Paralysis Shriek reviews Eerie, Indiana episode No Brain, No Pain

[froodle]

A crazed homeless man is confronted by a mysterious older red-headed woman, who proceeds to shoot him with a laser beam. Of course, this crime is witnessed by Marshall and Simon, who step in to prevent her from finishing him off: with police sirens looming in the distance, the woman gets into her car and speeds away.

Marshall and Simon know he's a weird guy, on account of his mumblings to himself, but think there might be something causing his bizarre behavior besides a mental disorder. So they take him to Marshall's house, shave off his facial hair, cut his head hair, and tell Marshall's sister Syndi to watch over him, under the explanation that he is Simon's uncle (a notion that doesn't seem to surprise Syndi at all). The duo then go out to look for clues as to his real identity.

Meanwhile, Dash-X stops by the Teller residence to get Charles, explaining to Syndi that he is Marshall's cousin. He meets with the red-haired woman, who promised him a cash reward if he could deliver Charles to her, alive and unharmed. Dash keeps his end of the bargain, meeting the red-haired woman at the old mill that presumably is the exact same one from “The Hole in the Head Gang”. Money is exchanged, and this is when they learn that the man that everyone believes to be so insane was actually the smartest man in the world. “Was”, until one of his own inventions, the Brainalyzer, stole all of his knowledge, leaving him to be the mumbling idiot that he is now.

Marshall and Simon stumble on the Brainalyzer, and the ensuing mishap causes Simon to become a genius! Things get further out of whack when, in an attempt to reverse it, Simon, Marshall, the red-headed woman, and the former genius, all get in the way of the machine and end up in a four-way body switch that really confuses things. As it turns out, the red-headed woman, who was the genius man's wife, never loved him, and was just using him in an attempt to cash in on his smarts. Dash-X steps in with a laser gun to save the day, and everyone is reunited with their proper brains.

The “brain control” idea is back here, although presented in a different way than it was in the superior “Just Say No Fun”. That had a cooler story that showed how brainwashing affected the entire town, diluting the idea of a dystopian society down for a younger audience. This one just aims for the more straightforward stupidity you see in kid's shows (the crazed homeless man just shouts out non-sequitur words and phrases, of which “my sharona” is a favorite, though that does tie in to the story later), and the effect just isn't all that interesting.

It also shows a rather grating issue that has been gnawing at me for at least a few episodes now, and that's the stupidity of the Teller family. I mean, the family banter and dynamics are better represented here than in similar shows of its ilk--a point that I have made clear many times before—but how many things do they have to see before they finally start to believe that Marshall is right and that Eerie is insane? For example, in the last episode, Syndi (Marshall's sister) saw a werewolf, but passed out and conveniently woke up without remembering what happened. In this one, Syndi is asked to watch “Simon's crazed uncle” (who is just the crazy homeless guy), and does so, without suspecting anything's up. Yeah, I suppose maybe it's to show that Syndi is dumb and goes along with anything, but for a show that seems to pride itself on being smart and different, the whole “dumb sister” routine just feels really unfair.

Speaking of unfair is throwing Jason Marsden in there as Dash-X, another character that never really has anything to do. Outside of the final episode, where his presence finally serves a clever point (but I'm not sure so much that it justified having him here in the first place), he seems interjected in these episodes solely as a lazy way for the writers to advance their plot. Need a character to learn some info? Just have Dash-X hanging around for no reason to eavesdrop! Do Marshall and Simon need saved? Have Dash-X show up out of nowhere! His ideologies and beliefs seem to change on a whim, making him a relatively worthless character. I don't dislike him--in fact, I actually like his gravelly voice and negative outlook on the world, all wrapped up in a world-weary teenaged kid—but he was doomed to fail from the outset.

“Eerie, Indiana” is a good show overall, but this is the episode where the foundation is showing a lot of cracks, and everything is threatening to completely collapse. Will it, or will the next episode put us back on track? I guess we'll just have to trudge onward to find out.

EPISODE RATING: 4/10