Episode Report Card Shack: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Jock Trap
By Shack | Season 4 | Episode 26 | Aired on 07.23.1998
There's a brief cut to a security office, where a beeping wall panel informs some guard that there's something out of order. What, no video cameras? Did the Exposition Ferry not only take them not only across the bay but also back in time to the forties? Back in the halls, Steve and Rachel hear a sound and hide in a nearby bathroom. You know how haunted houses have two different kinds of freaks in them -- ones who pop out and surprise you, and ones who are in plain sight but scare you with their creepy behavior? They encounter one of the second type in the bathroom. Some boy is standing there, making a guttural whining sound. His mouth and hands are all covered with blood. Steve and Rachel back out of another exit as the boy says something indecipherable. The credits refer to him as "Flossing Man," so I suspect he took things a little too far. Or maybe he just made the mistake of using that unwaxed stuff. Steve and Rachel wander out into some community room (where Barry Manilow is being piped in). There, they see a teenage girl obsessively putting on make-up, and a boy obsessively brushing his teeth. I'm sure these are supposed to be "hints," but since we all have already been told exactly what's been going on, this is just pointless filler to allow them to toss some cheap scares our way. A nurse arrives, and the patients all rush over for their meds as Steve and Rachel hide in another room to keep from being seen. In this room is a teenage girl who is sitting in a chair, repeating, "Meet the musical little creatures that hide among the flowers" over and over and over again. Another innocent youth driven mad by The Smurfs. When will the suffering end? She starts getting louder as Mark Snow busts out with the "Tinkly Children's Music Box...Of Evil!" on the soundtrack. The girl's cries bring the other patients over to the windows of the room, and suddenly it's Night of the Living Dead as they moan and paw and try to get into the room. Steve tries to get the girl to shut up, but she won't, so Rachel punches her in the face and knocks her out. Inexplicably, this calms down the other patients, and they wander off. Maybe The Smurfs drove them all crazy and they wanted her to shut the hell up about them. Steve checks out the girl's wristband and sees that it's Betty Caldicott, the good (not!) doctor's daughter. And now it's time for the sing-along! We crank up the punk jams on the soundtrack: "I'm paranoid, I'm paranoid/Everybody's coming to get me!/Just say you never met me" -- yadda yadda yadda -- "I'm in Hell." Steve and Rachel flee the institution and drive off in her pick-up truck. They stop to get some gas. Rachel tells Steve that the last ferry leaves at 11:30, and she hopes he has some sort of plan. He says he's just making this all up as he goes along. Much like the screenwriters. As Steve fills the tank, a police cruiser zooms into the gas station and blocks the truck in. It's Officer Cox, just stopping by to evil things up a bit. He tells the kids that it's past curfew and wants to know what they're up to. They attempt a lie about studying, but Cox points out that they have no books.Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20Next