Previously: BARBARA! YOU DESERVE BETTER! — Holly, Jolly Marines: Barbara lands on her back. She’s in what looks like a snowy nightmare version of a woods. I hate it. She gets...
Episode 2 begins with a “previously on Braindead” recap that’s written and sung by the king of geek culture, Jonathan Coulton (the guy whose cover was ripped off by FOX/Glee sparking a controversy that led to a plotline on The Good Wife and also this gig).
Marines: A recent episode of The OC we recapped featured one of my favorite TV things EVER, episode specific changes to the credit sequence. I went off on a whole sidebar about how much I love it. That said, this might be just as good as that. HOW WONDERFUL.
Marines: A recent episode of The OC we recapped featured one of my favorite TV things EVER, episode specific changes to the credit sequence. I went off on a whole sidebar about how much I love it. That said, this might be just as good as that. HOW WONDERFUL.
Remember that whole thing from AN ENTIRE SEASON AGO where Joey was into art? Yeah. Apparently she's into art again, because she's painting a mural on a wall at school. She's also borrowed Buffy's Overalls of Overall Sadness. (D: Between this and the "tabula rasa" reference later in the episode, I'm considering this two #crossovermagic episodes in a row.) (K: Motion carried.) Pacey walks up and smiles at her fondly. I flail a little. She asks what he's doing there, and he says he's hoping he'll absorb some of her genius by osmosis or something. Joey joins the dots and realises that he's been kicked out of home again. Pacey says that his eldest sister has left her husband and moved home, along with her small screaming children. Oof.
I really wanted to pretend that I have totally been keeping up with the show since recapping The Telanovela, but there is literally nothing happening before my mind is already blown. It wasn't THAT long ago that Kirsten was bragging about her specialty of taking food out of take out containers and now she's apparently cooked a full gourmet breakfast!? Was the drinking really that bad?
Wait, Seth and Ryan are looking very confused by this exuberant breakfast before school (they're all still so awake in the morning, it's weird) so it must not be a regular thing. In typical teenage-boy fashion, they just want their cereal and bagels.
Wait, Seth and Ryan are looking very confused by this exuberant breakfast before school (they're all still so awake in the morning, it's weird) so it must not be a regular thing. In typical teenage-boy fashion, they just want their cereal and bagels.
Capeside High. Dawson and Jen talk to each other like normal friends for perhaps the first time in this show’s history, and it's refreshing! She discusses turning into her mother, who was a beauty queen when she was young. Jen thinks she’s a poser for being elected homecoming queen, but Dawson thinks she’s being too hard on herself, and that people voted for her because she’s her. Jen still thinks her blonde hair and big tits had something to do with it, and Dawson doesn’t disagree, but he still thinks her "alternative" vibe is what's drawing people to her. Also, I tried to find a gif of Christina Applegate in Anchorman talking about her "exquisite breasts" to use here, but you would not believe how difficult that questionable google search was, you guys. I saw a LOT of Tumblr tits.
My history with the OC is that I watched obsessively in high school, but I can’t remember how many seasons I got through. All I really remember is rooting for Anna, and I’m pretty sure her time here has come and gone. (M: SADLY.) I do know the basics of the main drama-makers here.
We open at what I assume is their high school, though everyone is a good seven years older than I was in high school. They must be a bunch of idiots.
Seth is reminiscing about how last year was so much better, even though his list of last year includes “possible illegitimate daughter”, but I get too distracted by Seth’s sweater vest and the fact that I think Ryan is wearing bell-bottom jeans to really pay close attention.
We open at what I assume is their high school, though everyone is a good seven years older than I was in high school. They must be a bunch of idiots.
Seth is reminiscing about how last year was so much better, even though his list of last year includes “possible illegitimate daughter”, but I get too distracted by Seth’s sweater vest and the fact that I think Ryan is wearing bell-bottom jeans to really pay close attention.
Shrine o' Spielberg. Due to their sad tragic single status and the fact that it's apparently a million degrees, movie night's list of attendees has been reduced to Dawson and Pacey. It may also have something to do with how much they're sweating. Seriously, it's gross:
Democracy Diva: For real. They don't even look like they're sweating - they just look like they're covered in baby oil.
K: YES. Which, to be honest, they probably were.
Pacey bemoans the state of their lives, and also how much Indian summer sucks, thereby earning himself a shiny gold star.
Democracy Diva: For real. They don't even look like they're sweating - they just look like they're covered in baby oil.
K: YES. Which, to be honest, they probably were.
Pacey bemoans the state of their lives, and also how much Indian summer sucks, thereby earning himself a shiny gold star.
Shrine o' Spielberg. Dawson's plans for a get-to-know-you movie night with Eve have gone awry because a) she prefers TV and b) she's taken over said TV and is making him watch Felicity. I laugh for approximately a hundred years over his "HOW CAN YOU PREFER TV?!?!?!" reaction. She says TV is the same thing but "shorter and with built in bathroom breaks" and she's not at all wrong. Dawson scoffs some more, particularly when she says it's like getting a new sequel every week, because "Sequels I hate on principle". Ugh. Go fuck yourself, Dawson Leery. I'll just be over here with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, shitting all over your arguments.
