History Recap / TheMagnusArchivesSeasonTwo

Philip works as a prison guard at Wakefield Prison, which houses the worst criminals in the United Kingdom, and they are treated with brutality. Robert Montauk (#9: A Father's Love) is admitted to the prison, and both Philip and the other inmates are frightened of him. One inmate tries to fight Montauk, who discloates his attacker's arm immediately after the first punch. Philip doesn't see much of Montauk for the next few years as Montauk was transferred to another block of the prison, though he becomes an urban legend among the rest of the inmates. In 1998, a Close Supervision Center is built and Philip is transferred to work there while Montauk is one of eight inmates to be kept in it. The new prison, known as the Exceptional Risk Unit, is far worse than the first prison, though Philip doesn't feel guilty about the cruelty due to just how terrible the prisoners are. Philip notices that Montauk never causes trouble and never denies his crimes. In 2001, Montauk's daughter starts to visit him as she's just turned eighteen and it's now legal for her to visit without a guardian. The only other person who visits Montauk is an old man in March 2002, who Montauk seems terrified to see. After Montauk and the man stare silently at each other, all the lights go out at once. Philip hears the old man say "You didn't think you could kill it for long, did you?" before another guard gets the door open and light comes into the room. As Philip escorts Montauk back to his cell, he sees that Montauk is crying. Montauk becomes more quiet in the following months, and during the summer the water turns foul. On the night of November 1st, all the lights in the prison go out. Philip and another guard, Pete, find their flashlights and check all the cells. When they reach Montauk's cell, they find it open, but their lights don't seem to enter. They hear flesh rending and sounds of pain from inside the cell just before their flashlight burn out. Philip hears Pete a ways away calling for him before saying "There you are", which chills Philip as whatever Pete found is certainly not him. There is a loud growl and Pete screams and collapses. The lights come back on and there is nothing there, and Pete is uninjured. Other guards soon arrive and one finds the remains of Montauk. Philip accepts responsibility since the higher-ups are accusing him for negligence rather than the murder proper. Philip doesn't get a chance to take to Pete again as he quits on the spot two hours after the incident.

Before telling his story, Jonathan has Jordan confirm on tape that Jane Prentiss is dead and there were no anomalies, supernatural or otherwise, during her corpse's incineration apart from the smell, which is a major part of his story.. Jordan explains that he decided to come forward with his story since he's connected some dots between strange happenings on his pest control jobs, including his encounter with the wasp nest in Jane Prentiss' attic (#32: Hive).

In the winter of 2009 while staying in a few different homeless shelters, Trevor notices that sometimes another homeless will get up in the middle of the night, pack their things and leave shortly before a woman comes and takes their place, the same woman every time. After the third time this happens, Trevor asks the shelter staff about this woman but they don't know anything, so he decides to talk to the woman the next time he sees her. When the strange phenomenon happens again, Trevor approaches the woman who takes a defensive stance, and Trevor suddenly feels the urge to leave and get high despite being three years clean. Although Trevor knows that this isn't the nonverbal communication of a vampire, his experience with it allows him to resist and stand fast. The woman runs from the building and Trevor chases her, since even though she isn't a vampire there's still something wrong about her he wants to solve. Trevor catches up to the woman and grabs ger arm, feeling it move in a way that's distincly nonhuman and nonvampire. The woman tries to fight Trevor off, so he pulls a knife to threaten her into submission. Trevor accidentally cuts the womans abdomen and thousands of spiders pour from the wound and her mouth. As the spiders disperse, Trevor sees in the woman's mouth that she's now just a hollow shell and so he runs away. Now knowing that there are more dark creatures in the world than just vampires, Trevor decides to give his knowledge to the Institute.

