In the sixth episode of The Institute, Luke escaped from the facility with Maureen’s help. He was supposed to meet her at the Red Steps and expose the facility by using the contents of a flash drive that Maureen had passed on to Luke. Realizing that Stackhouse was onto her, Maureen chose to die by suicide after telling Kate to take care of Luke and help him get justice. Thankfully, Luke came across Tim before meeting Kate, and the two of them figured out that the so-called journalist was actually a member of the facility who had been tasked with taking Luke back to his prison. Thanks to their combined efforts, Luke and Tim killed Kate and made their way to the police station to show whatever was on the flash drive. While Chief Ashworth prepared to listen to Luke’s story, Norbert of all people revealed that he was working for the facility, and as soon as he was out of earshot, he informed someone at the Institute that the kid was at the station. Was Luke recaptured in the seventh episode of the show? Let’s find out.
Spoiler Alert
Ashworth Is Dead
Episode 7 of The Institute opens with the revelation that, before her death and subsequent cremation, Maureen had recorded everything—from the storage room to the back half and even the incinerator—that existed inside the facility on her phone and stored it on that flash drive. She made this footage after Luke began coaxing her to do the right thing and help him escape. She always knew that she wasn’t going to make it out of there alive. Maybe a part of her didn’t actually want to live a normal life after being a silent spectator to all the atrocities that had been committed in that establishment. Hence, she died by suicide before Stackhouse, or one of his assassins, got to her. Upon seeing that footage and hearing Maureen describe the Institute as a child-consuming monster, Ashworth and Tim are understandably horrified. As Sigsby, along with two other operatives, makes their way to the station to nab the kid, Luke wants to know what Ashworth and Tim want to do with the damning evidence that they have in their hands. Luke, who is understandably frustrated after going through such a nightmarish ordeal, wants the police to storm the facility and bring a close to that inhumane chapter of Dennison River Bend. Tim and Ashworth both say that they don’t have the manpower or firepower to take on an establishment that probably has a battalion of armed guards. Ashworth says that they should go to a special agent in Portland who he knows will definitely help them with this bewildering case of kidnapping, exploitation, and murder. But before they can step out of the station, Drew pulls out his gun and kills Ashworth, which proves that Annie was actually right about Drew being “one of them.” He forces Tim and Luke to handcuff themselves to the chairs in the room while he calls Stackhouse about this latest update.
Tim and Luke Escape
Stackhouse’s conversation with Drew is interrupted by Hendricks who is worried about their side-hustle now that Luke is gone. Stackhouse puts Drew on hold and tells Hendricks to do some aggressive tests on Avery so as to see if he can be their golden “precog,” in case Sigsby can’t get back Luke in one piece. Hendricks protests against that move because he is of the opinion that Avery is too unpredictable, and pushing him to his limits may cause their side-hustle to backfire. Stackhouse says that there’s a small window of opportunity to make it big, and with the facility’s anonymity coming to an end, they have to use whatever avenues they have to jump ship before it sinks. Hendricks, being a spineless cretin, obviously goes off to carry out Stackhouse’s order; meanwhile, Stackhouse gets back on his call with Drew and tells him to hold the fort until Sigsby gets to the station with her operatives. While all this is going on, Luke manages to use his telekinesis to get a safety pin from the table in front of them and into Tim’s hands, who uses it to uncuff himself and Luke. They escape from the station but are unable to retrieve the flash drive because it’s in Ashworth’s pocket, whose dead body has been dragged into the evidence locker by Drew. When Drew ushers Sigsby and the operatives into the station, they are all shocked to see that Tim and Luke have disappeared. Instead of wasting time on discussing how those two have achieved the impossible, Sigsby orders everyone to get into their respective vehicles and hit the streets and catch the dynamic duo before they become untraceable.
An Old Friend Helps Tim
Since the closest hiding place is the convenience store, whose owner Tim had once saved after a shootout, that’s where he takes Luke so that they can contact someone who can help them blow the whistle about the dark underbelly of the town. But before they can get to the store owner’s phone, Sigsby and her minions arrive at the store. Although the store owner doesn’t know a lot about Tim, he chooses to trust the night-knocker because he owes him his life and hides Tim and Luke in the basement. He even lies to Sigsby and her team about Tim and Luke’s whereabouts. FYI, with the exception of Drew, everyone from the facility is wearing FBI jackets. That’s scary for even the privileged class of America, but the convenience store owner refuses to buckle under the pressure, because his belief that Tim is in the right is greater than his confidence in law enforcers—which in this case are fake. I almost expected Sigsby, or her other operatives, to kill the store owner after this interaction, but they promptly leave without harming him because their urge to get ahold of Tim and Luke is bigger than their need to tie up loose ends. As explained by Sigsby, if news of the facility’s existence leaks, the Man on the Phone is going to send over some people who will simply erase everyone who worked there from the face of the planet. Hence, it’s literally do or die for them. Tim thanks the store owner, and just when he is about to leave with Luke, the store owner gives him a gun and a box of shells, because Tim needs them more than he does.
