Previously: Space bugs make people deaf in one ear and walk funny.
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Back to Work: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Congress and How It Gets Things Done (and Often Doesn’t)
Dani: The “previously on BrainDead” songs have quickly become one of my favorites things about this show. Whatever you do, don’t fast-forward through them.
Perfection.
Dani: This episode begins right where the previous one left off — with Laurel repeating what she just said because Anthony couldn’t hear her. He claims it’s just his tinnitus, which is worse in the morning, but Laurel and I remain skeptical. Then he tells her he has to get to work and asks if he can use her restroom. It would have been hilarious if she’d said no, but she doesn’t.
While Anthony freshens up, Laurel notices that her sheets have been changed. Anthony offers some excuse about the wet spot being icky, which apparently prompted him to do laundry and change the bedding in the middle of the night. Um? I’m no expert, but if you have that much energy after sex, you’re doing it wrong.
Mari: Laurel was apparently passed out enough to not even hear it, so maybe she did it right.
Dani: Laurel tries to kiss Anthony before he leaves, but he gives her a quick, impersonal peck on the check instead. Between the hearing loss, the mystery sheets, and the sudden intimacy avoidance, it’s not looking good for Agent Honey-Bear’s bug-infestation status.
Laurel obviously has her doubts, too, because she meets with Rochelle and Gustav at work later that morning. It’s like the Scooby Gang, but with actual diversity. (M: LOVE.) Gustav is certain Anthony is infected, so he gives Laurel some sedatives to knock him out. Not sure how they’ll get an unconscious FBI agent into a CT scan, but I guess they’ll figure that one out later (jinkies!). Laurel tells him she doesn’t want the sedatives, or the set of brass knuckles he slides across the table.
Luke pulls Laurel out of the meeting to ask if she’s sleeping with Gustav, because some guy answered her phone when he called last night. She reluctantly tells him it was Anthony, and Luke mocks her because she’s already trying to backpedal out of the relationship.
Cut to Luke at a photo-op with some veterans. They’re all on experimental medicine trials that were halted when the government shut down, and they need Luke’s help to fast-track the restoring of funds. They’re supposed to talk to Laurel and not pressure Luke, so they’re pleasantly surprised when Luke wants to discuss things further. I am, too, frankly.
Mari: I feel like Luke isn’t changing much, but he’s seeming so much better compared to Red and Ella and the rest of the craziness. It’s incredibly smart.
Dani: Good point. You can be deeply flawed and still be SANE.
The Healys sit down with the soldiers and learn that Lance Corporal Middleton (Brandon J. Dirden) is the most critical of the group, as he has liver cancer. He’s warm and funny and self-effacing, and you adore him even before you learn how much he wants to be around to see his baby girl’s first birthday. The doctors estimate he has about 10 days to get back on the medicine before his liver shuts down.
Luke later tells Laurel that the best part of his job is being able to do something to help the guy. Nobody votes against veterans, so this should be easy-peasy, lemon squeezey. Oh, Luke… we didn’t think anyone would vote against 9/11 first responders and look what happened there.
Luke says it’ll be handled by the end of the day, and sensing he’s in a good mood, Laurel decides to ask him to pressure the CDC about what’s causing the C.H.I.s (Catastrophic Head Injuries). Luke tells Laurel that if the CDC had been wrong about blood pressure meds causing the head explosions, the FDA (who approved it) would be screaming about it. And they’re not.
He goes into his Senate committee on veterans and asks Amarant (the Republican majority leader who worked with him to reopen the government last episode) to add re-funding the drug trials to the agenda, since a war veteran won’t survive the week without them. Amarant agrees, telling Luke they just have to vote on renaming a coffee kiosk in the Capitol lobby first. This should be quick and easy, as they’re naming it after a decorated Capitol police officer who was killed in the line of duty. Amarant assures Luke that everyone’s for it, but Red has other ideas. He decides that the fallen officer’s name (Ed Sharee) sounds too similar to Sharia Law and suggests they name it after Ronald Reagan, instead.
This would add to Grover Norquist’s wet dream of naming 3,000 things after Reagan, but the Democrats are sick of this song. Amarant points out that Ed Sharee was a police offer and a veteran, but Red says Reagan was, too. Luke reminds him that Reagan made a movie in which his character served in WWII, but the man himself never actually did. Red points out that Reagan lost both his legs in that movie, which makes him a hero. Wow. (M: Wooooow.) Then Ella jumps into the fray, wondering why they can’t name the kiosk after a woman.
