When the surviving leader of a doomsday cult escapes from the psychiatric hospital where she was incarcerated, the race is on to recapture her before she and her acolytes pick up where they left off.
Tropes
- A God Am I: Ruth Pearson is described as "a psychopath with a god complex".
- Apocalypse Cult: Ruth Pearson and her husband were the leaders of Virgo's Temple, a doomsday cult who believed the only way they could Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence was through mass suicide.Deacon: Ruth Pearson and her husband founded Virgo's Temple in the early '90s, but by '99, it had turned into a full-blown doomsday cult.Luca: When the world didn't end with Y2K, Wayne just pushed the apocalypse back. After a while, Ruth said believers could only ascend to a higher plane one way.Chris: Mass suicide?Luca: Wayne and a few higher-ups managed to off themselves, but cops and SWAT saved everyone else in that compound while under fire.
- Awful Truth: In the original raid on Virgo's Temple, Hondo refused to shoot a kid armed with a gun when S.W.A.T. stormed the compound because he was convinced the kid wouldn't pull the trigger, earning him a reprimand from Buck. Years later, he's genuinely stunned when the boy confesses he tried to shoot Hondo, only to have his gun jam.
- Big "NO!": Ruth when one of her sons is killed by Chris.
- Defector from Decadence: Most of the information that 20 Squad gets regarding the cult's plans comes from former cult members who'd realised they were in too deep and wanted out.Dylan Wheedy: [explaining to Chris and Deacon why Ruth timed her escape to coincide with the Draconid meteor shower] It's Temple dogma. Meteors clear the sky for a ship to arrive from Andromeda. They're the ones that are supposed to take the souls to the higher-level planet. [Beat] It all sounds so stupid now.
- Drinking the Kool-Aid: Directly mentioned by Commander Hicks, who notes the Pearsons had plenty of followers willing to do this.
- Hostage Situation: SWAT learns that Ruth and a band of die-hard fanatics who survived the Temple's initial destruction are planning "a convoy", a mass suicide involving 36 people, and since they don't have enough members, the cultists start abducting innocent bystanders at random to bump up the numbers, forcing 20 Squad into a race against time to find the cult before they carry out their plan.Lynch: Ruth's kidnapping innocents to sacrifice just so the numbers add up.Deacon: Three more violent abductions, each reported in the past hour, each within the vicinity of a Temple member's last known address.Luca: Six victims, that makes thirty six.Hondo: A convoy. Those people are gonna get executed. A mass homicide just to fulfill some insane prophecy.
- Mexican Standoff: Hondo and Chris each end up in one (Hondo with Ruth Pearson, Chris with a female cultist) that they both end by disabling their opponent with a shot to the leg.
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Ruth Pearson comes across as a gender-flipped equivalent of historical cult leaders like Jim Jones and David Koresh, while Virgo's Temple bear a few similarities to the Branch Davidians.
- Obfuscating Insanity: It's implied Ruth Pearson feigned insanity to evade prosecution for the cult's crimes, given her husband was killed when LAPD stormed the cult's compound and the District Attorney wanted to throw the book at her.Street: Who's Ruth Pearson?Hondo: Wayne Pearson's widow. They ran a cult together from a compound in Laurel Canyon years ago.Street: The one that planned that mass suicide, Virgo's Temple? This is that cult leader's wife?Hondo: A lot of people got hurt because of what this couple did, and no one was ever really held accountable.Street: What about Ruth? D.A. didn't throw the book at her?Hondo: He tried, but it didn't go anywhere. She's legally insane.
- Oh, Crap!: Hondo and Deacon's reaction to learning Ruth Pearson has escaped prison.Deacon: Ruth Pearson's a patient here?
- Prison Riot: Ruth incites one to cover her escape.
- Self-Immolation: The Virgo's Temple cult's preferred method of mass suicide is by fire.
- Suicide Attack: When cornered by Street and Tan at a garage, one of Ruth's sons douses himself in petrol, sets himself aflame and charges them, only to be gunned down before he gets close.
- That One Case: Hondo and Deacon were both part of the original raid on the Virgo's Temple compound and are clearly still haunted by it.
- The Family That Slays Together: Ruth's sons are the ones who break her out of jail and loyally do her bidding.Street: [looking through the criminal records of Ruth's sons] Auto theft, armed robbery, assault.Hondo: Rap sheets sure to make Mama proud.
