"Grotesquerie" - Pilot Trivia Quiz

Answer: Burnside

Detective Lois Tryon awakens from a cryptic dream-- the image of a window curtain catching its corner on fire-- to the sound of a ringing phone. The curtain matches her own. On the bedside table is a full ashtray of cigarettes and an empty bottle of vodka. When she picks up the phone, she discovers she's being called to work.

Lois arrives at the crime scene to find the police already piled up out front. As it turns out, the family living at the house under investigation, the Burnsides, were well-to-do-- a well-educated couple working at the university with three kids. It's suggested that she hand the case over to the Feds; it reads as a hate crime. One of the cops nearby throws up into the bushes.

What she finds inside is a brutal scene wherein several family members have been bound, by wire, at the dining room table. Blood streaks the walls; a body lays in the other room; human meat is chopped on a cutting board in the kitchen. Several family members have been force-fed. A pot still boils on the stove and as Lois looks inside, a timer rings.

Answer: Jeopardy!

Det. Tryon drives the desert roads on her way home from the Burnside household as night falls, and with night comes an unexpected, heavy rainstorm. As she passes through town, she nearly hits a homeless man, ranting into the rain. Finding her flask empty, she impatiently turns on the sirens in an effort to get the man out of her way. All the while he chants that the end is near, and that he'll find her and kill her.

At home, Lois makes dinner for herself and her daughter, Merritt, before they sit down to watch "Jeopardy!". Lois suggests that Merritt try out for the show, but her daughter is distracted; she asks about her mother's rash as it appears to be getting worse. Lois doesn't want Merritt mothering her, she just wants to have a drink and decompress. Something isn't right, Merritt notes. Instead of discussing it, Lois heads to bed, promising to speak to Marshall about it in the morning.

Answer: Twenty-eight days

The truth is that Lois plans to speak to Marshall, her husband, but Marshall is unwell, hooked up to machines and IVs at the hospital. Having been attached to a ventilator for nearly a month, he's now being used to teach local student nurses, something Lois is privy to witnessing.

Nurse Redd removes herself from Marshall's room to speak to Lois in her office about an urgent matter. The hospital has needed to reassess Marshall's condition, and if they wish to keep him on life support for longer, then the recommendation is that he be sent to a larger and more capable hospital. Nurse Redd suggests, plainly, to fight for her man at all costs, but Lois doesn't feel like her husband's spirit is still there. The nurse disagrees-- she cares for the man and appears to be there even when Lois isn't. It's a comment that catches Lois off-guard.

Answer: True

Despite Lois' clear discomfort with Nurse Redd's comments about her husband, some of which border on oddly lustful, she hears out her husband's ward, especially when she notes that studies show that people in medically-induced comas are aware of their surroundings. She warns Lois to be more attentive when she's in the hospital; last time she visited, she was caught on cameras being less-than-pleasant towards her unconscious husband. Nurse Redd has the evidence, time-stamped, in her notes.

Lois comments that she must never have been married because this is what marriage is-- showing up and white-knuckling through the hardships. Before she leaves, she tells the nurse to mind her own business. She won't be judged by someone else like this at this point in her life. As Lois departs, Nurse Redd reminds her that her husband hears and feels everything.

Answer: Thick, black liquid

Lois returns to the station to discover that there's no evidence from the Burnside household that links to anyone besides the family. Worse, an odd, viscous, black liquid found at the scene remains unidentifiable. They've sent it off to the CDC for further examination. There are no fibers, no cleaning agents, and no bleach from the crime scene, and there are no prints. As more photos of the crime print out beside her, she loses her train of thought. Fortunately, the FBI is sending a lab team to aid in the investigation.

The Burnsides are a particularly tragic case, Lois notes, as they were a good and loving family with no ties to anything dangerous. The murderer would really need to hate people to have committed such inhumane acts. She theorizes that they're after an experienced killer and comments that it all seems familiar.

Lois' discussion with her team is interrupted when she receives a visitor.

Answer: The Catholic Guardian

When Lois finds a visitor waiting for her, she comes to discover that it's a young woman by the name of Sister Megan Duval, who claims to be from a Catholic news service known as 'The Catholic Guardian'. Lois invites Sister Megan into the office for a coffee as, while the nun doesn't have any details to bring forth about the Burnsides, she does have something interesting to discuss.

