Birnam Wood

Shelley is surprised at how easy it is to go back like nothing happened. They immediately start working on the incorporation papers that require five-year plans and mission statements. Mira tires of it and leaves while the rest of them work on finishing. While people prepare dinner, Shelley checks the news and sees that the body has been identified but there’s no mention of Birnam Wood. She puts on music intending for everyone to be distracted. At dinner, Mira announces that she is stepping down as director and that she intends to vote for Shelley as the Executive Director. She says that Shelley is better at the things that Birnam Wood will need going forward. Shelley is surprised and tries to seem flattered. She knows that, by doing this, Mira is trying to escape responsibility if things go badly.

While it appears as though Mira is committing an act of kindness, it is a betrayal. Shelley continues to monitor the group’s knowledge of Sir Owen’s death and Mira’s activities by tracking her. That night, Lemoine arrives in secret and invites Shelley to the house to talk. They discuss the fact that Shelley is worried by Mira’s behavior. Lemoine asks her if she wants the job, even if it’s not being given in good faith, and Shelley says yes. He says that they still haven’t found the man after Lemoine but that they will find him; Lemoine plans to start work on the bunker right away to distract Lady Darvish. She doesn’t believe the Birnam Wood story and thinks that someone from Birnam Wood was having an affair with her husband. When Shelley gets up to go, he asks her to stay.

Mira takes a break from gardening and imagines her parents visiting her in jail. She is having trouble imagining someone more of a monster than she herself is at that moment. She decides to have a moment of silence during Sir Darvish’s memorial. It begins to rain, and she looks for her thermos and lunch and finds it gone. She looks around and sees that Tony is standing with them at the edge of the forest. He won’t speak until she puts her phone inside her metal thermos. He tells her what he thinks he’s discovered: that Lemoine, the government, and Darvish are working together to mine the national park.

Mira realizes that she might not be the monster after all and decides to help Tony—she can easily say that she was “coerced” into Birnam Wood’s role and betray her group. She says that she will come back later with the van and food and try to get him out. He tells her not to come at night or in cold weather as the drones will track her and to keep her cellphone in the thermos where it can’t be traced. He apologizes about their one-night-stand and she apologizes, too. She runs off, feeling elated until she gets over the hill and sees that the lower fields are a construction zone. Lemoine’s black SUV stops her. He says that he’s come to get her out of the rain, that her phone must have died, and when she asks what the construction is, he says that they’re starting on his bunker.

Shelley feels exposed the morning after she has had sex with Lemoine, though no one notices anything. She’s surprised at his attentive love-making, though he insisted that she look him in the eyes and asked her to scratch his back like his grandmother had before he went to sleep. She wonders if the sex would be different with Mira than her. The next morning, he cautions her that he’ll be matter-of-fact and impersonal but says that he had a nice night. He asks who Tony Gallo is. Shelley is surprised and fills him in on Tony: He left Birnam Wood, and he and Mira used to be an item. Shelley decides to take the van to get supplies. She sees Lemoine going the other way with Mira in his SUV and sees Mira give her a desperate look, but Shelley doesn’t know how to interpret it.

Tony waits for Mira, but she doesn’t come until it’s night. He is horrified that she’s come because of the drones, and she tries to calm him down. He listens to her talk about the bunker, but before they get very far someone shines a light into their faces.

Lemoine is annoyed at Mira, who won’t get into his car despite the rain. As soon as he got Rosie’s message to Mira, he knew he couldn’t just kill Tony as he’d planned because it would be linked to Mira and from Mira to him and Birnam Wood and the death of Owen Darvish. He hacked into Tony’s computer, found his rant against rich billionaires and was pleased that he didn’t need to do much to frame Tony except make his writing public. Mira gets into the car and he says that he knows the name of the man stalking him. He reads Mira a section from Tony’s writing and says it’s a manifesto, but Mira insists that Tony wouldn’t actually harm him. He asks her if Tony has tried to contact her, and she responds that they aren’t even friends anymore. He drives her back to the camp and notices her phone in the thermos. She says that she doesn’t want it to get wet.

