‘Sorry, no candy. Happy Halloween!’
I mean, they kind of had to do a Halloween episode, didn't they.
It's side-quests for our main characters this week in an episode that's just a lot of fun. Which is an odd thing to say about an exorcism, but here we are.
Clearly the remit for this one was 'fun Halloween scares and nothing too serious or 'bigger picture''. So, barring another mention of the 60 and some character advancement for Sheryl (more about which anon), what we get here are three and a half separate stories with varying 'scary to fun' ratios loosely tied together narratively.
What is it about Halloween that lends itself so well to anthology storytelling? Maybe it's because scary stories tend to work best when they efficiently get to the 'boo' and then end, leaving the audience ready for the next story to begin. Maybe it's because simple stories lend themselves well to delivering a good fright. Maybe it's just a good way to keep the scary stuff from lasting to long, allowing the audience to recover before the next scare arrives. Whatever the reason, it serves this episode well, with each of our main three getting their own seperate tale of terror.
Well, to begin with anyway. Ben's off ghost hunting on television, David's attending an exorcism, and Kristen is preparing for a night of Halloween Hi-jinx courtesy of her girls' slumber party. But then Kristen has to step out from her story so that she can pop over to David's for awhile, so Sheryl sits in on the slumber party storyline for a bit, which is why I say three and a half storylines.
To be fair, the scenes with Sheryl and Leland are a lot of fun and represent a very interesting new development in Leland's attack on Kristen's family, but they don't really amount to a short story of their own. It's a smart move for them to show Leland's attempts to corrupt Sheryl starting off kind of hit or miss. They're all little 'harmless' corruptions, as these things tend to begin, and it works because sometimes she's willing to go with it and sometimes she isn't. You really feel like it could go either way, vis-a-vis her falling into his trap. Plus we now know that Leland wears Jedi Knight boxer shorts, so that's fun.
It's also interesting that they vary amongst the three main stories who 'wins', ontologically speaking. The girls' slumber party storyline, to illustrate, is very clearly presented as 'definitely supernatural.' I freely admit that I'm a huge sucker for the traditional 'wait... if person X was over here the entire time... then who was that claiming to be person X!?' plot twist. It's a classic for a reason. It's a rare thing for me not to enjoy it, and I definitely enjoyed it here. Not-Brenda was thouroughly creepy in a fun way, and her progression of gradually more and more inappropriate suggestions for the other girls was well paced. Truly wonderful 'want to hear a scary story' slow ratcheting up of the tension.
The best part about Not-Brenda's story is that she ultimately didn't actually want anything other than to scare the ever-loving crap out of a group of young girls. She was already done and gone by the time Kristen and Sheryl got to the cemetary, which means that in an ironic way the girls were never really in any actual danger. (Outside of the psychological damage of course. Therapy ain't cheap.) The Not-Brenda storyline is pretty much the perfect bite-sized campfire ghost yarn- creepy, self contained, and ends on a good scare without outstaying its welcome.
Meanwhile, Ben is guest starring on Gotham Ghosts, a fictional ghost-hunting reality TV show. Now, I want to start positive and say that I really like the dynamic that Ben has with the ghost hunters. He sparks well with clearly-potential-love-interest Vanessa, and is never more delightful than when he's being relentlessly unimpressed with their smug supernatural dramatics. And in this story, 'definitely not supernatural' wins the day, which means Ben gets a big W, and I'm always here for that.
That said, can we please, please declare a moritorium on shows having their heroes appear on fictional ghost-hunting reality TV shows? At least for a while? I get it. It was fun for awhile. People literally in the process of making television get to make jokes about the process of making television, and industry-folk just love doing that. But that dead horse has been comprehensively beaten at this point and I don't know how many more episodes based around that premise I can emotionally handle. Even if they are set at strip clubs and the witnesses are named things like Caliente Day. Honestly, her name flashed up on screen in the closed captioning and I laughed so hard that I had to pause the show.
Which brings us to David's story, the Halloween Exorcism. OK, two things up front. First, it's weird that the Catholic church is holding an exorcism late night on Halloween, isn't it? I get that it's just a convention to allow all three scary tales to be happening at the same time, but it's weird. And second, much like how genre shows need to stop basing episodes around fake ghost hunters, directors of anything involving exorcism have absolutely got to learn to resist the urge to re-stage the poster for The Exorcist. It was done well here, and it really is cute that it turned out to be Kurt, but still. Find a new visual gag, people.
