“Baba O’Reilly” follows up on the story SurrealEstate left off last week with several loose threads still dangling. The Roman Agency is suffering from bad press after a pair of high-profile disastrous incidents that is affecting the business and the bottom line. On the paranormal end, a demon escapes the team’s quarantine and ends up possessing Luke’s girlfriend, Megan Donovan.
All the negative publicity causes Luke to reassess his business strategy and focus on more traditional homes since haunted properties only make up a fraction of their revenue. One of the few listings the company receives is for a house in his old neighborhood. He used to mow the lawn for the owner when he was younger and a distant relative is ready to sell because the previous occupant recently passed away.
This is SurrealEstate and the property has a twisted side; it has time warping abilities and reverts anyone who enters to their sixteen-year-old self while providing them with whatever they desired at that age. Too bad Luke and the team find that out after the fact. They all also have no recollection of who each other is since they were still strangers when they were teenagers.
This episode is fun to catch how the characters were during their younger years. There are no surprises but it’s still amusing, especially seeing how much hair Auggie had. With a style like that, you know he likes smoking weed. Turning back the clock also affects their intelligence since Zooey is the only one to detect something is wrong.
Earlier, Luke had a candid conversation with his father questioning his life and how different it would be if he was a normal person who didn’t have his gifts. The conflict gives him that very opportunity to be normal, but what would the use be if you’re stuck in time all alone and unable to leave. That’s a different type of isolation. There is no real chance that the Roman Agency would go the traditional route but Luke’s inner crisis at least teases the change a little bit.
Elsewhere on SurrealEstate, Megan Donovan breaks the hold of the “roadie” and comes to. She can’t remember anything after the awards ceremony and has been drawing three colored circles over and over again. Megan reaches out to Susan for help but it’s only a matter of time until she is possessed again.
The subplot allows Megan to finally be rid of the demon thanks to her friend. Some of the special effects could be better, particularly Megan’s Exorcist moment, but it’s good that Susan can play hero as well rather than being the expert closer. After all, Luke isn’t the only superpowered person at the agency anymore. It’s cool that Susan’s abilities aren’t overused in the series so far because it would lessen its impact.
The scuffle brings the two closer together and we receive a bit more information on the Donovan home and why it attracts the supernatural. Hopefully the images that Susan is capturing inside the home is a tease for what’s to come. In the closing moments we see a mass of the restless moving around the house including a cameo of one of the creepier spirits we encountered in the pilot.
“Baba O’Reilly” resolves some of the storylines from the previous episode of SurrealEstate. It gives us a fun flashback to the teen years and more of Susan’s superpowered heroics.
New episodes of SurrealEstate air Friday nights on Syfy.
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