Remarkably Bright Creatures

Cameron waits in Ethan’s house. Ethan called a friend to tow Cameron’s camper van to his driveway, and now the two men relax in each other’s company. Cameron asks Ethan if his shop is hiring, but Ethan says no. However, he knows of a friend who’s hiring and offers Cameron an application. Ethan is confident Cameron will be hired and decides to play with the form. The next day Cameron arrives at the aquarium for an interview. Terry finishes a phone conversation with Tova and examines Cameron’s application, which has been completely fabricated. Terry throws him out, but Cameron desperately pleads for work. Terry relents and offers him a chance for Ethan’s sake. He takes on Cameron for maintenance work and to fill in for Tova while she’s away.

After, Cameron receives a call from Simon Brinks’s office, with whom he’s been trying to secure an appointment. The man tells him Simon is unavailable and doesn’t believe Cameron’s protests that they’re family. Aunt Jeanne sends him a text saying she’s proud of him.

Marcellus encounters Cameron, who he believes has replaced Tova permanently. He finds the way Cameron walks familiar and laments the state of grime the aquarium has fallen into.

Cameron is feeling the strain of his new job and his sleeping arrangement, having thrown away his smelly mattress. He’s used most of his remaining money to repair the camper van. He goes into a realtor’s looking for information on Simon Brinks. Cameron coerces the realtor, Jessica Snell, into helping him by lamenting his broken family. He privately blames his mother for keeping him and his father apart. Jessica offers to help and leaves to look for Simon Brinks’s contact information. While she’s gone, Cameron daydreams about meeting his father until a beautiful woman, Avery, enters the office. She confronts Cameron, who tells her he’s a client of Jessica’s. Avery doesn’t believe him. When Jessica returns, she and Avery argue about their shared hot water supply. Avery storms out, and Jessica gives Cameron Simon Brinks’s address.

Outside, Cameron meets Avery outside her surfing shop. They begin arguing and she accuses him of trying to manipulate Jessica. When he mentions his search for his father, Avery becomes less defensive. She gives him an expensive cream for his sore muscles along with her phone number. When Cameron returns to Ethan’s, he phones the airline service still looking for his lost luggage. They inform him that his suitcase has been forwarded to Italy.

Tova makes an appointment for a realtor to come and assess her house. Then she goes to the bank for the account information she needs to include with her Charter Village application. She thinks about how much money Lars must have wasted on living there. She goes on to Janice’s house to use her scanner to copy her driver’s license, and then to a drugstore to get passport photos taken. Finally, she visits Will’s and Erik’s graves. Erik’s grave is empty because his body is still at sea. Tova is annoyed that one of Erik’s middle names, Lindgren, was left off the headstone. While there, Tova meets an elderly woman who has come with her great granddaughter to have a picnic beside a family grave. Although Tova has never understood the practice of speaking aloud to dead people, she addresses Will for the first time and tells him she is selling their home.

Later, she goes to Shop-Way to buy a pen because the Charter Village application specifically requests black ink. She speaks with Ethan and purchases a set of pens, admitting they’re for an application. Ethan tries to persuade her not to apply for the retirement home. Tova defends herself, saying there’s no one left to take care of her. After she buys the pens, Ethan invites her to tea. Before she goes home, Tova stops by the aquarium and sees Cameron’s van parked out front. She intends to tell Marcellus that she’s leaving. As she enters, she notices that the aquarium has been cleaned thoroughly and to her standards; this makes her feel uncomfortably disposable. As she greets the animals, she hears a loud noise coming from Marcellus’s tank.

Cameron struggles to help Marcellus, who is hiding on a high shelf above his tank. Cameron has fallen from the stool and hit his head, which is now bleeding. He tries to convince Marcellus to hold onto a broom handle, but Marcellus reacts by knocking things off the shelf. Then Tova enters and sees Marcellus trapped and runs over to help him. Cameron is astonished to see Tova help Marcellus back into his tank. He explains that Marcellus was trying to escape. Tova and Cameron introduce themselves, and Tova explains that she may be leaving permanently. She asks Cameron to keep Marcellus’s near-escape a secret. She says that if Terry found out he was escaping, Marcellus could be euthanized. Cameron hesitates but ultimately agrees. He unthinkingly quotes a line from Shakespeare, which Tova recognizes as one of Erik’s favorites.

