Autumn pushes Royal into the hole

Autumn (Imogen Poots) wanders onto Abbott Ranch looking for a place to camp… or so she says. At first glance, she’s a harmless hippie chick. But it’s soon very clear there’s something distinctly off-putting about her—she’s a little too familiar with Royal right off the bat. Like when she shakes his hand, she says “Glad to finally meet you,” with no explanation as to what the “finally” might refer to. She has a notebook full of doodles that resemble the Abbott family brand, and she seems strangely in awe of the land itself.

When she materializes out of the darkness while Royal is doing his murder clean-up, she catches him heaving Trevor’s body into the pit. We don’t even have time to worry that this strange woman knows the Abbott family’s deadly secret before she reaches out and shoves Royal into the hole.

Next we see, he’s waking in a field, disoriented but no worse for wear. But Autumn demands to know what he experienced in the hole, and we get to see: he traveled into the near future, emerging from the hole and finding it surrounded by a fence, spotlights, and a countdown clock, with mining operations for a company called “BY9″ visible in the background. (There’s a few scattered BY9 references throughout season one, but we don’t learn much about the company or what they’re after; it seems likely season two will explore this further.) The gathered crowd includes Autumn, who appears to be some kind of leader, and Royal’s wife, Cecilia (Lili Taylor), who tells him “You died two years ago,” and then warns him to run. He jumps back in the hole and emerges in his own time.