Donna wants to be an archaeologist but her chances are slim since most positions only open once the person holding them dies. Donna is approached by an unlicensed archaeology group looking to replace a member that was arrested in China, and since her only other option is to learn to be a teacher (and she hates kids) she accepts. In the group, Donna's job is to identify and appraise recovered artifacts from their digs. Eventually the team hears that the Egyptian government refused an American university permission to dig at a region of the Eastern Desert suspected to have undiscovered tombs. After pinpointing a likely location from satellite imagery, the team sneaks in and starts a dig. At the end of the day they find a slab carved with hieroglyphs which marks the entrance to the tomb. Donna recognizes a shen ring symbol which normally denotes a royal tomb, but she sees no other evidence confirming it or even the entombed's name. The stronger team members move the slab away and everyone heads down into the tomb, which to their shock is completely empty, and not from robbers seeing as the tomb was sealed until this point. Following the passages deeper, Donna notices more passages branching off and back towards the entrance. After exploring them, the team finds that it's like a maze, but would only be so to those inside trying to find the way out. The team leader decides to use their Jeep's winch as a guide to help them get back out. They explore further and find the tomb's central chamber which is also empty apart from the sarcophagus in the center, which was wooden and has mostly rotten away. Donna sees copper loops that would have held the sarcophagus shut, an oddity for ancient Egyptian tombs. Among the remains of the sarcophagus lies the mummy, wrapped tighter than normal and with blackened flesh visible where the wrappings have decayed. The team leader throws a tantrum over the lack of artifacts, and Donna decides to let him blow off his steam while she examines the perimiter of the room. She finds some ancient dice in a corner and turns to tell the leader, who is now standing above the mummy as though he's about to take his anger out on it. Donna talks him down, saying that the mummy itself has some value and he should leave it intact, when suddenly he freezes in terror and Donna sees that the mummy has grabbed his wrist. The mummy opens its dessicated eyes and mouth, and Donna wonders if this mummy was still alive when it had gone through the mummification process, which would have involved the liquification of its organs. The team leader unloads his gun into the mummy, even putting the barrel into its mouth at one point, but it is unaffected. The leader gets out of the mummy's grip and runs away, the rest of the team having taken off earlier. The mummy slowly crawls towards Donna, who is rooted to the spot in terror. Donna pulls out a hunting knife and tries to drive the mummy back, but it doesn't work and the mummy grabs her leg. Donna stabs the mummy in the throat and it grabs the knife and her hands. The mummy forces Donna to pull the knife out of its throat, and then stab it in the chest where its heart would have been over and over. Eventually Donna pulls free and runs, following the winch cable to the entrance where she finds her colleauges preparing to rebury the tomb. Donna ends her statement by explaining the ancient Egyptian culture in regards to death, how life was mainly about preparing for burial and how tombs were built at "the edge of life itself" where the distance from the Nile river was too great for things to survive.

Tessa tells the legend of a computer programmer in the '80s named Sergey Ushanka who contracted an uncurable and lethal brain disease (differs between versions of the story, some say it was brain cancer, others Alzheimer's) and his fear of death prompted him to spend all of his time and money on finding a way to digitize his consciousness. Although different stories have different ways of how he did it, the legend ends with police finding Ushanka's mutilated corpse surrounded by floppy disks with "impossible code". Internet pranksters like to create chatbots that act as though they are the digitized Ushanka and eventually devolve into mad ramblings and begging the user to free it. Tessa notes that all versions of this have the same image of a pixelated screaming face and the words "the angles cut me when I try to think".

Andrea has always loved travelling the world and her job as a programmer allows her to take a month off for it every year, and she usually travels alone. She decides to take a trip through her favorite places in Europe for her twenty-fifth birthday, and while passing through Florence, Italy she meets Ethan Taylor, an Australian who has her same passion for travel. Although they become good friends, they both have the innate desire to travel alone. By chance they end up on the same train and decide to share a compartment, where Ethan asks Andrea if Genoa was on her roadmap, and convinces her to stop there with him. They get a hostel room together but continue to explore the city separately. Andrea falls in love with everything there in a way she fails to put into words. At the end of their first day in Genoa, Ethan tells Andrea that he found an older section of the town that was more crowded than the rest and planned to explore it further. Andrea spends the next day reading at a cafe, where she ends up falling into a nap for some time before seeing a pale man with long black hair staring at her, who tells her that he just wants to have his holiday in peace, and that he "wasn't in the business of helping strays", and as Andrea starts to leave he tells her that she is marked and to keep her mother in mind. Back at the hostel, Andrea grows worried when Ethan hasn't returned by the next morning, as she knows he hasn't left the city since his bag is still there. Andrea decides to look for him, which is difficult for her since she doesn't speak Italian. As the day goes on, the sky becomes overcast and the streets start to look more opressive with fewer and fewer people until there are none at all, not even any voices in the distance. Andrea begins to lose track of time and starts to panic until she suddenly hears sounds of a crowd. Andrea makes her way onto the street and starts to get pushed around in the crowd, and soon she realizes that the noise isn't speech, but just noise. Andrea notices that the people's faces are blurring with how fast they're moving, and tries in vain to fight her way out of the crowd before suddenly remembering the man at the cafe and what he told her. Andrea closes her eyes and thinks of her mother, focusing on all the memories she has of her, until eventually she realizes that night has fallen and the crowd is gone. Andrea makes her way back to the hostel, being sure to stay in places where there are people until she gets back. Andrea leaves Ethan's bag in the hostel in case he ever comes back, though she doubts he will. Andrea ends her trip and goes straight to her mother's house, and though she still wants to travel she decides to take a friend with her next time.