Tova remembers coming to America from Sweden as a child. She, Lars, and their mother travelled on a boat together while their father flew ahead by plane. She remembers a man on the ship that they called “the Walrus”(178), who taught her to play cards and performed magic tricks. Tova examines Cameron, who is nothing like the rumors she had heard around town. She feels an unexpected kinship with him. She begins teaching Cameron her best cleaning practices. As he expresses his annoyance, she is reminded of Erik. They talk about Marcellus’s escapes, and she tells him to leave Marcellus alone the next time he leaves his tank. She decides to help Cameron and Marcellus become friends.

Marcellus derides the human tendency to protect itself with ignorance. Unlike them, he takes pride in his own knowledge and intelligence. He thinks about a family he saw at the aquarium, a father and a son. However, Marcellus can tell that the father and son aren’t genetically related. He has noticed similarities between Tova and Cameron that have convinced him they are directly related by blood.

Cameron uncovers a new lead on Simon Brinks after the information Jessica gave him was out of date. He invited Avery to join him on his new search, but she deflects until another time. He thinks about his time in Sowell Bay and his new job, which he enjoys more than he expected, and his growing friendship with Tova. Ethan comes outside to join him and, hearing about his plan, offers to come along. On the way, Cameron considers the unfamiliar nature of the sea. He imagines the possibilities that await when he meets Simon Brinks. Elizabeth and Aunt Jeanne think he should try to have a real relationship with his father, but Cameron isn’t convinced. He’s only looking for money. Ethan points out sights along the road and Cameron mentions Tova, quickly catching Ethan’s attention. Cameron realizes Ethan has a crush on Tova and teases him good-naturedly. Ethan tells Cameron about Will and Erik.

When they arrive at Simon Brinks’s address, they discover an abandoned lot. As they turn back, their car becomes stuck in a rut. They get out and Cameron talks Ethan through how to get the car unstuck using a rock as a wedge. Ethan is impressed with Cameron’s instincts.

Marcellus thinks about the way sea creatures deceive others for survival while humans deceive each other for fun. He remembers a joke he heard a father telling his son about a tiger and a lawn mower that was amusing and made Marcellus think of his impending end.

Tova attends the going away party for Mary Ann. Mary Ann’s daughter Laura expresses her sympathy for Tova’s damaged foot. They talk about Laura’s family and job, and Tova tells her she’ll be returning to the aquarium to train Cameron properly. The other Knit-Wits arrive, and shortly after they’re joined by Adam Wright, the man who Tova met at the park. He and his partner Sandy are looking to buy a new home, and Sandy inquires about Tova’s house. Tova is forced to confess that she’s selling her house and moving to Charter Village, to the horror of all. The others offer to help, but Tova says she will never be a burden. The party wraps up, and Adam makes a thoughtless comment about having children and apologizes. Then he reminisces about the day Erik died, going onto a boat to impress a girl. Tova leaves in shock.

Cameron meets Avery for a paddle boarding lesson. She invites him inside, and he meets her teenage son Marco. When Avery scolds her son for leaving a sock laying around, Cameron recognizes their relationship as the one he had with Katie. He considers his feelings about the knowledge that Avery is a mother. They go into the water and Avery teaches him how to use a paddleboard and tells him about her life with Marco. They see some kids playing near the water, and Avery tells him how dangerous it can be. She remembers meeting a woman who was going to throw herself off the pier and about talking to the woman to calm her down. Cameron tells Avery about his own family. Avery tells him his mother must have been trying to give Cameron a better life. Later, he falls in the water and Avery helps him recover. They plan to spend time in Cameron’s van together.