"American Gothic" Learning to Crawl (TV Episode 1996) Poster

(TV Series)

(1996)

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8/10
Evil Raises
claudio_carvalho19 November 2014
Caleb is working cleaning the sheriff's office when he is accidentally electrocuted. He is near-death with Merlyn, but Sheriff Lucas Buck brings him back to life. Meanwhile in the countryside nearby Trinity, three kidnappers abduct a CEO of the tobacco industry named Rolston. One of them, Ted Parker, stays with the man in an old hut while the two others go to collect the ransom. When Rolston decides to leave the hut, the jittery Ted shots him on the back. Lucas takes Caleb to a fishing party but they stumble with Ted and the deadly wounded Rolston in the hut. Lucas controls the situation and convinces Ted to take Rolston to the hospital. But Ted partners Cody, who is his brother, and his wife Jeri return and Lucas and Caleb are trapped in the cabin with Ted and Rolston that dies. The situation gets more complicated when Selena comes to the hut expecting to find Dr. Billy Peale. Now Sheriff Buck will teach Caleb lessons about evilness.

"Learning to Crawl" is one of the creepiest episodes of "American Gothic". Caleb becomes closer to Lucas and has a lesson of evilness, developing evil power. Let's see how Caleb will be affected in the future by these lessons. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Learning to Crawl"
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9/10
Lucas and Caleb's fishing trip takes an unexpected turn
Tweekums19 June 2017
Warning: Spoilers
As Caleb is cleaning the sheriff's office to earn some pocket money when he has an accident and is rushed to hospital. As Dr Peale and his team works to save him he has an encounter with Merlyn… then Lucas appears and tells him it is his choice whether he stays with Merlyn or returns to life. He then wakes up. As he recovers Lucas offers to take him fishing for the weekend.

Meanwhile in a remote area three characters have kidnapped the CEO of a tobacco firm; they have already been paid a $100,000 ransom but they decide to demand more. Ted stays with their victim while his brother and his wife go to collect the second ransom. Things inevitable go rather wrong Ted shoots and seriously injures there victim and while he waits in a remote cabin for the others to return Lucas and Caleb drive up; it turns out their plan to stay in the same cabin. Ted threatens Lucas but he is soon disarmed. When the other two return without the money it isn't long before Lucas starts giving Caleb lessons about how to get into the minds of others and manipulate them to his will.

This was another really good episode; Caleb's electrocution was shocking, both figuratively and literally and set things up for him to start getting closer to Lucas. As soon as they set off for the trip we see how manipulative Lucas is; he makes Selena believe that Dr Peale has decided to bail on his date with her to join Lucas and Caleb fishing. Once at the cabin it is obvious that Lucas is in total control of the situation even when he has a gun pointing at him. Seeing Lucas manipulate the kidnappers isn't a big surprise but the way he got Caleb to do the same was rather surprising and disturbing; it would appear that in the battle for Caleb's soul Lucas Buck has taken the lead. Things inevitably go badly for the kidnappers. It isn't all darkness; it was fun when Selena turned up looking for Dr Peale and tried to provide a moral compass for Caleb… having her in this role was more interesting than having one of the more obviously good characters there. Gary Cole was on really good form in the role. Young Lucas Black was really good as Caleb; it was interesting to see his character being drawn to the dark side. Brenda Bakke was solid as Selena; it was nice to see her not siding with Lucas. The rest of the cast was pretty impressive too. Overall this was a fine episode; it will be interesting to see how Caleb's character develops over the remaining few episodes.
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