Lois, making small-talk, finds it odd that a Catholic news source would have much interest in covering such a grisly murder, but Sister Megan suggests that 'The Catholic Guardian' is quite the progressive news outlet. Being funded by the Order of the Claretians, they put a focus on context for everyday life and have a focus on social justice. Lois claims that the murder would definitely increase readership; Sister Megan doesn't deny this. Crimes and cults are of particular interest, and Sister Megan is fascinated with how they have infiltrated American faith. She thinks the Burnsides were murdered ritualistically

Answer: Mozart

Sister Megan claims that the Burnsides were devout believers in social justice; their priest is a friend of hers. Lois asks to be able to speak to him, and Sister Megan says she can arrange that discussion.

It leads to a more thorough talk of the details. Alison Burnside and her two eldest children were tied up with tactical wire at the table. The father was salted, peppered, and seasoned with fennel seed and cayenne before being roasted in the oven with sunchokes and baby carrots. He was then served to the family-- his cheeks, livers, lungs, and kidneys in a sauce they haven't identified. The youngest child was placed in a boiling pot on the stove. It's what Lois saw when she stepped foot in the kitchen. It was later determined that the three family members seated at the table died of heart failure. They were watching and their hearts stopped beating.

The police were called in because a neighbour, Mr. Burger, reported loud chamber music on the premises at 3:00am-- Mozart, "The Requiem". Sister Megan guesses the song before Lois can even tell her.

Answer: They were drained of blood

Lois presses Sister Megan for more information, getting worried about her knowing the Mozart song being played, but the nun asserts that it was a logical guess and nothing more. "The Requiem" was a piece created by Mozart to mourn his own death.

Running with Sister Megan's knack for logic, Lois asks about the odd, black liquid found all over the house. The smell of it keeps changing from citrus to amber to rotting flesh. It's an acrid, burning smell.

Sister Megan asks why Lois would tell her all this. Lois has to admit that she might be doing so because the idea of a nun who's a journalist covering crime is interesting to her, but she doesn't really know. There's nothing else to discuss though; there's no other evidence. Sister Megan likens it to an atrocity or a war crime, something that happens in a place where there's no hope and no order. Sister Megan asks if Lois is a woman of faith and she says no, but she does believe in prayer. Sister Megan notes that she does too-- at least half the time.

Soon after, Lois is called to another crime scene, this time at an apartment occupied by junkies that the police had previously staked out. What she finds there is another grisly tableau, this time of the victims being cut in half and hanged from their wall, their blood completely drained and the walls carved with Latin phrases. The only fluid onsite is the thick, black liquid from the Burnsides' house. Lois is surprised when Sister Mary shows up on the scene, indicating the Latin to be from Romans 5:6; she has to kick the nun out, but decides to let her remain and take notes.

Answer: A dive bar

Lois returns to Marshall's hospital room to visit and, this time, she speaks to her husband with a bit more affect. Taking his hand-- and a drink-- she talks about her and Merritt's home life for a bit, complaining that their daughter is eating too much. Since he's been in the hospital, she won't stop, and she's committed to being on a reality show called 'Half-Ton'...something. Lois can't fathom why she'd want that.

Before she leaves, Lois lays down on the bed next to her husband and reminisces about when he proposed to her in a local dive bar, the Five Spot, as it closed down. She graduated from the academy on the same day. She whispers that she needs him to come back to her; something is happening and she needs him there. He would have something helpful to say, undoubtedly. She needs to hear his answers.

Answer: Brimstone

When Lois gets home from the hospital she arrives to find a quiet household, but something is amiss. As she listens closely it appears that someone is moving around in the house, so she grabs her gun and checks everywhere, room by room. A radio turns on in the kitchen, playing Mozart's "Requiem", as a figure is seen in her backyard. Racing out after it, she fires her gun into the night after the shadow. Merritt, hearing the gunshots, rushes out to find her mother alone in the darkness.

Meeting with Sister Megan once more at the station, Lois tries to glean anything from a new perspective. Sister Megan suggests that, with the way the world is going, everything feels quite personal, and Lois should keep that in mind as she investigates. Lois admits to not wanting to take this case, but there's no one else in the department would be qualified to cover it. Fortunately, the CDC's chemical report came in on the black liquid from the crime scenes-- large concentrations of sulphur dioxide. Sister Megan is distressed by this since it's the chemical formula for brimstone. It explains the acrid smell, and it's Biblical.