E is for Elevator
The team investigate the disappearance of a teenage boy named Wyatt, who went missing from his parents' apartment two months previously, after having gotten in the building's elevator. His parents became suspicious that his disappearance had a supernatural aspect, as they found a large pentagram hidden under the rug in Wyatt's bedroom, despite his lack of religious interests. Upon further investigation, the team learn that Wyatt was investigating an activity called "The Elevator Game", based on the idea that pressing the buttons in an elevator in a certain order will open a portal to Hell, and that Wyatt's girlfriend Felicia is also missing.Meanwhile, David is assigned to perform his first homily in mass, and chooses the subject of race relations in America, and Ben uses the investigation of the game to reconnect with his ex Vanessa.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Artistic License – Biology: Ben concludes that Wyatt and Felicia both died of starvation in the sub-basement, a tortuous and weeks-long process. However, there does not appear to be any source of water in the basement, meaning realistically they both would have each died after a few days, not weeks.
- The Bus Came Back: Vanessa, Ben's budding relationship from last season, makes a return. Turns out Ben hasn't called her since the last time we saw her, and she's pissed. However, she agrees to help because she's interested in investigating the Elevator Game, and takes Ben on a historical haunted tour of the Upper West Side.
- Despair Event Horizon: Ben crosses it when he also becomes trapped in the sub-basement, with no cell service and a dwindling phone battery that will eventually leave him alone in the dark, with two decaying corpses. It gets worse when Abbey appears while he is awake, and tries to push him farther along. He eventually tries to write goodbye letters to all his loved ones, but cannot make it through them.
- Dissonant Serenity: Played with. Ben very much is despairing and terrified while trapped in the basement. However, Abbey's appearance doesn't really faze him, as he still believes she's imaginary, and the fact that he isn't paralyzed this time means she is less of a physical threat.
- Elevator Tropes: As the episode is based around the Elevator Game, several pop up:
- Elevator Failure: Happens twice. First when Kristen pushes the buttons for floors 12 and 14 at the same time, and the elevator gets stuck between floors with the doors still open. Later, Ben becomes trapped in the basement because the button to recall the elevator is broken beyond repair and the doors are too heavy to wedge open.
- Ending by Ascending: Ben and Kristen manage to rescue Ben, and all three ride up the elevator together. However, unbeknownst to anyone but Ben, Abbey rides up with them.
- Evil Elevator: Subverted. The elevator itself turns out not to be supernatural at all, the building management just at one point forgot about the sub-basement and therefore didn't maintain it.
- Hellevator: The premise of the episode. The team is trying to determine if two teens both intentionally tried to ride one and got lost on the other side. The reality is more mundane, but no less horrifying.
- Missing Floor: The building itself follows the tradition of not having a labelled 13th floor, instead just labelling it as the 14th. This becomes an issue when the game calls the player to press the button for the 13th floor, which tends to baffle most players.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Both Kristen and Ben independently realize that Felicia's last message, which included the word "Two" while playing the game, did not refer to hitting the number 2 button, but instead that two different buttons had to be pressed at once, in this case 1 and 3, in place of the game's instruction to hit 13.
- Foreshadowing: The tour guide actually makes a point of telling Ben and Vanessa about the sub-basement in the building (originally used to store bodies during the Spanish Flue pandemic), but the pair initially dismiss it in favor of talking about the elevator, not seeing the connection.
- Half the Woman She Used to Be: The Gotham Ghosts tour guide tells Ben and Vanessa the legend of the Tekka-Tekka Girl, who got trapped between floors in the elevator, and when she tried to escape, was cut in half by the machine. Now she roams the building at night as her top half, dragging herself along by her fingernails. Kristen later sees her.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Leland's a dick, but David admits to himself privately that his claims regarding the Catholic Church's very poor history with race relations do have their merit.
- Large Ham: Leland combines this with Bad "Bad Acting" during his first exorcism, as it actually has no effect on him. At one point, he even stops for a few seconds to grin at David before going right back into the performance. David is rather frustrated that the exorcist, Father Mulvehill, doesn't seem to notice.
- Locked in a Room: Ben enters the unused sub-basement in the building after successfully completing the game. While marveling at it, he lets the elevator leave the floor without him, only to realize the button to recall it doesn't work and the doors cannot be forced open. He then finds Wyatt and Felicia's bodies, and realizes they died from this exact thing happening to them.
- Oh, Crap!: Several:
- Kristen when she gets trapped halfway out of the elevator between floors and encounters the Tekka-Tekka Girl.
- Ben when the elevator leaves.
- Also Ben when he discovers the remains of Wyatt and Felicia.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Kristen's encounter with the Tekka-Tekka Girl, a ghost roaming the halls of the apartment building. On the one hand, Ben never tells Kristen this legend on-screen, and yet it lines up perfectly with the story he and Vanessa hear on their haunted tour. On the other hand, Kristen believes she has been experiencing vivid hallucinations of the Ifrit recently, and concludes that her antipsychotics are aggravating her illness instead of helping, and promptly calls Dr. Boggs to changer her prescription.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: While at a party of "renegade Catholics", Ben is insulted by a man who accuses him of siding with a racist organization, saying that instead of being an "Uncle Tom", he's now a "Father Tom". David punches him full in the face at this crack, and leaves, disturbed by his own behavior.
- Police Are Useless: Wyatt's parents have been calling the police every week since his disappearance, but are always dismissed, because the cops think he simply ran away.
- Shown Their Work: The Elevator Game is a real game originating in Korea, and there are real dangers in playing it.
- Together in Death: Ben comes upon Wyatt and Felicia's bodies spooning together, and concludes that Wyatt was already dying when Felicia found him, and after he died of starvation, Felicia must have as well, holding him as she passed. Abbey takes the opportunity to mock Ben by telling him she will be with him when he dies.
- Troll: Leland deliberately over-acting his exorcism to mock David, and then pressing his buttons further while talking about the Catholic Church's poor history with race.
