In Them: The Scare, Detective Dawn Reeve investigates a series of horrifying homicides, only to discover they are connected to her own family. The series is now streaming on Prime Video.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
In Los Angeles, in 1991, LAPD Detective Dawn Reeve is navigating her life with her son, Kelvin “Kel” Reeve, and her mother, Athena.
Dawn finds herself investigating a strange case at a foster home, where a foster mother’s dead body is discovered in a terrifying upside-down position—several parts of her body are twisted.
Dawn is allowed to pick up this case. Unfortunately, she is forced to team up with Detective Donald McKinney. Dawn and McKinney’s styles of investigation are different.
Detective McKinney always seeks to close the case as soon as possible rather than dive deep into it. This time around, he doesn’t want to waste time and hold Malcolm, the 16-year-old big kid from the foster home, responsible.
Malcolm, as well as one of the other foster kids, hint that their foster mother, Bernice Mott, was afraid of a man coming for her.
In an attempt to find similar cases, Dawn and McKinney come across a man who hints at the same. This man, named Curtis Maynard, dies the same way Bernice did. Curtis’s mother claims that the devil visited her son.
Dawn concludes that they have a serial killer at hand. While Dawn is looking into the matter, she is unaware that the supernatural entity that is committing these murders is also slowly entering her home.
Eventually, a man named Victor contacts Dawn and shares with her a case similar to the one she is investigating.
The case is that of his twin sisters, who died the same way Bernice and Curtis did. Certain details in their room, such as covered mirrors, also match.
One of the sisters mentioned a man with red hair in a footage of theirs. They claim to see him, but the video shows nobody.
Dawn struggles to find a connection and understand how the serial killer is picking up his targets. It must be someone who can easily pass by people without being noticed. For example, a mailman, a trash collector, or even a police officer.
This sees Dawn suspecting McKinney, who fits the description. In the meantime, the entity taking over Dawn’s home forces Athena to tell Dawn the truth about her parents. It is revealed that Dawn is adopted.
Since McKinney and the police department are not on her side, Dawn has Officer Joaquin Diaz working for her.
Diaz shares with Dawn a lead on the red-haired man. He tells her about a report on an exorcism being performed on a boy named Benny Alvarez two days ago.
The boy keeps saying that he is seeing a red-haired man out of his window, watching him. Dawn and Diaz visit the boy and his grandmother.
Dawn and Diaz wait outside when another exorcism takes place on the boy. Dawn rescues the boy when she sees him dying.
Leaving Diaz behind to control the crowd, Dawn drives the boy to the hospital, only to see him die in the back of her car the way all the victims have.
The move puts Dawn under a lot of fire and gets her detained. The cops learn from Diaz that this case is very personal to Dawn because the foster house they are investigating is where Dawn spent her first three years.
This comes as a surprise to Dawn, too. Back home, tensions escalate because Dawn’s son, Kel, is also being bullied and called the son of a child killer, while Athena and Dawn are not sharing the best relationship with each other.
At Kel’s band performance at school, Kel sees the red-haired man. Dawn is around, and she comes to the aid of her son, who is possibly the entity’s next victim.
Ending explained:
The Edmund Gaines connection
Them: The Scare also chronicles the story of Edmund Gaines on the sidelines. Edmund Gaines is a struggling actor rejected by his family and then by his peers as well.
He grows bitter and bitter, eventually leading him to kill a person. When the cops come knocking on his door, he thinks of killing himself out of guilt.
At a time like this, the entity involved in the case that Dawn is investigating visits him and asks him to give himself to him.
Edmund Gaines does so, and since then, the entity has been using a body similar to that of Edmund’s, wearing clothes that resemble Edmund’s favorite Raggedy Andy doll, and targeting its victims.
The Reeves sense someone else in their house. Athena, who has been having visions at her home and seeing a Raggedy Andy doll, finally tells Dawn the truth.
The spirit of Edmund is haunting them. Edmund is none other than Dawn’s twin brother. As a kid, unlike Dawn, Edmund was harder to handle and was sent back to the foster home.
Athena made Dawn believe that Edmund was just an imaginary friend of hers to calm her down. Over the course of years, Dawn forgot about him.
Stopping Edmund
Edmund keeps contacting the Reeves. Athena eventually answers and meets him. However, confronting Edmund ends with Athena’s death
After Athena’s death, Dawn investigates what Edmund wants and comes to realize that he is sending a message to her through all these murders; he is telling her his story.
For example, in Benny’s case, Benny’s brother was sent back, and Benny was left alone, much like how Athena kept Dawn, while Edmund was sent back to the foster home.
If Victor’s sisters’ case is taken into consideration, they were twins, much like Dawn and Edmund. It all started with that foster home, where Dawn and Edmund were raised.
Before facing Edmund again, Dawn and Diaz are confronted by McKinney, who tries to arrest Dawn.
Dawn takes him down and returns home in time, where she faces Edmund, who makes her revisit their memories.
Edmund wants Dawn to give herself up to the entity too, but Dawn expresses her love for Edmund and convinces Edmund that he has given himself up to something he is not, resulting in the entity killing itself.
The aftermath
Following the whole debacle, Dawn presents the audio recording of McKinney threatening her and confessing his part in a murder before being killed by her to the panel investigating her.
While she won’t be getting her old job back, she is offered a desk job, which she rejects. Six months later, Dawn and Kel are navigating a happy life, with Kel’s father, Corey, visiting more often.
Dawn is seen opening a box. It contains her and Edmund’s pictures and belongings.
Dawn also discovers a picture of the Emory family. The picture ends up welcoming Da Tap Dance Man into Dawn’s house.
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