The latest thriller drama series on Amazon Prime, “The Devil’s Hour,” has a number of different sub-genres coming together in a spectacular manner that remains entertaining and worthwhile till the very end. While primarily focusing on social services worker Lucy, who has a strange habit of waking up at exactly 3:33 am every night, and her oddly behaving young son Isaac, the show also brings in elements of horror and serial killer mystery. Remarkably enough, “The Devil’s Hour” keeps itself sharp and fast despite having so many elements, and along with brilliant acting performances, the series is a thoroughly entertaining watch.
Spoilers Ahead
‘The Devil’s Hour’ Plot Summary: What Is The Series About?
Lucy Chambers is a child protection services worker living a life of oddities both with her own situation as well as that of her young son Isaac. Every night at exactly 3:33 am, Lucy wakes up from a terrible nightmare, and this has been going on throughout her life without any failure. She has presumably tried consulting innumerable doctors over it, to no success, and with a history of schizophrenia in her family, it seems like this might be tied to Lucy’s own growing mental disorder. Things with Isaac are even more strange, as the young boy often stares blankly at the walls of their new house, has multiple imaginary friends that he claims to be real, and, in a rather sad manner, he hardly expresses anything at all. Moments of joy, grief, pain, and anger are all expressed in the same blank way by Isaac, and this unnaturalness of the child is what makes his father, Mike, separate from the family. Although Mike and Lucy have decided to split, the two do occasionally spend time with each other since it is only the son that Mike has a problem with. Isaac struggles with bullying at school, while Lucy struggles to find out what exactly is wrong with her son, even though he has been clinically proven to not have any mental disorder. The woman has an equally hard time dealing with her own mother, Sylvia, who suffers from serious dementia and schizophrenia, and the old woman has difficulty recognizing her daughter or grandson at times. As Lucy deals with her professional life with great adeptness and courage, she grows more scared of Isaac’s situation, as the boy often speaks of seeing a man in their house, until one day, he really disappears and seems to have been kidnapped.
On the other side, Detective Inspector Ravi Dhillon is still grossed out by blood and dead bodies at a crime scene, even years after working in the profession. Together with Detective Sergeant Nick Holness, he investigates the murder of two men in quick succession to find out that the car used in both cases also happens to be one used in the abduction of a young boy many years ago, a case that was never solved. They look into the matter and are led to a motel room, which had been occupied by the driver of the car, who is, in all probability, the perpetrator of all these three crimes. This room now reveals a huge masterplan made by the serial killer in which various people and places have been named, but the most prominent name that they can find is that of Lucy Chambers. Dhillon seeks out Lucy and emerges into her life at the exact moment when Isaac has been kidnapped from her house.
How Does Lucy Use Her Supernatural Powers To Help Ravi Dhillon’s Investigation?
Throughout the six episodes of “The Devil’s Hour,” Lucy keeps having moments of déjà vu, meaning that she keeps seeing or remembering things and situations as if she has lived through those moments. However, what is striking is that she has actually never been to those places in her life or has never lived those memories in reality, and at times they seem to be flashes of the future. While working on her case of an abusive husband who kept threatening to kill his wife and daughter, Lucy kept having this feeling of remembering when the man had actually gone ahead and killed them. Although confused by the occurrence of such flashes of mysterious memory, the woman makes use of them to try and protect the victims. She rushes to the abused woman’s house to find that the threatening husband is the one who had been killed. Interestingly, DI Dhillon and his team on the crime scene tie this murder with the serial killings too, and he gradually opens up to the possibility of Lucy using her skills to help their case. Through her memories, Lucy reaches the house of Harold Slade, one of the men murdered by the serial killer earlier, and is further led supernaturally to an abandoned house, which happens to be a set for shooting child pornography content. It is gradually starting to become clear that the serial killer chooses his victims on the basis of their own criminal activities or tendencies, but the abduction of children still does not make sense. On the other side, the police detectives come across more bizarre acts by their suspect, like a place inside the forest where many home appliances like washing machines and dishwashers have been dumped, and in one of them, there was even the rotting corpse of a dog.
