Episode Three: The Man in the Street

In which rain continues to fall. Featuring: a stranger, a name revealed, palindromes, recursion, and one important word.

Episode description: Anna meets a stranger, discovers a mystery, and keeps trying to contact the elusive Mabel Martin.

Episode Overview
Anna meets a mysterious figure.

Trigger Warnings:

 * Depersonalization.

Episode Summary
Anna calls Mabel and tells her that there's a man outside the house, leaning against the lamppost having a cigarette. She then explains that Sally is fine, just fell trying to grab water from her nightstand at the end of the previous episode. Anna found out the name on the letter-- Luna Thorne, from a place called Fairy Hill. The man comes up to Anna and asks her "Hey, I'm really sorry about this, but I'm so lost. Could you give me directions to [CENSORED]?" When she tells him, he just goes back to the lamppost. He comes back about an hour later and asks the same question. Anna threatens to call the cops, and says the man looked at her like she was "his long-lost daughter that he'd been trying to save for years." The third time he comes back, he looks so utterly devastated that Anna forgets to call the cops and tries to hug him. He pulls away from her and, looking at the house behind her, mouths get out over and over. Then he leaves for real.

Anna ends the episode by telling Mabel the word in her dreams was "datura."

Continuity
''' Please note that this section contains spoilers for later episodes of Mabel. Continue at your own risk. '''


 * The man was looking at Anna like a long-lost daughter because he was there looking for his actual daughter-- he's Thomas, and he wants to see Mabel, who he never got to meet.
 * The question Thomas asks Anna is presumably the same one he asked Lily when he met her.

Trivia
'''Please note that this section contains spoilers for later episodes of Mabel. Continue at your own risk.'''


 * Anna calls herself short in this episode. However, according to the creators, Anna is taller than Mabel, meaning it's canon that Mabel Martin is something like five feet tall.
 * Anna cries when she's scared.
 * This is the first episode that Anna states she's a lesbian (specifically, that she likes notebooks over boys).