Hell Motel opens in the autumn of 1995, when a newlywed couple, Caitlyn and Joey, reach the Cold River Motel to spend the night there. They are greeted by its employees, Shirley and Floyd. The couple is blown away by their hospitality as they give them the honeymoon suite and also promise to send over a bottle of champagne to make their night extra special. The couple gladly retire to their room, hoping to consummate their marriage. But a knock on the door changes the mood of the occasion. As soon as Joey opens the door to their room, a masked individual uses the champagne bottle to murder the man. Caitlyn, who was in the washroom all this while, reenters the bedroom and screams in terror as the killer lunges at her too. The narrative then jumps forward by 30 years as the show follows a group of strangers who are more than excited as fans of true crime to spend their vacation at the newly reopened Cold River Motel. Predictably enough, it doesn’t take too much time for things to go sideways. Who lives and who dies in the first 2 episodes of Hell Motel? Do we get a hint at who the killers are? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Hemmingway Has Served
En route to the titular motel (in a hearse at that) are Kawayan, an installation artist who recreates murder scenes; Andy, an academician on the subject of true crime; Adriana, a flight attendant who is obsessed with boinking serial killers; Blake, an author of true crime stories as well as a survivor of one; Crow, a medium who can connect to victims of serial killings and massacres; and Paige, a former scream queen. The Cold River Motel’s current owners are a couple, Portia and Ruby, and they are glad to welcome the guests for their inaugural weekend experience. The place has no cell service, and the landline hasn’t been installed yet. That said, there’s Wi-Fi service because the owners want the guests to livestream or post about everything in regard to the motel so that they get the maximum amount of publicity before opening their doors to the general populace. While everyone is pretty stoked about going on this immersive journey because it’s new for them, Paige isn’t, because she has been to his motel before in order to shoot a movie, supposedly about the murder of Caitlyn and Joey, where Paige was playing the role of Caitlyn. On the day of the shoot, Paige was okay with retakes, but all these years later, it’s apparent that she is traumatized after recreating the final moments of a real human being.
Well, that is one-upped by the dinner organized by the in-house celebrity chef, Hemmingway, as his dishes (some of which are made of vegetarian products and others with animal meat) resemble human body parts. Some of the guests are utterly horrified by the grotesqueness, with Paige even refusing to eat anything. As if that’s not enough, Hemmingway then brings out shot glasses filled with his own blood. The guests assume that it’s another one of the chef’s tricks, but when Hemmingway shows the bloody spot on the inside of his elbow, they freak out. As everyone begins arguing about how this supposedly “fun” escape from reality has suddenly turned into a series of distasteful encounters, two strangers walk in, asking for a room to stay the night because there’s a hurricane outside. Since the hotel is reserved for just the aforementioned 6 guests, Portia and Ruby refuse to give the old couple a room. The couple has nowhere to go in this storm; hence, they request they be allowed to just occupy a space in the parking lot and hunker down in their RV. The owners agree to these terms, which allows the couple to heave a sigh of relief.
Hemmingway Is Dead
The owners take the guests on a tour of the motel, showing them the place where Joey was murdered, and ask them to reconvene at the basement where Caitlyn was sacrificed, as Crow will be performing a seance there and Paige will be posing as the victim to allow Caitlyn’s spirit to enter her body, I guess. After donning the costume, though, Paige goes straight to the RV, as the couple is way more comforting than the motel. Why? Well, while all the other guests think it’s perfectly okay to be a part of this “creepy pilgrimage,” the realization of how insensitive this whole thing is has started to dawn on Paige, and she wants to catch a ride out of there with the elderly couple. Since they are fans of Paige’s older work, they assure her that a spot on their RV will always stay open for her, and that certainly helps the actress with her nerves. With a renewed sense of confidence, as Paige walks back to the motel, she is attacked by the same masked individual who killed Joey and Caitlyn. Now, instead of running to the RV, Paige chooses to run off into the jungle to get away from the murderer. She obviously falls down and comes to terms with the fact that her end is nigh. That’s when Ruby removes her mask to reveal that it’s a prank, which is being recorded by Portia.
Please don’t ask questions like “How did Portia know where Paige and Ruby were going to end up after the chase?” because I don’t have the answer to that. But yes, Portia and Ruby say that they’re going to use the footage for the motel’s publicity, because that’s the kind of content they need, which sets off another round of arguments between the guests and the owners. Paige is certainly okay with it because she is actually being paid to get chased around and speak highly of what the motel is offering. Out of everyone, this info irks Hemmingway the most because he doesn’t want to waste his “talents” on a “washed-up” actress like Paige, who hasn’t been asked to return to the franchise she was once a part of: Doomed Service. When all the guests have retired to their rooms, Andy goes to comfort Paige, which works to a certain degree. Meanwhile, Hemmingway goes to the sauna, where he is attacked by the real killer (wearing that infamous mask and costume). When the guests, the owners, and the old couple find out about this incident, they freak out and assemble in the dining room. As they try to come up with a plan of action, the RV outside goes up in flames. It is at this moment, right at the end of episode 1, that Hell Motel reveals that the elderly couple is actually Shirley and Floyd, and they are the ones behind the murders that happened in 1995.