The investigations on both sides finally take a big leap when Lucy wakes up from her nightmare one night, seeing a scene of herself meeting with a man who confessed to all the crimes. This man, named Gideon Shepherd, almost appears to be trying to get caught by the detectives, and Lucy immediately informs Ravi Dhillon of this. They also have a close encounter with the man in real life when the two of them separately go to an abandoned go-kart track to investigate a different case. Lucy had been in charge of finding a seventeen-year-old boy who had gone missing from his house, and he happened to be dealing drugs at this karting track. Just as Lucy confronts the boy and Ravi drives towards the place (he had found out about the track from the documents seized from Gideon’s motel room), Gideon also arrives at the scene intending to harm the boy but then quickly drives away. Ravi chases the man but cannot apprehend him as Gideon claims to know him and manages to escape by somehow knowing when exactly the thunder will strike. Further tragedy follows when Ravi’s partner, DS Holness, and his wife are brutally murdered by the teenage drug dealer group with whom they had earlier had a run-in. Closer to each other than ever before, Lucy and Ravi now investigate more into Gideon’s identity and find out that the man had killed his own father when he was just a nine-year-old boy and had been missing since then. They go speak with his brother and even find an address for Gideon, but DI Dhillon’s superior dismisses him from the case. Unwilling to let the murderer go, Ravi Dhillon goes to Gideon’s address on his own and reaches an abandoned office building. But before he can find the serial killer, though, Ravi comes across a young man kept chained inside one of the rooms, with rotting dog intestines kept beside him and a video of most possibly sexual torture constantly being played on a screen in front of him. He frees this young man and is then met with Gideon, who encourages him to stop fighting and give him a listening ear. Ravi tries to apprehend the man, but Gideon survives by almost knowing exactly how the DI would attack, and he leaves Ravi with wounds on his face. Just as Gideon is about to drive away from the place, Lucy Chambers drives to the scene and rams straight into Gideon’s car, rendering the serial killer senseless, and then arrested by the police.
What Is Gideon’s Identity? How Is He The Main Key To The Entire Puzzle?
“The Devil’s Hour” keeps most of its mysteries intact till a very exposition-heavy sixth episode, in which Gideon’s true identity and his supernatural powers are revealed. While scenes of Gideon’s interrogation by Ravi and Lucy are strewn across bits of the other episodes, too, the real significance of it is understood in the last episode. Gideon Shepherd now explains what happens to be the basic concept of the show—recurrence, meaning that the characters we see are reborn after their deaths in the same roles and bodies as their original identities. But, unlike all other people who do not have any memory or recollection of their past life or lives, Gideon happens to be supernaturally skilled at having all these memories intact. When he was a young boy, his parents had a messy divorce, because of which his father had driven his car off a cliff, with both Gideon and his brother inside, killing all three of them. But Gideon was reborn in the same role, and this loop continued on till the boy started to have memories of his past life. His extremely religious father had once beaten him up because he had played with a pinecone inside the church during mass, and the next time Gideon was about to pick up the pinecone in his next life, his intuition told him not to do so. Gradually, the boy started to discover more about his unnatural powers, and it was after he was killed by his father multiple times over multiple lives that Gideon finally decided to kill his father before he could kill him and his brother. After this, the boy ran away from the house and managed a life for himself, and also realized that he could technically reset his whole life every time he died, because he would be born in the same role and character but with memories of the past life. It was this supernatural power that made Gideon decide to become a self-appointed savior to people who died unnatural deaths.
He had originally met a young girl named Evelyn, who had died in a car accident along with her whole family. Out of grief and wanting to make use of his ability, Gideon had reset his life to save Evelyn and her family from their fate by somehow canceling their road-trip on that particular day in every possible lifetime. From then on, the man started to keep records of every victim and perpetrator that he could get information on and then would reset his life to save those victims from the predicament they would otherwise face. This became the reason behind all of Gideon’s actions in the present reality, as he talks about them one after the other. He had kidnapped the young boy so many years ago because the boy’s parents would have killed and secretly buried him otherwise, and Gideon had managed to save him. He had then taken the boy to the grown-up Evelyn, and the two continued to live a life of reclusiveness. Next, Gideon killed Harold Slade because the man used to run a child pornography and sextortion ring and would have otherwise killed two girls who had been rescued by the police from the place. He had killed the abusive husband because he would have killed his wife and daughter otherwise. The seventeen-year-old boy at the karting track would have been the murderer of a pregnant woman had he not killed him. The boy who had been kept hostage in his shelter (the one who Ravi Dhillon rescues) would grow up to rape five women, and Gideon was trying aversion therapy on the boy by making him experience gore in order to rewire his brain away from perverse thoughts. The reason why the man had dumped numerous house appliances in a part of the forest was that all of those appliances had electrical faults in them, which would have otherwise killed the people who used them.
