We open in 1850 with young Eli lying motionless at the bottom of the cliff that Charges the Enemy pushed him off of. Eli is not dead, which makes sense because we already know he turns into Pierce Brosnan 60 years later, but still it’s nice to be sure. Young Eli manages to fashion some crutches out of sticks, and limps along until he’s confronted by a woman who introduces herself as Maggie Phelps and points a gun in his face. Maggie’s completely alone, because apparently the other settlers who were fulfilling their Manifest Destiny bullshit decided to kick her out. So that tells you something. Eli, understanding pretty quickly that Maggie’s not completely stable, wants to get back to his Comanche family, but Maggie isn’t having any of it. Uh oh.
Back in 1915, Pete and Maria are lying on a blanket under a tree, smiling and laughing, not a care in the world. Nothing will go wrong with these two. Pete tells Maria he’s hurt a lot of people. Maria thinks he means his wife Sally, emotionally, but Pete’s mostly talking about the people he’s literally killed. Old Eli, having survived being shot point blank in the last episode, has changed his mind about bribing a judge to screw Pedro Garcia out of his land. He no longer wants to do this. However, his son has already bribed the judge. Eli tells him to go get the bribe back. The bribe is off! This won’t be easy though.
Back in 1850, Maggie is studying rocks from a stove pipe hat. Yeah. Maggie offers to read young Eli his future, based on divine prophecy. Maggie tells him that he’ll go on to be a great warrior and basically be a bigshot.
In 1915, Pete shows up at the McCullough ranch to check in on his dad. Phineas is all like “Hey Pete, what’s the deal with you and Sally. You getting divorced or what.” Pete doesn’t want to talk about it. Eli just wants to get drunk. Eli tells Pete he’s going to sell the property, which comes as a shock to Pete. Meanwhile Pedro warns Maria that Pete isn’t a great guy.
Back in 1850, Maggie wants to return Eli to civilization. Eli does not want this — he wants to be back with his Comanche family. So Maggie knocks Eli out with chloroform. Maggie sucks.
Old Eli goes on a solo horse ride (denying Pete’s offer of company) on his ranch to reflect on things, and perform some kind of ritual. At sunset, he notices a fire in town.
Maggie takes a captive young Eli to town, where she intends to sell him. So Eli punches Maggie in the face and takes her horse, abandoning her all alone in the middle of nowhere. So Maggie tells Eli terrible things are going to happen to his sons. She then damns and curses him as he rides away. Yikes!
Old Eli confronts Phineas about burning down the saloon (and framing Pedro so he’ll get killed), which he confesses to. Phin says he did this because he knew deep down it’s what his father wanted. Meanwhile Pete has pieced this all together and he’s not happy. After a tense confrontation in which Eli is maybe going to shoot Pete (but obviously won’t) Pete rides off to presumably warn the Garcias about what’s happened. It’s up to Eli and Phineas to figure out what to do next, and it looks like Maggie’s prophecy is coming true after all.