David's story is by far the most traditionally Evil plotline, as far as the 'is it supernatural or is it not?' aspects of the story are handled. For every definitive proof either side comes up with, we're presented with a counter from the opposition which seems just as definitive. It all culminates in the really deftly handled moment when Kurt and Father Amara have their final face off in the hallway; irresistible force against immovable object. Each are used to being the final say on what's going on, and their mutual realization that neither of them has the authority to overrule the other is a very compelling power dynamic.
Of course, this being Evil, we get the final, almost casual, confirmation that it was really demonic possession all along, what with the possessed woman knowing things she couldn't possibly and delivering the ominous 'He's coming... for you.' followed by the re-appearance of those same three stars in the sky after all is done and dusted.
Due to having to share screentime with two other unconnected plotlines, the exorcism doesn't really have the chance to get too deep into the minutia of the situation, but that really works to the advantage of the episode. Scary Halloween stories aren't really the place for too much emotional complexity, after all, and I'm not honestly sure how much more emotional complexity we can wring out of exorcism stories at this stage. We have had kind of a lot of them. Still, what we get here is plenty to set up the conflict between David and Kristen that the series clearly wants us to feel at this point in the season while also giving us the sight gag of everyone in sunglasses.
An enjoyable triptych of Halloween treats that gave plenty of good 'boo'.
Bits and Pieces:What is it about Halloween that lends itself so well to anthology storytelling? Maybe it's because scary stories tend to work best when they efficiently get to the 'boo' and then end, leaving the audience ready for the next story to begin. Maybe it's because simple stories lend themselves well to delivering a good fright. Maybe it's just a good way to keep the scary stuff from lasting to long, allowing the audience to recover before the next scare arrives. Whatever the reason, it serves this episode well, with each of our main three getting their own seperate tale of terror.
Well, to begin with anyway. Ben's off ghost hunting on television, David's attending an exorcism, and Kristen is preparing for a night of Halloween Hi-jinx courtesy of her girls' slumber party. But then Kristen has to step out from her story so that she can pop over to David's for awhile, so Sheryl sits in on the slumber party storyline for a bit, which is why I say three and a half storylines.
To be fair, the scenes with Sheryl and Leland are a lot of fun and represent a very interesting new development in Leland's attack on Kristen's family, but they don't really amount to a short story of their own. It's a smart move for them to show Leland's attempts to corrupt Sheryl starting off kind of hit or miss. They're all little 'harmless' corruptions, as these things tend to begin, and it works because sometimes she's willing to go with it and sometimes she isn't. You really feel like it could go either way, vis-a-vis her falling into his trap. Plus we now know that Leland wears Jedi Knight boxer shorts, so that's fun.
It's also interesting that they vary amongst the three main stories who 'wins', ontologically speaking. The girls' slumber party storyline, to illustrate, is very clearly presented as 'definitely supernatural.' I freely admit that I'm a huge sucker for the traditional 'wait... if person X was over here the entire time... then who was that claiming to be person X!?' plot twist. It's a classic for a reason. It's a rare thing for me not to enjoy it, and I definitely enjoyed it here. Not-Brenda was thouroughly creepy in a fun way, and her progression of gradually more and more inappropriate suggestions for the other girls was well paced. Truly wonderful 'want to hear a scary story' slow ratcheting up of the tension.
The best part about Not-Brenda's story is that she ultimately didn't actually want anything other than to scare the ever-loving crap out of a group of young girls. She was already done and gone by the time Kristen and Sheryl got to the cemetary, which means that in an ironic way the girls were never really in any actual danger. (Outside of the psychological damage of course. Therapy ain't cheap.) The Not-Brenda storyline is pretty much the perfect bite-sized campfire ghost yarn- creepy, self contained, and ends on a good scare without outstaying its welcome.
Meanwhile, Ben is guest starring on Gotham Ghosts, a fictional ghost-hunting reality TV show. Now, I want to start positive and say that I really like the dynamic that Ben has with the ghost hunters. He sparks well with clearly-potential-love-interest Vanessa, and is never more delightful than when he's being relentlessly unimpressed with their smug supernatural dramatics. And in this story, 'definitely not supernatural' wins the day, which means Ben gets a big W, and I'm always here for that.
That said, can we please, please declare a moritorium on shows having their heroes appear on fictional ghost-hunting reality TV shows? At least for a while? I get it. It was fun for awhile. People literally in the process of making television get to make jokes about the process of making television, and industry-folk just love doing that. But that dead horse has been comprehensively beaten at this point and I don't know how many more episodes based around that premise I can emotionally handle. Even if they are set at strip clubs and the witnesses are named things like Caliente Day. Honestly, her name flashed up on screen in the closed captioning and I laughed so hard that I had to pause the show.
