Homecoming - Recap

Jim Phelps has returned to his hometown of Norville and is working at his family boat shop preparing to sell the property to the state for a park. His childhood friend Connie Hastings drives by and waves a brief greeting. Further down the road, her tire blows out and she pulls over. A man whispers at her from the woods, calling her "pretty girl," and she runs down the road and into the woods, screaming. Jim hears her and goes to check things out, and Connie's pursuer runs away.

There have been two previous strangulation murders of young women, and Jim meets with the town businessmen who are talking to Sheriff Brad Owens. They suggest that he resigns but Owens says that the state police don't have the resources to investigate, and Jim backs him up. Jim then talks to reporter Stan Sherman while Owens talks to Connie at the hospital. The only description Connie can provide is that her attacker wore thick glasses. Jim meets with Owens' wife Cynthia and they talk, while he remembers that they were all childhood friends.

Barney meets Dana, Paris, and Willy at a party and brings them up to speed on the situation, and that Jim wants him to go to Norville pretending to be a criminologist. They all agree to come help if needed.

Jim goes to the local tavern run by another childhood friend, Midge Larson, while the businessmen gather there. Jim notices a young Vietnam vet, Seth Morley, who is sitting by himself and wears thick glasses due to burns around the eyes that he got overseas. Jim talks to him but Seth is clearly traumatized and describes everyone in town as murderers who sent him to do their dirty work. When businessman Joe Keith comes over, Seth attacks him and breaks his glasses. Jim picks up the glasses, which have a broken earpiece, and gives them to Seth, who storms out.

Connie goes back home and disguises her voice to call Joe Keith's house. His wife Julia takes the call and directs her to the tavern. Connie calls Jim there and says she's leaving town and wants to meet with him. She goes out to her car but the killer comes after her again and corners her in an alleyway then strangles her.

The next day, Jim goes to Seth's home and finds that he isn't home. Jim searches the place and finds a decapitated toy soldier as well as a list of women, including the two previous victims. Someone comes in and Joe disarms him, only to find it's Sheriff Owens. Owens reveals that Connie is dead and he found the earpiece from Seth's glasses at the murder scene.

Barney arrives in town and examines the body, determining the killer has small hands but great strength. Jim calls in the rest of the team, and they decide that Dana should get hired on as a waitress as Midge's tavern then set herself up as bait. While Jim talks to two of the remaining women on the list, Julia Keith and Cynthia Owens, Dana comes in pretending to be a drifter and convinces Midge to hire her. Joe Keith comes on to her and Dana returns his interest.

Cynthia Owens goes to Jim's house only to find that Seth Morley is hiding there. He holds her at gunpoint and when Jim arrives, Seth captures him as well. Jim convinces him that they should go to see the sheriff and they leave, while Cynthia calls her husband. At the police station, Owens ambushes Seth and puts him in a cell, but Barney determines that Seth's hands are too large and his stride too big to be the killer. Also, Jim reports that Seth eyeglasses were broken at the bar but when Jim handed them to the boy, the missing earpiece was already gone. He figures someone at the bar took the eyepiece and planted it at Connie's murder.

Joe Keith finds Dana a room at a boarding house and tries to start up an affair with him while cheerfully admitting he's married. Dana flirts with him and agrees they should get together. At the bar, Deputy Karl Burroughs talks to the businessmen, including Keith, and reveals that Owens is transferring Seth to the state mental institute. Keith and the others aren't happy at that, and Keith casually fondles Dana while his wife looks on. She goes to Jim and tells him that she recognized Connie's call from the night of the murder. She admits that she knew that Joe was having an affair with all of the women on the list.

Later, Keith warns Jim that there'll be trouble if Owens tries to take Seth out of town. Willy comes into town in a hearse with a couple of other operatives and pretends to be Connie's out-of-town cousin, walking past the crowd that have gathered to protest Seth's transferral. While Jim complains about how the town has changed, Willy goes to the morgue then sneaks into Seth's cell, knocks him out, and transfers him to the hearse in the coffin. He and the other operatives get away just as Owens and Burroughs notice that Seth has escaped.

Owens has sworn in Barney and Jim as deputies, while Paris comes in and fakes a scene with Dana as her angry drunk boyfriend. Owens is concerned about Dana, figuring she's the next victim, and Barney suggests they use her as bait. Owens reluctantly agrees. The three men watch outside of Midge's tavern. Midge leaves for the night, telling Dana to close up after Stan finishes drinking. Stan asks Dana to get him a new bottle from the cellar and when she goes downstairs, the lights go out. The killer starts whispering at her from the darkness and she grabs a bottle.

Outside, Jim is remembering his childhood with the girls, and remembers one girl who outran all the others... and dressed as a boy with her hair covered by a hat. Realizing what's going on, he and the others go into the cellar and stop the killer. Pulling off the hat, they discover that the killer is... Midge Larson. When Joe Keith rejected her, she went nuts and killed the women he would have an affair with. Crying, she admits she was always in love with Jim, who had left town.

Midge is taken away and the rest of the IMF team pick up Jim at his house. He takes one last look around... and then leaves.

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