The Big Door Prize (Season 1) Episode 8: The previous episode of ‘The Big Door Prize’ focused on Giorgio’s story. It explored his complicated love life and the reasons behind his attention-seeking behavior. On the other hand, Dusty spent the entire gala evening at a local shop, talking with Jacob and one of his ex-students. He realized how he had ignored Cass’s wishes all these years when she wanted him to push his boundaries and explore new possibilities. The episode ended with Izzy going to the local shop, intending to destroy the Morpho machine.
Now the latest episode follows Izzy’s narrative and why she did not want the Morpho machine to be in Deerfield. She confronts some harsh truths to Cass about her past and makes some major decisions about her life.
*spoilers ahead*
The Big Door Prize (Season 1) Episode 8 Recap:
Episode 8: Izzy
After the gala event, Izzy (Crystal Fox) walks up to the local grocery store with a baseball bat and approaches the Morpho machine. Jacob (Sammy Fourlas) stops her from smashing the machine. She says she did not want to smash it. He reveals his latest discovery – how this machine shares identical results even if you share a wrong social security number and wrong fingerprints. So, he thinks that the machine is not a scam for data collection and has some magic powers.
Izzy realizes that Jacob is high and believes that he is just blabbering. He says that he still believes what he just said. So, she enters the machine and tries the result again. This time, she got a result – A Ghost. She mentioned that her earlier result said – Dancer, which proves Jacob’s claim wrong. Anyhow, she says that she has recently started feeling like a ghost in town. Besides, she says how people will believe whatever they want to believe, whether Morpho is a scam or not.
The next day, Cass (Gabrielle Dennis) comes into Izzy’s store. She confronts her mother for telling lies to Trina (Djouliet Amara) about her. She is angry that Izzy told Trina that Cass announced the gala because she wanted to feel like a princess and that she has been canoodling with random men. Cass is angry that Izzy is portraying her as an attention-seeking person. Izzy asks her to join her for lunch so that they can talk about it.
Before leaving, Cass sees a poster made by her that says – ‘Deerfield – Neither a field nor a place with Deer.’ She gets surprised to find it in Izzy’s store since Izzy rarely allowed anything of hers in there. Izzy says that she finds it better than a deer made out of sticks.
Once they reach the restaurant, Izzy shares the story of her memories of visiting it with Cass when they first moved there. She says how there was a panic about a tornado coming to their town, but it never came. The point of her story is nothing exciting happens in their town. That’s why Cass has always been bored and has been wanting more.
Izzy laments about how, in New York, she had a flourishing life as a dancer. However, Martha wanted a quiet life, which is why she wanted them to move to Deerfield, closer to her family. Because of her boredom, she decided to run as the mayor. Cass asks why she lied about Martha not wanting her to have a child. Izzy says that’s a lie since she left her house and took care of her at a fairly young age. While she is fine with Cass feeling like she is her enemy, she does not want everything to feel like a competition between them.
Why did Izzy want to smash the Morpho machine? What did Izzy’s morpho card say?
The mother and the daughter play a dance-off where Cass wins over Izzy. She flaunts her win while Izzy struggles to breathe a little. That’s when Izzy shares that she has been struggling since the wedding dance. She also reveals that she did not get the potential to be a Dancer but a Ghost. She was scared that people would want to see her Morpho card and realize it was a Ghost, which is why she was upset at the event.
Cass recalls Trina speaking about how Jacob had some blank cards. So, she decides to help her mother by scratching one to get a card saying, Dancer. Trina meets Jacob at a spot supposedly equidistant from their houses to get a blank card. She offers her hand for a handshake, and he jokes about the formality. He says how their distance is not working at all. She agrees. They accept that they still like each other.
Dusty (Chris O’Dowd) keeps trying to play the theremin and enjoys goofing around with it. Trina interrupts him and tells her suspicion that Cass is having an affair. She says that she saw Giorgio (Josh Segarra) almost kissing Cass. Dusty does not believe that Cass would do such a thing. But Trina wants Dusty not to sit around but take some action. So he leaves the house, throws the theremin in the dustbin, and heads straight to Giorgio’s place.
