The Five People You Meet in Hell - Recap

Doug Linman and his wife Jane watch their son Jeffrey play Little League baseball, but she can't take the excitement and leaves. Doug then talks with his father about Jeffrey's batting technique, and his father finally tells Doug that he "knows what he has to do." Doug picks up a baseball bat, goes over to the concession stand where Jane is working, and beats her to death. Doug then walks back to the stands, covered in blood but totally unconcerned.



Carl, Perri, and Jain attend the press conference and only Carl is interested in nothing the fact that Doug said his father was at the game... even though Doug's father is dead. When Vincenzo finds out about Carl's line of inquiry, he isn't thrilled either but Doug's lawyer agrees to an interview. Doug confesses that he did the killing but has no idea why, and that he's been visited by his father's ghost several times before the murder, but not since. Head detective Granof tells Kolchak to drop the matter and cuts off his access to Doug, while Granof's partner Mitchell looks on. Carl determines that Jane didn't have a red mark on her wrist but still believes something supernatural is involved.

In a nearby cell, a blind prisoner mutters "You know what you have to do." repeatedly.



Carl suspect spiritual possession and finds an appointment in Doug's legal papers. Perri recognizes it as a notation for a meeting concerning Damon Caylor, the leader of a cult that decapitated an executive. Linman was the prosecuting attorney in the case and got the leader life imprisonment. Perri wonders if Caylor's followers committed the murder but they get word that Doug hung himself in his cell.

Carl and Perri meet with Caylor in prison. The cult leader is in solitary for his own protection: the other prisoners blinded him when he insulted them continually. Perri refuses to meet with Caylor so Kolchak talks with the leader, who refuses to talk to him. Caylor seemingly stops Carl's tape recorder through telekinesis but denies any special abilities. He then agrees to talk to Kolchak but denies any involvement in Doug's death. Carl leaves and Perri suspects that Caylor is trying to manipulate him.

At a home, a mother is preparing supper while her daughter plays with magnetic letters. The woman sees what her daughter is spelling out... then takes her knife and stabs her husband to death. The letters spell out "You know what you have to do."



The next day, Granof and his partner Mitchell find the message as Carl arrives. The woman was a judge at Caylor's trial and as it turns out, Granof was the arresting officer. The judge is claiming that her dead six-year-old daughter told her to kill her husband. Granof dismisses Kolchak's concerns that he might be next, since he isn't aware of having met any dead people. Jain lets slip that Perri also helped convict Caylor, getting his wife to testify against her. Perri meets with one of Caylor's ex-followers, Katrina Ortega, who believes that Caylor won't stop until everyone responsible for his conviction is dead.

Caylor asks for another meeting with Carl and demands that they print his message on the front page of the Beacon in return for his stopping the murders. Caylor, who hates hypocrites, believes Carl is honest as he's out for himself to solve his wife's murder. However, Caylor insists on meeting with Perri and having her write his story.

Carl meets with Perri and puts forth his theory that somehow Caylor's blindness has heightened his other senses and given him an ability to convince people to kill their loved ones. When Carl mentions that Granof referred to his partner Mitchell, Perri realizes something is wrong: Mitchell has been dead for six months ago.

"Mitchell" talks to his partner Granof and tells him that he knows what he has to do. Granof goes to his home, while Carl and Perri head there and manage to stop him from killing his wife.



Perri agrees to talk to Caylor who turns over his manifesto that he wants published. He grabs Perri and tells her she "knows what she has to do." Carl gets her outside but they realize the book is blank and figure Caylor was setting it up so he could get into contact with Perri, the only person from the trial he hadn't touched. Now that he has, they believe Caylor can force her to kill someone.

While Granof works to get Caylor transferred, Carl and a nervous Jain keep an eye on Perri. Carl takes her to her home and has her take a sleeping pill. However, once she dozes off, Carl hears a knock on the door and answers it: it's his wife Irene.

Jain realizes that Carl may have been Caylor's target. He heads for Perri's while Vincenzo calls Granof and discovers that Caylor is being transferred early. At Perri's, Carl and Irene embrace and he insists their lives can go back to being normal. Irene tells him he knows what he has to do and he picks up a knife and goes after Perri. At the prison, Granof has set it up so Caylor is left with the other prisoners, unguarded. They take their revenge and kill him just as Jain arrives to see Carl snap out of it just in time before he kills Perri.



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