Floyd and Shirley are Satanists
Episode 2 of Hell Motel opens with a blast from the past as we see Magenta, a real estate agent, selling the Cold River Motel to Ruby and Portia. Then it jump cuts back to the present day as the owners, the guests, and the OG serial killers freak out about the fact that, with the RV gone and the hearse-taxi not coming back until the end of the weekend, they are all stuck there. Since Ruby was last seen wearing the costume of the masked killer, chasing Paige through the woods with a real knife (points for realism, but that’s dangerous), she ends up being treated as the prime suspect. Portia defends Ruby; that doesn’t exactly dissuade the guests from checking out. Floyd points out that if they walk out into the woods looking for help without a vehicle or cell service, they’ll either be killed by the wildlife or the weather. This starts a tiff between Crow and Floyd because the former doesn’t want to stay put in a place where a murderer is roaming around. Portia tries to keep the temperature from spiking and advises them to stick to their rooms for the night, ready to chalk up a plan the following day.
The guests have no option but to arm themselves and turn their room into a fortress; that includes Floyd and Shirley. Yeah, that’s because they didn’t kill Hemmingway. They set fire to the RV to trap everyone with them, but now they are worried that there’s a third killer in their midst. Floyd and Shirley can’t figure out if this individual is a copycat killer or a real Satanist who is out to complete the ritual that they started all those years ago. That said, while Floyd wants to just kill everyone and be done with it, Shirley wants to take things slow because they need to follow protocol if they want to do the Satanic ritual correctly. Something went wrong the first time they did it in 1995, because of which they had to wait 30 years for the moon and the stars to align properly. If they rush it, they might miss the window, and they can’t wait another 30 years. The show doesn’t display anything supernatural in these 2 episodes, so there’s a good chance that either the food was spiked with something or the atmosphere around the motel has some psychedelic qualities, and everyone is just tripping and turning on each other.
Portia Is Dead
Adriana zeroes in on Blake because she wants to add him to her collection of crime-related “sex-capades.” I’m not going to bore you with the details of their whole affair, but Adriana and Blake engage in some freaky stuff in her room, which does satiate Adriana’s desires but leaves Blake sort of traumatized. And then Adriana starts talking about the order in which she’d kill the guests if she was the serial killer, which causes Blake to take his leave. No, I don’t think Adriana is the killer; she is just a red herring. Elsewhere in the motel, Crow chats with Andy in order to calm the latter’s nerves. So, Andy invites Crow over to his room to have a chill time, but Crow reveals his plans of reaching a nearby town (on foot or by catching a ride) and hopefully returning to the motel with help. Andy knows that he can’t convince Crow to not act so recklessly, so he just gives him his windcheater to help him brave the harsh weather outside. Shirley and Floyd spot him, and Floyd goes after Crow with the intention of killing him and commencing the process of opening the portal to hell. When Floyd catches up to him and is about to slice Crow up, Andy shows up as well, thereby preventing Floyd from doing anything murderous. The three of them decide to head back to the motel and try to get help in the morning. They come across Ruby and tell her to go inside as well. Meanwhile, Shirley checks in on Kawayan to ascertain if he is a copycat killer, a Satanist, or just a regular, frustrated installation artist; it’s the last one.
That said, Crow correctly assesses that Floyd is a killer and is merely biding his time before he can finish everyone off, and then proceeds to go into his room and freak out because he has cabin fever. Floyd almost murders Ruby in the hallway in order to commence the proceedings, but Shirley stops him from doing so because it’s not the right time or the right place. Speaking of Ruby, her relationship with Portia has come apart at the seams, which is why she had to deal with Hemmingway’s body all on her own. She was blamed by Portia for this whole debacle. And, at the end of Hell Motel episode 2, she had to wake up to the sight of Portia’s corpse with her heart lying on her chest. If you are wondering who the killer is, my money’s on Hemmingway and JP (the driver of the hearse), and they are either Satanists, copycat killers, or pulling an elaborate ruse to get Floyd and Shirley to show their hand (and Portia is in on it). That’s because Hemmingway is being played by Eric McCormack, and Daniel Kash is in the role of JP. You don’t hire these guys to appear on the screen for a few seconds, do you? Also, earlier this year, McCormack had already played a character who had faked his death in Nine Dead Bodies in a Mexican Morgue. So, I fully trust him to pull off that trick again. What about you? What are your thoughts on the ending of Hell Motel episode 2? Let me know in the comments section below.
