Within the Walls of Madness
Written By: John Esposito and Greg Nicotero
A brief opening animation features the Creep using a lantern to perform shadow puppets. The shadow he creates takes the shape of a sinister tentacled beast staring at the viewers, just before his lantern goes out, plunging him in darkness.
In the depths of a maximum security detention facility, grad student Zeller (Drew Matthews), incarcerated for murder, is visited by his appointed attorney Tara Cartwright (Brittany Smith), who doesn't actually care about his status and merely hopes to get the publishing/movie rights for his case. When asked to present the circumstances leading to his arrest, Zeller recounts how he was previously employed at "Install-511", a top secret "biotech research facility" in Antarctica that researched paranormal phenomena for military applications.
On a particular day, a containment breach had occurred, placing the facility on high alert. Zeller, along with fellow grad student Mallory (Brooke Butler) and head security officer Carson (Nicholas Logan), managed to escape to a safe location without coming into harm's way. While waiting for EVAC choppers to come and rescue them, Carson moves out to search for the trio's superior, Dr. Trollenberg (Denise Crosby), so she can hopefully be rescued. A nearby speaker then activates, and as Mallory attempts to use it to call for Trollenberg, a high-pitched frequency begins sounding from it.
Suddenly, the walls begin dissolving, transforming into a wormhole. A massive tentacled creature emerges from the wormhole and grabs Mallory, with Zeller reaching for a nearby ax to try and fight it off. Carson manages to find Trollenberg and takes her to the trio's hiding place. Opening the door, they find Zeller surrounded by Mallory's dismembered corpse, covered in blood, and nervously clutching the ax. The traumatized Zeller claims he saw the creature emerge from the wall and kill Mallory, having failed to save her. Momentarily cutting back to the present day, Zeller assumes that Tara is working out an insanity plea for him. In response, Zeller states that he isn't insane, but does affirm that "demons" are coming and that there is no way to stop them, reminding her that they come in through the walls.
Back in the facility, Trollenberg tasks the rage-fueled Carson with watching over the restrained Zeller, giving him a cattle prod as an incentive. A tearful Zeller pleads with the two of them that the ax he was holding couldn't possibly have been responsible for the massive damage Mallory's body has sustained. He begs Trollenberg to review the security footage to see the creature for herself and prove that he isn't crazy. Trollenberg takes his words into consideration and agrees to view the footage, warning the enraged Carson not to harm Zeller while she is gone. Upon reaching the control room, Trollenberg views the footage, which does indeed display the creature killing Mallory. She watches it with a twisted smile before she purposefully deletes it. Carson, meanwhile, accuses Zeller of killing Mallory because she and Carson were in love and he was jealous. Zeller, who has grown suicidal and decided that nothing matters anymore, reveals that he and Mallory were actually having an affair behind Carson's back and were preparing to tell him, inviting him to blow his head off since he now has a valid reason to do so.
When Trollenberg returns, Zeller asks if she saw the footage. She confirms that she did, but describes that Zeller himself killed Mallory. Carson moves in to kill Zeller in a jealous rage, but his gun jams, giving Zeller enough time to free himself from his restraints and plant the ax in Carson's head. He begs to Trollenberg that his killing was self-defense, but she coldly points out that he's still being recorded. Zeller determines that Trollenberg did see the footage, but is suggesting otherwise, so he forces Trollenberg to accompany him to the control room, hoping that they can view the footage together. In the control room, the duo watch as a rescue crew descends to the lab. Zeller commands Trollenberg to play the footage, prompting her to play the footage of Carson's murder. Searching for the other footage, Zeller discovers that it's been deleted. He furiously asks Trollenberg why she is protecting the creature, prompting her to reveal the truth: a truth that she declares mankind isn't ready to bear.
Six months ago, she led five others on an expedition to a remote cave in the Antarctic landscape where an anomaly had been detected via satellite, an expedition of which she was the only survivor. Inside the cave, she discovered the skeletal remains of a creature with a tentacled head. She also discovered a strange, bone-like instrument buried in the snow. Upon blowing on it to clear the snow off, the instrument began playing a frequency that made an interdimensional wormhole appear. When she gazed into the wormhole, she saw evidence that "The Old Ones", a race of ancient, primordial, all-powerful beings, are on their way to reclaim the Earth. Trollenberg promptly went insane from the sights she saw and succumbed to the Old Ones' superiority, orchestrating the containment breach as a plot to summon them and bring about the end of days, while pinning everything on Zeller in the process, as revenge on all those who called her crazy for her discovery.