Red: Tell a woman to do something, and then we will consider naming something after her.
Arguments break out, and it’s clear that nothing will get done today. Steaming, Luke steps outside and is soon joined by another guy who’s stormed out. This guy’s from the FDA, and he’s pissed because the CDC is trying to blame them for missing the call on the head explosions, which is exactly what Luke said WASN’T happening. So now he has to go to Laurel and ask what’s causing the strokes, if it’s not the medicines.
Oh, Luke… are you sure you want to know?
Mari: I feel like there are so many Oh, Lukes per episode. See? He seems like an innocent bystander at points even though he’s also real skeevy.
Dani: Cut to the party to celebrate reopening the government, hosted by the very people whose belligerence shut it down in the first place. Irony!
Laurel shows up twenty minutes late and gets a lecture on punctuality from Luke. He softens this by telling Laurel he likes “her guy,” and we see Anthony extolling the virtues of Norway and their free education for all. He’s talking to Red Wheatus (who tells him to go live in Norway if he likes it so much), when Laurel joins them.
Anthony: [to Laurel] I didn’t know there were going to be so many ignorant Republicans here.
Not cool, dude. Regardless of your personal feelings, Red is a US senator, and calling him ignorant TO HIS FACE just hurts Laurel, who has to work with him. Either Gustav’s right, and the bugs have gotten to Anthony, or Gustav’s wrong, and Anthony is just a jerk. Whatever the case, my feelings toward Agent Angel-face have taken a huge hit.
Mari: You are bleeding points here, Agent Ugly on the Inside.
Dani: While Anthony and Red continue to argue, Laurel spots Gareth making drinks for people and decides to join him. (Side note: this scene comes at the 14:08 mark, which means there’s been an alarming shortage of Gareth up to this point.) Laurel sasses Gareth about them finally finding something he can do (making drinks) and they snark-flirt (snirt? flark?) at each other for a bit. Then Laurel tells Gareth he was wrong about Anthony and the waterboarding.
Laurel: So it’s not true, by the way. Your little smear campaign …
Gareth: My little—
Laurel: Anthony? The Torture Report? He was a whistleblower, not a water-boarder. I can see how you could confuse the two; it’s the same amount of syllables.
Gareth: Really, is that what he said? A whistleblower?
Rochelle shows up, along with Gustav, who she says insisted on coming. Gustav wants to know why everyone doubts his ability to handle himself, which is adorable. Laurel warns them both to keep on topic, because Luke is only giving them 10 minutes to present their screwworm theory.
In the hallway outside, Luke examines the cat-CAT scans while Rochelle tries to make their theory sound less crazy by likening it to other illnesses with entomological causes, like Lyme Disease and Zika. Luke asks about the symptoms, and while Rochelle lists them (deafness in one ear, imbalance, a heightened aggressiveness, disinterest in intimacy and sex, an aversion to alcohol). Laurel stares across the room at Anthony, who pretty much checks all those boxes.
Mari: I almost expected Luke to make the connection to Scarlett, but really the symptoms are of the kind that are so easily explained away. These bugs are sneaky.
Dani: Luke praises Rochelle’s father (Dr. Daudier, the first victim), and Rochelle seems touched. He gives her the number for Dr. Alaimo, a Congressional advisor who’s also a big-shot entomologist. Luke wants to get the doc’s views before he talks bugs to anyone, and the Scooby Gang is happy to comply. Before Luke leaves, he lets Rochelle know how sorry he is about her dad, and it’s very nice — or it would be, if he hadn’t already proved himself to be a womanizing man-whore. Nothing overt happens, but I’m worried, nonetheless.
Mari: It was so weird! It was part sincere and almost flirtatious but I can’t tell if that’s because Luke is yummy and always seems flirtatious or because we know he’s womanizer or what. But the sentiment was nice.
Dani: Laurel goes back to the party and tells Anthony they can leave. He’s drinking a spinach-celery smoothie and asks Laurel if she wants to try it. She doesn’t. (Smart girl.) She’s having an old-fashioned, which Anthony views with an equivalent level of disgust. Laurel looks sad, but she goes to his very neat apartment so he can make her a vegan dinner with, he says, a pinch of cinnamon. This is the point at which I’d bail, to be honest.
Laurel confronts Anthony about being standoffish, and he says he just doesn’t want to rush things. Then he falls to the floor, like someone just cast Petrificus Totalus on him.
