“Hypnotic” is episode four of season one of First Wave.
The episode opens with a woman being chased through the woods at night by a man. They’re a couple, and the woman enters their home. As they are in bed, a woman appears outside the window and the man is dragged away. The woman is being raped by an alien, it looks like. Then there are pills and alcohol, and the man is holding the woman as an ambulance arrives, even though she just wants to be let die.
Cade is following up on a lead Eddie had, regarding an unlikely place to find aliens, at an abduction therapy group. The group is run by best-selling author and nationally known expert on alien abductions, Dr Rita Hagen. Cade wants to find out if the abductees were really abducted.
The woman from earlier, Nicole, is telling the group what happened. She feels ugly and dirty. Dr Hagen suggests hypnotic regression to remember what happened. Nicole doesn’t want to remember; she wants to forget. Cade enters at this point; when invited to share his story, he says he would prefer to listen to start with. Another woman, Vanessa, apparently enjoyed her experience. Dr Hagen says that Vanessa’s case is rare; she’s one of Hagen’s very first cases. Out of hundreds of abduction stories, only a very few experience the sort of fulfilment that Vanessa did.
A man, Drew, says that Vanessa has Stockholm Syndrome. They are coming; the signs are clear. He thinks Vanessa has been brainwashed; she thinks he’s crazy. Evan, who is the man who was with Nicole, says that the aliens raped her. Vanessa tells Nicole, as Evan and Nicole leave, that if she wants to live, she needs to deal with it. Nicole doesn’t really want to live. Cade says to Hagen he thought this was supposed to be a support group. He wants to have a private word with her, but she’s meeting with the press for several book interviews and he ducks away before anyone can get his photo.
Outside, Cade tells Nicole he’s sorry, as Evan drives them off in his truck. Drew is sure he’s seen Cade before, on television. Cade doesn’t think so. Vanessa calls Drew a weirdo and tells him to leave Cade alone. Does Cade want a ride? Cade has his own car. Vanessa wasn’t talking about in her car. That night, Cade is reading Hagen’s book when he goes and picks up Hannah’s locket. Then a car pulls up outside his cabin and Hannah gets out. Cade lets her in, but she disappears whilst he’s holding her.
Cade heads into Rock Creek and stops at a late-night diner that Evan’s truck is parked outside. Nicole is working inside – she can’t sleep and may as well be doing something – and Cade suggests she takes a break. Nicole does and he goes outside. She says she’s unsure where the nightmares end and reality begin. Cade says that, although he may not have been raped, the aliens took everything and he recounts what happened. He doesn’t appreciate the suggestion that Hannah was lucky to die. Nicole doesn’t want to keep going and Cade comforts her. Which Evan takes offence to. During the scuffle, Evan suddenly has a fit and starts getting flashbacks. Inside the diner, a now-calmer Evan recounts what he saw. Which is different to Nicole’s vision. They get flashbacks all the time, sometimes at the same time. Evan saw Cade standing in a halo of light and then the flashback began.
Cade fills Eddie in on what’s happened. Everyone’s stories are different, and even Nicole and Evan’s stories don’t match – and Evan recounted seeing her in his visions. Evan saw insectoids and reptilians, which Eddie dismisses as standard tabloid fare. The abductees could be crazy, hallucinating, real abductees or suffering from false memory syndrome. Eddie explains that memories can be implanted. Vade wonders why. Eddie provides a human suggestion; greed. Dr Hagen is a best-selling author whose book has been in the chart for months.
Is Dr Hagen simply profiting from abduction experiences she’s planted? Or is there something else going on? And who is behind it, aliens or humans? Dr Hagen could well be the mastermind in either case, but when Cade confronts her, she claims to be an abductee as well. Of course, that doesn’t mean she’s telling the truth.