* ContinuityNod: Michael's Visit is mentioned, as well as [[spoiler:the wound that Jon sustained during the encounter.]]

Jonathan thinks that Jared is none other than Jared Hopworth (#17: The Boneturner's Tale). As for the pit, it reminds Jonathan of previous "meaty" stories though there's no direct connection. Gregory is unable to have a followup interview since he moved to New Zealand. Nicola was interviewed but had nothing to add. Sasha's computer breaks for the third time in two months, limiting the team's ability to access police records, especially since Barisa Hussain has discontinued her smuggling of tapes for the Institute. The only way into the police records left is through Tim being "involved" with some of the staff there, though Jonathan worries that he could be easily found out. Tim was successful in getting record pertaining to the story, which revealed that the butcher shop was abandoned shortly before the story's events but clothes of fourteen people were found, five of which were part of ongoing missing persons cases. The police also tore up the floor, finding no fleshy pit but rather the corpse of the butcher shop's owner, who was six months dead.

Jonathan is hard-pressed to find any information about Robert Smirke. George has built many prominent buildings and landmarks, which concerns Jonathan, though there haven't been any paranomal reports from them.

Tim tells Jonathan that Basira had come to see Jonathan again, and asks if he's in trouble. Jonathan makes an excuse that he's helping her with an investigation off the record, which Tim takes to mean that they're romantically involved, to Jonathan's displeasure.

Antonia is a diver who works for a marine salvage company in Nova Scotia. Antonia's captain accepts a job at the "Graveyard of the Atlantic", a region of the ocean with hundreds of shipwrecks. The job is for an elderly man named Simon Fairchild who believes that he's located his great-grandfather's yacht in the Graveyard and wants to retrive any valuables from it. Unusually, Fairchild insists on being on the divers' boat when they go out to complete his mission. They locate the wreck, which isn't deep enough to require full-pressure suits, and as Antonia and her diving partner Julio drop into the water, Antonia hears Fairchild shout something to her which she can't make out. As they descend, Antonia notices the unusal abscense of any living creatures. Antonia and Julio reach Fairchild's shipwreck and split up to search it for potential valuables. Antonia makes her way to the engine room, where she finds a strange hole that appears to have been made from the inside of the ship, with the water on the otherside appearing "too dark". Antonia pokes her head through and instantly feels a massive increase in pressure. She can't see any seafloor below and feels that "up" no longer exists and she's trapped in an endless void of water. The darkness of the water is greater than that of the twilight zone, the deepest point at which humans can survive in the ocean. Antonia sees a colossal shadow, so large that she can't see all of it at once despite how far away it is. Antonia realizes that the shadow is approaching and screams, and suddenly feels the edges of the hole in the ship cutting into her hands as she grips it, pulling her out of her terror enough to push herself back into the engine room where the massive pressure dissipates. Antonia swims for the surface as quick as she can and blacks out just before she reaches it. She wakes up in the hospital where the captain gets mad at her and tells her how bad a state she was in and that she should have died. Antonia doesn't hear from Julio or Fairchild, and when she asks the Captain how the job ended, all he can say is "The sea is a dangerous place."

* HeroOfAnotherStory: There's some indication that Trevor has been working with police officer Alice "Daisy" Tonner - they may have appeared together in episode 36, given Trevor wasn't dead at the time, and this episode reveals that he had an encounter that at least fits the same brief description from episode 43 as the case that got her Sectioned.

