"Mystery Signals" is the first episode of Season One of the Archive 81 Netflix TV series and the first episode of the show overall. It first aired on January 14, 2022.
Summary[]
Haunted by a family tragedy, Dan begins to restore videotapes for a cryptic firm. Then he's startled to learn of his connection to their missing creator.
Plot[]
A woman cries as someone was taken from her. She holds a camera and asks for help. Someone grabs her and tells her to be fine as she pleads for help.
A man sells tapes on the street to Dan, who tells him that he needs a VCR so he knows exactly what he is selling. Dan buys a tape and the seller tells him that Jill had told him to say hi to him.
Dan walks away and heads into the subway, heading into his work and then sitting on a bench looking towards the Brooklyn Bridge. He makes it to the Museum of the Moving Image and is told by a woman that a package should have arrived that day, also mentioning that the footage was in terrible shape.
Dan fixed The Circle in order to help Evie remember her father.
Dan reaches a package and opens it. Inside is a film reel, which makes him smile. He tries fixing the wheel, which has a horror movie from 1958 called "The Circle", which a woman had never heard of. However, she recognizes the director and Dan tells her that the director's daughter Evie had found the tapes buried in his estate. Dan says that the reason he had restored everything was to give Evie a piece of her father back. The woman hands Dan a tape sent by Karen, who tells him that the tape is confidential, but asks for it to be restored and digitized.
Dan gets home and starts working on the tape. He was able to digitize it and sees a woman named Melody on it, who was a doctoral candidate in sociocultural anthropology at NYU. She wonders if the people involved in her project would talk to her and Anabelle encourages her, saying that maybe she should go with her for protection, but Mel doesn't know what she needs protecting from. The film ends with Mel's friend wishing her luck.
Dan rewinds the tape and looks at Mel, later searching for Visser Apartments, in which there was a huge fire which left 13 lives unaccounted for.
Dan walked with Mark, who told him to call him if he ever felt like he would have another breakdown.
At Mystery Signals, people record a horror podcast called True Tales of the Secret City. Mark Higgins introduces himself and the audience applauds. Mark tells Dan about the story, but Dan does not believe in supernatural phenomena. Before he leaves, Mark asks him to tell him if he was feeling low again, demanding that he ask him for help if he needs it.
Karen congratulates Dan on his work on the Hi8 footage, which Dan says that it did not seem like something the museum would be interested in, but she tells him that it was a favor for a donor named Virgil Davenport, who wanted him to go to his office so he could thank him personally.
Dan walks to LMG, where Virgil is President. When he makes it to Virgil's office, he thanks him for coming and offers him a seat. He thanks Dan for his work on the tape and wonders if he wanted to come work for LMG temporarily, but Dan does not even know what they do because when he looked them up he did not find anything. Virgil says that the same thing happened to him, but they are looking for an artist who could restore videotapes damaged by fire at the Visser building. Virgil offers him 100,000 dollars to do it, but he would need to do it at their remote research facility in the Catskills. Virgil tells him that finding those tapes would mean a lot to the families of the people lost to the Visser Building fire. He knows that Dan had lost his parents in a fire, which startles Dan, so he leaves but Virgil asks him to let him know about the job.
Dan does not know how Virgil found out about his family since it was not public information, but Mark does not know either and invites him to go drinking with him.
Dan keeps walking and remembers the day his family died.
Dan found pictures of what appeared to be Cleo on Mel's videotapes.
In the middle of the night, Dan wakes up startled. He plugs a USB into his computer and watches Mel and Anabelle talking again. He zooms into a picture of her and looks at the dog in the photo, which looks a lot like his family's dog. He tells Mark that the dog could be his, but he does not understand how. Mark says that to him, 13 unrecovered bodies meant that they died, but Dan is not sure since he had looked for Mel and could not find her. Mark asks if he was asking all of this because of Jill, but Dan says that he was not, telling him that he had saved up three weeks of allowance to buy his dog Cleo a red dog collar, but Mark does not believe it. Mark tries to convince Dan not to take the job, but Dan sees the picture as a sign and says that he will accept it.