As he slows to let Shelley and the van go by, he suddenly realizes how to solve the situation. It will appear that Tony, who is upset at being rejected from Birnam Wood and Mira, has killed them and then himself. Lemoine is in a different town, and his emails and online shopping prove it, so he can’t be linked. He then will say that the site is too sad to build on, pull out his equipment full of minerals, and be gone. He pays his security guard extra, promises 10 times that amount when they are done, and brings him in on the plan.

Lemoine finds Tony and Mira in the forest. He tells them that he is calling his car as Tony obviously needs help. Tony curses and rants at him. Lemoine tells them that he is working on a top-secret but legal project in conjunction with many governments, and Tony has jeopardized the mission. Lemoine will need to detain them, respectfully, until he knows how to handle it. He needs to confiscate the film. He sees Tony’s broken arm and thinks that since Tony’s body will show that he can’t physically shoot a gun, Lemoine will have to find another way of killing everyone. As the car and driver approach, Shelley calls and says that Mira is trying to escape. Lemoine says that he has her and will handle it. He says to gather everyone for a meeting in the morning so that he can tell them about Sir Owen. Shelley expresses concern about Mira being there and Lemoine says that he will keep her at the house—she’s had a breakdown and isn’t thinking straight but will be fine. Shelley agrees to his plan.

Tony tells Mira to run as they get into the car. Mira watches Lemoine finish talking on the phone and reasons that Tony is faking his delirium and has a plan, or else wouldn’t have come so willingly. They get to the house where the driver and Lemoine search Tony, take the film, and help him into the house. Lemoine tells Mira to take care of Tony. The driver puts Tony in the master bedroom and gives Mira a first aid kit and medication. Tony wakes up in pain a few times and Mira gives him drugs, which he at first thinks is poison but then takes. He continues to hallucinate about his mother. In the morning, Lemoine makes coffee and asks what Mira saw in Tony. She said it was the possibility. Tony comes out and is angry because she hasn’t run. Lemoine gives them both coffee and tells them that they need to go down to the construction site to see something.

Jill Darvish cries at the song her husband picked for his funeral, “Desperado” by the Eagles, remembering how they joked about it. During the wake, Lady Darvish knows that she needs to go to Thorndike and figure out what happened. She pretends to go home but actually goes to the airport. At Thorndike, she sees construction work and is more suspicious. Instead of going to the front, she goes up the side road through a gate and down to the house. She instantly knows that things are wrong at the house. The door is open, the coffeemaker is smashed, and there’s evidence that someone was dragged through the spilled coffee.

She goes into the garage to check the guns, but they are all there and she doesn’t have the key to the cabinet. A large, plastic drum of poison from Darvish Pest Control meant for rodents and rabbits is missing. She hears a scream and runs into the front room to get her husband’s old .22 rifle and hunting knife. She goes down the hill, ready to shoot. She sees Lemoine looking at a phone screen. A young man, Tony, is on the ground tied to a young woman who is tied to a vehicle bumper. She appears to be dead with vomit down her front. Slogans are painted everywhere. Tony stops screaming when he sees her, which makes Lemoine turn. Jill Darvish knows that he’s killed her husband and is evil. She shoots Lemoine between the eyes. She cuts Tony loose and he begins to run and yells for her to look behind her. She turns in time to be shot dead by Lemoine’s body guard.

Tony knows that he is going to die and that he will probably be blamed for what happened. He wishes that he’d stayed to fight but knows that would be stupid since everyone is dead and no one would know. He uses all his energy to get to the illegal mining site and move a cover off a sludge pool. He takes a lighter and sets fire to the chemicals. He watches the fire begin to blaze and his last thought is a prayer that someone will put it out.