1.13 - Finale

Mrs. Druse gets visited by the exposition fairy and gives the full story of Mary and the mill fire. Peter learns why Antubis has chosen him as he, Dr. Hook and the others journey to the Old Kingdom in a final attempt to save Mary and the Kingdom Hospital.

We see the destruction of Kingdom Hospital in an earthquake. Time then "runs backwards" and the narrator tells us that there is little time to avoid this final catastrophe.

A group consisting of Peter, Natalie, Dr. Hook, Dr. Draper, Dr. Massingale, Dr. Traff, Elmer, Mrs. Druse, Bobby, Otto (and Blondie), Christa and Able assemble in the Sleep Lab. Mrs. Druse starts a seance and Mary and Antubis appear. Mrs. Druse then tells the story of what happened in the Gates Falls Mill fire (which she says she learned from Mary).

The Mill was run by William Gottreich. Even after the war ended the workers there still worked 12 hour shifts for little pay in dangerous conditions. Those who were injured were treated at the infirmary, run by (forgot his name) Gottreich; William's brother. Brother Gottreich was experimenting with brain surgery and saw the injured workers as unwilling experimental subjects.

The Mill was losing money and would soon be bankrupt. Gottreich comes up with a plan. He and his assistant dump oil all over a storage room in the basement of the mill then set it on fire. Mary, the "time girl" at the mill, sees them and watches. The assistant drops his tam-o-shanter (Scottish hat) and tries to retrieve it, saying his mother sent it to him, but Gottreich won't let him return for it. Gottreich and the assistant leave and Gottreich bars the door into the basement (the one we've seen the children struggling to open in all the flashbacks to the fire). Gottreich says the children are also insured and he will get more money for every one of them who dies.

Mary goes into the room with the fire to retrieve the assistant's hat (since "his mother gave it to him"). She almost gets trapped but Antubis (looking like Paul) appears to her and tells her how to open the door. She does and runs out into the basement, fire exploding out behind her. (This is the scene we have seen in most of the flashbacks with her running with a fireball behind her.) She yells a warning to the others and they all rush to the exit but cannot open it. (Again, from the flashbacks.)

Antubis appears again and tells her to follow him. She gets some of the other children to come with her and does so. He shows her a trap door in the floor but the children cannot open it. He finally opens it for her. (He also introduces himself to her as "Anubis" (Egyptian god of the dead; Mrs. Druse calls him the "guardian of the gateway between life and death") but she misunderstands him and calls him Antubis. Apparently he liked the name.)

The trap door leads to a tunnel. Mary and Antubis enter and try to get the other children to follow. They do not at first though eventually some of them do, but too late; there is an explosion and everyone except Mary is killed in a fireball. Mary and Antubis escape and they spend the night hiding in a swamp (Antubis now looking like the anteater.)

A day or so later, Gottreich is addressing some reporters and talking about the fire, which he blames on the children smoking. (Apparently this is the source of the newspaper reports that were found hidden in the doll.) Several of the reporters ask about Mary and the other missing children. (Apparently those who tried to escape through the tunnel were never found.)

While this is going on, the assistant and brother Gottreich are watching from the steps of the infirmary. Mary shows up and tries to give the assistant his hat back. The assistant and brother Gottreich realize that Mary must have seen what happened (though she tries to deny it) and drag her into the infirmary. Brother Gottreich operates on Mary (supposedly to erase her memory) but when she won't stop screaming he kills her and buries her in the potter's field behind the infirmary.

Story over, the others ask if the spirits of the children who died in the fire are causing the earthquakes. Druse says it is them plus the ones who died in the Gottreich Mental Hospital which was also on this site in the 1930's and run by the descendant of brother Gottreich who continued his father's (grandfather's ?) research. This is where Paul and the "ghost doctor" come from.

Meanwhile, Dr. Stegman has returned to the hospital with his gun. He runs into Swartston (who is leaving) who warns him about the impending earthquake. He also runs into Dr. Gupta (who decides to leave after seeing him with the gun) and Dr. Abelson (who yells at him and scratches his face before leaving herself). He also meets Johnny B. Goode who is actually in his office for the first time. (Goode is played by Stephen King.) Carrie sees him with the gun and faints.