Trollenberg then shows the instrument to Zeller, telling him that it is a relic of the Old Ones, as well as the fact that it is what allows for the creation of the wormholes. She tells Zeller, who refuses to accept the Old Ones as his gods, to pray as she begins blowing into the instrument again, watching as it sprouts miniature tentacles and begins levitating. In a panic, Zeller uses the ax to slash Trollenberg's throat, stopping the attempted summoning. The evacuation team then arrives on the scene, holding Zeller at gunpoint.
Back in the detention center, Tara half-heartedly applauds Zeller's story, despite not believing a word of it. Zeller informs her that Trollenberg actually looked into the future through the wormhole she created, and warns Tara that the Old Ones are on their way, ready to exterminate humankind for "pillaging" the world. Sometime later, Tara, who has made a fortune publishing Zeller's case as a best-selling tell-all titled Our Demons Ourselves, arrives to observe Zeller's final moments, the grad student having chosen to undergo death by lethal injection in lieu of an insanity plea. The prison warden observing the process tells Zeller that his last request, unusual as it may be, is being granted. Zeller is presented with the instrument Trollenberg had unearthed and proceeds to blow into it.
As he does so, the wall in the room adjacent to the euthanasia chamber dissolves. One of the Old Ones appears on the other side and promptly begins slaughtering all those in attendance as Zeller watches. Another wormhole soon appears in front of Zeller, who uses it to lock eyes with Prof. Trollenberg in the past, causing her to go insane. As the Old One kills Tara, Zeller maniacally says that he warned her, then screams to the viewers about how "they come in through the walls" as the end of the world commences. The camera pans down to the cover of Tara's book, which shows a crazed Zeller fighting a tentacled monster.
This episode contains examples of:
- Amoral Attorney: Zeller's appointed attorney, Tara Cartwright, is an up-and-coming TV personality who doesn't believe his story and doesn't care about what happens to him, only choosing to take his case so she can get the franchising rights for it. She becomes one of the first casualties of the Old Ones for her stubborn arrogance.
- Arc Words: "They come in through the walls." Variations of the phrases are also used at different points.
- Artifact of Doom: The eldritch instrument Trollenberg discovered in that ice cave.
- Asshole Victim: Trollenberg, who attempted to frame Zeller for murder so she can summon the Old Ones herself, and Tara, who tells the poor guy that he's more interested in the franchising rights his case will bring in than actually defending him.
- The Bad Guy Wins: In the end, Trollenberg got what she wanted all along: to have the Old Ones summoned so they can destroy the world. The only problem is that she was killed before she got to see the fruition of her work.
- Better to Die than Be Killed: Once Zeller goes insane, he welcomes death with open arms, knowing full well that the Old Ones are coming to "reclaim" the Earth and can't be stopped.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Trollenberg, the mastermind of the containment breach, who attempts to paint Zeller as a murderer to divert all suspicion away from herself.
- Bizarre Instrument: Trollenberg finds one buried under the snow inside the ice cave where she finds the skeletal remains of an Old One. It appears to be made of bone, is able to grow tentacles and levitate when played, and produces a frequency capable of altering time and creating interdimensional wormholes that humans can't hear.
- Black Site: Publicly, Install-511 is said to be a biotech research laboratory, but as Zeller reveals, it was actually a top secret government facility dedicated to the study of anomalous and/or paranormal phenomena for military applications.
- Brains Versus Brawn: Carson (the brawn) acts highly confrontational toward Zeller (the brains) in regards to how he feels about his and Mallory's relationship. After Mallory dies, Carson believes that Zeller killed his lover out of revenge for choosing him, the head security officer, over Zeller and his Ivy-League accomplishments.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: At the very end of the story, Zeller screams directly to the audience about how the Old Ones "come in through the walls".
- Brown Note: The Old Ones' instrument, when blown into, distributes a frequency inaudible to humans that can alter time and open wormholes.
- Brown Note Being: Anyone who glimpses an Old One, such as Trollenberg, is rendered incurably insane.
- Bullying a Dragon: As he's restrained, Zeller tells Carson that he was having an affair with Mallory, his lover at the time, and does so in an attempt to get the enraged Carson to fill him with lead, not wanting to stick around when the Old Ones arrive.