But with each of the people who Gideon had helped in this manner, there was a common experience of feeling ripples or effects from their alternate, or original, realities, in which they were supposed to die or get hurt. This is exactly what happens with Lucy Chambers as well, for her life, too, has been altered by Gideon. A recurring nightmare for Lucy has been visuals from the very first day she woke up at 3:33 am when she ran down to her mother, who had just made a failed attempt at suicide. Although Lucy had no idea of this, in her original reality, Sylvia had killed herself with her shotgun, and Lucy had grown up an orphan. However, Gideon altered this reality by removing the bullets from the gun, and Lucy got to grow up with her mother. The specific reason why Gideon had done so is that in each of his many lifetimes, Gideon would go about committing his murders and crimes in order to save others but would ultimately get caught by two detective inspectors—DI Ravi Dhillon and DI Lucy Chambers. In the original reality, Lucy had grown up with a vengeful attitude towards solving crimes and had gone on to become a detective in the police force and would catch Gideon every time. But with the major tragedy wiped out from her life, Lucy had grown up to be a social service worker, but she kept feeling the ripples of her alternate life from time to time. Every time she got déjà vu moments related to the crimes, it was because, in her original reality, she had investigated all those cases and had found those clues. The reason that Gideon had been seeking Lucy out in this reality seems to be so that he could convince her to support him and let him continue his work of punishing criminals. After the man had been finally arrested, he had denied speaking to the police for three days, only asking for Lucy Chambers, and it was only after she had arrived that Gideon started to speak.
See More: Who Was Gideon Shepherd In ‘The Devil’s Hour’ Series? How Did He Know Lucy Chambers?
What Was The Reason For Isaac’s Condition? Who Kidnapped Him?
As Gideon Shepherd further explains, the existence of Isaac itself is an anomaly if the original reality of Lucy is to be considered since, in it, the woman had not married Mike and did not have the boy. While she did marry her fellow detective, Ravi Dhillon, which perhaps explains the attraction that Lucy quickly develops towards him in this reality, the two did not have any children. For some reason, Isaac is able to feel the effects of alternate realities much more strongly than his mother can. In the original reality, the house where Lucy and Isaac move to at present had been home to a different family—the Warrens, who also happen to be neighbors to Lucy in the present reality. The young daughter of the Warrens, Meredith, happens to be one of the imaginary friends that Isaac mentions seeing running around the house, and sometimes even Lucy is able to see Meredith’s drawings stuck on the refrigerator in her house. Isaac could actually hear and experience the people living inside the house in an alternate reality, and this was the reason he kept complaining about people inside the house. He is also shown to constantly buy the same toy that he never plays with, and this happens to actually be a missing toy of Meredith, which she had left behind at her old house and was now desiring through Isaac. After an incident in which he urinated on one of his classmates’ schoolbags, Isaac innocently said that he had done so because they had apparently moved the place of the toilets. While the school was sure that their toilets had always stayed in the same place, Isaac was most probably shifted to or experiencing some alternate reality in which the location of the toilets was really different.
Although it had seemed like Gideon had kidnapped Isaac, and this in itself would become one of the essential threads in the show’s narrative, Isaac actually returns mid-way and is found to have been kidnapped by nobody really. The boy seems to be able to quite physically switch to an alternate reality, but whether he can do so by will is not explained. When he had gone missing from inside his house, Gideon had indeed broken in to look for the boy, but Isaac managed to slip into the alternate reality, meaning that he was still in the same place inside the same house, but in this reality, this was the Warrens’ house. While Isaac claims that he was then taken away in a black car by two people who had then left him, and he had managed to find his way to his mother, the exact identity of these people is not clearly discussed. However, during his interrogation, Isaac does claim that one of the men who took him in the car looked exactly like DI Ravi Dhillon, and this probably suggests that it was the police who had taken him away from the Warren house, possibly after the family had informed the police of a stranger kid inside their house. Had this really been the case, then DI Lucy Chambers (since this is the alternate or original reality), who was with Dhillon, did not recognize Isaac as she did not have a son, and the boy could only really reconnect with his mother when he was back to his present reality and met up with Lucy near the Harold Slade house. Interestingly, when the therapist discusses this moment with Isaac in the present reality, he says that the best part of this time was that his mother could finally recognize him, suggesting that he had indeed met Lucy in the original reality, and she had not recognized him.
