Episode Report Card Omar G: B | 3 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Shake It Up
By Omar G | Season 1 | Episode 8 | Aired on 12.10.2001
Big city buildings at night. It looks like L.A. Inside one of those high-rises, we are looking up from inside a crib to a mobile hanging above. Tinkly music plays. I get an uncomfortable flashback to that episode of Six Feet Under where the baby dies in the opening segment. A pretty mom comes into the room and shushes the baby goodnight. A shadowy shape enters the room, presumably through the window. It's dad, I think. Only, this big, strapping man is Tony Todd of Candyman fame. All of a sudden, I'm hella scared. Candyman picks up the baby and kisses it. I keep expecting bees to come out of his mouth. "Don't worry," Candyman says. "Daddy's gonna get better." Almost immediately, Candyman's hands starts shaking, very crazily and stop-motion like. We just stepped into a Tool video. The room shakes. The mobile shakes violently. The baby in the crib shakes. There's a whole lotta shakin' going on. Candyman stops shaking, and pants heavily. Next thing you know, the mom comes back in and finds the room empty except for the crib and the baby. Thunder rumbles and the baby is crying.
City street in the rain. MamaKent and Bo Duke pass in their not-at-all-conspicuous-in-Metropolis hickmobile. Crossing the street right behind the truck is Candyman, who arrives at the front entrance of Luthorcorp Plaza. He pulls a bottle of prescription drugs from a pocket, but his hand shakes and he loses them. Panicked, he dives to the ground to pick up the spilled pills. He takes a few. Man, Candyman can act! He looks so sad and desperate. He stumbles to the front glass doors of the Plaza building. Inside, a security guard is listening to crap rock on his boom box and jamming out while he buffs the floor. Candyman knocks on the glass door. "Will!" he calls out. I want him to finish, "Will!...you stop jamming out while you buff the floor! It's disgusting!" Will loses his groove and goes to the door. He asks what Candyman is doing there. "I need to see Lionel Luther!" Candyman says, urgently. Will, who looks like a poor man's Ethan Hawke (who is already himself a poor man's someone or other ["Brad Pitt" -- Wing Chun]) says, "You know I can't let you in." Candyman tells him that they did something to him at the plant in Smallville. Poor Man's Ethan Hawke is dubious. He tells Candyman to get some help. "I tried. They can't do anything. It's getting worse," he says. Man, Tony Todd is my favorite guest actor so far on this show, excepting the always stellar John Glover. PMEH tells Candyman to go home and dry off. Then he returns to his crap rock, which I can now identify as Bush. Man, whatever happened to them? Remember when they didn't need to be dating Gwen Stefani to still be known to exist? Candyman must not like Bush either because he starts shaking violently as he holds the door handle. The entire glass door shatters as Candyman falls through. PMEH comes over to help. Candyman gets up. He tells PMEH that he's going to die if he doesn't find some answers and that doctors can't do anything for him. Candyman starts shaking again, but this time he's holding PMEH in his arms and can't stop his shaking limbs from choking the poor character actor. They struggle and fall to the floor. Candyman, who has crossed over into accidental villainy and will now be called "Jitterman," examines Poor Man's Ethan Hawke. Poor Man's Ethan Hawke is most certainly dead. Oh, poor Poor Man's Ethan Hawke. We hardly knew ye. Jitterman stands up and runs out of the building as we get the obligatory overhead shot of the room. The buffer is still operating by itself, jamming on its own. Here is a poem I wrote to commemorate the untimely death of Poor Man's Ethan Hawke.