The Big Door Prize (Season 1) Episode 4: In its three-episode premiere, ‘The Big Door Prize’ took us through the lives of Deerfield citizens. Be it Dusty, Cass, or Jacob, we saw narratives of people rethinking their life choices based on their life’s potential shared by Morpho.
Dusty was disheartened to see that all he was destined to be, according to this machine, was a teacher/whistler. Cass was rather delighted to learn that she had the potential to live as royalty. While she started taking steps toward making it her reality, Jacob felt pressured to be a hero while still grieving over the loss of his family members.
Every story navigated how the aspect of their reactions to the result and whether or not they decide to act upon it. The latest episode, streaming on Apple TV+, delves into Reuben’s narrative, who receives a card that says ‘Father.’
*spoilers ahead*
The Big Door Prize (Season 1) Episode 4 Recap:
Episode 4: Father Reuben
The new episode investigates Reuben’s (Damon Gupton) crisis of faith after getting a result saying ‘Father’ on his Morpho card. He walks into the bar and asks Hana (Alli Maki) to pour him a drink. He notices that she is reading ‘Breaking Down’ and tries to bring her attention to the Holy Bible. She, however, complains about how many characters keep coming out of nowhere in both those books.
The next day, Reuben meets Trina (Djouliet Amara) at her school while she works on a sculpture. Instead of turning it into her profession, she wants to keep this potential as only a thing that she does out of interest. After speaking about it, Reuben asks her how she is dealing with Kolton’s (her ex-boyfriend) death. While he tries to console her, she bombards him with questions about why he moved to their small town and why he chose to become a priest in the first place. Since his result was Father, she calls him a ‘poster boy’ for Morpho’s accurate deduction.
On the other hand, Dusty (Chris O’Dowd) tries to eat some spicy wings since he realizes that Cass (Gabrielle Dennis) has always liked them. Unfortunately, he cannot handle its heat and, thus, takes off his shirt. That’s when Trina returns home and sees a tattoo on Dusty’s body that says, ‘I love Pu.’ He says that the tattoo is incomplete, and once completed, it would say ‘Puff,’ which is what he used to call Cass. It is evident that he is getting this tattoo because Cass mentioned that she is interested in the idea of getting one herself.
Right after, Cass walks into the home and looks at Dusty’s gestures to please her. She makes another revelation about how she never liked the name – ‘Puff’ and that she went along with it not to hurt his feelings. He gets emotional and starts impulsively collecting all the things he considers she likes. He calls all his romantic gestures trash and decides to throw them away. When she tries to stop him, he reveals how he feels bad for not being able to surprise her as she wanted.
Dusty is still irritated that everyone is altering their lives based on what a card says. He attends Principal Pat’s (Cocoa Brown) wedding to Mr. Malik (Noor Naghmi) – the same man who accompanied her when she was in the hospital. They decide to get married since she realizes her life’s potential as a Biker, and he realizes it to be a Lover. When they share their romantic vows, Dusty finds them fake and corny.
The wedding causes Reuben to question whether the Morpho machine is part of a larger plan or is entirely random. So, besides Dusty, he becomes yet another cynic toward Morpho’s results. After officiating the wedding, he gets bombarded by the townspeople with their countless queries related to God, the universe, and its relation to their Morpho results. Hana rescues him from their pestering.
On the other hand, Cass gets all dreamy while looking at the newly married couple. Dusty believes that Principal Pat & Mr. Malik are rushing into such a big decision. She, however, sees their own marriage at the age of 20 to be just as immature of a decision as theirs. She expects Dusty to be more open to possibilities. Giorgio (Josh Segarra) interrupts their conversation and, yet again, starts hitting on Cass. Only this time, he manages to connect with her over how emotional they both were while watching the ceremony.
Meanwhile, Izzy (Crystal Fox) bumps into her ex, Martha (Susan Savoie), at the ceremony, who introduces her to her new partner, Rose (Schelle Purcell). Izzy tries to throw shade at the couple while making Martha see that she lost a mayor as her partner. Rose and Martha, however, want Izzy just to sign their permit. Since the mayor continues to make it just about her holier-than-thou status, the couple leaves the conversation.
Izzy, however, gets restless due to this insult and decides to put on a show. She tells Jacob (Sammy Fourlas), DJ for the ceremony, to put on a specific music track. Then she asks the people to give her some space, takes out her high heels, and starts a highly seductive dance. While she makes a joke of herself, she sees it as a way to steal the thunder from everyone else, from Rose in particular.
Dusty walks back to the bar table and explains Izzy’s cry for attention to Reuben and Hana. Turns out, Izzy moved to Deerfield with Martha when Cass was only nine years old. Since she left her career as a dancer behind in the city, she held a grudge against it. After sharing that, he derails into speaking about his ‘punk’ identity from the 90s and feels overjoyed. By then, Cass starts dancing with the flower girl, which Izzy considers as Cass stealing her thunder. We learn why the mother and the daughter do not like each other.
Martha always considered Cass to be Izzy’s ‘too much baggage.’ Even now, she is in a relationship with Rose because Rose is childless. Izzy takes her anger out on Cass. Dusty approaches Cass with a silly joke right after their fight about it, realizing Cass is feeling down.
Meanwhile, Jacob and Trina try to figure out how and when they should make their relationship public. Dusty walks up to them and tries to cheer up Trina’s mood. Then he asks Jacob to play George Michael’s ‘Faith’ and starts an adorable, goofy dance with the hope of cheering up Cass. She gets delighted within moments, and the couple starts dancing together, along with the other guests.
The Big Door Prize (Season 1) Episode 4 Ending, Explained:
Why was Reuben conflicted by his Morpho card result? What does being a ‘Father’ means for him?
After the ceremony is over, Reuben helps Hana get all the stuff back to her bar. When they reach there, they discuss whether the Morpho machine is significant or not. Hana refuses to get her result since she considers it to be a momentary craze. She believes that people will soon forget about it. Reuben admires her lack of inquisitiveness. Then he questions her choice of the songs that were playing in the bar.
He looks through her playlist and sees Shania Twain’s ‘Still the One’ on the top. He admits that it was his wedding song. Then, he opens up about his past marriage with an amazing woman. He regrets being at his worst when they met each other. The two were hopeful about having a baby and starting a family. Suddenly she got a rare disease and died not long after. As a result, he fell into turmoil and started drinking a lot.
After he hit rock bottom, he came across a card that told him that his life potential was to be a Priest. So he decided to start over his life at Deerfield and carved out a new life for himself. However, the Morpho machine did not say Priest but said Father. It made him rethink his huge life decision since there can be more than one possible definition of Fatherhood. He sees it as his unfulfilled potential being a father to the child he wishes to have. That’s why he was conflicted with his Morpho card.