Which brings us to David's story, the Halloween Exorcism. OK, two things up front. First, it's weird that the Catholic church is holding an exorcism late night on Halloween, isn't it? I get that it's just a convention to allow all three scary tales to be happening at the same time, but it's weird. And second, much like how genre shows need to stop basing episodes around fake ghost hunters, directors of anything involving exorcism have absolutely got to learn to resist the urge to re-stage the poster for The Exorcist. It was done well here, and it really is cute that it turned out to be Kurt, but still. Find a new visual gag, people.
David's story is by far the most traditionally Evil plotline, as far as the 'is it supernatural or is it not?' aspects of the story are handled. For every definitive proof either side comes up with, we're presented with a counter from the opposition which seems just as definitive. It all culminates in the really deftly handled moment when Kurt and Father Amara have their final face off in the hallway; irresistible force against immovable object. Each are used to being the final say on what's going on, and their mutual realization that neither of them has the authority to overrule the other is a very compelling power dynamic.
Of course, this being Evil, we get the final, almost casual, confirmation that it was really demonic possession all along, what with the possessed woman knowing things she couldn't possibly and delivering the ominous 'He's coming... for you.' followed by the re-appearance of those same three stars in the sky after all is done and dusted.
Due to having to share screentime with two other unconnected plotlines, the exorcism doesn't really have the chance to get too deep into the minutia of the situation, but that really works to the advantage of the episode. Scary Halloween stories aren't really the place for too much emotional complexity, after all, and I'm not honestly sure how much more emotional complexity we can wring out of exorcism stories at this stage. We have had kind of a lot of them. Still, what we get here is plenty to set up the conflict between David and Kristen that the series clearly wants us to feel at this point in the season while also giving us the sight gag of everyone in sunglasses.
An enjoyable triptych of Halloween treats that gave plenty of good 'boo'.
 |
| Please stop |
-- It was a good choice that we never saw what was under not-Brenda's mask even though the girls did.
-- Good on Lexis for not giving in to peer pressure and staying home. I mean, it was just plot mechanics so that she was still there to tell Sheryl where the rest of the girls had gone, but I still want to give her credit for it.
-- I may end up saying this every episode, but they definitely shouldn't be doing this with Laura given her heart condition.
-- Speaking of, apparently Kristen has had some procedure done for Laura that should be strengthening her heart, but it hasn't been very effective yet. I wonder how much Laura understands about what's going on with her? That would be so difficult to explain to your child.
-- I adore how little impulse control Sheryl has. I laughed out loud when she tried to scare away her date's hiccups, as that's exactly what I would do in that situation. And the phone call from Brenda's mom was priceless.
-- It's a little rich that David brought Kristen to the exorcism specifically to be 'Devil's advocate' and then got mad at her for doing exactly that.
-- I wonder if the 'burned girl' story that not-Brenda told was her real backstory.
-- Ben started to tell Vanessa the story of '177 Minutes' and Vanessa stopped him from saying it on the secret camera. Both of those things struck me as very sweet.
-- That final shot of not-Brenda walking down the street without her mask and laughing hysterically was strangely joyful.
 |
| Still funny. |
Quotes:
Ben: "Yep. I’m skeptical."
Doctor: "We’ll wait a couple of weeks and pray for good news."
Kristen: "Pray?"
Doctor: "Figure of speech. Hope for good news."
Leland: "Kindness is hypocrisy."
Sheryl: "Grandma’s here and she’s ready for her close up. You guys look amazing."
Lexis: "And she’s drunk."
Sheryl: "Please don’t scare yourselves to death, that would be hard to explain to your mom."
Woman on phone: "Hello, Kristen?"
Sheryl: "No, who’s this?"
Woman on phone: "Michelle Phillips."
Sheryl: (Sharp intake of breathe) "From the Mommas and the Papas?"
Woman on phone: "Excuse me?"
Sheryl: "Never mind."
A solid, fun Halloween romp. Four out of five funky flies with stripes.
Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, retired firefighter, and roughly 78% water. You can find more of his work at the 42nd Vizsla. If you'd like to see his raw notes for this and other reviews, you can find them at What Was Mikey Thinking.
Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, retired firefighter, and roughly 78% water. You can find more of his work at the 42nd Vizsla. If you'd like to see his raw notes for this and other reviews, you can find them at What Was Mikey Thinking.
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