Episodes 01

“Long Day’s Journey Into Night”

On a cross-country drive in their RV, the Matthews family – consisting of parents Jim and Tabitha and children Julie and Ethan – encounter a fallen tree blocking the road, forcing them to take a detour into a small town. The local sheriff, Boyd, instructs them to follow the tree road through town. As the Matthews continue driving, they find themselves repeatedly looping back into town, until they encounter another car that runs them off the road, causing the RV to flip and crash. Fearing nightfall, the townspeople arrive to help, bringing the passengers of the other car, Tobey, and Jade, back to town, while Boyd and the town doctor, Kristi, stay in the overturned RV with Jim to help Ethan, who is immobile due to a serious leg wound. In a hurry to find shelter, the car driven by deputy Kenny runs over a spike strip left on the road originally for the RV, prompting Kenny, Tabitha, Julie, town priest, Father Khatri, Jade and Boyd’s estranged son, Ellis, to run for the “Colony House” on foot before dark. Back in the RV, as night falls, strangers slowly approach the vehicle and surround it.

Episodes 02

“The Way Things Are Now”

The group barely makes it to the Colony House, where they are let in by the leader, Donna, just as the strangers surround them. Per their protocol, Tabitha, Julie and the unconscious Jade are separated and confined for their safety. In the RV, Kristi, Boyd, and Jim stabilize Ethan, while the strangers surround the vehicle. Simultaneously, Boyd and Donna explain to Jim and Tabitha the situation in the town: the surrounding woods are full of intelligent, shape-shifting creatures that kill for sport. All the town residents are people who arrived at the town and became trapped, with the earliest surviving resident being a strange man named Victor. Boyd had discovered mysterious talismans that, when placed inside an enclosed structure, act as a shield from the monsters. At the clinic, Sara is commanded by the voices to kill Tobey and open the door; the monsters enter and brutally kill everyone, including Kenny’s elderly father. Morning arrives and Boyd and Kristi bring Jim and Ethan to the town, while Kenny discovers the carnage at the clinic and grieves. In the Colony House, Ethan looks out of a window and sees a mysterious boy in white.

Episodes 03

“Choosing Day”

After Jade regains consciousness, Donna explains the situation. In disbelief, he assumes the town is an escape room arranged by the deceased Tobey. Father Khatri leads Jim and Tabitha on a tour of the town, explaining that they will undergo a local ritual called the “Choosing Day” where they decide if they will stay in a private home in the town proper or communally in the Colony House. Passing by a strange structure in the middle of town, Khatri explains that the town’s only form of punishment is the “Box”, where the culprit is confined overnight and left exposed to the monsters. This punishment, never having taken place before, is reserved for Frank, a drunkard whose negligence resulted in the deaths of his wife and daughter. Boyd attempts to spare Frank but he refuses. At the Choosing Day for Jade and the Matthews family, Julie chooses the Colony House after her family picks Frank’s former residence, while Jade causes a scene and is brought to Tobey’s grave. Kenny brings Jade to stay at his house while Julie and the rest of the Matthews family settle in separately to their new homes. Frank is killed in the Box by the monsters.

Episodes 04

“A Rock and a Farway”

In the distant past, Victor – as a child – sees the corpses of many residents. The boy in white appears and invites him to play on a roundabout. In the present, Ethan matches the boy in white he saw to a drawing made by Victor. Kenny shows Jade that the town has no fixed physical location. As they are speaking, a radio emits static, and Jade carries it off. At the Colony House, Julie begins to have regrets when she learns that the residents share everything and live communally. Julie angrily confronts Tabitha about Jim and Tabitha’s impending divorce due to the death of their baby, Thomas. Tabitha returns home and argues with Jim. Victor takes Ethan away to search for the boy in white. In the woods, Victor shows Ethan a tree with an opening in it – he demonstrates by throwing a rock in the tree that objects within are teleported to another random physical space. Searching for Ethan, Jim and Tabitha are surrounded by wild dogs, but Victor scares them off with a pistol. At the diner, a hallucination encourages Sara to murder Ethan, and she has a seizure. Victor digs a set of graves outside the Colony House.

Episodes 05

“Silhouettes”

Sara recovers at the clinic. Boyd begins to suspect that the town can cause some kind of physical reaction due to Sara’s and Ethan’s seizures; he reveals to Kristi developing tremors in his left hand. Seeking a second opinion, Sara questions if Kristi would do “one bad thing” for the whole town to go home, Kristi responds affirmatively as she has an abandoned fiancée. Independently, Jade and Jim begin to ask questions and think about the possibility that they died in the crash and are in purgatory. Sara locks Tabitha up in a barn and prepares to murder Ethan – Nathan arrives and stops her, having come clean to Father Khatri but in the struggle, Sara inadvertently kills Nathan when she accidentally slashes his throat with the blade she was going to use to kill Ethan.

