- When twice three years and twice again,
Find secret skill in darkest hour.
'Tween blessed and cursed a third will come,
Or world's consumed in battle's fire.Quatrain 22, Century 4
When Cade starts to have terrifying nightmares of being experimented on as a child, regression therapy shows that his history with the Gua goes back further than he thought.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Cade's mother was perfectly decent, but unable to defend him from his violent, drunken stepfather. How bad is this stepfather? Him teaching Cade to pick locks, presumably with the intention of using him to commit crimes, apparently counts as a happy childhood memory.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: In Cade's memories, the alien who rescued him appears as Cade himself. This is apparently not what the alien looked like at the time, even when posing as a human.
- Ambiguous Situation: It's not clear exactly how much of Cade's recollection happened as we see it. The conversation between Cade's mother and the alien searching for him apparently did happen, although the alien didn't look like Cade. Was the young Cade actually helped by his older self's voice? Hard to see how, but that's what appears to happen.
- Badass Longcoat: Cade!Xavallah wears one. This makes him easy to distinguish from present!Cade, who wears jeans and a white T shirt.
- Big Damn Heroes: Cade was rescued from Dr Rook by a member of a second, as yet unknown species of alien.
- Catapult Nightmare: In the opening, Cade has a nightmare where he's a child, strapped to a dentist's chair in a White Void Room, being subjected to Electric Torture. He's told he can stop the pain by shooting someone, but wakes up as the gun goes off not knowing who he's supposed to have shot.
- Dark and Troubled Past: We've heard in past episodes that Cade had an abusive stepfather, but now we get to see the man up close. Alcoholic, jealous of any mention of Cade's father and callous to the point of selling Cade to Dr Rook while his mother is in the hospital.
- Electric Torture: Dr Rook tortured a twelve-year-old Cade with electricity.
- False Reassurance: The episode opens on a young Cade shackled to a chair in a White Void Room. Dr Rook asks him if he thinks he's going to hurt him, to which Cade replies, "Yes!" The doctor says, "Smart boy." Electric Torture ensues.
- Foreshadowing: The moral of the episode is that Cade must see the truth past emotional misdirects in order to defeat the invasion. This is the "secret skill" he showed as a twelve-year-old, when he beat the illusion by shooting the image of his father.Rook: Why? He was your father!
Cade: No. He was a lie. - Humans Are the Real Monsters: Cade's stepfather was a drunken, abusive bully who literally let Dr Rook experiment on Cade for money.Cade:The son of a bitch sold me to the Gua!
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: Cade has to fight through a mental minefield to find the complete memory of what happened to him. It's not clear which "mines" were left by which of the two aliens involved, except for the instant heart attack. That was definitely the Gua.
- Like Parent, Like Spouse: Cade's mother had red hair, just like Jordan.
- Mind Rape: Dr Rook's plan is to grab every kid in Chicago who might grow up to be the Twice Blessed Man and traumatise them so badly they can barely function in later life. He does this by torturing the kids, then telling them the pain can stop if they shoot someone. Cade has visions of his stepfather, mother and even his deceased father yelling at him to shoot the stepfather. Cade, realising it's a lie, beats the illusion by shooting his father instead.
- Nightmare Face: In the memory, Young Cade realises Rook is not human (having already scratched his Mook and seen the marks heal instantly) and tells him so. Rook congratulates him on his perception, and something hideous and flayed-looking seems to pass across his face.Rook: Do you like what you see?
- Orphan's Plot Trinket: The photo of Cade's father. Which Cade apparently still has, somehow.
- Past Experience Nightmare: Cade's nightmares of being experimented on as a child are buried memories.
- Prophecy Pileup: In addition to the page quote, Young Cade is targeted by Dr Rook because of a Gua prophecy that their defeat would come at the hands of "The son of a dead warrior in a great city by the lake."
- There Are No Therapists: Averted: Raven Nation has a psychologist who regresses Cade. Turns out he's working for the alien who rescued Cade as a child, who he refers to as "the Master."
- White Void Room: Where Cade's memories of being experimented on take place.
- Would Hurt a Child: Dr Rook explicitly wants to destroy the Twice Blessed Man before he can defeat the Gua, and will happily do the same to any child that could be the one. According to Eddie's search, this was over a hundred kids, all abducted and traumatised to the point of being barely functional.
- And let's not forget Cade's stepfather, an abusive drunk who sold Cade to Dr Rook to experiment on.