Growing up, Lawrence never really got to know his cousin Carl, only seeing him at family gatherings and spending very little time talking to him, and not seeing him at all after moving out of the family home. One day he runs into Carl while shopping and learns he lives close by, getting a noncommital response to meeting up sometime. Sometime later, Lawrence attends his brother Adam's wedding and is surprised that Carl isn't there, as he was closer to Adam than to Lawrence. When Lawrence is being introduced to some of Adam's friends, he asks the name of a dark-haired man he's never seen before who then introduces himself as Carl. Confused, Lawrence asks Adam about the stranger and he reaffirms that it's Carl. Lawrence then decides to ask his stern, no-nonsense father the same question and he too says that the man is Carl. Getting scared, Lawrence starts to ask everyone he thinks would know Carl up to and including his own parents, and they all say the same thing. Lawrence thinks maybe he's having an episode of some kind due to stress and is just misremembering what Carl looks like, but he knows that's not true. Lawrence remembers that he has a box of photographs from his late grandmother stored in his attic and starts to go through them. All but two of them feature Not-Carl at various ages, and as Lawrence tries to make sense of them there is a knock at the door. Lawrence answers to find Not-Carl outside, who says that he noticed Lawrence leaving the wedding early and wanted to drop by since they live so close together. Not-Carl lets himself in and he and Lawrence sit silently in the living room, Lawrence too terrified to say anything. Lawrence notices that he can't properly focus on Not-Carl when looking at him. At the end of the afternoon, Not-Carl excuses himself and proposes they visit again soon. Later that night there is another, different knock at the door and Lawrence meets an old man who asks if he knew the person who left his house earlier. Lawrence laughs and says he doesn't despite all the photos, which excites the man. Walking inside the house, the man tells Lawrence to fetch the photos that hadn't changed to show Not-Carl. Lawrence does so and the man introduces himself as Adelard Dekker and is "an exorcist, of sorts". Dekker has Lawrence help him carry a large box from his van outside into the house. Lawrence starts to lift the box's lid and sees something made of dark wood, but Dekker shuts the box before he can get a good look and directs him to stay in his bedroom until further notice. Lawrence tells Dekker that he wants to help save Carl but is immediately shut down as Dekker curtly tells him that the real Carl is dead and staying in the bedroom is for Lawrence's own safety. Lawrence stays in his room through the night, morning and into the next afternoon, when he hears a knock at the door, the exact same knock at the exact same time when Not-Carl visited the day before. Lawrence hears the front door open but there is silence for an hour, at the end of which there is an "unnatural scream" with "nothing in it but the purest rage". Panicking, Lawrence runs out of the house and on the way he gets a glimpse of what's happening in the living room: Dekker moving his lips soundlessly while the Not-Them in it's true, gangly, multi-jointed form is wrapped in spiderwebs coming from a dark table with intricate carvings. Lawrence runs far away and doesn't come back until the next morning where he sees two men carrying the table's box out of his house and loading it into a different van.

* JerkassHasAPoint: Lucy's mother told her she'd be throwing her life away by marrying her on-off boyfriend Laurence and was incredibly against the whole thing. Given that Laurence wound up cheating on her twice before getting arrested for embezzlements, she was right on the money. Lucy acknowledges this, and wonders if maybe she stayed in her marriage for as long as she did because she didn't want to admit her mother had been right.

Growing up, Lawrence never really got to know his cousin Carl, only seeing him and family gatherings and spending very little time talking to him, and not seeing him at all after moving out. One day he runs into Carl while shopping and learns he lives close by, getting a noncommital response to meeting up sometime. Sometime later, Lawrence attends his brother Adam's wedding and is surprised that Carl isn't there, as he was closer to Adam than to Lawrence. When Lawrence is being introduced to some of Adam's friends, he asks the name of a dark-haired man he's never seen before who then introduces himself as Carl. Confused, Lawrence asks Adam about the stranger and he reaffirms that it's Carl. Lawrence then decides to ask his stern, no-nonsense father the same question and he too says that the man is Carl. Getting scared, Lawrence starts to ask everyone he thinks would know Carl up to and including his own parents, and they all say the same thing. Lawrence thinks maybe he's having an episode of some kind due to stress and is just misremembering what Carl looks like, but he knows that's not true. Lawrence remembers that he has a box of photographs from his late grandmother stored in his attic and starts to go through them. All but two of them feature Not-Carl at various ages, and as Lawrence tries to make sense of them there is a knock at the door. Lawrence answers to find Not-Carl outside, who says that he noticed Lawrence leaving the wedding early and wanted to drop by since they live so close together. Not-Carl lets himself in and he and Lawrence sit silently in the living room, Lawrence too terrified to say anything. Lawrence notices that he can't properly focus on Not-Carl when looking at him. At the end of the afternoon, Not-Carl excuses himself and proposes they visit again soon. Later that night there is another, different knock at the door and Lawrence meets an old man who asks if he knew the person who left his house earlier. Lawrence laughs and says he doesn't despite all the photos, which excites the man. Walking inside the house, the man tells Lawrence to fetch the photos that hadn't changed to show Not-Carl. Lawrence does so and the man introduces himself as Adelard Dekker and is "an exorcist, of sorts". Dekker has Lawrence help him carry a large box from his van outside into the house. Lawrence starts to lift the box's lid and sees something made of dark wood, but Dekker shuts the box before he can get a good look and directs him to stay in his bedroom until further notice. Lawrence tells Dekker that he wants to help save Carl but is immediately shut down as Dekker curtly tells him that the real Carl is dead and staying in the bedroom is for Lawrence's own safety. Lawrence stays in his room through the night, morning and into the next afternoon, when he hears a knock at the door, the exact same knock at the exact same time when Not-Carl visited the day before. Lawrence hears the front door open but there is silence for an hour, at the end of which there is an "unnatural scream" with "nothing in it but the purest rage". Panicking, Lawrence runs out of the house and on the way he gets a glimpse of what's happening in the living room: Dekker moving his lips soundlessly while the Not-Them in it's true, gangly, multi-jointed form is wrapped in spiderwebs coming from a dark table with intricate carvings. Lawrence runs far away and doesn't come back until the next morning where he sees two men carrying the table's box out of his house and loading it into a different van.