Episodes 06

“Book 74”

Holding Sara captive in a cellar, Khatri explains to her that the modern Bible is composed of 73 books and his theory that the townspeople are being tested by God, their current situation formulating a new, 74th book. The voices prove their existence by reminding Khatri of a bag he buried when he first arrived. Boyd explains to Kenny his plan to venture out into the woods with a talisman to try to find a way to civilization; Kenny rejects this plan as a suicide attempt. Boyd confesses to Kenny that he is suffering from an extremely rare case of early-onset Parkinson’s. Jade and Jim fix the radio with scavenged car parts, but it only receives static. Jade hallucinates a Civil War-era soldier chasing him. He also sees a strange symbol in a tree. When Kenny’s mother Tian-Chen notices, she shows him a discarded notebook with similar drawings. Returning home, Jim finds Tabitha digging a hole in the basement to find where the electricity power lines lead. At the Colony House, a resident named Kevin is shown to have a budding relationship with one of the monsters.

Episodes 07

“All Good Things”

Khatri tells Boyd about Sara and the voices. He proposes that he and Sara accompany Boyd on his trek into the woods. Jim suggests building a proper radio tower using nearly all the resources in the town while he and Tabitha begin a serious excavation in the basement. Jade finds a photograph in the discarded notebook and Tian-Chen points out a child Victor in it. At the Colony House, the residents celebrate the first anniversary of Fatima’s arrival in the town; during the party Fatima kisses another resident, causing both Ellis and Julie to become jealous. Kevin opens a window to let his “friend” monster in; it eviscerates him and leaves the window open for others. Monsters swarm inside and kill many of the inhabitants while others escape in a van. Ellis and Fatima survive by barricading themselves in the Colony House foyer with a talisman, while Victor and Julie flee into the woods following the boy in white. Victor instructs Julie to get inside the “faraway” tree, and she is transported to a root cellar. The van arrives at the sheriff’s station; while Boyd and Khatri are letting the Colony House residents in, a monster kills Khatri.

Episodes 08

“Broken Windows, Open Doors”

Boyd, his wife Abby, and Ellis are shown arriving in the town just minutes before nightfall. They meet Khatri, who leads them to a concealed cellar with Donna and other residents. The next day, Khatri and Donna explain the situation of the village, and Boyd takes up leadership to help the townspeople survive. Boyd begins organizing the town’s resources and forages in the woods, where he inexplicably finds livestock – as he takes on increasing responsibility, he neglects Abby and her mental health declines. During a scavenging run, Boyd gets lost in the woods overnight. Taking refuge inside a cave while surrounded by monsters, he discovers the talismans and their protective effect. When he returns to town the next morning, Abby has opened fire indiscriminately on the townspeople, convinced she is trapped in a nightmare. When she prepares to shoot Ellis, Boyd shoots and kills her to save his son’s life. In the present, Boyd and Ellis reconcile over the death of Abby. Boyd and Sara venture into the woods and Kenny is made the new sheriff. Kenny, Donna and Jim explain the plan to build the radio tower to the other townspeople.

Episodes 09

“Into The Woods”

Boyd and Sara reach the cave where he first found the talismans and set it up as a point of reference. Traveling further than any townspeople had ever gone, they find a tree with small bottles dangling from the branches, and Sara has another seizure. In town, the people continue to build the Colony House radio tower but lack a power supply. Tian-Chen then gives Jade the idea to use the electricity from the town’s houses. When Sara wakes up, the two are in a tent and Boyd shows Sara that the bottles had scraps of paper in them with one from 1864. Sara explains that this time, the voice was a female voice she had never heard before that instructed her to tell Boyd his plan was a mistake and there are worse things in the forest than the monsters. Sara then addresses Boyd by a nickname Abby used before the tent is attacked by an unseen force. When the assault ceases, the tent is lit up from the outside and the two hear a loud horn.

Episodes 10

“Oh, the Places We’ll Go”

The townspeople gather as much wiring as they can to power the radio tower. Ellis proposes to Fatima, and she accepts; Kenny makes an advance on Kristi, but she rejects him because she is already engaged. Boyd and Sara leave the tent to discover they are in an area of forest covered by spiderwebs. Boyd is bitten by spiders when he approaches what he believes to be a cocooned Abby. Boyd becomes delirious from the spider bites, but Sara convinces him to persevere. The townspeople get the radio tower working as a storm approaches. Jim reaches someone on the radio, but the threatening voice addresses him by name and warns him that Tabitha should not be digging. As Jim races home, the hole in the basement collapses and Tabitha falls into a cave where she is unexpectedly met by Victor. Victor warns Tabitha that the underground is where the monsters sleep. Boyd and Sara see that the light and horn originate from a lighthouse. The boy in white instructs Sara to enter a nearby “faraway” tree. Sara pushes Boyd into the tree and he is transported into a shaft where he is trapped. At the diner, a bus arrives in town.