Finally, towards the end, Isaac does somewhat change in the sense that he starts to show emotions, the reason or explanation for which is not presented. My guess in this regard would be that it had something to do with Isaac’s slip into the alternate timeline. Part of Isaac’s strange, stunted behavior was probably also because of the separation of his parents and the fact that he did not receive any love or affection from his father. In comparison, Ravi’s attitude towards the boy is very different, and Isaac probably sees the man as a father figure during his time in the alternate reality, because, after all, Ravi and Lucy are married there. Added to this, the relief of reuniting with his real mother in his real present timeline helps Isaac come to terms with his entire messed up situation. After this, the boy does try to emote with his own father as well, maybe as an attempt to connect with him, but Mike is unwilling to register any of this as progress.
‘The Devil’s Hour’ Season 1: Ending Explained – What Happens To Lucy, Isaac, And Gideon Shepherd At The End?
During the interrogation session, Gideon Shepherd keeps claiming that Isaac is to be treated more as an anomaly than a healthy human child, but Lucy obviously still considers him her son. Gideon keeps presenting Lucy with a particular question every time they meet over various lifetimes, asking her what the worst thing she has ever experienced is. In this present reality, it perhaps seems like Gideon wants Lucy to say that her worst experience is with Isaac. During this session, Gideon had asked for a shoelace to demonstrate the concept of recurrence, and once Lucy has left the building and he is being escorted to his prison cell, Gideon makes use of this very shoelace. Using the sharp aglets of the lace, he gets rid of his handcuffs and murders the two guards taking him to the elevator. By the time Ravi realizes this possibility and rushes towards the elevator, Gideon is already gone, with only the bodies of the murdered guards lying behind. Meanwhile, back at Lucy’s house, her estranged husband Mike had been trying to get back with the woman and had been pretending to accept Isaac for himself. But actually, Mike had never been loving or accepting towards Isaac, and the man even seemed to have a biased opinion towards any person with mental disorders. When Lucy stays out for the interrogation, Mike spends time alone with Isaac, and he bullies the young boy and pours beer on him. Isaac, with his strange understanding and limited general knowledge of things, dangerously puts his shirt directly on the room heater, leading to a massive fire. At one point, Mike himself sees this fire about to break out in Isaac’s room, but instead of helping the boy out, the man shuts the door on him and lets the fire engulf the house. Mike has always seen Isaac as a thorn in the romantic relationship between him and Lucy, and he decides to make use of this opportunity to get rid of the boy once and for all.
By the time Lucy reaches home, her house is engulfed in flames with her son still inside it. Mike, who stands outside, lays claim that he had run into the house to save Isaac but could not find him, and Lucy instantly rushes in. However, Isaac is indeed nowhere to be seen inside the house, and Lucy, too, is overwhelmed by the fire. It is possible that both Isaac and Lucy die in this fire, or it might also be that Isaac once again transports to a different reality. But even if that is the case, then Isaac’s fate is perhaps not too bright since, in the alternate reality, it is the Warrens’ house that has caught fire. The reality shifts to this other one, in which Lucy Chambers is a detective inspector, and she arrives on the scene of the fire. The Warren family members are rescued and treated in an ambulance, and a burn wound on Mrs. Warren’s cheeks is healed. Lucy has a déjà vu moment now, too, as she remembers having seen Mrs. Warren in her present reality once in the same way, with a burn wound on her face.
See More: Why Was Lucy Getting Visions? Was Isaac Mentally Ill? Is He Dead Or Alive?
What To Expect From ‘The Devil’s Hour’ Season 2?
Although there is no news yet of any continuation to “The Devil’s Hour,” it is not entirely impossible to think of a second season. Where Gideon goes from the prison might be an interesting storyline since it is also very possible that the man skips realities as well. Gideon finally manages to break the loop of being caught by the police as he escapes the prison, and now he might go about fulfilling any ultimate objective in life if he has any. The fate of Isaac also remains unclear, as although the boy might have died in the fire, he also has the ability to jump between realities. Whether the characters of Evelyn and Jonah Taylor (the young boy who had been kidnapped many years ago by Gideon) appear in the present time, if a second season does arrive, might also be something to look forward to.
“The Devil’s Hour” is a 2022 Drama Thriller series created by Tom Moran.