Virgil escorted Dan to the Cataskils where he would be working.
In Virgil's car they are both taken to the Catskills until they reach a small house in the middle of nowhere. Virgil points him to everything he would need. He tells him that food deliveries would be once a week and tells him that the property was bought in the late 80's for research. All tools were of the best, but there was low cell service and no internet, but there was a landline so he could make calls. He takes Dan to the archive of many tapes recovered from the fire and tells him that he also had the camera that was used to record the footage. Dan says he has no questions and walks Virgil back to his car, where he is handed a pedometer, which really served as a button for emergencies in order to get medical professionals there. This also included mental health, and reminds Dan that they had done a thorough background check and knew that his breakdown was behind him. After that, Virgil leaves him to it.
Dan watched Mel make it into the Visser building.
Dan looks at the camera and sees a locked door, which he cannot open. He starts working on a tape and plays it, seeing Mel once again on March 11, 1994 on her first day of the oral history project on the Visser apartment building. Mel explains historical details about the building, saying that it was not known when it was finished or who was the architect behind it, saying that there was some strange detail on the building. A man opens the door and asks her if she was going to walk inside. He says his name is John Smith points her to where everything is. He hands her a key to the building and to the front foor. She asks for Julia Bennett, but he says he could not answer that question. She asks for advice for getting to know people in the building and he simply tells her to stay away from the sixth floor. Mel shows her apartment, saying that she had never lived alone and wishes herself good luck.
In her sleep, Mel hears faint chanting and starts recording. She hears the noise coming from her air conditioning, and when she opens it, the chanting gets louder. Dan is confused by what he sees as well, but the chanting suddenly stops. Mel calls out as Dan keeps watching until he suddenly hears a loud high-pitched whining, which hurts his ears. Mel tells herself to get a grip and records herself the next morning, saying that she was now going to knock on some doors.
Mel met Jess, who agreed to introduce her to different people in the building in exchange for 25 dollars a week.
Mel knocks a few doors, but gets no response from any of them. She explains from outside that she was doing a project on the Visser Apartments for her disertation. Suddenly, a kid walks through the hallway and knocks on a door, getting an immediate response. Jess introduces herself to Mel, saying that she works for a bunch of tenants in the building since she had lived in the building since she was born. Mel asks if she could introduce her to some of the tenants for her project. They strike a deal when Jess offers her 25 dollars a week.
Mel gets to meet Tamara Stefano, who was born in Rome and had been in New York since she was 10. She says she can't remember how long she had lived there, but says that maybe 6 years since she needed a place that could fit her piano, since she is a composer. Mel says that she thought she heard her compose something the night before, but Tamara tells her that she was doing a show at the Sanctuary the night before. Tamara plays her some of her music, which creeps Mel out because she thought she remembered hearing it the night before. The telephone rings and Tamara leaves while Mel gets visibly uncomfortable and starts falling down. Jess asks if she is okay, but Mel says that the music is making her feel bad.
Dan watches Melody's tape meeting the composer and decides to call Mark, but he does not pick up. Dan leaves him a message telling him that he was doing alright but wants him to look up a composer named Tamara Stefano. He hears static on the phone and hears breathing.
Dan tries using his phone and looks for signal until he reaches a large metal fence. He walks back into the house and tries looking around, but many doors are locked. He gets a call, so he picks up. Virgil asks to see how he was settling in and Dan says that he had already started working.
Dan looks around for movies and finds one he wanted to see. He watches it and gets some dinner, when he finds a rat in the kitchen, so he sets a bunch of mouse traps around the house. The next morning, Dan wakes up and sees the rat had been caught in his trap by its tail. Feeling bad for it, Dan puts it in a box and tells him that he could stay until his tail healed.
Dan watched as Jess had a seizure in front of Mel and something supernatural seemed to cover the screen.
