WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Chapelwaite Season 1, Episode 5, "The Prophet," which aired Sunday on Epix. This article also contains discussion of self-harm and suicide.
Throughout Chapelwaite, the Boone family -- Charles Boone in particular -- has been plagued with visions of worms. At first Charles believes his hallucinations are a hereditary madness. However, evidence has been mounting over the course of the series that the worm is a real, outside threat connected with the Promised cult, Jerusalem's Lot and their mysterious cult leader, Jakub.
In “The Prophet,” Charles Boone travels to Jerusalem's Lot to meet with Jakub and learns the truth. Jakub is a vampire leading a cult devoted to an ancient god, the worm, and the Boone family's worm hallucinations are connected to this god's quest for freedom. By breaking down both Jakub's history and his mission for the worm, the apocalyptic stakes of the Boone family's fate become clear.
At first, Jakub is a shadowy figure in the background of Chapelwaite. In "Memento Mori," Rebecca Morgan found letters between her father and the Boone family which proved that he still worked for them even after he abandoned Rebecca and her mother, Ann, to start a new family. In "The Prophet," Rebecca remembers that her father mentioned Jakub in his letters. She discovers that Jakub was seeking a book, De Vermis Mysteriis, or the mysteries of the worm, and her father was the one to bring Jakub to Maine to meet with the Boones, even though the Boones did not want the meeting. She begins to suspect that Jakub or the Boones might be behind her father's disappearance.
The audience learns most of the preliminary information about Jakub from Faith Pringle, an escapee from the Promised cult. Throughout the series, Faith has been determined to leave Preachers Corners with her baby and her lover, Minister Martin Burroughs. In "The Promised," the woman with the apple visits Faith and tries to get Faith to come back with her. The woman tells Faith that she "gave her blood" and made a promise, and the cult will never let her go because "Jakub never loses a lamb." She also tells Faith that the worm's "reach is infinite," implying that Faith cannot outrun it.
The visit spurs Faith to redouble her efforts to escape Preacher's Corners. At first she is vague when talking about her past with Martin, because she fears the cult's reprisal. However, in "The Prophet," she finally goes into more detail, as Martin is still hesitant to leave. She reveals that she was a prostitute, and Jakub was one of her former clients. She states that Jakub was "unknowable," and she provided him with food and shelter because she feared that he would kill her. She later reveals that Jakub and those like him are undead and feed on blood. She explains that Jakub believed in "what he called the original god" and Jakub seeks to bring this worm god back. He brought more like him and their own followers to Maine, to aid him in his quest, leading to the surrounding areas' vampiric infestation.
When Charles travels to Jerusalem's Lot, he learns the truth. Like Phillip and Stephen Boone, Jakub is a vampire, and Jakub is actually the first person in the series to use the term vampire instead of merely "the undead." Surrounded by his followers, Jakub finally reveals the full truth of his mission and its connection to the Boone family.
The visions of the worm have been connected with the Boone family from the series' first scenes. When Charles Boone was a child his father, Robert Boone, tried to kill him because "the worm is coming." Through flashbacks, the audience has seen that this worm-centered madness has plagued generations of the family. Charles' great grandfather, James Boone, became a spree killer and slaughtered many of the residents of Jerusalem's Lot in the church that Jakub has now claimed for the Promised. Silence Boone, Charles' grandmother, attempted to hang herself and her children, Phillip and Robert Boone, but she only succeeded in killing herself. Charles fears that his hallucinations will lead him to similar violence.
While Charles believes that this madness is natural in its origin, he learns that these visions actually stem from the worm god itself. This connection is at first hinted at by the woman with the apple when she first encounters Charles in "Memento Mori." She makes the truth of the worm god more obviously known when she speaks with Tane in "Legacy of Madness." She explains that the worm god is an older god than the Christian god and, through a creepy, nursery-rhyme-like song, explains that the worm devours the dead and has promised her and her fellow followers new life.
Through Charles’ meeting with Jakub, Charles learns that Jakub’s quest is to raise the worm god. Jakub explains that the rise of the worm will bring eternal darkness and allow vampires to be able to travel and feed freely. His followers are "the Promised" because Jakub has promised them that they will be reborn with the worm's rise, presumably as vampires.
Jakub seeks De Vermis Mysteriis, which he refers to as his bible, to bring about the worm's return. The book was originally found in the Boone family's mine, and the Boone family’s hallucinations exist because James Boone, Charles’ great grandfather, didn't just read from the book, but also signed his name in blood to try to harness its power. Charles realizes that the phrase "blood calls blood," a statement from his father that has haunted him throughout his life, stems from James' blood in the book calling to his descendants to read its pages. However, human minds cannot comprehend the horror of the book or handle the power it contains. The hallucinations and madness in the Boone family line are all caused by the book's influence. At first, Jakub enlisted Phillip and Stephen Boone to find the book, but he made a mistake by making them vampires first. The book only calls to human descendants of the Boone family line, and Phillip and Stephen lured Charles and his family to Chapelwaite so that they could find the book for them.
Jakub promises Charles that his family will be cured of their curse if Charles brings Jakub the book. Jakub reveals a key piece of information: the madness will only subside if the book is in possession of vampires. At first, Charles is horrified and refuses to help, because he knows reading from the book will make him an even bigger threat to his family. However, to prove how much of a threat he and his followers pose to the Boone family, Jakub brings forward Susan Mallory and Able Stewart. As Susan begs Charles to help her, Jakub's followers kill her and begin to devour her corpse. Charles promises to try so that Jakub spares Able's life.
Throughout their encounter, Jakub does not shy away from letting Charles know the apocalyptic repercussions of the worms' rise, leaving Charles with a choice. He either must ignore the book's call and doom himself and his descendants to the same hallucinations that have destroyed previous generations of Boones, or he must find the book to save his family and doom the world. His daughter Loa's death makes the situation even more dire, and the stakes higher. In order to achieve both the world and his family's salvation, Charles will have to figure out a way to defeat Jakub and end the curse, once and for all.
To see how Charles navigates the choice between his family and the world, new episodes of Chapelwaite drop Sundays at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT on EPIX.
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