In Poor Taste

In Poor Taste is the fourth episode of the first season of Hemlock Grove and the fourth episode in the series as a whole.

Summary
Letha's interest in Peter takes a turn. Chasseur and Sworn's investigation hits a new low while Roman and Peter stay one step ahead.

Plot
The fourth episode of Hemlock Grove starts off with Letha having a flowery sex dream about Peter while on the bus on the way to school. Christina Wendall is still having nightmares after her run-in with Lisa Willoughby’s corpse in the last episode while at a sleepover with her best friends, Alyssa and Alexa Sworn. The fraternal twins wake up when Christina starts mumbling and crying out in her sleep.The girls debate on whether or not to wake her up, but the decision is made for them when Christina bolts upright in bed and starts screaming.

Later, at Hemlock Acres, Norman Godfrey and Clementine Chasseur are seen questioning Francis Pullman. Pulman maintains that he saw the creature that killed the girls – describing it as a “demon dog” with black fur, yellow eyes, and impossibly huge – but Norman and Chasseur look less than convinced. Chasseur reveals that she used to be a soldier in an attempt to get Pullman to open up to her more, and he tells her that he saw the monster “go for her lady part first.” In an odd moment, Pullman closes his good eye and stares as Chasseur as he proclaims, "Your wings are wet." Godfrey and Chasseur are visibly concerned by this.

After Pullman leaves, Chasseur and Norman admit that Pullman knowing that key detail about the case, when it hadn’t been revealed to the public, makes his story a lot more credible than it sounds. They postulate that he did in fact witness the murder, but the facts may be muddled in his mind. Chasseur asks Norman’s advice on what to do next, and he suggests she go to the White Tower and ask for Dr. Johann Pryce, asking only that she not mention Norman was the one who sent her there.

At the Godfrey estate, Shelley and Roman are having breakfast when Olivia comes in and orders Roman to drive Shelley to school because she’s got business to attend to. She then interrogates Roman about last night’s visitor, Peter, sneering that she doesn’t want him coming to the house anymore. She becomes quite upset to the point of slamming dishes around.

Shelley narrates an email noting that this was not the only incidence of "a decline in [her] mother's temper lately." She also remarks on a brief stop she and Roman made on their trip to school at Luke's Country Store where they encounter Jenny, the previously kind server from the club. Shelley is confused by Jenny's apparent coldness after her previous warmth while serving the family lunch on previous occasions, and worries that it was something she had done. Jenny reveals that Shelley and Roman's mother got her fired after finding out about a tryst between Roman and Jenny. Jenny, becoming friendly once more, shows Shelley a pair of beautiful amber earrings that Shelley loves but knows her mother would never allow her to keep. Shelley voices a concern in her email that things are going to get worse.

Chasseur is sitting in a coffee shop listening to the police scanner and looking at the autopsy reports from the two murders. She makes a note that the bite marks on each are identical. Over the police radio Sheriff Sworn calls in a report that some hikers have found what look like wolf droppings out in the woods. Chasseur meets up with Sworn to investigate the wolf droppings, and finds a long, yellowish human hair that she takes for evidence.

Meanwhile, Olivia is at home, listening to old records and putting more of her mysterious eye drops in her eyes, though the amount is obviously running low in the bottle. She starts hearing strange, disembodied voices and immediately administers another eye drop - it seems the drops hold the voices at bay.

Olivia starts following Lynda Rumancek around town, although for what reason is unknown. After a terse, bordering on rude, conversation Olivia leaves in a huff and Lynda mutters, "it's on, bitch" under her breath.

After classes end, Roman and Letha walk up to Peter, where he's performing juggling tricks for Shelley. Roman introduces Peter and Letha (who looks a little awkward about the exchange, obviously remembering the dream from earlier in the day). Roman offers all three a ride home, and they cram into the truck with Letha and Peter sharing the front passenger seat as Shelley takes up the entire back row. During the car ride, Roman asks Letha to see if she can get details from her father about Pullman. She is obviously suspicious of Peter and Roman’s motives for asking, and they give her the excuse of "hunting the demon dog," which she is extremely dubious of. Peter and Shelley share a sweet moment as he leans back to touch her hand and grin at her in the back seat. At Peter's place, Roman and Peter exit the car to make plans to meet at midnight without the girls overhearing.

Inside the trailer, Peter starts collecting things and putting them in his bag as Lynda walks in and tells him about the strange encounter with Olivia earlier in the day. She reveals that the eye drops that Olivia uses were sold to her by Peter's deceased uncle Vince, and that Olivia is obviously looking to purchase some more from her, although she cannot bring herself to come right out and ask for it. Lynda is obviously enjoying stringing her along and has no desire to give up the eye drops that she discovered in the trailer in the first episode without a bit of vindictive mental torture on Olivia's part first. Lynda then reveals that she is aware of Peter's plan to dig up Lisa Willoughby that night, and reminds him that his grandfather was very proud of him.

