BrainDead S01 E06 – Screw Those Screwworms

Previously: Detective Hubba Hubba fooled us all, but Laurel got him with some punches IN THE FACE.
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Notes Toward a Post-Reagan Theory of Party Alliance, Tribalist, and Loyalty: Past as Prologue

Dani: I was pretty excited about this episode, because Aaron Tveit and Mary Elizabeth Winstead have been tweeting for weeks about filming a scene with “inappropriate salami.” MEW called it the weirdest scene of her career, and that’s saying a lot for someone who’s been in The Ring Two, Final Destination 3, and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Marines: AND PASSIONS. THE WEIRDEST SOAP OPERA EVER.

Dani: We begin with the obligatory “Previously on BrainDead” song, and I know I won’t shut up about them, but they really are the best thing ever. This one’s somewhat melancholy, but considering the way last episode ended I think Jonathan Coulton is just channeling my fear.

Mari: They are so on point with our reactions so far, from “not the cat!” to “NO, Laurel can’t be infected!” It’s so meta and lovely and seriously. We’re never going to stop gushing about them. 

Dani: NEVER.

The episode starts right where the last one ended — with Laurel gasping and sitting bolt upright in bed after the bugs crawled into her ear. She yells in pain but manages to trip her way to the phone and call 9-1-1. Unfortunately, the dispatcher has orders to transfer all buggy calls to Jules, the car-ramming, bomb-blogging One Wayer from two episodes ago. (M: Oh, hello there!) Jules says the EMTs are on their way (they’re not) and then eats her baby carrots like a crazy person. I wonder how many of these calls Jules has intercepted since being infected. No bueno, Jules!

Gustav comes over to warn Laurel about the cherry-bug blossoms and finds her crawling around in pain on the floor. He grabs her phone and tries to hurry the ambulance, but Jules tells him it’ll take 45 minutes. Bitch. He does a little freak-out and then hilariously tries to convince Laurel that nothing’s wrong. Then Laurel’s call waiting beeps, and it’s Gareth. He hears Laurel screaming in the background and wants to know what’s wrong. Gustav says everything’s fine, and once again he’s awesomely bad at selling the lie. Gareth leaves his office in a hurry.

Gustav makes Laurel recite stuff she’s memorized and is shocked when she doesn’t know the periodic table by heart. (Oh, Gustav, you beautiful science geek, you.) Rochelle shows up (party at Laurel’s, yo!) and sits with Laurel, who’s listing the presidents, while Gustav searches for bacon. He grabs some cold cuts and holds them to her ears, but Rochelle bats them away. Gustav swears it will draw out the screwworms, but Rochelle tells him to bugger off with his crazy-talk.

Mari: I honestly thought the bacon would’ve worked last episode so… am I going crazy too? 

Dani: Depends. Have you been wearing your earplugs every night?

Rochelle asks Laurel how many fingers she’s holding up, and Laurel says she did the same thing with Rochelle’s dad. Damn it, show, you CANNOT let Laurel’s head explode. Rochelle’s expression gives me feels, but Gustav has a revelation. They’ve been using reason and logic to drive out the bugs, but maybe it’s a left-brain/right-brain sort of thing. The bugs entered Laurel’s left ear, so they’ll fight them by stimulating the right side of Laurel’s brain with things like music, art, feelings, movement, passion, and risk-taking.

Rochelle thinks Gustav is on to something, so she gives Laurel a bottle of whisky to slug down and makes her eat chocolate and other indulgent foods. (Um, how do I sign up for this therapy?) (M: You could recap Twilight with us…) Gustav cranks up some tunes, and Rochelle encourages Laurel to dance. She’s reluctant at first, proclaiming it won’t work, but then Rochelle asks whether it still hurts. It does… but not as much. It might be working!

Mari: I’m worried for Laurel, but this gif is life and I love Gustav and Rochelle and Laurel and I can use this gif in so many situations on Snark Squad and God bless this scene.

Dani: Gustav puts some Abbot & Costello on TV, and an indeterminate amount of time passes as they all dance around and drink. Then Laurel falls down, because the bugs are moving and she’s in hella-pain again.

Rochelle and Gustav realize they have to step it up, but the only other right-brain activity they can come up with is sex. Cut to Gareth knocking on the door. He spots the deli meats strewn across the floor and hears the very loud moans from the porno Laurel is watching on her laptop in the other room. Man, if I had a nickel for every time this has happened to me…

Rochelle tells Gareth that Laurel needs his help and then hauls him into the apartment. In the bedroom, Laurel closes her laptop, picks up her trusty bottle of whisky, and tells the bugs they’ve met their match.

