father4 Hello, PKD Fans! What would you if you discover your father might not be your father? Find out what Charlie decides to do on this week’s Electric Dreams Podcast, where we discuss Electric Dreams Season 1 Episode 10, entitled Father Thing.

Charlie Cotrell (Jack Gore) and his father (Greg Kinnear) are camping when there is a rather spectacular astronomical event with a multitude of fireballs falling vertically from the sky. On the trip home the next day, Charlie notices a hunter staring at him at the gas station while his dad is paying for their fuel and snacks. Back at home, all is not great between Charlie’s mom and father but that they haven’t told him what is in the works for their family. Charlie is preoccupied with whether or not he’ll make the All-Star Roster and under constant threat of being beat up by his best friend’s big brother, Henry (Zakk Paradise).

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The memory of the strange man at the gas-station sticks with him and at school the next day, his teacher, Mr. Dick (Terry Kinney) seems a little odd. Charlie makes the All-Star roster but it’s when he runs down to let his father know the moment he gets home from work that the alien doppelgänger makes its move.

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Thus begins Charlie’s war on the alien invaders, starting in his very own home. When he discovers that there’s a wave of reports online about people acting strangely, the Internet in his house suddenly goes dead and, looking out his window, he sees his father seeming to organizing the neighbours in the middle of the night.

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When some of his friends start disappearing from school and Mr. Dick suddenly jumps off a building because he doesn’t think his wife is his wife anymore, Charlie knows that it’s spreading. He tries to convince his mother to no avail, even revealing that he knows they were about to split up.

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When his mother (Mireille Enos) can’t be convinced, he tries to report it to the authorities but they’ve already been body-snatched. Charlie decides he has to take matters into his own hands. He gathers Dylan and Henry to plan their next move.

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They lure Father Thing into the garage where the trap is set. Their plan almost works as an attempt to spear him with a pitchfork and decapitate him with other gardening implements just barely miss. Father Thing grabs Charlie but Charlie grabs his baseball bat and hit Father Thing allowing them to escape.They run into the woods with Father Thing in pursuit. They find a field with pods that a growing replicated bodies including Charlie’s mom. They cover the pods with a flammable liquid but Father Thing shows up to stop them. Charlie and his buddies manage to run him down with a car and then smash the bug-alien that crawls out of the replicated body.

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They set fire to the alien nest and watch it burn. Back at home Charlie posts his story and a whispered message of #RESIST into the ether of the interwebs.