37. July 5, 2021

July 5, 2021

Rod­dy enters Emi­ly’s bed­room with a sense of pur­pose, car­ry­ing a tray adorned with a pecu­liar sight—a gob­let filled with a white, lard-like sub­stance mixed with red threads. Despite Emi­ly’s vis­i­ble dis­com­fort and her inabil­i­ty to even con­sid­er leav­ing her bed due to excru­ci­at­ing pain, her inter­est is piqued by the unusu­al offer­ing. Rod­dy reveals that he’s been hold­ing onto this suet pud­ding, orig­i­nal­ly for­got­ten in the freez­er, now warmed in the oven to pre­serve its nutrients—an effort reflect­ing his dis­dain for the nutri­ent-killing nature of microwav­ing.

This meal is not mere­ly a ges­ture of care; it’s prepa­ra­tion for the night’s task, neces­si­tat­ing Emi­ly’s par­tial reju­ve­na­tion. The method involves con­sum­ing and exter­nal­ly apply­ing the ren­dered remains of Peter Stein­man, a child whose body, despite not being over­ly fat­ty, yield­ed what Rod­dy con­sid­ered ‘edi­ble gold.’ As Emi­ly con­sumes the fat with a fero­cious appetite, Rod­dy assists by ensur­ing not a drop goes to waste, paint­ing a vivid pic­ture of des­per­a­tion and rit­u­al.

The scene tran­si­tions into a grotesque inti­ma­cy as Rod­dy applies the remain­ders of the fat on Emi­ly’s body, focus­ing on areas marred by pain. This act is part ther­a­peu­tic, part preparatory—for what, is omi­nous­ly hint­ed at with ref­er­ences to future uses of a girl’s liv­er and var­i­ous dish­es sug­gest­ing can­ni­bal­is­tic under­tones. Their inter­ac­tion under­scores a twist­ed bond, an unset­tling mix of care­giv­ing and exploita­tion wrapped in mor­bid­i­ty.

The night pro­gress­es, and the nar­ra­tive shifts to Bon­nie Dahl, who awak­ens to find her­self in a stark­ly dif­fer­ent sce­nario than the one described pre­vi­ous­ly. She is naked, restrained, and under the watch­ful eyes of Rod­dy and Emi­ly, now donned in gloves and aprons ready for what appears to be a sin­is­ter pro­ce­dure. This cliffhang­er scene con­trasts sharply with the inti­mate yet dis­turb­ing set­ting of the bed­room, broad­en­ing the nar­ra­tive into dark­er, more alarm­ing ter­ri­to­ry.