Let's Speculate Wildly About 'Shining Vale'

By Chris Revelle | TV | October 24, 2023 |

By Chris Revelle | TV | October 24, 2023 |

When Shining Vale began in 2022, it presented itself as the stylistic little horror comedy that could. While wearing its Twin Peaks influences proudly, it weaved a clever gender-flipped take on The Shining in which Pat Phelps (Courtney Cox) is a writer trying to follow up her smash hit novel from several years before in a creepy new house in the neighborhood of Shining Vale. With her sweet square of a husband Terry (Greg Kinnear), prickly teenaged daughter Gaynor (Gus Birney), and cheerful dweeb son Jake (Dylan Gage), Pat faced down challenges of creepy ghosts, nosy religious neighbors, Pat’s narcissistic mother (Judith Light), and a supernatural force presenting as a 1950s housewife named Rosemary (Mira Sorvino). It was as if American Horror Story had a plot and consistent direction, what a concept!

Now, two episodes into season 2 (streaming new episodes each week on Starz), the Phelps family is back and so are the supernatural shenanigans, but this time with new mysteries. And if there’s one thing I love about mysteries, it’s speculating wildly. On the other side of this gif are spoilers for both seasons of Shining Vale.

Wild Theory #1: It’s Gaynor’s turn. By the end of season 1, a theme of hereditary insanity and repeating cycles presented itself. Gaynor watched Pat unravel and threaten Terry with an axe, making the understandable but nonetheless painful decision to commit Pat to an institution, a decision Pat made with her own mother at the same age as Gaynor. This is history tragically repeating itself with Pat trying desperately to avoid having the same dysfunctional relationship with Gaynor as Pat does with her own mother. Last season, Pat was isolated by Rosemary and lured into goading conversations that led to possible possession, and I think the same will happen to Gaynor this season. She’s isolated by the responsibilities she’s attempting to meet while Pat is away and isolated further by her mission to keep her father protected from her mother. She’s already hearing a ghost song on a busted WalkMan and doors are opening on their own to beckon her somewhere, so I’m betting that either Rosemary or little ghost girl Daisy is closing in on her. Additionally, she’s noticing black locks of hair appearing on her head. She is turning into her mother in ways literal and figurative.

Wild Theory #2: Daisy is making moves. Daisy, the little girl ghost who haunted Jake’s VR set in season 1, is much more active than usual: turning the headset on to beckon Jake, appearing with the creepy goat mascot who is almost definitely a ghost, and declaring that this is a “new game.” This aspect didn’t quite gel with the primary Rosemary plotline last season and felt a little extraneous, but this season it seems more connected to the rest of the plot. I think Daisy is working alongside Rosemary to undermine not just Pat but the whole family from different angles.

Wild Theory #3: Creepy Goat is coming for Jake. Jake seems to have moved on from VR to being a high school sports mascot, likely because Daisy’s appearance unsettled him. We the viewers (along with Pat, interestingly) first see Creepy Goat with Jake’s other mascot pals (who all hang out in costume together) and they appear again on the VR headset when Jake finally puts it back on. To be clear, Creepy Goat is not an actual goat and looks very much like a distressed and patchy mascot costume. I think Creepy Goat influenced Jake to get into mascoting (?) because, similar to Rosemary’s goal to live in Pat’s body, they wish to live in Jake’s. Which brings us to…

Wild Theory #4: The monsters are a family. Whether they were related as such in life, I believe Rosemary, Daisy, and Creepy Goat are a sort of family united in the goal of possessing living bodies. Rosemary, whatever she is, sought to inhabit Pat because it represented a way for her to live freely and do what (and who) she pleased. Daisy could have designs on Gaynor, and Creepy Goat definitely seems to have some sort of tie to Jake. This suggests that there could be a father monster somewhere out there we haven’t met yet that could take a shine to Terry.

Wild Theory #5: Rosemary is growing in power. It’s not entirely clear what Rosemary is (ghost? demon? both?), but she’s certainly neither human nor good news, at least not good news for the Phelpses; Mira Sorvino on screen is always good news. Showing up as new neighbor Ruth, a person that other people can see, is a neat trick! It prods Pat’s instabilities and fears perfectly, forcing her to wonder how everyone can suddenly see the monster that was haunting her in the first season. Ruth tells a probable story for how and why she’s a dead ringer for Rosemary (she was bullied by Pat years ago at a pregnancy support group), but her pushiness over offering an herbal tea to help Pat sleep struck an alarm with me. Pills were Rosemary’s way in last time, so this seems like another door into Pat’s body. Later, Pat has a breakdown on a local morning TV show and tries to explain herself to the host when they meet out on the sidewalk. Their conversation is cut short as the host steps into the road and is run over by a truck. As the vehicle passes, we see Ruth standing there, covered in the host’s blood and shrugging like “what can ya do?” with a smile. I think Rosemary looked elsewhere to find a suitable woman to possess and took Ruth, using her to undermine Pat and finish what she started in the first season.

What do you think? Do you have any hot Shining Vale theories?

This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the series being covered here wouldn’t exist.