Rochelle explains that Laurel has a “condition” where she needs a burst of dopamine (hey, Aaron Tveit — I think I have that condition, too!). (M: I have that condition worse! CALL ME.) Laurel stumbles into the room in her nightshirt and awkwardly smiles at Gareth.

Gareth: Hi. I… just came to make sure you were all right.
Laurel: I am. I’m … [groans in pain] … I’m not supposed to think.
Gareth: You’re not? Why not?
Laurel: To explain would be to think, and I’m not supposed to think.
Gareth: Okay.

I really like the camera angle they chose for that bit. It’s also possible I just really like Aaron Tveit’s face. (M: Likely.)

Laurel says something about being right in the middle of a good dream when all at once she wakes up, and then I have 70’s flashbacks because she’s actually reciting the lyrics to “I Think I Love You.” She eventually breaks into song, and when Gustav and Rochelle chime in Gareth asks if it’s karaoke night.

Sure, Gareth. Let’s go with that.

Gustav finds the song on his phone, and soon The Partridge Family blasts through the apartment (and into my head, where it’s stayed for several days, dammit). The way this show uses music is so weird and random… like, how did we move from The Cars to The Partridge Family? Are we just reliving my formative years now?

Rochelle and Gustav sneak away and close the door, leaving Gareth and Laurel alone. Gareth stops long enough to wonder if this is such a great idea. He asks Laurel what they’re doing, and she tells them they’re getting the bugs out of her head. Either he assumes it’s a metaphor, or he’s just down for whatever because he thinks for a moment and then says, “Sure.”

They move things to the bedroom, where Gareth is trying to take things slowly, asking Laurel if she’s sure, but Laurel is totally sure and in quite a hurry, too. (I’d normally stop here to say something about consent, given that Laurel’s consumed half a bottle of whisky, but we’re obviously not supposed to take this scene seriously.) (M: Yeah, okay, but also consent is cool, kids, and people should be in possession of all their faculties when they consent. OKAY. SPACE BUGS.)

Space bugs. Right. Laurel must be anticipating quite a workout, because she’s brought along sustenance.

Gareth: You hungry?
Laurel: Mm … don’t stop.

I had to re-watch this scene A LOT (for completely legit recapping purposes), and each time it got funnier.

Out in the kitchen, Rochelle and Gustav are waiting patiently, listening to David Cassidy (like you do), when Gustav asks Rochelle if she’s ever noticed that black people die first in horror movies. Rochelle side-eyes him, but I’m betting she’s noticed.

Mari: I’d like to imagine she’s side-eyeing the threat of death and not the observation. Because: legit. 

Dani: Back in the bedroom, Operation: Screw Those Screwworms continues. In between bites of chocolate and salami, Laurel directs Gareth to either go faster, or else move a certain way and, um… hit a certain spot. I actually feel a little bad for Gareth when he asks if she wants him to kiss her breasts and she rudely shushes him for talking when she’s directing traffic. She won’t really let him kiss her, and for the most part he looks like he’s just trying to prepare himself for whatever strange thing she does next. LOL – like having sex with someone for the first time wasn’t awkward enough.

Gareth politely asks if he could maybe have his arm back, since it’s stuck beneath her. Laurel decides the whole thing would just be easier if she were on top and so she rolls them over, does her thing and then immediately falls onto his chest and starts snoring. Poor Gareth; he powers through all the weirdness, and he doesn’t even get a happy ending.

Mari: He did get a bite of salami, though.

Dani: And according to this mini-interview, it was one helluva bite.

Out in the kitchen, Rochelle and Gustav jump as a small army of the little creatures come skittering out from beneath the bedroom door. Gustav gathers his wits and jumps into action.

Gareth exits the bedroom and stops short when he sees that Rochelle and Gustav never left, and Gustav doesn’t exactly add a normal vibe to the situation, lying on the kitchen floor with his cup o’ bug.

Laurel wakes up after Gareth has left, and we’re all super relieved to see that she’s completely bug-free. It’s good to know binge-drinking, overeating, and sleeping around (aka the college years) are good for something!

Mari: Some of us appear to be safe from bug infestation.