Like that, only on his beautiful, beautiful face. Laurel grabs her phone, but before she can dial, Gustav knocks on the door because he secretly spiked Anthony’s smoothie with sedatives. Laurel is annoyed, but when Gustav recites the symptoms she knows he’s right. Gustav drapes raw bacon over Anthony’s ears to draw out the bugs, which seems totally legit to me: I, too, am drawn to bacon. Before they can see if it works, someone starts pounding on the door.
Female voice: Tony, is she in there? [long pause] You are such a scumbag! You could at least tell me to my face about your whore!
Laurel and Gustav try to be quiet, but Laurel’s phone rings and Anthony’s ex-bae hears it. She knows it’s not his ringtone (M: Damn, girl…) and says she’s coming in, but Laurel and Gustav hurry out the window and escape. Laurel wants to pummel Gustav (she’s a smacker!), but he tells her to look on the bright side: maybe Anthony’s not a bug… maybe he’s just a bastard. Yay?
Laurel’s phone rings again, and it’s someone letting her know that Lance Corporal Middleton has taken a very bad turn. Cut to the hospital, where Laurel has called in Luke. She tells him Middleton is in the early stages of liver failure, but it’s reversible if he gets the meds. Luke is frustrated that he hasn’t been able to help, and he gets angry when Laurel pushes him. He sees a photo of Lily, Middleton’s adorable daughter, and asks for a copy.
The next day, Gustav and Rochelle meet with Dr. Alaimo. Margo Martindale (The Good Wife, The Americans, and a millionty other things) is an amazing actress, and she has a wonderfully brusque, mad-scientist vibe going on here. Everything about her looks messy – her hair is in total disarray, her hippie-like clothes are wrinkled, her glasses keep sliding down her face, and stuff is scattered across her desk.
Gustav and Rochelle show her the CT scan from Gustav’s friend (the one whose head exploded), but she’s impatient and busy and distracted and asking questions they’ve already answered. Gustav’s ready to walk out, but Rochelle makes him show her the video of the bug he took. Now she’s interested, but she insists the bug on the video isn’t a screwworm — or anything else she’s ever seen IN HER LIFE. I’m no expert, but it just looks like a blurry ant to me. Maybe hold off on the generalizations until you see one in person?
Mari: Um, I’m sorry. Did you see that messy hair and desk. Obviously she’s brilliant and only needs fuzzy pictures.
Dani: You’re right. What was I thinking?
Meanwhile, Luke meets with Red Wheatus and shows him Baby Lily’s photo. Red accuses Luke of only caring about the publicity that saving Middleton’s life would bring Luke, since such an act could help the Democrats win the White House in 2020. Red then makes the photo of Baby Lily fake-cry over her soon-to-be-dead father and I die a little inside. Luke leaves Red’s office and expresses everything I’m feeling right now.
Luke gets a call from Dr. Alaimo, who says that Gustav and Rochelle are onto something, even if it sounds a little crazy. She promises to send him something to validate, then she tells Gustav and Rochelle they need to figure out how the bugs reproduce and how they communicate. She sends them to the Mall and the Capitol, areas of possible infestation clusters, to investigate.
Cut to Anthony and Laurel walking down the steps of the Supreme Court. Anthony is apologizing for what happened last night by confessing that he has a drinking problem.
Laurel: But you drank before, at the bar.
Anthony: And I shouldn’t have. Y’know, I was happy. But last night, I hit bottom. I… I just blacked out. Woke up with food in my ears.
Been there, bro.
Anthony assures Laurel he’s going back to AA, and when she brings up the woman who was at his door he swears he ended things with her after he spent the night with Laurel. Classy! Anthony wants to take Laurel out for dinner, but she wisely friend-zones him.
Mari: I’m now assuming that Anthony is both bug infested and a bastard. Damn, bro. You had us fooled.
Dani: Laurel sports Gustav lurking nearby, but he’s there on Dr. Alaimo’s orders. As he’s talking to Laurel, some dude walks by Anthony, and his hearing aid makes an awful, high-pitched noise. That gives Gustav an idea, and he runs off to ask Dr. Alaimo if perhaps the bugs are communicating via high-pitched frequencies that humans can’t hear. She tells him about a moth that can sense sounds at levels 150x that of humans. Gustav has an app that detects and disrupts high frequency transmissions (of course he does), so he decides to go to the Mall to try it out. Dr. Alaimo grabs her backpack and goes with him.
