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On Chapelwaite, Jakub and his Promised cult are a mounting threat, but they are even more dangerous to those who have left the flock.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Chapelwaite Season 1, Episode 6, “The Offer,” which aired Sunday, October 3rd on Epix.
While the Boone family has been the main focus of Chapelwaite, Jakub and his Promised cult are proving to be a threat to everyone in Preacher’s Corners. While Jakub and some of his followers are vampires, most of the Promised are human followers working under the promise that Jakub will turn them into vampires as well. However, not all of Jakub’s flock agree with his apocalyptic plans. Faith Pringle, an escaped former member of the Promised, has been desperate to leave Preacher’s Corners with her newborn baby Henry and her lover, Minister Martin Burroughs. However, when she finally leaves, sans Martin, Faith learns that Jakub would rather have his former acolyte dead then free of him, showing how dangerous Jakub and his influence are to everyone.
From the beginning of the series, fear has driven most of Faith’s actions. Faith’s fear of Jakub and the Promised prevents her from seeking help from other people at first. She confides half truths to Martin as she pleads with him to leave with her and Henry, who Martin believes is his son. Martin is reluctant to leave because he is still married to wife Alice, though it is clear that he has completely checked out of the marriage and does eventually confess his affair. Martin also feels responsible for his congregation. While these could be valid reasons, it becomes abundantly clear that despite Martin’s declarations of love, Faith and Henry are not his top priority, and he severely underestimates the danger she’s in.
Faith’s fears escalate when the unnamed woman with the apple, Jakub’s lead follower, confronts Faith in “The Promised.” The unnamed woman makes sure that Faith knows that she is still within Jakub’s influence, and that both Jakub and the worm’s reach are infinite. While Faith promises the woman that she has not told anyone about the Promised, Jakub and Jerusalem’s Lot, the encounter does convince Faith to confess everything to Martin. She explains Jakub, his undead cohort, the Promised cult and their goal to raise an ancient worm god to bring about an apocalyptic darkness on the world. Still, her pleas only convince Martin that she is delusional, but he nonetheless promises to leave with her.
Thus, Faith and Martin’s storyline falls into the “crazy woman” trope of horror, where a woman experiences supernatural phenomena but is continually dismissed by her loved one. From the beginning, Faith’s fears are shown to be justified, and Martin is portrayed as the delusional one who refuses to see the horror unraveling before him. While Faith’s half truths make his doubts understandable at first, her full confession warrants far more investigation than Martin originally wants to undergo, especially since she tells him about a violent cult just on the borders of his town in Jerusalem’s Lot.
Martin notably only begins to believe Faith after Constable George Dennison and Dr. Guilford confirm the possibility of Phillip Boone’s vampiric resurrection in “The Offer,” and their findings corroborate parts of Faith’s story. However, Martin’s newfound knowledge and belief actually work against Faith. He gives Faith a ticket to leave town with Henry. Martin promises to join her when the danger has passed, but both he and Faith believe that he will not survive the horror to come.
Faith, fully understanding the danger that she and Henry are in, finally leaves Preacher’s Corners. She hires a carriage to take her to the train station, but they come across a seemingly crashed wagon on the way, which turns out to be a trap set by the Promised. Faith begs them to let Henry live. However, the unnamed woman states that Jakub cares little about his children, implying that Henry actually is Jakub’s son and revealing Faith’s final lie. The Promised brutally stab Faith to death while Henry wails in the background.
Thus, all of Faith’s fears and dire predictions come true. Her death shows that Jakub will go to extreme measures to make sure none of his flock ever truly escape his reach. Her death also highlights how little the people of Preacher’s Corners are willing to acknowledge the threat of Jerusalem’s Lot. However, Jakub’s increasing efforts to gain De Vermiis Mysteris and bring about the apocalypse show that Preacher’s Corners will not be able to remain ignorant of the vampires and the danger that they pose much longer.
To see how the Promised continue to threaten the Boone family and Preacher’s Corners, new episodes of Chapelwaite air each Sunday at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT on EPIX.
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