Dani: The next day, Ella and Red are arguing over funding the CDC’s budget, while Republican leader Amarant and Luke seem to be the only ones capable of acting like adults. Red knocks on Gareth’s door, demanding he bring him those One-Wayer emails, but Gareth is too busy staring at his phone. He eventually picks it up and dials, but changes his mind before it goes through. We’ll assume he was calling Laurel, who’s sitting in her own office, staring at the phone. Aww… they already have so much in common! Laurel also picks up the phone, and it rings while she’s still contemplating the digits. But it isn’t Gareth… it’s Rochelle.

Rochelle wants to make sure Laurel’s okay (she is), and she’s also curious as to whether Laurel talked to Gareth (and whether he saw the legions of bugs exiting Stage Left last night). Laurel says she’s a million percent sure Gareth will never want to speak to her again, but Rochelle tells her to call him anyway, because people can be understanding. Aww, it’s sweet that she thinks there’s some way to explain what happened without sounding like a complete nutter.

Laurel says goodbye to Rochelle and immediately calls Stacie, her reporter friend who was infected several episodes ago. She tells Stacie she has a scoop for her but has to relate it in person. They make plans to meet up for drinks that night.

Meanwhile, Rochelle and Gustav are examining their captive space bug in the lab. It hasn’t moved, and just seems to be creepily watching them. Rochelle removes one of its legs and puts it in a separate petri dish, so they can run it through the spectrometer. Gustav watches it while Rochelle turns away, and THE DETACHED LEG CRAWLS TO THE SIDE OF THE DISH, almost like it’s trying to reconnect with the rest of its body in the other dish. (M: WHY WHY WHY.) Gustav calls Rochelle over.

Gustav: Bugs don’t do that… do they?
Rochelle: I’ve never seen it.
Gustav: [looking skyward] Do you think these bugs might be from—
Rochelle: Don’t say it.
Gustav: What?
Rochelle: I don’t know, but don’t say it.
Gustav: Outer—
Rochelle: DON’T…
Gustav: I’m just—
Rochelle: Shh! Don’t say it.

The women in this show sure like to shush the menfolk. What a refreshing change!

Back in the Senate offices, Laurel is gathering up her stuff when Luke comes in with a constituent (the grumpy senior from the first episode). Laurel says she was just leaving, but Luke tells her yeah, no in a very I-may-be-your-brother-but-I’m-still-your-boss sort of way. Grumpy is there because they’ve moved his polling station from across the street to a location 40 minutes away. He complains about all the buses he needs to take and says that when he talked to his state reps they told him it came down from his senator. Laurel wonders if maybe they meant Red Wheatus, instead of Luke, but Grumpy can’t be bothered with remembering the names of all TWO senators when there are buses to complain about.

Grumpy grumps off, leaving Laurel with a handy excuse to visit Gareth’s office. She hovers around like a creeper, then impresses the receptionist with her severe case of awkwarditis.

Receptionist: May I help you?
Laurel: Um… Laurel Healy for… [gulps] Gareth Ritter.
Receptionist: And what is this regarding?
Laurel: A constituent… I have to help.
Laurel: Actually, no. Just… just tell him I’m here.
Laurel: No… wait. Yes, it is work-related.
Receptionist: Would you take a seat, please?
Laurel: [sits, then jumps up] Actually, don’t say that. Just say that I was here and—

Her rambling is interrupted by Red, who storms out of his office and bitches at the receptionist because his smoothie doesn’t have kale in it. The receptionist apologizes and hurries off to make him a new spit and snot kale smoothie. Red recognizes Laurel and tells her he wants to talk to her. She hesitantly goes into his office, and he immediately starts mocking for being “the bleeding-heart Healy” who cares about “wah, poor veterans and their cute little daughters… boo-hoo, why’s my daddy sick?” Damn, I thought this level of antagonism and vitriol toward a veteran’s relatives only came from a certain presidential candidate! (M: And yet there are no space bugs to excuse him…)

Laurel tells Red that Luke cares, too, but Red thinks Luke is more politically motivated. He’s strategic, whereas Laurel is unpredictable. Red tells Laurel she should go back to L.A., and when she asks why he cares he says it’s because she’s in his way, plus he doesn’t like the way she’s been distracting his Chief of Staff. Laurel is annoyed, and not just because he keeps calling her Lana, instead of Laurel, and making snide remarks about her getting emotional during her “woman time.”

