“Motel California” is episode eleven of season one of First Wave.
A man is lying on the ground saying he can’t take it any more as a woman in a leather outfit stands over him with a whip. He calls her Lady Lumina. However, the woman flashes in and out between being the dominatrix and a cop.
Cade has arrived at the Havenwood Inn after corporate executive Elroy Dunn baffled the psychiatric community by being locked in a permanent hallucination ruled by Lady Lumina. A Nostradamus prophecy mentioned a mansion and the Havenwood is the closest thing to a mansion to the spot where Dunn was found. Cade speaks to another guest outside and enters. He checks in himself and examines the guestbook as the woman, Stacy, is turned away. Dunn was there too, in room 12, and Cade asks for the same room. A woman enters after Cade and he helps her with her bags as she struggles.
Cade searches room 12 and finds a hidden magazine, Naughty & Nice, with Lady Lumina on the cover. He tries the room phone, then his mobile, then heads down to reception to use their phone, knocking over a vase as he does. Cade calls Eddie, who knows the magazine, and mentions Lady Lumina being on the cover. Eddie says hallucinations can be induced in a number of ways. As Stacy returns, Cade tells her his room phone isn’t working. She mentions a storm knocking them out and checks the phone Cade has just used, saying it doesn’t work either.
On the way back to his room, Cade sees the maid go through an Employees Only door. He opens it himself to find just a storage closet, no maid and no other door. He searches and finds a secret door leading into a white corridor. He staggers briefly then follows the corridor to an experimental room where the guest he spoke to on the way in, Richard, is unconscious, restrained and linked up to equipment. The phone here works and Cade calls the police, giving his real name.
Richard comes to and thinks Cade is his brother. Cade frees him and they are making their way out when Stacy appears in the corridor, scraping a knife along the wall. They fight and Stacy has Cade on the floor about to kill him when two police officers appear. Stacy is handcuffed and her face shifts, showing she’s an alien. The police want Cade to give a statement at the station but he asks if he can get something from his room first.
In room 12, Cade is getting his back when Stacy knocks on the door to tell him about dinner. Afterwards, Cade tries the phones. They don’t work. He searches the bed but doesn’t find the magazine; it’s in Cade’s bag where he put it after finding it. Cade heads to the storage closet again but can’t find the door. On the terrace, he finds Richard, definitely not drugged. The third guest is at a table by herself. Cade asks if he can sit with her and she agrees. She introduces herself as Mary (Ingrid Torrance) and they chat. Mary lost her husband three years ago; Cade, when Mary asks about his ring, says he lost his wife a few months back.
Some things have definitely changed; the magazine had been removed from the bed and water from the vase is still on the floor. Other things are different. When Cade calls Eddie, Eddie says he hadn’t spoken to him before. It’s difficult to know what’s going on when the line between what’s real and what’s not. Richard and Mary are also affected by whatever’s causing them to hallucinate, and it seems to connect to a desire of theirs. This is a more serious problem with Richard than Mary. Mary is just lonely. Richard thinks he’s hunting and has a gun. Attempts to leave cause a repeat of the hallucinations.
The title refers to the Eagles’ song ‘Hotel California’ whose most famous lines are in ‘We are programmed to receive / You can check out any time you like / But you can never leave!’