‘NOS4A2’: A Glossary of Terms for Those Hoping to Work at Christmasland

For those of you who only watched the first episode of AMC’s NOS4A2, an adaptation of Joe Hill’s modern vampire riff of the same name and found it a moody, creepy ride but a bit confusing… Well, you should have remained patient. Episode 2, “The Graveyard of What Might Be,” explained a lot about what’s going on in the show (even more than we did last week), and laid out a ton of groundwork for what’s to come.

With that in mind, here’s a glossary for some important terms in the universe of NOS4A2. Mind you, this isn’t a complete glossary (we’re only on Episode 2, after all), but these are some words and phrases you might want to keep in mind going forward.

Spoilers for NOS4A2 past this point.

Most of this is explained by Maggie Leigh (Jahkara Smith), the purple haired library dweller who has been searching for her former babysitting charge, a kid stolen by Charlie Manx (Zachary Quinto). Maggie has the supremely gross ability to reach deep into a bag of Scrabble tiles, and once she pulls them out can form non-proper noun clues to what she’s looking for.

Vic McQueen (Ashleigh Cummings) encounters her while running away — again — from her fighting parents, taking the bridge only she can travel to a place called Here, Iowa. That’s where Leigh lives, and after a brief introduction, she tries to recruit McQueen to use her abilities to find Manx and the stolen boy.

Meanwhile, Manx is in pursuit of Vic, having seen her bridge (called The Shorter Way) appear on a map in the previous episode. In order to find her, he recruits a child-like, enormous man with the extremely holiday themed named Bing Partridge (Olafur Darri Olafsson) to track her down.

That bit of set-up out of the way, here’s what you need to know.

Inscape: An inscape is short for inner landscape, and is essentially a secret place in the mind. Most people have them, a place they can go to feel safe; but only a select few, like Manx, Leigh and McQueen can access them and bring them into the real world. Vic’s has her bridge, Maggie has her scrabble tiles, and Manx has Christmasland, which we haven’t seen yet but it’s even more horrifying than you can possibly imagine.

Knife: In order to access an inscape, you need a “knife,” Maggie explains. For Manx, that’s his Rolls Royce Wraith. Vic, meanwhile, has her motorcycle. Each holds a special, deep meaning to them, which is why they’re able to use that knife. For Vic, she worked on motorcycles and rode them her whole life with her father, who she loves dearly. For Manx… Well, I doubt we’re going to get there this season, but if you read “Wraith,” a comic book prequel series by Hill and Charles Paul Wilson III, you’ll find out exactly why this car is so precious to Manx. It’s appropriately upsetting.

Strong Creative: That all said, in order to access an Inscape with a Knife, you need to be what Maggie calls a Strong Creative. Maggie, you can just look at: she’s got “creative type” written all over her. Vic, meanwhile, wants to be an artist, and is hoping to get into the Rhode Island School of Design. Manx has shown a flair for the dramatic, but it’s not ultimately clear what makes him a Strong Creative, if he is at all.

Cost: As with everything magic, there’s a cost. For Maggie, it’s a stutter. For Vic, her left eye starts to bleed and she feels a sharp, stabbing pain in her head. Manx seems to grow younger the longer he’s in proximity to a child (spoilers from the book here, but he needs to feed once a year), but there doesn’t seem to be a cost for him. Perhaps it comes down to the fact that Vic and Maggie are helping, using their gifts to give something of themselves; while Manx is taking, using his gift to harm, rather than help. Or perhaps we just don’t know what the cost is… Yet.

Gingerbread Smoke: Okay, here’s one more, and this doesn’t come from Maggie’s scene with Vic. Manx isn’t too subtle about this, but when he’s “interviewing” Bing for the job of working at Christmasland (one held by another man the previous episode, who was subsequently tossed out of a moving car), he not-so-subtly asks about Bing’s access to sleeping gases. He refers to one of them, called Gingerbread Smoke, which Bing says make you feel sleepy for a while and smells like gingerbread before knocking you out.

If you think that sounds like the perfect tool for a child kidnapper obsessed with Christmas, pour yourself an extra mug of hot cocoa. However, this is mostly an invention for the book and the show. Sevoflurane, the anesthetic referenced here, can have a sweet smell, but it doesn’t necessarily smell like gingerbread, and is definitely not called gingerbread smoke. Still, along with the over-sized candy cane and murderous car full of imaginary presents, Manx is assembling a deadly array of weapons to use on his prey… Children, or otherwise.

NOS4A2 airs Sundays at 10/9c on AMC

Where to stream NOS4A2