I think this will be cleared up in the next couple of weeks somehow, but I'm assuming Steward squirreled away some of the money, so Keene and the authorities may have simply assumed he fled and was living out on the lam. The thing is, that would mean for some reason Thomas didn't tell anyone about Steward.fenrirblack wrote: It would make sense that Keene knew about Steward but when you think about it, unless Keene had security cameras spread throughout the house and property there wouldn’t be anyway of seeing his great escape. Even then there is the strong possibility Steward slipped past them.
I guess if nothing else we're going to find out more about what's been happening that we haven't seen.
It's hard to say what *any* motivations are right now because we don't have all the pieces of the puzzle. The only ones with clear motivations are Marion and Lois.fenrirblack wrote: As far as Marion not trusting Thomas, there isn’t really a reason for that. Keene has helped Marion so far and Lois is there. I would be more inclined to believe Thomas could manipulate Marion with lies if Lois wasn’t there. Even then what would Thomas gain from manipulating Marion. He’s in a zoo so how his two teenagers going to help him. I can’t see him and Steward on speaking terms. If Marion leaves the ECP and turns his back on Keene, how does that hurt Keene? Steward is the most likely choice to the point it’s obvious. Whether or not Lois does get changed is still the question.
Keene is likely motivated by his desire to see the ECP expand, but in my mind it's a bit of an open question how far he's willing to go and how much he already knew.
Steward is a real mystery to me. He is certainly set up to be the villian, but other than a possible desire to bring down the ECP and the Milton ferrets specifically, it's hard to see how the coin accomplishes that task unless he finds a way to lay blame at their paws for the transformation of Marion. And I suppose Lois if it comes to that. There is a little part of me that thinks that his motives are more nuanced than that, that he may have had a change of heart after a couple years as a badger.
Thomas is a real wild card here, only because we haven't seen him since he spit the coin out at Steward. If he's happy in the zoo, then he may just be a touch point for us to catch up on his life and then he fades away until a camel or two are needed for the story. If he's been ranting to anyone that would listen that he was really human and he's going nuts in the zoo, then he may become more important to the story than we've realized.
Oddly, none of this feels like it's going to answer the question of why Marion changed in the first place. Keene didn't do it because he had to have an epiphany after he was informed to do his "thing". Steward didn't do it because he wasn't waiting nearby that morning to steer Marion to his goals. I doubt Thomas would have done it, since it's a bit hard for a camel to sneak around Babylon Gardens without being seen. The only suspects really are Kitsune (who makes no sense), a previously unknown celestial, or some bizzare accident of some of our regular cast (Tarot/Sabrina or the Nerds, for example.)