eerieindiana | Eerie, Indiana rewatch 2015: episode two, the Retainer

So we know from the start of the episode that Mars going to the orthodontist and telling us the story of the Retainer takes place on Marshall's 45th day in Eerie. It might be fun to try and put together a timeline for all the events in EI.

From what I remember, not all of the episodes have a day # attached to them - the only one I can name off the top of my head is that Reality Takes a Holiday is marked day zero, for obvious reasons - but I know there's a few. As the rewatch progresses, I'm going to try and look out for them.

This is the second episode and the intro also serves as a kind of "previously" by referencing the ForeverWare ladies (oh my God, that horrible laughter - there's no need to get that excited about a pickle lifter, ladies), as well as what would become the standard for EI, Bigfoot and Elvis, before setting up this episode's foe.

Also, Fluffy, what are you going to do with that gun? You don't have opposable thumbs, you can't pull the trigger, it is of no use to you whatsoever, and it never appears again in the episode.

Could it be Betsy, Grungy Bill's long-lost gun? Did he bungle his twelfth/thirteenth bank robbery because dogs stole his firearm in preparation for the day they rose up agai.st humanity?

"It's probably wherever you left it" has got to be the least helpful parental non-response in history. Yes, it most likely is wherever I left it, but I don't know where that is, which is why I'm asking if you're seen it. I would have made the exact same face as Syndi. Don't be that parent, Marilyn.

Loving the drama chords that play and the dramatic close up of Fifi, the man-eating poodle. Oh Syndi. You are more right than you know.

Looking back on it, it's weird how much emphasis there was on you to have lots of friends when you were a kid. Edgar and Marilyn are all, "you don't seem to be making a lot of new friends", ignoring the fact that he's already become really good friends with the kid next door.

Later in the episode, Mars mentions that Steve isn't his friend, but still lets him come over to his house anyway. You gotta wonder if there's an element of pleasing and/or shutting up his parents concerns about his lack of friends in him hanging out with this kid that he doesn't even seem to like all that much in his own home.

Like, Simon apparently doesn't satisfy the criteria, maybe because he's younger, so he brings Steve by and is all, look, look, kid my own age, stop getting at me and making me feel like an isolated reject just because I'm not surrounded by a crowd of classmates the whole time.

Or maybe I'm just reading way too much into this. Anyway.

Dog, you're sleeping in the middle of the pavement. Don't get snippy when people need to walk past. You're the inconsiderate jackass here, not the random pedestrians.

Ugh, can we take a minute to talk about how horrible it is that Steve has to go over that the house of some kid that he's not even friends with, just so he can have a fucking sandwich, because his mum doesn't like watching him eat? Fucking Eerie, centre of shitty parenting for the entire planet, more like.

Second episode in a row that Simon mentions the Eerie Library. Last week it was old yearbooks, this week apparently their research is a little more esoteric.

Now I really want to know who had checked out the Sorcerers Bible before Simon could borrow it.

Also, Mars, get your own library card.

I really want a t-shirt with that aerial map of Eerie on it. That, or the one from the start of the episode with Normal and Schafer as some of the surrounding towns and a massive bright red WEIRDNESS stamped across it.

"Oh baby, yeah baby, oh, in my mouth baby" is literally me whenever I'm starving and sit down to a delicious meal.

Fifi, stop spying on the Tellers!

Are we all speaking Dog? I think more likely, the retainer lets Steve (and later Mars) read the dogs minds, and then their brains translate it to terms they can understand, ie, English.

I just realised how boring and frustrating this adventure must have been for Simon - he can't hear any of what's going on.

I am 100% certain that the dogs and cats in Eerie are waging a secret war against each other (secret from humans, I mean). Fluffy proved dogs can read when Mars shows him that magazine, and the pound has massive barrels labelled poison stacked outside it, coils of razor wire on top of the chainlink fences surrounding it, a sign that says no barking, the death chamber is in full view of the cages the dogs are kept in, and the dog catchers themselves are called the Canine Arrest Team. That level of psychological torture, it's gotta be a cat masterminding it.

also, the way Mars says "dogs check in, but they don't check out" makes it sound like thats the pounds motto, rather than Mars making an off the cuff remark.

I can't tell if that's supposed to be a real cat watching through the windows at the pound, or if it's a stuffed cat attached to the fishing lines used to lure the dogs to capture.

Whelp, Mister Dithers is dead. Or at least missing a leg. To be fair, he was in league with the cats, and being eaten by dogs pales in comparison to what the cats would have done to him in punishment for his failure to keep the dogs in line.

Ugh, the dogs chanting. The vehemently whispered chant of "Freedom!", "bite the hand that feeds us!", "doorknob!", "smash the chamber!" and the increasingly loud and menacing "metal mouth!" at the end of the episode - so scary when I was a kid, and still pretty creepy now.

And Steve panics, and runs, and the dogs chase him down and kill him and eat him and then Fluffy delivers his mangled retainer to Mars as a warning to keep his mouth shut if he wants to live.

Edgar tells Marshall at the end of this episode that he "lived to tell the tale". The fortune cookie at the start of No Brain No Pain gives Mars the same prediction. I like to think that the whole series is actually narrated by an adult Marshall, who sends his stories out into the world disguised as fiction, after getting increasingly frustrated and jaded about getting anybody to believe him about the centre of weirdness for the entire planet.

They probably believe him about the centre of shitty parenting, though. Jesus.

Eerie, Indiana rewatch 2015: episode two, the Retainer

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