- Call-Back:
- The interior of Install-511 is identical to the interior of Ocula, the space station from The Right Snuff. A pair of space uniforms can even be seen on the wall behind Zeller, Carson, and Mallory.
- Old Lady Spinster's ax from Dead and Breakfast is once again used to shed blood, this time by Zeller.
- Catchphrase: According to Zeller, Trollenberg is prone to quoting "Time is an illusion." The discovery of the eldritch instrument makes this quote far more literal.
- Caught on Tape: Zeller's crimes are constantly being recorded by the facility's security cameras, giving Trollenberg plenty of material that can be taken out of context.
- Combat Tentacles: The Old Ones have them, as they're distinctly Cthulhu-esque in nature.
- Death Seeker: Zeller, once he goes insane, invites Carson to shoot him, and later volunteers to undergo lethal injection.
- Despair Event Horizon: Zeller reaches it instantly once he sees the Old One butcher Mallory and goes insane, knowing full well that no matter what he does, the being and the rest of its kind are on their way to exterminate the human race.
- Destroy the Evidence: Trollenberg discovers the security footage of Mallory being killed by one of the Old Ones, which can easily exonerate Zeller. To move forward with her plot to frame him for everything, she deletes it with a twisted smile.
- The Dog Bites Back: After spending the entire episode trying to tell people that the Old Ones are coming and not being believed, Zeller gets revenge on humanity by unleashing the eldritch invaders on them himself.
- Downer Ending: After all the crap he goes through throughout the episode, Zeller turns traitor and summons the Old Ones himself, watching as they go on to destroy the world.
- The Dragon: Trollenberg is revealed to have gone insane and is acting as chief enforcer of the Old Ones, pledging her allegiance to them and attempting to summon them to bring about the end of the world.
- Driven to Suicide: By the end of the story, Zeller has volunteered to undergo lethal injection rather than pleading insanity, not wanting to be around when the Old Ones arrive.
- Eerie Arctic Research Station: Install-511, which comes under siege by eldritch invaders.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Old Ones, a race of all-powerful primordial beings who seek to reclaim the Earth. Mallory is killed by one at the beginning of the episode, and the same one is later summoned by Zeller to kickstart the end of humanity.
- The End of the World as We Know It: As his last request, Zeller is given the opportunity to blow into the instrument Trollenberg discovered. This causes a wormhole to open in the adjacent room, where an Old One appears and starts killing all in attendance, beginning the end of the world.
- Face–Heel Turn: Zeller apparently underwent one in the time leading to his execution, deciding that Trollenberg was right all along about humankind and summoning the Old Ones to destroy them all as revenge for not believing him.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Zeller warns the viewing audience at the end that the Old Ones come in through the walls, implying that they will come for us as well.
- Framing the Guilty Party: Trollenberg was planning to frame Zeller for Mallory's death via the tentacles of an Old One to throw everyone who investigates the containment breach she set up off her trail. Zeller then eventually kills Carson, who was preparing to fill him with lead, which only gives Trollenberg even more evidence to hide herself with. By the time Zeller kills her, the military arrive, easily able to piece together what they think happened.
- Genius Bruiser: Zeller is said to have graduated from an Ivy-League school with enough credits to work at a top secret government facility, and shows himself to be rather capable with a sharp object in his hands.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: Zeller and Trollenberg go insane from gazing upon the Old Ones, but their mental states differ. Trollenberg bows to the Old Ones' superiority and orchestrates a fake containment breach to summon them and begin the end of the world. Zeller, on the other hand, instantly reaches the Despair Event Horizon, frantically lamenting that the Old Ones are on their way and mankind can do nothing to stop them.
- Government Conspiracy: There are subtle hints peppered throughout the episode that the government is covering up Trollenberg's attempted summoning of the Old Ones, and perhaps all evidence that they exist at all, by painting Zeller as a serial killer who's gone off the deep end to protect the scientist's reputation.
- He Who Fights Monsters: Zeller spends the entire segment trying to get people to believe his claims that the Old Ones are coming, including forcing himself to kill two people. When people still don't believe him, he instead gets revenge by completing Trollenberg's work and summoning the Old Ones himself, watching as they decimate the populace.
- Homage: This episode serves as an homage to the works of H. P. Lovecraft, particularly his novella At the Mountains of Madness.
- Humans Are Bastards: Trollenberg gains this mentality after going insane, insisting that the Old Ones "gifted" the Earth to humankind and now view them as a plague that must be exterminated for "pillaging it". Given Zeller's experiences with Carson and Tara, she may have had a point.