That night, Luke meets a former colleague from the DA’s office who now works for the CDC. They hug far too long, and the woman makes some sleazy small-talk before telling Luke that the lab people have been referring to the C.H.I.s as “head pops.” Nice. Luke tells her it’s actually bugs, and then they sleep together because being faithful to your pregnant wife is for chumps. Slutty CDC Lawyer peppers Luke with questions about the bugs as they bang each other, and everything about this is gross. Moving on.
Elsewhere, Gustav and Dr. Alaimo are looking for bugs in the trees at the Mall but having no luck. They decide it’s too dark and they’ll come back in the morning. Dr. Alaimo picks up her backpack from the ground and tosses it over her shoulder, never noticing that it’s chock-full of meteor bugs. Damn. I kinda liked Dr. Alaimo.
The next morning, everyone is laughing at Luke while they hold their fingers to their forehead to emulate little bug antennae. Papa Healy shows up to yell at Luke for talking about the bugs, because Slutty CDC Lawyer has turned the whole thing into a joke to embarrass him. He’s pissed, but personally I’d be more upset by the fact that Congress if filled with people who act like toddlers pretending to be bugs in order to ridicule a colleague. It didn’t play very realistically, but then neither does the actual news coming out of Washington these days.
Mari: TRUE. It also makes me wonder how many of these were infected people and how many of those there are exactly…
Dani: Papa Healy tells Luke to deny whatever Slutty CDC Lawyer said and move on. He asks where Luke is on the Veterans Committee thing, and Luke admits he’s stuck. Papa Healy believes that letting the guy die is probably just as good as saving him. Either way, it’s a win for the Democrats.
Luke is looking at pics of Middleton and the other vets as Satan Papa Healy talks about how they can use this to eventually get Luke into the White House. Luke walks out without saying anything, and I’m hoping he has more of his soul left than whatever putrid, festering sludge resides inside his father.
Luke brings Red to the hospital and introduces him to Middleton, who looks like he has about ten minutes left on this earth. Red brought along a photographer, and he’s eager for his photo op with this decorated soldier. Disgusted, Luke leaves the room. Laurel is surprised that he’s letting Red take the credit, but he did what had to be done in order to break the deadlock. Laurel is touched, but Luke changes the subject. He wants Laurel to drop the bug talk, which confuses Laurel because she thought Dr. Alaimo was on their side. But Luke says Dr. Alaimo called him that morning and told him they’re all crazy.
Rochelle and Gustav go to see Dr. Alaimo, who has done a complete 180, appearance-wise. She’s wearing a neatly pressed business suit, her hair is perfectly styled, and she doesn’t seem to need her glasses anymore. Even her desk is clean. Gustav speaks quietly into her right ear, but she can’t hear him. So long, Dr. Alaimo. We barely knew ye.
Mari: Probably putting your stuff down in a possibly infested zone wasn’t the best idea, girl. Surely they teach you that in school.
Dani: Later that night, Laurel is at home working on her documentary when Anthony shows up with an apology pizza, a bouquet of cherry blossoms (!!!) and a copy of Love, Actually. He claims it’s part of the 12-step program, making amends to those he’s harmed. Whatever – I’d still throw his ass out. But Laurel’s nicer than me and lets him in.
Up to this point, I was about 90% certain the bugs had gotten to Anthony. He had excuses for everything – he’s a recovering alcoholic, and a neat freak, and he just ended a serious relationship. Then he pops in the movie and tells Laurel he never gets bored of watching Hugh Grant dancing around 10 Downing… and now I’m 100% sure he’s a goner. Also, the pizza he brought contains pineapple, which is a universal sign that you can’t trust someone. (M: *keeps pizza preferences to herself*) (D: I grew up in NY; the guys in our local pizzeria would’ve derisively called this a “peanut butter and jelly” pie.)
Anthony claims Laurel’s pizza isn’t warm enough and goes off to heat it. She hears her cell phone ring, and we can see it’s Gareth. Before she can grab it, though, Anthony takes her hand. Laurel reminds him they’re just friends, but he wraps her in a hug that goes from needy boyfriend to boa constrictor in the blink of an eye. As Laurel tries to fight him off, the music from Love, Actually gets louder, and we get glimpses and sounds of their struggle intercut with scenes of Hugh Grant dancing, all while The Pointer Sisters’ “Jump (For My Love)” blasts away. It’s pretty fucking creepy, to be honest.