Wendy Is The Last Hope
While en route to Wendy’s house, Luke senses that Avery is being tortured by Hendricks and Tony. The fact that Luke can sense Avery’s feelings even though they are so far away from each other proves Hendricks’ theory that the kid is the most powerful entity in the facility. In case anyone has doubts about Avery’s capabilities, he shatters the glass panes of the box he is being contained in. This obviously shocks those two monsters, and even though it affects Luke as well, he has no option but to walk it off because seeking shelter and contacting the authorities is more important than worrying about what’s going on at the Institute. Or maybe Luke senses that, despite being put through hell, Avery is alive, which is why he doesn’t make a big deal of the things he is experiencing due to his and Avery’s telepathic powers. Luke does express some skepticism when he realizes that Tim has brought him to yet another cop, Wendy. He has met two official cops and one kinda-sorta cop so far; one of them has been helping them, one is dead, and the other one turned out to be a member of the facility. So, yeah, Luke has every right to doubt everyone in Dennison River Bend. However, when Wendy starts panicking and asking questions, instead of alerting Sigsby or Stackhouse, I guess Luke heaves a sigh of relief. While Tim and Luke give a recap of the events that have happened so far, Sigsby feels that she has been duped by the convenience store owner. So, she orders her minions to keep searching the highway for Tim and Luke, while she and Drew go back to the town to see if they are hiding somewhere there.
Drew Is Dead
Amidst this cat-and-mouse chase, we get a scene between Stackhouse and Hendricks, discussing what they should do with Avery, and Hendricks advises that they should put him in the back-half because he has the ability to “power the hum” indefinitely. I’m sure people smarter than me must have figured it out, but Stackhouse and Hendricks prioritizing the proper functioning of the facility instead of cutting and running, along with Avery, to the highest bidder did confound me. If I have to guess, they want to ensure that they have perfected the cross-country mind-manipulation procedure before presenting their best subject, or subjects, to their next potential boss. Speaking of Avery, he is immediately transferred to the back-half, where he reunites with Nicky and Kalisha. Those two are not doing well, with Kalisha’s state worse than that of Nicky’s. Avery tries to get to Kalisha through his telepathic powers, and she starts communicating somewhat normally again. Avery informs Kalisha that Luke has escaped, and although he can sense Luke’s presence, he can’t talk to him. In addition to all that, Avery says that he has realized his true potential and he thinks that he is powerful enough to free the kids in the facility. At the end of The Institute episode 7, while Tim, Luke, and Wendy are discussing their next steps, Drew and Sigsby show up at her doorstep. While Tim and Luke hide in the closet, Wendy tries her level best to convince Drew and Sigsby to leave. They eventually discover the dynamic duo, which leads to a tense standoff that ends with Tim getting shot in the arm by Drew and, in retaliation, Tim shooting Drew in the chest. Wendy checks his vitals and confirms that Drew is gone. Outnumbered and overpowered, Sigsby chooses to give up and clarify her and the facility’s purpose.
The Institute’s Purpose
Sigsby admits that they do use the kids to commit untraceable assassinations. But she claims that they don’t do it for money or for political purposes; they do it to avert a catastrophe that’ll happen in the future. Sigsby says that Senator Ramsey, the guy who died in the plane crash that was orchestrated by the facility, would have become the Secretary of Defense in the next 9 years. He would have convinced the then president of the United States to nuke North Korea. That missile would fly over Russian airspace. Apparently, a decade away from the present day, Russia’s warning systems wouldn’t be all that up to date, and they’d assume that the US had fired a nuke at them. So, they would nuke the USA. Then the USA would actually nuke Russia. And, well, that’d lead to the end of humanity. So, the facility essentially kidnaps kids with the ability to look into the future, isolates the people who will “trigger Armageddon,” and just kills them. They have been doing this since the 1950s. She admits that they haven’t been able to avert every single cataclysmic incident, but she stands firm on the belief that the facility has been very efficient at not allowing humanity to go extinct. Tim doesn’t believe a word of it, especially because this whole operation involves child abduction and torture. But I guess he begins to understand when Sigsby draws a parallel between the moment he shot a kid in Boston to prevent a mall massacre and whatever the facility is doing. When that’s coupled with Luke’s confirmation that, maybe, Sigsby isn’t lying, I suppose the protagonists are starting to see things from the perspective of the Institute.
Is Sigsby Lying?
Now, I need to say three things; feel free to agree and disagree however you want. Firstly, this is basically Minority Report all over again. Stephen King wrote this in 2019. Philip K. Dick wrote The Minority Report in 1956. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out which one’s the chicken and which one’s the malformed egg. Secondly, as pointed out by Tim, Luke won’t be able to tell if Sigsby is lying if she truly believes her lie; whatever Sigsby just said can still be a big fat lie, and the facility is doing hit jobs for those who are giving them truckloads of money. The reason why I think so brings me to my third point: if the Institute is so righteous and selfless, why do the people there treat the kids like garbage? Yes, the cause that they are fighting for is so important that they don’t have the time to think if the means that they are using to achieve their goal are moral or ethical or not. But how can the act of saving billions of lives in the future make you indifferent to the lives that exist in front of you in the present? I don’t know if compassion would have compelled these kids to understand the purpose of the facility and help it save the planet, but what’s the reasoning behind abusing them, mocking them, antagonizing them, giving them horrible food, and creating a living hell for them? Did they ever try to be empathetic to these kids? Even if that approach failed, I am unwilling to accept any justification for what the facility is doing to those children. Hence, I think Sigsby is either lying about the facility’s aim, or she is the one who has been lied to by the superiors, and she is in for a rude awakening.