- I Warned You: Zeller tells Tara, just before she's dragged away by the Old One he summons, that he warned her the beings were coming, and that she should have believed him.
- Jerkass:
- Trollenberg is not the nicest character in the story. While her cold and strict demeanor is understandable since she's a government worker trying to keep order in a top secret facility that's undergoing a critical emergency, she gradually shows her true colors when it's revealed that she's gone insane, sided with the Old Ones, staged a fake containment breach in an attempt to summon them, and may have purposely summoned the Old One that murders Mallory so she can frame everything on Zeller and get off scot free.
- Carson is blunt and harsh towards Zeller before and after Mallory is killed, and is inches away from shooting him after suspecting that he killed her.
- Tara, Zeller's attorney, only sees him as a vehicle for publishing and movie rights, and treats him with contempt while telling him that she's going to use him as a fall guy for her own plans for fame, just like Trollenberg before her.
- Killing in Self-Defense: Zeller is forced to reflexively plant his ax in Carson's skull when he attempts to kill him, and then uses the ax to slash Trollenberg's throat when she attempts to summon the Old Ones again.
- Kubrick Stare: Zeller keeps giving Tara one as she interviews him.
- Love Triangle: The story features one between Zeller, Mallory, and Carson. Mallory's death is enough to tempt Carson to fill Zeller with lead, thinking that he murdered her out of jealousy.
- Mad Scientist: Trollenberg is revealed to be insane and has aligned herself with the Old Ones, plotting to summon them to have them exterminate humanity partly due to her now-warped beliefs about them, and partly as revenge on everyone who thought she was crazy.
- Manipulative Editing: As part of her plot, Trollenberg deletes the footage of Mallory's death, but keeps the footage of Zeller murdering Carson in self-defense, attempting to paint him as having gone insane.
- Meaningful Name: Tara's full name is "Tara Veronica Cartwright". Once she becomes famous, she takes on the pen name "T.V. Cartwright", showcasing just how much of a fame whore she is.
- Melting-Film Effect: This happens to the walls when the wormholes are created.
- Motive Rant: Trollenberg gives one to Zeller to flesh out her backstory, claiming that she wants to unleash the Old Ones because they want to reclaim the planet, as well as to get bloody revenge on everyone who thought she was crazy for discovering them in the first place.
- Mythology Gag:
- Zeller admitting that he and Mallory were having an affair behind Carson's back and were planning to tell him is reminiscent of the same exchange between Harry and Richard.
- The Grantham family ashtray can be seen in the control room, sitting on the console and placed next to Trollenberg as she views the footage of Mallory's murder.
- Nothing Is Scarier: We only ever see brief glimpses relating to how Mallory is murdered, and all we see of the aftermath is her dismembered corpse surrounding Zeller.
- What's even more disturbing is that before the corpse is revealed, what appears to be Mallory's bloody hand is seen sliding down a window on the door. When we get a look at the corpse, neither of her hands are anywhere near the door.
- Not What It Looks Like: Zeller is framed as a murderer three times in the episode, by Carson, Trollenberg, and the soldiers looking to rescue survivors of the containment breach, who either jump to conclusions or gaslight others into believing he's indeed a killer.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Just before he blows into the eldritch instrument, Zeller has this to say:Zeller: Here's an oldie, but a goodie. Something for the fans in the cheap seats to remember me by.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Before her insanity is revealed, Trollenberg plays being one of these. She doesn't jump to conclusions like Carson does, asking him to control his temper and volunteering to check the security footage to prove Zeller's innocence on his behalf.
- Revenge Before Reason: Though Carson can see for himself that Zeller couldn't have possibly dismembered Mallory and the grad student himself is on the verge of tears, he's more focused on killing him to avenge his lover, believing that Zeller killed her out of jealousy because she chose Carson over him.
- Riddle for the Ages: The exact nature of the phony containment breach Trollenberg set up is left vague, but it apparently had something to do with the atmosphere, and was severe enough that military choppers are being flown in to evacuate surviving personnel. Furthermore, Zeller, Carson, and Mallory are shown wearing gas masks and checking special watch-like devices on their wrists to detect whether it's safe to breathe, which we are given no context about.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Overlapping with the Stable Time Loop below, Zeller sees that the Old Ones are on their way to destroy the world, and volunteers to be euthanized via lethal injection so he can avoid whatever they have planned for the planet. His final request has him getting the last laugh when he blows into the instrument Trollenberg found, summoning the Old Ones himself and accomplishing what she originally had in mind. He even finds himself face to face with Trollenberg in the past, who goes insane when she sees his own summoning of the Old Ones.
