[1] Dr. Karen Hopple drives to Camp Redwood to meet with Margaret and explain Benjamin Richter's escape.
Brooke, still shaken from her phone call, hears on the news about a murder at a Red Meadows gas station.
Xavier leaves to get his towel and is grabbed and pulled into the back of a car, where his cousin and former agent Blake confronts him.
Blake, who found him via his forwarding address, had previously coaxed Xavier into acting in gay porn in exchange for getting him off the streets and off drugs.
Xavier insisting that he's not gay, offers to find a replacement and leads him to Trevor in the shower, who is talking with Ray and Chet.
Margaret walks into her cabin to find Ramirez waiting for her and wanting an explanation for why Jonas (the hiker) will not stay dead.
His cousin treated his seizures and showed him pictures of women he had killed in Vietnam, and his wife objected, only to be murdered in response.
Ramirez says that he likes Margaret, and she explains that he should not feel guilty for his actions if they are in service of God's (or Satan's) work.
Xavier tries to get the van started and the counselors attempt an escape, but they collide with Hopple's car before they can get away, distracted by a bloodied Rita in their path.
Rita, Chet, Brooke, and Ray approach the infirmary, and together they look for her keys in the desk to no avail; Richter observes them from outside.
Trevor finds his keys, but he and Montana are stalled when Xavier tearfully reveals everything was his fault for bringing Blake and coming to Redwood.
The critical consensus reads: "1984 kicks into high-gear with "Mr. Jingles," fleshing out its characters' backstories while twisting the knife in a few unexpected ways.
"[3] Ron Hogan of Den of Geek gave the episode a 5/5, saying, "American Horror Story: 1984 isn't a completely clean take on the slasher genre.
Part of that fun is watching a cast of good actors inhabiting stock characters with modern twists (Xavier is involved in gay porn and might be gay himself, Chet admits to using steroids, Ray is an orderly who appears to be afraid of dead bodies, the oversexed Montana is bisexual, the girl with the big chest is replaced by a guy with a huge penis, none of the black characters have died thus far, and so on).
Rosenfield later noted that the episode "pretty much made sense" until the supernatural elements, and concluded by commenting that she enjoyed the cliffhanger.