Laurel heads to the door, but she’s distracted by several maps spread out on a table. Red moves to cover them, but there’s an even larger map of Maryland (with certain districts highlighted) on a nearby easel.

Laurel: What are these maps about?
Red: [turning map over] Office work product.
Laurel: It’s not very smart of you to let me see them.
Red: Doesn’t matter. You’re gonna lose.
Laurel: Then why do you care if I’m in the way?
Red: [chuckles] You are a sly one. I’m gonna keep an eye on you.

Gareth comes into the senator’s office, and once he and Laurel awkwardly stare at each other for a while they go back to his office. Laurel says she’s not there to talk about last night, but rather gerrymandering (hot!). Gareth tells her to back the train up, because they absolutely should talk about last night. Laurel looks ill, but it’s probably just because of all that salami and chocolate she ate last night.

Mari: Good on Gareth for insisting they use their words!

Dani: They go outside, where Laurel acknowledges the evening was odd and she gets why Gareth can’t even. Laurel asks what he saw after she passed out, and he says he just held her (aww) and then got dressed. She asks if he saw anything around her ears, but he didn’t. (He was probably too busy staring at the ceiling wondering WTF just happened.)

Laurel tells him she gets these weird migraines and needs… human contact. HOKAY. Gareth wonders what she would have done if he hadn’t been there, but Laurel says he *was* there. She asks him if he’s asking whether she sleeps around, and he says he isn’t even though he totally is. Then he says he just wants to know he wasn’t being used last night. (Poor, sad puppy.) Laurel says last night was great, but Gareth says no, it wasn’t great, it was weird. Laurel agrees and asks him what he wants.

Gareth: For things to be normal. I want to talk and joke and take you out to dinner. And pay. And then kiss you on your stoop one night… feel awkward about calling you the next day. And then I talk to my friends, and they say not to call because I’ll come across too vulnerable, but of course *I* call anyway. And then we’re… I don’t know… happy? A little awkward on the phone together?

Laurel’s smile as he delivers this speech has so much hope and longing in it you just know she’s about to get shot down.

Picky!

Mari: A girl can’t make one mistake…

Dani: Gareth says he just needs some time to think, and I have feels when Laurel nods and tells him that makes sense. So now I hate Anthony for not only attacking Laurel and bringing the bugs into her house, but also for fucking up her relationship with Gareth (all of which happened in the span of a few hours last night). Jerk!

Before Gareth leaves, he asks Laurel what she needed when she came to his office, and she reluctantly admits she wants the secret redistricting files that will prove Red’s been gerrymandering. This is hardly reassuring to Gareth and that whole “not feeling used” thing. He shakes his head and leaves.

Meanwhile, Rochelle and Gustav meet with Dr. Wu, Rochelle’s friend from the CDC. They’ve brought the bug in an adorably small metal case (seriously, picture an American Girl doll with one of those metal briefcases that villains carry cash and/or drugs in). Rochelle and Gustav remind Dr. Wu that Laurel risked her life to obtain the bug, so he’d better not fuck it up. I get very nervous as they hand it over and might have even yelled at my TV a little. But come on… it would have taken two minutes to test his hearing, balance, and tolerance for alcohol. Sheesh! (M: SAME THOUGHTS. I would’ve tried to tip him over with the cutest metal case in the world.)

Inside the Senate, the committee is discussing the CDC budget. Luke and Ella want to approve it, but Red has issues because the CDC put out a comic book about preparing for a zombie pandemic (which totally happened).

Red wants to know if the CDC is spending taxpayer money to investigate zombies, because someone at the CDC told him that Dr. Wu is investigating a bug with zombie-like, brain-eating tendencies. Red moves to delay approval of the CDC’s budget until the CDC director can assure them the people’s money isn’t being misspent.

Cut to the director of the CDC marching into Dr. Wu’s lab with armed guards who take the bug away, remove it from its adorable American Girl doll suitcase, and pop the probably not-spacebug-proof petri dish into an UNLOCKED DRAWER in a massive storage area. Great.

Back in Luke’s offices, Laurel is looking up voting precincts online when an aide drops off a bunch of maps and an envelope with the secret “Active Redistricting Committee” notes. There’s a sticky note on it from Gareth that says ‘don’t tell anyone where you got this.’ Laurel smiles and gets to work, covering the floor of her office with giant maps and marking the proposed voting precincts on them. Luke comes in to tell her everyone thinks she’s crazy, and Laurel tells him what Red’s up to. Luke argues that Red, as a senator, is unaffected by gerrymandering (since there are two from each state, regardless of population). Only candidates running for the House of Representatives would be affected, but Laurel thinks he’s gunning for a Republican majority in both the House and Senate. Sounds legit.

