Escape the Night: The Lost Tapes

A package arrives addressed to "Joseph G", in the care of Manny, containing a VHS tape. When it is played, Manny, Nikita, Rosanna, Tana, and Jojo — each dressed in 1980s costume — are pulled into Pandora's Box and find themselves in what looks like a long-defunct video rental store. There they find Joey, who assumes they have come to rescue him and says he has been alone inside the box for "maybe years". None of them know how they got there or what the tape was for; Joey concludes that only the Cursed God could be behind it, since he had no part in inviting them. One guest remarks that, much as she loves Joey, he has "killed me twice now". On the store's shelves waits a library of VHS tapes; the first, Silent Night, is played, and its horror steps out of the recording.

Group Challenge: The guests must recover three gems created by a divine spirit and stolen by goblins, and pass three tests to unlock a chest, while evading a Minotaur; according to a journal, any guest captured twice will be killed.

Eliminated: Tana Mongeau (The Prom Queen) — captured twice and sliced in half by the Minotaur's chainsaw, to the shock of Jojo, the only guest new to the series.

Notes: There is no vote in this episode.

The second tape, Red Mask, shows footage of a cult whose members chant "All hail the cursed god" — and the guests are drawn into the cult's world.

Voted into the challenge: Jojo and Manny. A note orders that "two must infiltrate the cult" to obtain the next tape, and the guests vote with cards — the miniseries' only traditional vote. Jojo, far from dreading it, says that she would have had "FOMO" had she not been chosen.

Death Challenge: To be accepted as members, the two must complete the cult's three tasks: giving its sacred chant together to awaken the Cursed God, drinking from a chalice of blood, and enduring a trial of balance.

Challenge Winner: Manny, who apologizes to Jojo as she falls: "My balance is better, babe!"

Eliminated: Jojo Siwa (The Burnout) — killed by the cult.

Notes: The next tape is recovered.

The final tape, Space Parasite, is played, and the four remaining guests learn they are "infested with alien babies".

Group Challenge: In a laboratory, the guests must mix and drink an antidote. Drinking it removes their protection, and as the group flees, an invisible force seizes the one left behind.

Eliminated: Rosanna Pansino (The Fitness Instructor) — held immobile despite Joey, Manny, and Nikita's efforts to pull her free, then torn open as an alien creature bursts from her abdomen. One of the survivors reflects that she has seen Rosanna die so many times that it no longer affects her, "but I love her".

Endgame: No tape is recovered, and the survivors ask whether Rosanna died for nothing. An announcement thanks them for "choosing Pandora's Box" and reminds them to "be kind and rewind". The store's monsters break in as the survivors try to guard the doors, and in the chaos Manny and Nikita are seized. Alone, Joey rewinds the tape and finds himself in a black void before Pandora's Box, holding an envelope and the deed to the estate from the first season. His eyes turn black as a voice tells him, "Know what you need to do."

Closing: Over footage from the series' first cold open, Joey's narration folds the franchise back onto its beginning — "I thought I was running from the darkness, but I was the one who called it. I'm where it begins" — before the original invitation monologue replays.

Outcomes: The fates of Joey, Manny, and Nikita are left unresolved.