* BrownNote: The effect of the music the titular band play,[[spoiler: even a corrupted recording from a phone can, tragically, induce a [[DropTheHammer homicidal]] and suicidal rage in the VictimOfTheWeek.]]

* ICannotSelfTerminate: The mummy, who grabs Gwynne's hand and forces her to stab it in the chest multiple times in an effort to ''finally'' die. While crying.

* DreadfulMusician: According to urban legend, Grifter's Bone is this, and that's why they have to sneak into venues and people tear their ears off after listening. Averted as it turns out this isn't true; their music is beautiful, but [[spoiler: it makes people kill each other.]]
* SchmuckBait: The comment left on Jennifer's article with cryptic directions to a Grifter's Bone show. She does try to avert this by leaving her phone to record the music rather than actually attending herself, but it still ends badly.

* ByTheEyesOfTheBlind: Melanie King can see that [[spoiler: Not-Sasha isn't Sasha.]] However, no one else can, and Melanie doesn't know this. When she asks to see Sasha, and Jon says she already has, she accuses him of trying to {{Gaslight|ing}} her.

* TenSecondFlashlight: The unnatural darkness drains the batteries of the officers' torches. In less than an hour, each officer is onto their second or third torch (having been forewarned, each had brought several of them).
* CallBack: To Episode 25. We find out what happened to [[spoiler:Natalie Ennis.]]

* BaitAndSwitch: The statement beginning on a World War II battlefield seems to be setting up for an appearance of [[spoiler:the Slaughter]], before taking a hard turn into [[spoiler:the Eye]]'s territory.

* JerkassHasAPoint: Lucy's mother told her she'd be throwing her life away by marrying her on-off boyfriend Laurence and was incredibly against the whole thing. Given that Laurence wound up cheating on her twice before getting arrested for embezzlements, she was right on the money. Lucy acknowledges this, and wonders if maybe she stayed for as long as she did because she didn't want to admit her mother had been right.

* IdiotBall: Hoowee, where to begin? Jon [[spoiler:destroys the fractal patterned table with an axe, thinking it's the source of the Not-Them. It's actually [[SealedEvilInACan the thing holding them in]]]]. This comes directly on the heels of him listening to a statement discussing why this is a bad idea, from a predecessor who we've come to learn is much more well-versed in the supernatural than he is.

* DoNotAdjustYourSet: The Sergei video does this to Tessa. Just her, specifically; he manages to follow her through even through display sets in store windows, using whatever screen she's looking at to force her to watch.

--> '''Gertrude''': You make a lot of assumptions, [[spoiler:Mary]]. I thought we were supposed to be on the same side.

* MeaningfulTitle: A triple whammy in this case. Crusader refers to: 1. Operation Crusader, the military operation that Heller was part of; 2. the Crusader Mk. 1 tank that Heller was the gunner for, and the destruction of which landed him in Alexandria; and 3. the corpse of crusading knight that he found in the hidden library.

* ChronicEvidenceRetentionSyndrome: [[spoiler:For unknown reasons, Not-Sasha kept the tapes containing the real Sasha's voice in her desk, which gives Jon the confirmation he needs about Not-Sasha's true nature]].

Before the statement, Jonathan receives a phone call from Basira who explains that she and other Section 31 officers are en route to arrest Maxwell Rayner, and he advises them to bring as many lights as they can before the call drops.

Before telling her story, Daisy drops off another of Gertrude's tapes on Basira's behalf and explains that before the CCTV footage was recovered, Jonathan himself was the police's prime suspect in her murder and they had been giving him tapes to try to dissuade him from skipping town while they collected more evidence.