Eerie, Indiana rewatch 2015: episode four, the Losers

[froodle]

Hold on to your loose change, take a tight grip on your socks, and accept that your ball point pen caps are gone forever, because tonight we're taking a trip behind the numbers seven and eight dryers at the Eeriemat, and visiting the Bureau of Lost. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to watch... the Losers!

Comments

[froodle]

The Losers takes place on "day 94". Does that mean Mars has been in Eerie for 3 months by this point, or are "numbered" days his way of marking off when jacked-up biz.happens? Like, is it 94 calender days, or is this the 94th fucked up incident to happen to him since moving to Eerie?

I love how Marilyn and Edgar interact at the start of this episode - she makes that joke about his screws falling out and kind of leans in towards him as she walks past. its cute and domestic and I love it.

I can totally believe in a dude accidentally putting his briefcase in the fridge. I once put a textbook in a box of weetabix and didnt find it til a week later when I needed some warm breakfast.

So Things, Inc. are totally okay with putting petroleum in the water supply. Petroleum. In the water supply. In. The. Water. Supply. The fuck is wrong with this company?!

I like how this episode is mostly about a secret organisation that goes around stealing and hiding your stuff, but also kind of about how freaked out you get as a kid when your parents fight.

As an adult, the scene where they look for the briefcase is mostly Edgar and Marilyn being irritated and probably a bit stressed and pressed for time (Im assuming the whole episode takes place in one day, so Edgars going to work to do a massive presentation on a Saturday morning, fuck that noise), but Mars is totally convinced Edgar could lose his job, and then "we might lose everything" - his parents marriage, the house, basically Marshalls whole life could be impacted by this.

Ewww, I just noticed the ventriloquist puppet chasing Simon in the credits. Grossssssss.

As a kid, I had no idea what the old people disease Marshall references was; now Im like, really dude? an Alzheimer's joke?

Look how concerned Simon is about Marshalls parents fighting. Augh, my feels.

"It's a claw. It has an airplane in it." Well, obvs. Also, love seeing the boys do something normal and not immediately relating to weirdness investigation for once. I know it ties in almost as soon as they get their lines out, but it starts as "hey, wanna build a model kit Evangelion with me?"

UNKIND ONES. I love this gang, I am so bitter about the shows short run for so many reasons, and one of them is that I never got to see any more of these guys. Their patch would be a grim reaper, like the SoA, but instead of an anarchy ball he holds a smiling puppy and instead of a scythe that is also an AK47, he's got a fishing line with a dollar bill hanging on the end of it. Also, in my brain they totally predate the hells angels.

The one guy who looks like a gnome makes my day, especially.

And the leader straightens Marshalls collar! Hes like, heres your lost allowance, go have respectful fun, ya crazy kid!

Eerie Bus Terminal and Supper Club actually sounds a bit awesome. Plunging Bus Tours sounds horrific, though. Love the itinerant musicians hanging out on the steps too.

Also a thing I love, the graffiti that says "grow corn forever" in the alley al goes into. the loyal order of corn really DOES have its roots everywhere!

[froodle]

in fact, so much stuff I love in this ep, from the concept onwards, but especially the set design of the bureau itself. the old fashioned computer banks, the card index, the reject tube, the vaulted ceiling, the microphone... oh god the whole set is freaking amazing! also the bureau's theme tune thing rules.

wasnt the thing with the hubble telescope that it needed, essentially, glasses? note to self - look that biz up.

also, in this scene, you can totally see a crew members arm in the shot for a couple of seconds.

loving mister lodgepooles weird linguistic gymnastics to justify not giving mars the briefcase back.

simon with the ballpoint pen cap on a fishing line! and then he follows al to the laundrette, and finds his way through the dryer to the bureau, on his own. he is so wasted being the sidekick.

I also love how the bureau has its own jargon - code four, code five, "misplaced" its such amazingly vivid world building, and its done ina twenty two minute episode of a kids tv show.

can anyone read what that pink sign with the big NO in the eeriemat says? Im pretty sure the second word is soap, but cant make out the first and third. and I love that the comic which simon is reading has actual adverts on the back -I wonder if it was a mocked up comic specifically for the show, or if they found a horror comic with eerie in the titlefor him to read. the whole attention to detail in this episode is amazing, its easily one of my favourites in the whole run just for stuff like that.

STRAITJACKET LADY!

and mars is all, woe, im gonna die down here, and simons like, fuck that noise, hypercompetent sidekick, awaaaayyyyyyy!

so mister lodgepoole works for the bureau for forty years, temporarily loses one stamp, and he gets demoted? fuck that place. he gets the last laugh, tho -that claw blatently does not have an airplane in it.

how fun would a mister lodgepoole/al at the bureau coslay be? I mean, thered be like three people who got it, but still, awesome. totally digging al's spats.

and then marilyn and edgar are back to being awesome and lovely and going for cute saturday walks together, and...awesome bureau theme tune to close us out, yeah!

one of the actors who played the biker gang members is called billy million. thats now the name of the leader of the unkind ones, ive decided.

why does one of the coffins from the end credits have a birdcage on, are those cow heads the heads of extinct cows, and why are old fashioned toys so gross and creepy? mostly that third one, actually.

[eviinsanemonkey.livejournal.com]

I keep missing these!

EERIE FAIL

:(

Losers is one of my FAVORITE eps.

[froodle]

just watch it when you get a mo and then come on by - I was busy last saturday (a social life? I?! nah, I won tickets to phantom of the opera) so I just stuck the post up and came back to put my comments on sunday when I had a chance to do my rewatch.

[diello.livejournal.com]

Man, who COULDN'T use a pen cap like that? AMIRITE??

[froodle]

TOTALLY. so many uses for a ballpoint pen cap. I would completely tackle a nine year old with a fishing rod for a shot at a cap like that.

[diello.livejournal.com]

There's another lost episode, with the milk truck driver. I wonder if they know each other.

[froodle]

I am convinced the bureau and the garbage dudes from that episode answer to the same people. also that there is a reason the milk truck is a harbinger of death in eerie, but I havent decided if the two are connected yet.