Perception – 86'd: Part 2

“86’d” is episode three of season one of Perception and this article continues covering the episode where the previous one left off.

From the journal, it seems that the killer new Lacey before he abducted her. Joe says they hoped she would come around, but Lacey is nuttier than grandma’s fruitcake. Not a term Kate likes him using, especially as Daniel is not exactly sane himself. The question is why take up again after 26 years. Perhaps the killer became scared because his hideout was found. Or perhaps he found some other way to scratch his itch. Joe asks Kate about Donny, and she tells him that he’s coming into town soon. Then, as they are leaving, Joe remembers where he saw Daniel before. He met him at parents’ night – Daniel is the professor that Katie had a big crush on the whole time she was in college. Kate is hustling Daniel out of the door at this point.

At the nursing home, Kate explains that Donny is her husband. Her soon-to-be divorced husband. They met in DC and it didn’t work out. She’s lying to her father because he hated Donny the moment he set eyes on him, telling Kate Donny was all wrong for her. She doesn’t want to give her father the satisfaction of knowing he was right. They are greeted by Dr Cutler (Armin Shimerman – perhaps best known for his portrayal of Quark in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) who, when asked if Lacey knows they are coming, replies that she doesn’t know much of anything and if they want her help in solving the case, they will be disappointed. Lacey is in a wheelchair and is totally unresponsive. Daniel tells her he will be back later and asks Cutler for her entire medical history.

After Daniel has looked through this, he tells Cutler he wants to see if he understands this. 26 years ago Lacey, after being beaten, raped, tied up and gagged, was understandably hysterical, agitated and disoriented. So she was prescribed ten times the normal dose of a dangerously powerful sedative now known to trigger psychosis in those with recent head injuries. Because of this psychosis, Lacey was diagnosed with a mental disorder, one no longer used, and given another dangerous prescription. By this time, Lacey was seriously out of it and shipped off to a facility where this diagnosis was rubber stamped. Daniel wants Lacey of the drugs and seems more than a little annoyed. Dr Cutler is not willing to endanger his patient but Daniel tells him the decision is not in his hands. They are talking to the wrong person.

The right person is Lacey’s mother who has not touched her daughter’s room since the attack. Mrs Penderhalt says she knew there was a killer out there and never should have let her daughter out of her sight. Lacey was going to see a film, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. She asks Daniel if her daughter will recognise her if she comes off the drugs. Daniel honestly doesn’t know, but if they try they might be able to stop the killer. Arriving back at the hospital, they ask Cutler if Lacey is off her meds. He gestures for them to see for themselves; through the glass window Lacey is currently freaking out.

That night, Daniel is asking Imaginary Natalie how he could he have been so wrong. During the conversation, Daniel stops; his image in the mirror is of himself 40 years in the future. Nat mentions a book in which the author – Daniel – says that even the most frightening hallucinations can be the brain’s way of understanding something. So what is Old Daniel trying to tell Young Daniel? Lewicki comes downstairs and asks Daniel if he’s having an episode. He says yes and he needs to go to hospital right away. No, he doesn’t need to be admitted – he needs to see Lacey.

At the hospital, Daniel looks at his reflection in the glass of the window into Lacey’s room. He tells Cutler that Lacey wasn’t having a psychotic hallucination; she saw her own face in the glass and didn’t know who it was. Cutler says that no, Lacey is not back on her antipsychotics, so Daniel wants to talk to her, managing to talk Cutler round. Lacey wakes up and is totally calm – although she sounds slightly off. She asks how she got there and Daniel tells her she was a victim of violent crime. Lacey asks where her mother is and Daniel replies she will see her soon. But what’s the last thing she remembers? This was talking to her friend on the phone Thursday night. When Lacey is asked how old she is, she says she is seventeen. Which is why she sounded a little off.

A scan of Lacey’s brain shows old blood clots. She suffered traumatic brain injury, either at the hands of the killer or when the house blew up. They didn’t have the technology to diagnose this back then. Instead, Lacey was assumed to have a psychiatric problem so they drugged her and kept drugging her. Daniel believes they now have a diagnosis and a plan. When Lacey comes out of the scanner, she doesn’t recognise Daniel. Or know how she got there.

To be continued…