Index › Plotlines

The Music Box & Cicadas Arc

Overview

In Season 2, the town is terrorized by a new entity that manifests as swarms of cicadas and announces itself through a music box in the dungeon beneath the ruins. It stalks exactly three people — Julie Matthews, Marielle Sinclair, and Randall Kirkland — in keeping with the warning delivered in Elgin's dream: "They come for three, unless you stop the melody." Its victims are claimed while asleep, first in nightmares, then in comas from which they cannot wake. The arc ends when Boyd returns to the dungeon and destroys the music box, freeing the three from their comas.

Timeline

  • S2E1–E2 (seed) — Boyd, lost in the forest, is pulled from the mineshaft by Martin, an emaciated man chained in the dungeon. A music box on the dungeon floor begins playing on its own as Martin forces blood-worms onto Boyd and dies. The box is heard but not understood.
  • S2E7 — Marielle, in morphine withdrawal, dreams of a creature waking and the music box playing. Elgin draws a bath, hears the music box, and is held underwater by the Kimono Woman.
  • S2E8 — Kenny answers a ringing phone in a dream and hears the chant "They touch, they break, they steal. No one here is free," then visions of cicadas pouring from a cooking pot. Boyd and Kenny burn the creature's corpse and find no bugs inside. Reggie flees his house screaming.
  • S2E9 — The cicadas kill Reggie's wife Paula in her sleep; her last words are the chant. The town canvasses to stay awake. Boyd catches Randall holding Jim at knifepoint. That night the creatures stop short of the RV as music-box music plays over the radio; Randall smashes the window, flees into the forest, and is attacked by cicadas. Marielle and Julie lapse into comas. Elgin recounts his dream: the Boy in White warned, "Here they come, they come for three, unless you stop the melody." Bakta reveals her grandmother's nursery rhyme combined both phrases.
  • S2E10 — Donna recovers Randall, now in a coma. Sara tells Boyd the entity was released when he entered the dungeon and that he must destroy the music box. After Ellis and Fatima's wedding, Boyd returns to the ruins, finds himself in the dungeon where Julie, Marielle, and Randall are chained and tortured by an unseen force, and smashes the box despite a vision of Abby urging him to stop. The three wake from their comas.

Key Developments

  • The entity targets exactly three victims and operates through sleep, dreams, and melody; the music box is its anchor.
  • The chant and the "come for three" phrase are tied to Bakta's childhood nursery rhyme, grounding the entity in the town's older folklore.
  • The music box's melody is broadcast over the radio, connecting this arc to The Radio Tower Project.
  • The dungeons beneath the ruins are confirmed as the seat of the town's deeper horrors, echoing Martin's warning that the creatures were only "the tip of the spear."

Characters Involved

Impact on the Story

Randall, Marielle, and Julie survive but are permanently marked: Randall carries the scars of the cicada attack and a deep grudge against Boyd that colors his Season 3–4 behavior, while Marielle and Julie carry the trauma of their imprisonment. The arc proves the town holds threats beyond the night creatures, validates Sara's claims about Boyd's role, and makes the ruins and the dungeon central to later investigations — the same tunnels where Jade finds the sacrificed children's chamber in Season 4.

Resolution / Current Status

Resolved. Boyd destroys the music box in S2E10, the three victims awaken from their comas, and the cicada entity ceases its attacks. The immediate threat ends, though the dungeon and the music box's music remain unexplained fragments of the town's deeper history.