Jess tells Melody that she sometimes got low blood sugar as well. Mel starts interviewing her, asking her to tell her about herself. She introduces herself as Jessica Lewis, a student in the ninth grade at East Village Community High, born on March 8th, 1980 on the stairwell of the Visser building. Jess asks if being born in the building was bad luck, but Mel says that it was a fun story. Jess wonders why she wants to know about the Visser and Mel says that there used to be another building there until it burned down and the Visser was built and now wanted to know why people chose the building. Jess says that something pulled them there and wonders if Samuel had told her about it, but brushes it off when Mel says she does not know Samuel. However, she starts breathing heavily and gets uncomfortable, looking past Jess and moving her chair back. Mel asks if she is okay, but Jess stands up quickly and starts gasping for air until she collapses and starts having a seizure. As Dan kept watching, he heard Melody yell out, albeit distorted and the camera started moving very strangely as he heard snarls and growls, which scared him.
Dan runs out and looks for signal desperately; he is able to find it and calls Mark. Mark asks him what had happened because he had not heard back from him, but Dan tells him that LMG had been listening. Dan says he is okay, but thought he had seen something, but brushes it off, saying that the place was messing with him. He asks about Tamara Stefano, but Mark says he had not found anything. Dan asks for him to look up anything he could about LMG and Melody Pendras. He hears noises around him as he ties a lace to a tree.
In the past, Dan and his sister play the piano until their father tells them to stop playing that tune. He tells Dan to take Cleo out for a walk, which he agrees to do. During the walk, he hums the tune and as he got back, he saw ambulances, firefighters, and cops heading towards his house, which was in flames.
Dan kept working on the tapes, still watching Mel's story.
Dan untangles some tape and fixes it, putting it into a new cassette. He looks at the rat and wonders if he would tell him if he saw something on the tape. He the next tape which showed Jess on the floor, but then showed her just fine. Jess asks for Mountain Dew, but Mel wonders if she should call her mom. However, Jess says that it was something that happened to her sometimes, but the doctors all said that whatever happened was just part of her imagination. Her mother takes her to see a Father, but Jess says that she never remembers what she sees. She asks Jess who Samuel is, but Jess asks if she believes that there was another world, different to theirs, but Mel simply apologizes and thinks that she should ask her mom for permission to interview her. Jess wonders if she could be more than she is and be strong enough to hold a new world inside of her and Mel tells her that she could be anything she wanted to be. Jess wonders if she could tell her something, but the video cuts, confusing Dan.
Dan saw his dad on the tape, which really left him in shock.
After that, Mel is holding the camera pointed to her scared face. She says that Jess had been taken and is approached by John, who tells her that the sixth floor was off-limits. Mel asks where Jess is and is approached by John as she yells at him that he had taken her. Another man stops her and tells her that Jess was gone; two men stop her and tell her that she needs to go with them. Mel begs to be found and asks for help. A man shows up and tells them that everything would be fine. Dan recognizes his father and sheds a tear, not being able to believe it. Mel yells at the men to get off her.
From a distance, Dan is being watched by Virgil as a bunch of cameras were placed inside the house.
Cast[]
Main cast[]
- Dan Turner - Mamoudou Athie
- Melody Pendras - Dina Shihabi
- Samuel - Evan Jonigkeit
- Anabelle - Julia Chan
- Jess - Ariana Neal
- Mark Higgins - Matt McGorry
- Virgil Davenport - Martin Donovan
Additional cast[]
- Nurse - Teri Clark
- Tamara Stefano - Kate Eastman
- Patient - Dan Gradijan
- Cassandra Wall - Kristin Griffith
- Steven Turner - Charlie Hudson III
- Visser Tenant - Daniel Johnson
- Visser Tenant - Johnna Leary
- Young Dan - Trayce Malachi
- John Smith - Eden Marryshow
- Mrs. Turner - Africa Miranda
- Emily Turner - Jaxon Rose Moore
- Array (uncredited) - Ailén Videla Ortiz