Night, the woods. A young woman calls out to her friends. There's no response. A guy comes rushing up to her, yelling that her friends are dead and that he has to find his sister. He runs off into the darkness and she shouts after him. There's a noise behind her and she turns, then screams. Her scream trails off pathetically as the camera pans out to show that she's on a film set, pretending to be terrified of a tennis ball. The director calls a cut, and production assistants rush around doing their thing. The director asks Tara, the actress, to try a better scream next time, and she says she's struggling with the tennis ball thing. He insists that the final product will be terrifying, she says she'll try harder and withdraws to a seat nearby.
At Rosewood High School for Processing your Stalkers, the Pretty Little Liars recap the last episode for us - the squatter in the DiLaurentis crawlspace and CeCe blaming all of these then-14-year-olds for getting her 21-year-old ass kicked out of college.
Marines: I feel it's my obligation to say that one of the girls say that napping isn't living, which is just more proof that they are doing life wrong.
Sweeney: We just need to sit them all down and have a chat.
Marines: I feel it's my obligation to say that one of the girls say that napping isn't living, which is just more proof that they are doing life wrong.
Sweeney: We just need to sit them all down and have a chat.
We open, predictably, in the Shrine o' Spielberg. Joey's crying her way through the first cut of Dawson's autobiographical shitfest. As it finishes, he asks for her opinion. "In my whole life, I've never been so unequivocally moved by words and moving images on screen!" she says before continuing that this movie will change people's lives. Dawson's thrilled. Joey says that there's no doubt that Jack McPhee will be one of the great filmmakers of our generation. Dawson's all "Skrrrrt, WHAT". He grabs the tape from the VCR and finds that it says it was directed by Jack.
He's confused. Jack climbs in the window, and he and Joey gush over each other for a minute before Jack says that he bumped into Spielberg and has been offered a job.
He's confused. Jack climbs in the window, and he and Joey gush over each other for a minute before Jack says that he bumped into Spielberg and has been offered a job.
Mama Fields is on the phone, presumably with the LOLPD, trying to get some answers about the car that was thrown at her house. Apparently, there was no sign of the driver, which Pam finds super hard to believe. After the phone call, Pam tells Emily to quit sulking around the motel and go to her college guidance session.
Hasting's House. Emily, Aria and Spencer are together and worrying about the Fields family. Spencer says that A likes to throw cars at people AND THAT'S WHAT WE'VE BEEN SAYING. Wait, did Sara know this was going to happen and inject that language into the recaps early? Whatever is happening here, I like it.
Hasting's House. Emily, Aria and Spencer are together and worrying about the Fields family. Spencer says that A likes to throw cars at people AND THAT'S WHAT WE'VE BEEN SAYING. Wait, did Sara know this was going to happen and inject that language into the recaps early? Whatever is happening here, I like it.
Shrine O'Spielberg. Pacey is eating pizza and generally pissing Dawson off by noting that everyone in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is totally dead right now. After a discussion about how Dawson is Richie Cunningham Jimmy Stewart every nice guy in film/TV history, Jen stumbles in and collapses on Dawson's bed, wasted. This scene basically just establishes that Jen is back to her hot mess Big City Girl ways, and Pacey likes pizza, because it's yummy.
Kirsti: That Pacey. Always the sensible one...
Kirsti: That Pacey. Always the sensible one...
Rosewood's One Coffee Shop, after-hours because there is no one around. It's the same day as the last episode so the beginning exposition ("Any word from Jason while we've been together this entire time?") is especially clunky. Emily has not heard anything from Jason. Hanna wonders if now that the whole National Adolescent Terrorization Club is out of Rosewood, A will retire. Spencer gives the appropriately jaded, "YEAH RIGHT." response.
Emily redirects the conversation over to Cece lying to them about knowing Wilden. The girls wonder if maybe she's Red Coat. Spencer is distracted by an incoming text message. Aria asks her what she thinks and she's all, "maybe Cece is Red Coat!" Aria tells her to pay attention.
Emily redirects the conversation over to Cece lying to them about knowing Wilden. The girls wonder if maybe she's Red Coat. Spencer is distracted by an incoming text message. Aria asks her what she thinks and she's all, "maybe Cece is Red Coat!" Aria tells her to pay attention.
Hanna and Spencer are in the former's room as she tries on outfits and complains that nothing covers the bandage on her leg from her gigantic improbable stab wound. There's always... pants?
Lorraine: MIND BLOWN. The Improbable Wound is mid-thigh. I'm not sure she should be having this much difficulty finding something to cover it.
Sweeney: You live in Pennsylvania. There's no way that you don't own clothing that will cover past mid-thigh. Winter is coming, girl. (Eventually. One day. Maybe.)
Lorraine: MIND BLOWN. The Improbable Wound is mid-thigh. I'm not sure she should be having this much difficulty finding something to cover it.
Sweeney: You live in Pennsylvania. There's no way that you don't own clothing that will cover past mid-thigh. Winter is coming, girl. (Eventually. One day. Maybe.)