Luke doesn’t think gerrymandering will cause a scandal, as politicians don’t embarrass easily, but he does offer Laurel one bit of advice: the more ludicrous the district looks, the better. I don’t know about Maryland, but here’s a look at Austin, where I live:

That’s right… Austin is SO liberal, they had to slice us up into thin strips and dilute our votes with huge swaths of Republicans (that purple district stretches all the way to the suburbs of Houston, three hours away). Grrr.

Anyway, Laurel returns to her map with renewed energy while I return to this recap with renewed sadness. When she finally finishes, she steps back to see an odd pattern has emerged: it’s the weird symbols Coulson was drawing in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.! Except not. It’s actually crop circles!

Laurel calls the Scooby Gang together for a reality check. Gustav thinks this proves the bugs are from outer space, but Rochelle says it’s beyond crazy to think an alien race is plotting against us by turning voting precincts into crop circle-like patterns. Gustav notices that all the circles point toward Capitol Hill, and then they have to tell Laurel about Dr. Wu losing the bug because of Red derailing the CDC budget talks.

Speaking of which, Ella and some other senators are in Luke’s office agreeing to the strategy they’ll use to outmaneuver Red with the budget. Laurel pops in, and Luke assures her he has the votes to get the CDC their budget; he just can’t be seen talking about bugs. Laurel makes the zip-it signal and promises not to say anything. Then she turns around and sees Gareth leaving a note for someone.

She says hi, and he crumples it up and tries to hide it.

Gareth, we need to talk about that comma placement.

Laurel says yes, please… but not tonight because she’s meeting Stacie. She thanks Gareth and promises that they can make it normal again. Aww!

You guys, I was so busy being happy about Gareth’s “time to think” phase lasting all of two seconds that I missed how much his handwriting has changed.

We saw him writing the note about the drinks, so either that’s a major continuity error, or else the sticky note on the redistricting files was a forgery. I hope Laurel notices, if it’s the latter.

Later that night, Laurel joins Stacie at some hip bar. Stacie says the music is too loud, she’s too tired to dance, and she doesn’t want the drinks Laurel just brought, either. (Stacie should hook up with Grumpy.) But Laurel persists, hoping she can “cure” Stacie the same way she was cured. She even invited one of Stacie’s old boyfriends, but Stacie says OH HELL NO. She grabs Laurel’s arm and squeezes hard, and we get to experience the bugs communicating directly for the first time.

Stacie: Listen to me. We know what you’re doing. It’s not going to work.
Laurel: Let go of my hand, Stacie.
Stacie: She’s gone. Stacie’s gone. You can’t get her back; she doesn’t want to come back.
Laurel: I came back, Stacie. You just have to use the right side of your brain.
Stacie: This is different. Knock the side of my head. Go ahead. There’s nothing there. Go ahead, chase us away. But your friend will be a lobotomized idiot.
Laurel: What do you want?
Stacie: [leans in] Everything… We. Want. Everything.

Dani: EVERYTHING, everything? Like… even used toothbrushes, and stuff?

Mari: Aw, they are new here. Maybe they don’t know of evil things like… shared toothbrushes.

Dani: Laurel wants to know if the bugs are taking over the government, but Stacie’s all LOL, what government? Then she does the little fingers-as-antennae thing that annoyed me so much last episode, cackling creepily as she leaves.

Mari: Dude, the government is FULL of zombies then. Damn.

Dani: The next day, Rochelle is out jogging when she gets knocked to the ground by a group of joggers listening to “You Might Think.” I was wondering when we’d get to hear that song again! Something about the encounter makes Rochelle go back to work and open up a PRI program on The Music of the Spheres.

The announcer says it’s merely the sound of light curves from the outer reaches of the Milky way, which is probably how they’d explain the sound the TARDIS makes, too. Rochelle listens to a recording of it, and then speeds it up. The faster it plays, the more the rhythm begins to sound like… wait for it… “You Might Think,” by The Cars! Wow, talk about slow-playing a plotline. The particular sound she’s listening to supposedly comes from the Draco constellation, more than 148 light years away. Oooo-weeee-oooo.