Later, Olivia brings Shelley to the White Tower for her checkup and has a cryptic conversation with Dr Pryce regarding Norman's shares in the company - there is apparently an outside party bidding for control. During the check up, Dr. Pryce and Shelley display an affectionate friendship for one another. Olivia also brings up the subject of Letha's pregnancy - she wants Letha to have the baby at the Tower, and has commissioned a contractor to build an obstetrics wing for that exact purpose. Dr. Pryce looks extremely irritated at this proposal, but agrees to her demands nonetheless. The drugs apparently start to wear off, because Olivia starts hearing the voices again. Distressed, she runs out for some fresh air. While Olivia is out of the room, Dr. Pryce shows Shelley a flower under a glass lid, claiming that while "it grows, feeds, and breathes, it is not a living thing."

Later that evening, Chasseur and the Sheriff are out having some drinks. They begin discussing funerary practices, which Chasseur seems to be an expert in. After a few shots on Chasseur’s part, the Sheriff starts to lose his temper, and questions her sanity and ability to do her job, recalling that one time when she very seriously asked Peter if he was a werewolf. Chasseur gets down to business and outlines to him that she needs a hair sample from Lisa Willoughby, and is prepared to do anything to get it.

Christina gets sent to Hemlock Acres where they give her several medications for anxiety, insomnia, and PTSD. Extremely high on medication, she eventually goes back to Alyssa and Alexa’s house who do their best to cheer her up with alcohol and music, until Christina tells them about her encounter and kiss with Lisa’s corpse. They then sit in horrified silence.

Back at the bar, Sheriff Sworn is looking at pictures of his daughters on his phone. Chasseur sees and immediately notes that the twins are the result of dizygotic twinning - when twins are formed from two eggs and two sperm - rather than monozygotic twinning (when two fetuses are formed from one egg and one sperm). The Sheriff muses about the recent morbid events in the town, and the two set out to illegally dig up Lisa Willoughby's body to get a hair sample.

Around the same time, Roman and Peter meet up to dig up Lisa's body. Roman actually goes to the trouble of dressing the part in all black, a detail that Peter relentlessly teases him for. While digging, they trade stories about funerals they’ve been to - we’re given a flashback of a young Peter at his grandfather Nicolai’s funeral, where someone chops off Nicolae's head because “bad things happen if you don’t cut off the head.”

Roman tells Peter that he’s only been to two funerals; the first was after his father’s suicide, and the second was his sister’s.

Meanwhile, Christina wanders around Alexa and Alyssa's bedroom, investigating all of their things. She notes in particular a map with several photos of the Sheriff and his daughters in different cities around the country.

Back in the graveyard, Peter and Roman have dug down to the coffin. Opening the bottom half, they are confused as to where Lisa's body is until Peter realizes that they had to weigh the bottom down with sandbags while the remains are at the top of the coffin. He says a quick Romani prayer over the body before cutting into it with a box knife, then grabs some of the intestines and stuffs them into a jar. They’ve barely finished when a distinctive truck drives up to the cemetery, and out steps Chasseur and the Sherriff. Roman and Peter don’t have the time to cover their tracks so they run, leaving behind Lisa’s freshly exhumed body. When Chasseur and the Sheriff approach the grave, they instantly see the pit and the Sheriff slips over the edge and falls right onto the body.

Chasseur steps up to say a little prayer before tugging on Lisa’s hair and taking a chunk of her scalp as evidence. The next morning, she calls the Sheriff and tells him that the hair came from a human male, not from Lisa – Peter becomes her main suspect. Meanwhile, Norman and Shelley are chatting with one another via instant messaging, when Shelley types something that makes Norman’s blood run cold “Today I have seen the Dragon,” which happen to be the exact words from the little mantra that his patient, Francis Pullman, is always muttering.

Main Cast

 * Famke Janssen as Olivia Godfrey
 * Bill Skarsgård as Roman Godfrey
 * Landon Liboiron as Peter Rumancek
 * Penelope Mitchell as Letha Godfrey
 * Freya Tingley as Christina Wendall
 * Dougray Scott as Norman Godfrey

Supporting Cast

 * Lili Taylor as Lynda Rumancek
 * Kandyse McClure as Dr. Clementine Chasseur
 * Joel de la Fuente as Dr. Johann Pryce
 * Aaron Douglas as Sheriff Tom Sworn
 * Ted Dykstra as Francis Pullman
 * Nicole Boivin as Shelley Godfrey
 * Amazon Eve as the body of Shelley Godfrey

Guest Cast

 * Eliana Jones as Alexa Sworn
 * Emilia McCarthy as Alyssa Sworn
 * Holly Deveaux as Jenny Fredericks
 * Jacqueline Graham as Lisa Willoughby
 * Don Francks as Nicolae Rumancek
 * Jack Giffin as Young Peter

Songs from the Show

 * "Did You" by The Morrie Morrison Orchestra with Alyce Hauser (Olivia sits in front of her vanity)
 * "Maybe We're In Love" by Nathan Mathes (Olivia and Lynda in the general store)
 * Unidentified song (Roman, Letha, Peter, and Shelley's ride home from school)
 * "Happy" by Kat Parsons (Christina, Alyssa, and Alexa hanging out in the twins' room)
 * "Use Me" by Beans and Fatback (end credit)