimes that Jess is at risk of being charged with: kidnapping and shooting a police officer. He reveals, however, that the officer is expected to survive his injuries.

Cookie stops Santos to say that she cannot help outright because she doesn’t know where Jess is. Santos shares his suspicion that Jess is on her way there, so Cookie tells him to intercept her on the road, not at her condo. Before he leaves, Santos hints that there are people who want Jess dead. He, on the other hand, is determined to ensure her survival, which he says to earn Cookie’s trust.

Jess teaches the boy how to play card games like gin rummy and war. Jess asks the boy about his abilities, wondering if he’s ever tried to imagine himself without them. This proves difficult for the boy to understand, especially when he expresses his ability as a “bad thing” inside him. Jess tries to convince him that it isn’t bad, just complicated.

A fighting couple arrives in the room next door. Jess tries to distract the boy from their noise by offering him chocolate milk. She puts a sleeping pill in his milk so that he can get more rest that evening. He falls asleep quickly. Afterward, she does more research on her infection and realizes that she still has time to see a doctor. She stays up that night and realizes that the last time she ever felt this helpless was when Cookie told her that Tommy was moving away. Soon after Jess convinced herself that Tommy left because of her, Jess developed an eating disorder, which resurged whenever Tommy would visit or reach out to her. She fights back her grief and anxiety for fear of waking up the boy. She briefly considers the alarming thought of killing the boy to ensure her own safety.

Cookie calls Jess to warn her about Santos. Jess decides that if Cookie can trust Santos, then he would be the best person to surrender the boy to. Cookie promises that Jess can stay with her in the aftermath. Afterward, Cookie calls Santos to communicate Jess’s terms of surrender. Santos reassures her that Jess will be okay. Just then, someone knocks on Cookie’s door.

Santos is elated by the development of Jess’s imminent surrender. He is sincere about his intention of protecting Jess from incarceration. He also trusts that Cookie will keep her word. While performing a stakeout outside Cookie’s condo, Santos sees another man knock on Cookie’s door.

Calvert spends his own stakeout outside Cookie’s condo in relative comfort, having experienced many uncomfortable stakeouts during his military tours of duty. Calvert feels the urgent need to recover his son, remembering the horrifying incident with the friend whom his son created. The memory fills him with guilt.

Sometime before his stakeout, Calvert conducted research on Cookie and Jess, just to get a sense of how he might get Cookie to trust him. Calvert introduces himself to Cookie, pretending that he is a casting director with Paramount Pictures. He explains that he wants to talk to Jess about a role for a sitcom pilot that the studio is shooting soon. He acts as though he has been unable to contact Jess but remembered that she mentioned being on her way to her mother’s place, located not too far from where he would be attending his sister’s wedding.

Cookie apologizes for Jess’s flaky behavior but admits that she doesn’t know where she is at the moment. Calvert gives Cookie his phone number and asks her to contact him when Jess arrives. He pretends to be a fan of Jess’s work, but he can’t name a single thing she’s appeared in. He feels that the ruse is successful.

Cookie immediately calls Jess and tells her not to come. She fills Jess in on the casting director from Paramount Pictures, suspecting that he wasn’t who he claimed to be because of the look in his eyes. She is no longer sure that she can trust Santos either. Cookie is about to tell Jess where to go but then she worries that someone might be tracing their call. She goes to her desk and copies out an entry from her address book: “TOMMY’S CABIN.”

She tells Jess that she will reach out to someone named Uncle Pepsi, who will help her find her way to safety. Though Jess laughs at the name, Cookie does not find it funny. She calls Uncle Pepsi, who is Tommy’s cousin.

Jess waits nervously for Cookie’s next instructions. When Cookie calls back, she passes on Uncle Pepsi’s number so that they can coordinate. Jess asks for some clue as to where they’re going. Cookie hints that it has to do with Tommy and where he grew up. Jess remembers that Tommy grew up in another state, so Cookie tells her to drive in that direction. Cookie promises to hold Santos and the casting director off for as long as she can. Jess gets Cookie to confirm that her uncle’s name is really Pepsi. As Jess continues to remark on the absurdity of the name, Cookie can’t help but laugh with her.

The boy turns in discomfort as he sleeps. The warning label for the sleeping pill that Jess gave him indicates that the pill’s side effects include intense and vivid nightmares.

Santos stops the stranger who visited Cookie and holds him at gunpoint. He realizes it is Calvert. He puts Calvert in handcuffs, but Calvert starts calling out to someone, asking them not to “do this.” Calvert bends forward in discomfort and realizes with horror that he is about to transform again.

Santos watches as Calvert violently turns into a terrifying amalgam of beasts, which include a wolf and a giant spider. His transformation never settles into a particular form. Cookie’s guests investigate the noise. Just as Santos is about to warn them to get back inside, Calvert throws him at the wall.

The creature kills two of Cookie’s guests, sending everyone into a panic. Cookie is still on the phone with Jess when they hear the screams. The creature enters Cookie’s living room and continues its massacre. One of the guests recognizes the anguish that the creature is in as it continues to change from one form to another. The creature eventually settles into a form: a dark cloud composed of mouths. Each mouth contains another mouth inside it.

Cookie has no place to hide. Jess tries to explain that the creature is the boy’s father, but Cookie does not understand her. Cookie tries to escape through the window, but before she can climb through, the creature enters her room.

Jess listens to her mother behold the creature’s final form. Cookie tells Jess to get somewhere safe. She says goodbye, tells Jess that she loves her, and asks her not to hate her. Jess listens to her mother die. Her screams wake the boy up. Right then, the noises on the phone stop too.

Calvert reverts back to his human form, extremely disoriented. He realizes that the boy was dreaming terrible dreams about him. He sees how the dreams have resulted in the massacre at Cookie’s apartment. He grieves for what has happened and then remembers that he has a mission to complete. He finds a page of the address book near Cookie’s body, which reads, “CABIN.” Calvert takes the page and stops by the body of Santos on his way to the car.

Santos is still alive, having only been injured during Calvert’s transformation. Calvert thinks it is useless to kill him since his superiors will likely send someone else. Calvert instead searches for his clothes, car keys, and gun. He briefly considers dying by suicide but is unsure if the boy’s powers will merely reanimate him. He remains determined to complete his mission.