Meanwhile in the Senate, it looks like Stacie and her bug overlords were correct. The CDC is testifying before the Senate committee, and Red, knowing he lacks the votes, switches tactics. He asks about the CDC testing on animals that get shipped off to “rendering farms” when they die their miserable, disease-ridden deaths. Luke tries to steer the committee back to the budget, but Ella takes the bait and runs. Welp, so much for Luke having the votes…

Mari: And cue Cabinet Battle #1 in every piece of Hamiltrash’s brain.

Dani: Laurel shows Luke her maps, and he agrees that gerrymandering is afoot. Laurel points out that it looks like crop circles, and Luke just chuckles and says, “Oh, yeah … kinda.” Then he points out that the way the precincts are drawn actually benefits the Democrats, not the Republicans. Laurel can’t understand why Red would do that, but Luke dismisses it as general stupidity.

I don’t know, guys. Red may be a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them. Coupled with not-Gareth’s handwriting on the sticky that accompanied the notes on redistricting, I’m getting a bad feeling about this. Red wouldn’t have left all those maps out unless Laurel was meant to see them. I smell set-up!

Mari: Same! Laurel’s “it wasn’t smart to let me see these” comment makes it all seem so obvious that this is a set-up now. I’m gonna need our girl to cotton on.

Dani: Luke has to head to the Appropriations meeting, but before he leaves he tells Laurel they’re losing. Red and Ella should be at each other’s throats, and it’s scary when they agree. (M: Echoes how scary it should be that these districts are apparently helping the Dems.) The Committee moves to vote on the CDC budget, but before they do Ella has some comments. She doesn’t like the way Red is trying to derail the department, because they do vital work despite the animal testing thing. So Ella moves that instead of approving the budget as-is, they increase it by three billion dollars, and fight a “war on death” like their friends in Finland (ah – it’s our obligatory reference to a Scandinavian country. We need a BrainDead drinking game — shots when anyone references Ronald Reagan, the NRA, public radio, or a Scandinavian country. Who’s with me??) (M: Sorry, again: I recap Twilight. My liver can’t.)

The CDC director asks Luke what the hell is going on, and Luke tells him the Republicans will never approve doubling the CDC budget. So Ella just effectively shut down the CDC. The director says our country needs the CDC for strategic disease-protection (and zombie uprising) purposes, but Luke says America will have to get by without it now. So Red wins, after all.

Back in the office, Laurel is rolling up her crop-circle maps when Rochelle stops by to tell her Gustav might be right about the bugs coming from outer space. Ooh, I bet that wasn’t easy to admit!

Cut to the CDC warehouse, where there are some very weird noises coming from the spacebug Drawer of Holding.

And then cut to a bar where Laurel and Gareth are trying to start over with a round of old-fashioneds (I love their commitment to this drink). They pretend to introduce themselves, and Laurel straight-up admits she thinks she’s going insane.

Gareth: Well, if we’re being honest… why insane?
Laurel: Because I think bugs are eating people’s brains and turning them stupid.

Gareth laughs, but he stops when he realizes Laurel is being serious. Laurel, girl… this isn’t a great start to your “we can make it normal again” promise. (M: Don’t care! I’m THRILLED by the possibility of her using her words!) Gareth takes another drink and just says, “Huh,” exactly as he did upon leaving Laurel’s apartment after salami sex. This poor guy…

Aaaaand roll credits.

This episode didn’t have a cliff-hangery ending like the previous two, and a lot of the plot-points weren’t exactly revelatory to us, as viewers. Still, it’s great to watch Rochelle and Gustav detecting the shit out of things. Most of this episode was fairly forgettable, but the first 10 minutes, with the whole Partridge Family salami sex thing, more than made up for it. Those scenes alone will probably end up making this one of the most memorable episodes of any show I’ve ever watched.

Mari: Agreed! It was fun but I was also really worried for Laurel the whole time. It was funny but weird. And damn if my love for Rochelle and Gustav just keeps getting bigger. Up in that scene, when they are singing Partridge Family to each other? My heart melts both at their dedication to helping their friend and that shared moment of weirdness and guards down. I really, really hope that Laurel follows through here and explains the bug thing in a sufficient way. The only thing that would make detecting the shit out of things better would be added Gareth. 

 

Next time on BrainDead: Anthony Onofrio (Agent Douchebag) returns in S01 E07 – The Power of Euphemism: How Torture Became a Matter of Debate in American Politics.