What does Dusty learn about Giorgio?
Dusty keeps knocking on Giorgio’s door but does not get a response. So he eventually opens it and approaches him with a stick sign. He finds a bald man lying on the floor. He thinks it is some drunk stranger and knocks that man with a stick – only to realize that he is Giorgio. This clearly surprises Dusty.
Giorgio feels embarrassed about getting his secret exposed. But he is more hurt by the fact that Cass will never want to be with him, no matter what he does. He felt bad that he sold so many things precious to him for Cass and still got rejected by her. Dusty feels ashamed since he rarely makes any effort to please Cass, and she still chooses him over Giorgio. Alas, he uplifts Giorgio’s spirits since he feels he has nothing to be proud of. Dusty puts the wig back on Giorgio’s head, and they resolve their issues for the time being.
They drive up to Urie’s house, who keeps wearing a mask since his Morpho card says – Sole Survivor. Since he does not know what he needs to survive, he tries to protect himself and his family from almost anything. Giorgio came there only to get his mask back. He offers it if they join him for tea inside his house. While having the drink, Giorgio tells Urie that he can’t always live in fear. He shares his regret for not taking a step to travel to Italy to be with Cass out of fear. He believes he would have been married to Cass in that case instead of Dusty.
Dusty gets annoyed by Giorgio and says that he wasn’t even in Italy with Cass back then. He was working at a ski resort. He recalls that it was the last time he and Cass were apart. Giorgio and Urie put him in a spot and ask if he has ever been alone for over 20 years. Dusty covers up his embarrassment by saying he still does some things alone, like going to the movies. Anyhow, it makes him think about his fear – ‘what would he have if he did not have Cass?’ They all talk about how they are trying to control things that are in their hands because of these results about their life’s potential.
The Big Door Prize (Season 1), Episode 8 Ending Explained:
At night, Cass and Izzy attend Mr. Johnson’s (Patrick Kerr) magic show. Cass gives Izzy a card that says, Dancer. Izzy decides to do a sweet gesture for Martha (Susan Savoie) and shares the permit she has been wanting for months. Later at the magic show, Mr. Johnson takes blue-winged butterflies out of his hat. He asks Father Reuben (Damon Gupton) to pick a card, and he will guess. However, he guesses it wrong. He jokes whether Reuben knows what his card is and unknowingly hits a nerve.
Then Mr. Johnson asks Dusty to join him on the stage for the next magic trick. Dusty is told to listen to the sound of a metronome while thinking of a memory of a real, peaceful place. Mr. Johnson asks Dusty to describe it. Dusty shares only obvious details to finally stumble upon the place’s name – Whistler. He has an epiphany – ‘Did my Morpho-card result mean I am meant to be a Teacher at Whistler?’ He also discovers how alive he felt when he was in the mountains from Whistler, which he hasn’t felt in years.
Soon after, Cass is brought in for Mr. Johnson to perform a disappearing-person trick. Once the coffin is rotated and then opened, people see Izzy is brought out. Izzy declares that she is stepping down as the mayor. She reveals her real Morpho card result was a lie and envies the residents for how they easily bought into the idea that a machine can help them like this. She shares that Cass made a fake card for her and talks about how she profited from this Morpho machine craze.
Izzy hurts Cass, and because of this public humiliation, Cass takes the stage. She says that Izzy wants things to go back to the way they were so that she can enjoy her glorious life. Dusty joins them to say that things can’t go back to the way they once were. He seemed to have realized how the Morpho card revealed something crucial about him. He says that he can’t allow Izzy to distract them from reaching their potential.
Izzy uses this distraction to sneak out of the event. Outside, she sees a Deer on the streets of Deerfield – which has never happened before. Maybe it shows how she mentally feels like a Ghost in this town.