Back at the seance, Elmer has been hooked into the dream machine. Most of the others are given an injection that will (supposedly) let them "share" the dream. (There is a pair of flashbacks at this point to the earlier times that Elmer was in the machine and he and Dr. Massingale wound up in the morgue. Actually, there are quite a few flashbacks in this episode, many of which seem pointless; a long flashback involving the baseball player and another involving the headless body come to mind).

Stegman bursts in on the seance waving the gun. Antubis lunges at him and bites his hand off. At this point there is a flash of light and a "hole" appears in the floor, light shining from it. Everyone except Dr. Traff, Dr. Massingale and Otto vanish.

Everyone who vanished finds themselves in the Old Kingdom, which Mrs. Druse says is what Kingdom Hospital looks like in Swedenborgian Space. Stegman is here, still minus a hand. He rants a bit before deciding that he is having a nightmare and lying down to go to sleep. The others leave him there. There is a flashback to the time Stegman first entered the Old Kingdom then he reappears in the room with Traff, Massingale and Otto.

Elmer sees a Noza-La cola machine and tries to use it but instead of a soda he gets a piece of chalk. Peter recognizes as the brand of chalk he uses in his art projects. He draws an arrow on the wall and says they need to go that way.

They arrive at what they identify as the entrance to Hook's kingdom, now with a closed and barred door (which is also recognizable as the door to the basement of the Mill). They go through it and find themselves in the Mill prior to the fire though none of the workers can see them. They make their way to the room where Gottreich and his assistant are setting the fire. The entire scene repeats as before except now Hook and the others are watching.

In the present, the final earthquake hits and the hospital begins to collapse.

When Mary goes into the room with the fire to retrieve the hat, it is Hook who tells her how to escape instead of Anubis. Hook and Peter stay in the room with the fire trying to figure out what they are supposed to do.

There is a long flashback to Peter's original injury and he suddenly realizes what Antubis wants from him. He draws a picture of the fire extinquisher (pointed out to him by Mary in the previous episode) on the wall using the chalk, making it look "solid". He then yells for Antubis.

Outside, Able and Christa hold hands and the drawing turns into a real fire extinguisher. (Becoming solid, making the "I do you a solid, you do me one" have a new meaning.) Hook grabs the fire extinguisher. As he does, he hears Antubis tell him, "The next time you look at your graveyard, remember this." He then uses the extinguisher to put out the fire.

Instantly, everyone is back in the Sleep Lab. The earthquake is gone as is any evidence that it had ever occurred. Someone also notes that the black voices are gone. Equally amazing to everyone, Peter is standing beside his bed; apparently completely cured.

Stegman, with both hands again, stands up and yells that he will write up a report on everyone. Everyone laughs and he leaves.

Mrs. Druse suddenly notices that the newspapers have changed. Now, they say the fire almost occurred but was mysteriously put out, possibly by a mysterious "artifact" that was found in the room where the fire started. (The "artifact" is, of course, the fire extinguisher.) The article goes on to say that William Gottreich has been arrested and that Mary will testify at his trial.

Everyone goes upstairs. Carrie sees Peter walking and faints. The two EMTs also see him and stare until Peter asks them if they have never seen a patient discharge himself before.

Hook sees a painting of Mary on the wall and everyone goes up to it. He reads a plaque which says Mary lived to an old age and donated the money used to found the hospital.

"It's her hospital." he says.

"No." Draper corrects him. "It's our hospital."

Everyone laughs and they all decide to go get breakfast. As they are walking across the parking lot, Hook asks Druse about Paul and Dr. Gottreich. She tells him that when history changed they disappeared. She even says that she will stake her reputation as a psychic on it.

In his office, Stegman watches them leave. He swears revenge and Paul and Dr. Gottreich appear, standing on either side of him. They say they will help and make the Keeper's sign, which he returns.