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<title>Carnivale: Hot and Bothered</title>
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<h1 align="center">Episode 110: Hot and Bothered</h1><p>
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<font size="5">Guest starring:</font>
<li>Debra Christofferson as Lila
<li>Brian Turk as Gabriel
<li>Rob Knepper as Tommy Dolan
<li>Valeria Hernandez as Catalina de la Rosa
<li>John Doe as Phineas Boffo<p>
<p>WRITTEN BY: Nicole Yorkin & Dawn Prestwich 
<br>DIRECTED BY: Jeremy Podeswa
<br>FIRST AIRED: November 16, 2003<p>
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Iris Crowe is asleep in her room when a hand suddenly shoots out, covering her mouth. Terrified, she looks up and sees that Justin, has returned. 
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In the conversation later, he confronts her with their past. "You've kept things from me," he says angrily. "Do you know how I've suffered?" But Iris coolly responds that he needed time to develop his gifts. "You have a destiny," she says. "And now is your time to fulfill it." 
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Back at the carnival, Ben is still fighting sleep as he woozily helps Ruthie with her snake act. Jonesy and Rita Sue continue to feel the electricity of their affair. While the two make the shower stall shake with their activities, Libby happens across them and is upset by her mother's infidelity. Later, when Rita Sue returns to her tent, Stumpy makes an abortive effort to embrace her, and the two lay awake uneasily. 
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The next morning, Ben is nearly sick with fatigue when he sees in front of him a heavily muscled man with a giant tattoo of a tree. With a start, he wakes, realizing that he has fallen asleep. Sophie sits next to him and asks him to tell her about the night that her mother Apollonia mysteriously came to him. Did she say anything? "It didn't make any sense," Ben replies. "'You're the one.' She said, 'You're the one.'" 
<p>
Samson's status has taken another hit, as he is forced to move out of Management's trailer. Spotting Sophie later, he tells her that management isn't happy that she and her mother haven't been able to perform lately. When Sophie seems surprised that Samson is still carrying out Management's orders, the slighted Samson flies off the handle.
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In Mintern, Tommy Dolan pays a visit to Iris, only to be greeted at the door by Brother Justin. Over coffee, Dolan explains how his listeners responded to Justin's story and tells him he wants to get him on the radio. But Brother Justin is cool to the idea and seems mistrustful of the radio man. Iris invites Tommy Dolan to church. "I thought you wanted a story she replies." 
<p>
Samson tells Ben that he's seen something in town and wants to go on a little drive. After nearly wrecking the car by falling asleep behind the wheel, Ben drives into Loving, New Mexico, where Samson shows him the Benevolent Order of Templars, a lodge with the same emblem as Scudder's watch fob. Under the guise of wanting to join the Order, the two carnies find the lodge's "commodore", and Samson asks him if he's heard of his "cousin", Henry Scudder. 
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The Templars, a placid and banal looking group of men playing gin rummy, say they've never heard of him. Trying to learn more, Samson asks how to join the Order, but the commodore says that anyone who's a baptized Christian can get in with a two-dollar entry fee. Samson is frustrated, certain that they're hiding something. The two leave, passing obliviously by a painting where a man with a tree tattoo strides through a field- very much like the man of Ben's dreams. 
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Sophie and Jones are also in the border town, which has begun a small festival. When Sophie becomes sick from something she ate, Jones heads off to find her a drink. Looking up from her misery, Sophie sees one of the Templars. "Every prophet in her house," he says. Then Jonesy returns and the man is suddenly gone. 
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Driving back with Ben, Samson expresses his frustration with their investigation of the Templars. Ben asks him if Scudder gave him the watch fob, and Samson says he won it from him in a stud poker game, back before Management came. The carnival, he says, had been owned by an outfit back East, and Management bought it just after Scudder left. "He's been looking for him ever since," Samson says. "Something happened between them in the old country. Somethin' bad. Badder than you can imagine. Badder than anyone can imagine." 
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Sophie, meanwhile, is trying to keep the Tarot operation going. Giving a reading, she struggles with her mother over what to reveal to her customer. Finally, she sees a vision of the woman holding the body of her dead daughter, and the she learns the grim future. "Not my Sally," she wails. "Not my little girl." Sophie is devastated by the horror of the vision and the struggle, and screams at Apollonia. "Mother, goddammit this is not what we do! You're breaking the rules." 
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As the carnival wraps up for the night, Stumpy and some of the rousties decide to go to town to "get liquefied." On his way, Jones sees Apollonia sitting, motionless, outside alone. Inside the trailer, Sophie is blasting the Victrola in an attempt to drown out her mother's voice, and Jonesy tries to comfort her. "You're scared, but you ain't crazy Soph," he says, and gently kisses her. Their kissing grows more fervent, until Jonesy stops. "I don't want to ruin this," he says. "I messed things up before; I ain't going to let it happen this time." 
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Sophie, angry and crying, throws him out. After feeding Ruthie's snakes, Gabriel finds Ben passed out and shaking in the bathtub. He brings the boy to Ruthie, who wraps him up in bed. Ben resists, saying he can't take the dreams. "I'm always running and they're always chasing me," he says. "It's always Scudder, even before I met him. He's trying to kill me every time I close my eyes." Ruthie comforts him, and as she holds him, they kiss passionately.
<p>
Later, the lovers are disturbed by Lila pounding on the trailer door. She lures Ruthie away, saying the snakes have escaped, and Lodz sneaks into the trailer. Laying a hand on Ben, he sees the boy's dreams: men with sticks chasing Ben through a cornfield.the giant man with the tattoos..Then, in the dream, Ben falls, and when he looks up, he has transformed into Scudder. "He's mine," Scudder says. 
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Drinking and pontificating in town, Stumpy, Jonesy and the rousties make progress with their liquification. Uncomfortable talking about Stumpy's marital woes, Jonesy leaves his friend behind. But Stumpy says he's going to stay. "I'm not numb yet." When he does get numb he ends up in a fight, and when eventually wakes up from his beating in the room of a woman from the bar. Soon, Stumpy has not only solved his immediate carnal needs, he has found himself a new dancer for the cootch show.
<p>
Across the country at the Methodist church in Mintern, Reverend Balthus begins his sermon, with Iris and Tommy Dolan watching from the back row. When Justin walks in the crowd becomes hushed. Balthus and Justin embrace. But the reverend is soon surprised, as a confident Justin addresses the congregation with a fire and brimstone sermon. "Evil exists, it is written in the book of man with the blood drawn from Lucifer's veins, he says." "It is part of who you are, part of who I am, who we are. The evil in you is the root of our sins" Walking down the aisle he reels off some of the sins of individuals in the pews. He tells the church members that they can be saved not by prayer and bible study, but by blood and fire. Increasingly, his words are greeted with "Amen" from the crowd. 
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Marching up to an astonished Reverend Balthus, Justin demands to be baptized. As the shaken father begins to make the sign of the cross with holy water on Justin's forehead, the water turns to blood but only Balthus sees it. "Finish it!" Justin commands. The congregants still seem unsure of how to respond to the commotion, until Iris rises up. "Baptise me," she says "So that I may be reborn." Soon, other parishioners are rising, and calls of "Baptise me!" fill the room. 
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In Management's trailer, Lodz reports to his unseen master, "He spoke to me directly. He knows we've got the boy." 
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"Of course he knows," the guttural voice responds from behind the curtain. "But we'll find him. And then. the blood will flow."
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