As the first season of Archive 81 rolls into its eighth and final episode on Netflix, tape archivist Dan Turner (Mamoudou Athie) has uncovered a host of secrets about just what went down in the Visser Apartments back in the 1990’s, before the building burned to a crisp in a mysterious fire. The investigations of graduate student Melody Pendras (Dina Shihabi) into the Visser have become Dan’s obsession, and have led him to a confrontation with the demon Kaelego.
Fair warning: by asking for the 411 on Kaelego, you’re asking for Archive 81 spoilers. Proceed with caution!
There was more than just a boiler and rat kings in the basement of the Visser. A culty bunch called the Vos Society were down there, too, and they were using scary masks and the statuette Kaelego’s essence was trapped inside of by a different kind of cult way back in the 1300s to make the demon manifest in the ’90s. In fact, Kaelego is why LMG CEO Virgil Davenport (Martin Donovan) hired Dan for the tape restoration project in the first place: he hoped the footage would reveal the road map to summoning Kaelego for his own ends.
Now, Virgil, the Vos Society and 14th century coven that originally cornered Kaelego aren’t even the only cults popping off in Archive 81. “Let’s break it down,” Dan’s buddy Mark (Matt McGorry) says after they watch some more insane archival footage and pick up their jaws from the floor. “Iris Vos, 1924. She and her high society cult of Kaelego-worshippers execute a ritual. Ugly shit. Human sacrifice. Something goes wrong, big explosion.” And it’s then that Dan and Mark sort out how the tapes and footage have offered them a glimpse of the dimension Kaelego the Demon calls home. That’s right, folks, Archive 81 has given us another multiverse situation to keep track of! And it becomes Dan’s mission to enter that mirror world and locate Melody, who’s stuck over there with Kaelego. As the saying goes, good luck with all of that … in Archive 81 Season 2!
