Mason Thames returns with scarred resolve; Madeleine McGraw’s Gwen feels her visions sharpen into coordinates—numbers, corners, seconds. Daylight starts ringing: payphones chirp in empty parks, elevator intercoms hum, and a decommissioned switchboard in a courthouse basement lights its bulbs by itself. The voices aren’t just the lost now—they’re the not‑yet‑taken, crowding the line like a party call from the other side. Coins drop and come back warm; dial tones hide Morse; chalk maps redraw mid‑stroke as the calls trace a hunting route.

Cuts bite: a tunnel lined with ringing wall phones, a carousel where every painted horse holds a handset, a school hallway answering in unison, a laundromat window fogging with a phone number written backward. Finney and Gwen build a trap out of timing—call‑backs, pass‑throughs, recording loops—while a new presence whispers between clicks: the Operator. Ethan Hawke’s cadence leaks from damaged tape—familiar, wrong, inevitable—as black balloons throb on security feeds like heartbeats.

Sound design turns nostalgia predatory: pulse beeps, rotary clicks, busy tones that grow teeth. Final sting: the city rings at once, every screen flashing ANSWER. Finney lifts a handset in the street; the Operator breathes, “We’ve been trying to reach you,” and the dial spins by itself.