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Recap: SurrealEstate Returns to Office in Season 2 Premiere with Hellish New Haunts
Luke Roman returns to The Roman Agency with some wobbles in the Season 2 SurrealEstate premiere, "Trust the Process."
This story contains spoilers for SurrealEstate Season 2, Episode 1, "Trust the Process."
It's been a bit (two years!) since we last left The Roman Agency realty heroes who cleanse properties of their paranormal residents. In the SurrealEstate Season 1 finale, "The House Always Wins," agency owner Luke Roman (Tim Rozon) experienced a terrible night of family truths finding out his mother is still alive and that he was actually being haunted by the spirit of his twin who died at birth. That's dark. Even worse, Luke's powers were sucked into the portal that Susan Ireland (Sarah Levy) closed.
RELATED: Tim Rozon & Sarah Levy Debate How Luke's Power Loss Changes SurrealEstate Season 2
After some time for Luke to process away from the office, Season 2 picks up with "Trust the Process," which presents The Roman Agency as having settled into a solid groove with Susan at the helm. In fact, dare we say that the whole team of Father Phil Orley (Adam Korson), tech wiz Auggie Ripley (Maurice Dean Wint), and office manager Zooey L'Enfant (Savannah Basley) are doing just fine with this new chain of command? And that sure makes it awkward for Luke when he returns to work.
Hop aboard for our first recap of Season 2 for "Trust the Process."
Demon Apéritif
The prologue sets the table for this meal of an episode that opens with Susan, Auggie, Phil, and Zooey all out in the field, working together to exorcise a particularly frightening phantom with electric eyes and spindly fingers.
Since they've lost their necromancer, Susan and Auggie have devised a Scrabble letter system to try and talk to the specters around them. It provides a riddle for them to solve as the phantom sparks threatening electricity their way. By resetting the grandfather clock, they're able to disapparates the nasty demon and it crackles out of existence. Phil tells the homeowners the house was formerly owned by two warring brothers and they've cleansed that problem into the ether, so they can now sell their home.
Luke Returns and the Apathy Is Real
Losing his powers and finding out his mother is actually still in the land of the living has done a number on Luke. He's even wearing sweats! But his agency is doing great with all the work Susan is bringing in. However, that doesn't mean the crew isn't concerned about Luke's mental health. Phil event tracks him down at the batting cage and reveals that he's found an actual address to pursue finding Luke's mom. That nugget sparks Luke back to his proactive old self.
He drops a housewarming present to a client buying Megan Donovan's (Tennille Read) house. There's a lot of unspoken emotion between the two, which means Luke has also distanced himself from her. She's moving out of town for a new residency program. She gifts him a warm hug as much is left unsaid as she leaves. Is this the end of them? There seems to be a pull still ... but right now, it's kaput.
Luke's next stop is the office, finally! He just shows up, though, which throws off Susan's workflow as she's introducing a mnemonic device for better sales, which Luke promptly mocks. She is unhappy and leaves the conference room.
Surprise, surprise, but it's Zooey who calls Luke out on his attitude. She defends how Susan has run the office well and even alludes to her own expanded ambition because of it.
However, Luke doesn't exactly take the hint to apologize and ends up having a tense confrontation with Susan. She's mad about how he's treating her like an employee instead of a peer when she kept his company afloat after he went MIA. It's an earned dressing down that rankles him a bit, but it's ultimately interrupted by Phil.
Luke then heads to the Canterville House himself, where the owners tell him they're leaving until they make the house safe, and if they can't, they're fired. Luke thinks he can confront the specter of serial killer Edward Cornell by himself, which turns out to be a bad call as he gets thrown like a bean bag. It takes Susan and Zooey to save his bacon. He won't give her the satisfaction, and back at the office, he suggests that she take a break from work as a reward for all her time and effort. But we, and she, can see that this is more about shoring up his place in the company without her presence instead of altruism.
By episode's end, Luke travels to Carl Roman's grave and leaves some flowers as we ponders what happened in his family that sent his mother running.
Haunting of the Week: The Canterville House
The "case of the week" is all about the Canterville House (an allusion to Oscar Wilde's short story "The Canterville Ghost"), which has a singing specter problem. The owners chat with Susan about fixing up their house to sell it. When they decide on a kitchen expansion, a contractor tries to take down a wall but hear's a child's voice singing The Innocents-style behind it. As he places his hand inside to investigate, it's chopped off! The audience gets to witness what looks like a human male in a prison jumpsuit popping his finger prize into a bag while singing like a child. Creepy.
RELATED: The SurrealEstate Gang Reminds Us Where the Spookiness Stands in Season 2
Auggie and Zooey are sent in to investigate the house and the walls. Phil discovers that a serial killer named Edward Cornell (who looks like Uncle Fester's evil twin) used the hidden room as a place to put his trophies from all of his killings. He uses the child's voice as a lure for his prey. When he manifests inside the house to kill Luke, it's Susan and Zooey who are able to determinate the spirit with her powers.
Susan's Mojo Dojo Dream House
Susan visits a new property for a client that's up for sale and kinda falls in love with its location and vibe. It also has a smart speaker that talks to her in an overly friendly way, but she doesn't seem so concerned ... to which we say: red flag!
She seems drawn to the property because it reminds her of one special summer where her family was present and getting along. She tells her mom that she might even be interested in buying it. So much so, that by episode's end, she dissuades a client from buying it and only looks a little guilty about the fib.
Get an inspection, Susan!
Return every week for our SurrealEstate recaps and post mortems. And be sure to tune into SurrealEstate Season 2 every Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET/PT on SYFY.
