Ghost Wars S01E03 "The Curse of Copperhead Road" Recap

Six hours before the first earthquake that triggered the severe spiritual happenings in the town, Landis heads to a coffee shop to order a complicated drink. She and Roman run into each other and Landis ends up with coffee splashed all down the front of her shirt. She heads to work and begins to have a panic attack due to her claustrophobia when the elevator momentarily gets stuck. Landis is angered by her antagonistic, prank-prone subordinate co-worker Ryan, who mocks her panic in the elevator. She wants to fire him but her boss won't allow it since they need all the help they can get working at their research centre.

They activate a reactor of sorts as part of their experiment but the machine begins to malfunction. The situation is worsened further by the earthquake starting up. Some of their co-workers are locked into the room with the machine and Landis can only watch in horror as they all die with one of her closest co-workers Chloe being right up against the door and being badly burned and killed.

Following the accident, strange things begin to happen around the centre. Landis encounters a ghostly presence that grabs her while she is visiting the door that she wouldn't open during the machine malfunction because of the risks doing so would've posed to the other workers outside the room. She again senses being grabbed by one later that night while lying in bed. Ryan exhibits increasingly erratic behavior as the ghosts have been tormenting him with visions of moths, something he has a phobia of. Landis encounters a woman that passes by her while she is following Ryan up onto a deck. When he imagines the sensation of a moth crawling into his eye, he throws himself off the balcony and falls to his death.

Landis questions other workers at the company and learns from one that they sensed being tormented by Chloe while visiting the fissure room to pay her respects. Others admit to seeing or experiencing strange sensations and visions. Landis begins running experiments to try to better understand these strange happenings, despite objections and skepticism from her colleagues. Her boss has visions of being submerged in water, despite standing in his office while doing so.

Landis has further visions of ghostly spirits, including Chloe who torments her for not opening the door. An electrical shock disrupts the encounter and so she and her colleague determine that electricity can act as a deterrent. They then find Burke, their dead boos whose heart gave out from the visions of drowning. This means that Landis is now in charge at the facility. She later encounters Roman again at the same coffee shop from before. She says things are only going to get worse. She then visits Billy in the hopes that some physical comfort will ease her pain and trauma.

Ghost Wars airs on Thursdays on Syfy at 10/9c.