Paralysis Shriek reviews Eerie, Indiana episode, Mr. Chaney

[froodle]

It's the day of the Harvest King selection, and as usual, Marshall is not feeling the bizarre Eerie tradition. What exactly is the Harvest King, you may be wondering? Excellent question! Every thirteen years, the town's “elite” (The Mayor, Mr. Radford, and a mysterious man named Mr. Chaney are the selectors this year) pick a citizen of Eerie to go out into the woods and look for the Eerie wolf. Why? It's all part of the town's superstition—if no one goes, then they believe that the town's crops will fail and they will suffer bad luck. The only problem with this whole theory, is that no one who has been selected the Harvest King has ever returned from their trip to discover the Eerie wolf. Even creepier: no one seems to care.

But the ever-acute Marshall wants no part of this weird ritual, and seems to be the only person not buying a ticket for the chance to become the next King. Well, he's the only one besides Dash-X, who is now in every episode from here on out. In this one, he is first seen during the Harvest King festivities, stealing cans of food from the World o' Stuff. Mr. Radford sees him, and he storms out of the building, only to return later on that night to overhear the three-person committee prepare to make their final selections. The mayor casts a ballot for Dash-X, hoping he gets selected so they can get rid of him (although he still doesn't have a name at this point, so they simply write “The Kid With The Gray Hair” on the ballot). Once they leave for the night, Dash-X mischievously scratches out his “name”, and replaces it with Marshall Teller. And guess who “wins”!

At first, he is the most popular man in the town, with women throwing themselves at him and farmers offering him cows (!). But before he has a chance to truly bask in all the attention, it is time for him to head to “Wolf Mountain”, with the mysterious Mr. Chaney in tow. It doesn't take long to discover why: as the full moon beams down on them from above, Mr. Chaney turns into a werewolf! He's about to make Marshall his next meal, until—SURPRISE!--Dash-X shows up and knocks him out from behind with a swift log to the head. It seems someone was spending time at the library, and uncovered old newspaper clippings from previous year “winners”, which all stated the earlier Harvest Kings went for a “trip to Spain”, which is a euphemism for “were killed”.

Rather than kill the beast, Dash, Marshall, and Simon all bring him to Marshall's house and tie him up in the kitchen. While he's still unconscious, Marshall wants to pay a visit to the “powers that be” and, along with Dash-X, show up to the World o' Stuff, where Mr. Radford and the mayor are very shocked (and somewhat disappointed) to see that he is still alive. Marshall threatens to reveal the secrets of the Harvest King to the whole town, to which the mayor bluntly replies: “This town...heck, this whole country, has a long tradition of looking the other way. The Warren Commission, Watergate, Iran-Contra, the October Surprise...the people don't want to know about this stuff, because if they knew about it, they might have to do something about it.”

This is a brilliantly truthful line that I'm surprised actually made it into the final cut. Granted, it probably went over children's heads way back in the early '90s, but now with the joys of the Internet, anyone can look up and learn about these “conspiracy theories”, many of which have more than a modicum of truth behind them. Hell, we have to look no further than a few months back to find the latest example of an “October Surprise”, in which the FBI decided to reopen its probe against Hillary Clinton, an announcement that supposedly cost her the election (nevermind the fact she was a terrible candidate who felt she was entitled to the presidency thanks to her many “connections”, but we'll go along with the mainstream explanation). Who knows the things journalists and government workers know, but will never reveal for fear of their lives. It's really quite a hard-hitting, audacious line to spring on its impressionable audience.

Meanwhile, back at home, Simon gets sidetracked from his werewolf-watching duties by a delicious pie, and that's when the werewolf wakes up. He grabs Simon, and is about to munch down on him when a clueless Syndi enters the kitchen, groggily grabbing a banana. The werewolf's growl startles her, and she screams before passing out. This, in turn, startles the werewolf, who leaves the house (by running right through a window).

Radford arrives, moved by what Marshall said, and vows to help them stop the Eerie wolf. Armed with a rifle and silver bullets, they head back up to Wolf Mountain, where they discover the wolf/Mr. Chaney. One well-timed shot to the foot turns Chaney back into a human, presumably for good, while Marshall's only side effect from getting slashed by the Eerie wolf are super-hairy sideburns. The end.

This is a decent episode in concept and execution. It's not as funny as “The Hole in the Head Gang”, nor as powerful or thought-provoking as some of the better eps (I hate to always have to quote “Heart on a Chain” as an example, but examples don't get more powerful or thought-provoking than that), but it's perfectly watchable and has its moments. The wolf transformation, which seems to have been done digitally, is actually better than similar effects in a lot of low-budget fare from the same time period; I was actually surprised at how decent it looked, especially for a kid's show.

It really just boils down to the same old complaints: Syndi is given nothing to do besides scream and pass out in this one, but then with the caveat that she conveniently forgets everything she's seen upon waking up. Which, you know, was "only" a werewolf. Dash-X is once again a pretty pointless character who flips and flops between “good” and “bad” with no real reasons why. I don't hate the character, but he certainly doesn't seem to be needed. It's an okay entry in the series, but nothing of note from within it.

EPISODE RATING: 6.5/10