Somehow, Laurel is able to push Anthony away long enough to grab the brass knuckles that Gustav had left in the conference room earlier. She punches him — repeatedly — but he keeps coming at her. He seems genuinely surprised that she’s hitting him, and even more shocked that it hurts.
Dani: His bizarre, quasi-comical reaction helps make an otherwise VERY uncomfortable scene a little easier to stomach.
Mari: He was holding her down for bugs, obviously, but with the context of trying to “just be friends” and Anthony insisting and all that, it quickly went to a place reminiscent of date rape and, yep. Definitely uncomfortable to watch. The comical reaction brought it all back around to alien bugs.
Dani: Laurel tells Anthony she’ll straight-up murder his face if he doesn’t leave, and when he tries to argue she punches him again. He gets the hint eventually, but not before his face looks like a package of hamburger meat. Laurel throws his stuff into the hall, and we get an eerie glimpse of him still standing out there like a psychotic, bug-infested creeper. Laurel goes to the sink and washes the blood from her cut-up hands, and we see that the meteor bugs have disappeared. I wish she’d thrown the cherry blossoms into the hall, too! But the shock of what just happened has set in, and she can’t stop the shaking in her hands.
Meanwhile, Red is at the Capitol giving a big press conference to announce the restoration of funding for veteran’s drug trials. A much healthier-looking Lance Corporal Middleton is beside him in his wheelchair, with Baby Lily on his lap. Luke is watching from the shadows of the newly renamed Reagan Hut (oh, FFS), and Papa Healy is also there to tell his son what a loser he is for “handing” this to Red. Papa Healy wonders if this was Laurel’s doing, but Luke tells him no and admonishes him to just let it go. (Thanks, Elsa.) Luke walks away, but Papa Healy follows, telling him the only things he’s accomplished is giving Red more power.
Gareth overhears their exchange and looks thoughtful as he tries calling Laurel again. Laurel has showered the Anthony funk off her, but she still sounds raw. Gareth tells her that what Luke did today was pretty cool. Then he admits to being a jerk about the whole Anthony thing, but Laurel assures him he wasn’t. There’s a knock on her door, and she makes Gareth stay on the line while she checks to make sure it isn’t Anthony again. (The fact that Anthony is an FBI agent, and the FBI has those “264 Powers” that let them to take people into custody for “observation” is feeling really damned scary now.) (M: Oh, excellent point. Blech.)
But it’s not Anthony; it’s Gustav. Whew! Laurel tells Gareth she’ll call him another time, then gives Gustav a long hug.
After Gustav leaves, Laurel gets into bed WITHOUT THE FREAKING EAR COASTERS AND NETTING, and I scream at my TV. Then she thinks better of it and spends several minutes carefully installing the netting over her bed. She’s about to slip on the ear coasters when she shakes her head and tosses them aside. Damnit, Laurel! Cut to the kitchen, where the meteor bugs are crawling out of the cherry blossoms in the trash can.
Meanwhile, Gustav is back at the park with his little high-frequency interceptor device. This time, the readings are off the charts, and they’re coming from the cherry trees. He calls Laurel to warn her, since he saw the flowers that Anthony brought, but she’s asleep and doesn’t hear her phone vibrating. The bugs have worked their way through/under her netting and are now crawling up her arms. They make their way to her face… and then right into her ear! Laurel gasps and bolts up. Then the credits roll, and I’m like:
I just love screaming at my TV. Are they really going to infect the star of the show this early in the season? On any other show, I’d say no, but this is Michelle & Robert King, the same monsters who killed off Will Gardner on The Good Wife (no, I’m still not over it). I’m hoping Laurel awoke before too many bugs got to her – we only saw three enter into her ear. That doesn’t necessarily mean there weren’t more, though.
Mari: I’m not gonna lie; I immediately pressed play on the next episode because I had to know what happened to Laurel. (D: JEALOUS. I watched it live and had to wait a week!) In all, the show feels like it’s moving a tad slow, but it’s also so compulsively watchable that that’s a bad thing. I’m just falling in love with the characters all the more. Just in time for them to face bug danger, I guess…
Next time on BrainDead: Laurel’s got bugs in her ear and her friends might have some answers in S01 E06 – Notes Toward a Post-Reagan Theory of Party Alliance, Tribalist, and Loyalty: Past as Prologue
I’m a serial procrastinator and a genuinely terrible singer, and if anyone knows how to monetize either of these skills please hit me up. In my spare time, I like to study Dutch painters, Italian architecture, and Canadian bacon.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