- Shout-Out:
- Trollenberg shares the name of the town where The Crawling Eye is set, a film whose antagonists were decidedly eldritch-looking.
- During his interview, Zeller's behavior and demeanor are highly reminiscent of Hannibal Lecter, minus the cannibalism.
- When Zeller begs Trollenberg that he killed Carson in self-defense and not insanity, she coldly reminds him that he's "on Candid Camera".
- Install-511 has some similarities to the SCP Foundation, being a top secret facility that dedicates itself to the study of paranormal or otherwise anomalous phenomena.
- The idea of a research station in Antarctica that comes under siege by entities that can effortlessly destroy mankind is a clear reference to The Thing (1982). Zeller himself even calls the Old One he sees a "thing" and declares that it's pissed off.
- Single-Biome Planet: Trollenberg tells Zeller that the Old Ones are planning to revert the Earth to an entirely aquatic planet once they exterminate humankind.
- Stable Time Loop: In the past, when Trollenberg first peered into a wormhole, whatever she saw on the other side caused her to go insane and pledge her allegiance to the Old Ones, to the point where she staged a fake containment breach so she can summon them and commence Judgment Day. At the end of the episode, as Zeller summons the Old Ones, he glimpses into another wormhole and locks eyes with Trollenberg in the past, revealing that his summoning of them is what made her go insane in the first place.
- Stopped Caring: After all the pleading he does to convince people that the Old Ones are approaching and being rebuked and/or called crazy, Zeller decides that he no longer cares about humanity's ignorant Jerkass tendencies, and summons the Old Ones himself to exterminate them.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Carson and Zeller are constantly at each other's throats during and after the initial evacuation, with Mallory being the only thing stopping them from killing one another. What's ironic is that she's also the cause for their rivalry, as she's dating Carson but has been having an affair with Zeller.
- They Called Me Mad!: During her Motive Rant, Trollenberg tells Zeller that her colleagues back home called her crazy for her discovery of the skeletal Old One and the instrument. It can be safe to assume that a big factor in her summoning of the Old Ones is revenge on all those who thought she was mad.
- Unwitting Pawn: Zeller gradually discovers that Trollenberg knew about the Old Ones coming to Earth, since she glimpsed them through a wormhole many months ago and insanely pledged her devotion to them, plotting to frame the murder of Mallory (and later Carson) on him to take everyone's attention off of her, while she continues her plan to summon her new masters to Earth so they could destroy humanity.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Trollenberg is a highly respected government scientist; the leading pioneer in quantum physics for over 30 years. She's so respected, in fact, that it's hinted the government is attempting to cover up what happened at Install-511 by making it appear Zeller went insane and killed everyone himself, not wanting her legacy to be tarnished by the small fact that she was actually the insane one and purposefully wanted to summon the Old Ones so they could destroy humankind.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Mallory is only featured in the episode for a few minutes, and her role is basically to get murdered by the Old Ones and chronologically kickstart Zeller's plot.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To H. P. Lovecraft's story At the Mountains of Madness, with a bit of The Thing (1982) sprinkled in.
- World of Jerkass: Nearly every person who isn't Mallory treats Zeller like a punching bag, a lunatic, or a pawn in their schemes. The security officer meant to protect him is inches away from filling him with lead after what he supposedly did to Mallory (his lover), his superior is the mastermind behind the phony containment breach and was plotting to use him as a fall guy for her plan to summon the Old Ones to succeed, and his appointed attorney blatantly tells him that she doesn't give a rat's ass about what happens to him and she only cares about the publishing/movie rights to his case. All of this leads Zeller to believe that Trollenberg herself was right about humanity, and that they deserve to die.
- You Have to Believe Me!: Zeller frantically attempts to tell everyone he meets that the Old Ones are on their way to destroy the human race, as well as that they are the ones who actually killed Mallory, but they keep shooting him down for their own reasons (being too enraged to listen, being the mastermind behind the upcoming arrival, and counting on him being presented as insane for publishing rights). By the day of his execution, he doesn't care anymore, and gets even on humankind for not listening to him by summoning the Old Ones himself.
