Original Airdate: June 20, 2016
After a recap of last episode is sung to us, we're pretty much where we left off.
The space insects have infested multiple houses, and are moving into Laurel's apartment. She attempts to ward them off with typical bug spray, but to no avail - they just keep coming. Concerned, but having more important things on her mind then insects, she goes to work. Waiting for her is FBI Agent Anthony Onofrio, who wants to ask her a few questions about the incident with Daudier. Aside from the fact that his head exploded, Laurel really doesn't know much. She's pretty certain, though, that it wasn't from a gunshot (one of the EMT's claims they heard a gun firing), and she's almost positive it wasn't because the driver is of Middle Eastern descent. Onofrio gives her his card, and lets her know that should she remember and/or learn anything, to contact him.
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| Agent Onofrio |
While not many constituents are in the office, Laurel rejects her brother's offer to go back home. He has a Democratic caucus meeting to attend, the first since they lost the majority in the Senate (and as Senator Healy's the party Whip, he is expected to be in the hotseat). He is - he's blamed by many for losing Senator Spitz to the Republican Party. Luke is backed up by a fellow Democratic Senator, and instead of blaming him and questioning his position as party Whip, they plan to fight the Republicans. After the meeting, however, the Senator in question tells Luke that if he has some plan, he best get on it, as she can only keep the rest of the members at bay for so long. As Spitz was offered a lot to switch to the Republican Party, Luke states that he'll find the Republican who was pushed aside and bring him over to the Democrats.
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| Unnamed Democratic Senator (left) standing up for Healy |
One of the few constituents, Annie, a young girl with cancer, is trying to raise money for awareness by posing in front of twenty national monuments in twenty days with her father's help. The problem is, because of the shutdown, they're unable to take a picture in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Laurel promises to bring it up to the Senator and do what she can. Luke mostly blows off the request, but does offer to look into it if Laurel can meet up with Gareth and find out which Republican was pushed aside to make room for Spitz.
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| Annie and her father |
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| Luke convincing Laurel to get information from Gareth |
During the meeting, Gareth doesn't apologize, as he feels he did nothing wrong - Senator Wheatus simply changed his mind on helping end the shutdown. He does, however, invite Laurel to the Tax Prom, a prom-type party run by tax lobbyists. After an appearance on a political show, Wheatus offers to end the shutdown if Luke meets him for a meeting the next morning, which he agrees to do.
Meanwhile, chess player Gustav noticed a friend of his is bleeding from his ear. Despite getting him to a hospital, his friend's head explodes, splattering brain matter on his shirt and leaving him in shock. At home, he researches exploding head syndrome, but finding that one's head doesn't actually explode from it. He decides to record some of the brain matter left on his shirt to see if he can learn anything. After some time, he captures footage of a small insect exiting the brain.
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| Gustav playing chess |
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| Gustav's now-deceased friend |
At the Tax Prom, Laurel runs into two former friends - a photographer Stacie, and Abby, who months ago won a grant to write a novel, but now is working for a right-wing organization Help America Rise Again, confounding both Stacie and Laurel. Stacie suggests that the three of them have a girl's night out, get Abby drunk (as she has also stopped drinking), and have fun like they used to, which Laurel agrees with.
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| Stacie, Laurel's friend |
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| Abby, another of Laurel's old friends |
First comes her time with Gareth, though. They poke fun at each other for their respective political beliefs, Laurel eventually saying that D.C. just makes people cynical and former shells of themselves. Gareth gets a call, and taking the opportunity, overhears him talking to Wheatus about at Republican who was screwed over by Spitz. Laurel copies the number down, calls it, and finds that Senator Barneki is the Republican in question. Immediately, she gives this information to her brother.
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| Laurel and Gareth |
Rochelle Daudier, daughter of the poor individual last episode whose head exploded, meets with Laurel as one of the constituents. She's a resident at Mount Vernon hospital, and states that her father's autopsy claimed a fake cause of death. Laurel confirms that her father's head did explode, and is surprised to learn that this happened the day before to another man. Rochelle shows her the two ct scans performed on this man, and shapes inside the brain appear to have moved. She brings this information to Agent Onofrio, who tells her that he'll look into it.
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| Rochelle Daudier |
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| Laurel speaking with Agent Onofrio |
The meeting between Wheatus and Healy doesn't go well - Republicans offer to end the shutdown if Democrats agree to cut spending on Education, Commerce, and Energy. Healy believes the offer to be insane, and suggests they use it against them. Using Annie as a symbol of the damage of the shutdown, Democrats, and Luke Healy in particular, try to embarrass the Republicans.
Girls' night with Laurel, Stacie, and Abby doesn't go well either. Upon questioning Abby on her choice to give up the writing grant and work for Help America Rise Again, she shoots back at Laurel for not finishing a single documentary since college and having a rich, Senator brother to make her life easier. She leaves prematurely after scolding Laurel, leaving Stacie and Laurel quite confused.
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| Laurel and Stacie |
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| Abby, Laurel and Stacie |
Happy that he's able to commit Republican Senator Barneki to switching parties, Luke again sleeps with Scarlett. She's obviously uncomfortable, though, which Luke notices, and decides to leave before Scarlett's able to infect him with the alien insects.
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| Senator Luke Healy and Scarlett |
The next day, Republicans uncover some damaging information about Annie's father (the fact he's an atheist, for one) and the news airs it, along with an interview with Senator Barneki, who talks about how desperate the Democratic Party is to end the shutdown by offering information about what he was offered to switch parties, embarrassing the Democratic Party. Laurel learns that Barneki's number that Gareth wrote down was simply a ploy to see if she'd try to get him to switch. Because of the recent fiascos, Healy is removed from the Democratic Whip position.
At night, Laurel is able to convince a guard to let Annie and her father into see the Lincoln Memorial, and after reading a portion of the Gettysburg Address, feels inspired. She finds photos online from Gustav of the bugs on a conspiracy website, and decides to contact him. Before she can, Abby calls and offers for Laurel to come over for some tea. Laurel takes a raincheck, but lets her know that when she has time, she'll come over. After hanging up, we see that Stacie is over at Abby's, locked in the bathroom. As the space insects start pouring into the room, Abby plays "You Might Think" loudly to block out the screams.
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| Laurel and Annie gazing upon the Lincoln Memorial |
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| Stacie, locked in Abby's bathroom, about to be infested by insects |
I enjoyed the first episode of the series - it was pretty fun and rather amusing at parts. And luckily, the trend continues.
BrainDead is turning out to be quite a quirky show. The recap of the previous episode done in song? I certainly hope that they keep doing that, because while at first it took me for an unpleasant, tacky surprise, upon re-watching it, I think it fits the tone of this series rather nicely. I'm unsure if any past recaps have been done in song form, but it certainly seems a moderately unique technique.
Things are heating up in Washington. Those infected by the alien insects are far more partisan and uncompromising than they were before, and it's getting ugly. Attacking Annie for having an atheist father is certainly not beyond the Republican Party, but Senator Wheatus' utter unwillingness to end the shutdown unless the Democratic Party chooses to cut Education, Commerce, and Energy is, like Luke Healy said, "insane." What's the aim of these alien organisms? I don't know if they even have one, but right now, it's not overly clear.
What's also not clear at this moment is why some people, once infected with the insects, meet their death by exploding head, while others assimilate, quit drinking alcohol and start a fruit juice diet. At first, I thought it was just making people more partisan to their political beliefs, and those who had their head blow up were apolitical/had no political beliefs. But Doctor Daudier was sure to have at least some political ideas regarding scientific spending, and more to the point, Abby, Laurel's old friend, seemed to be a girl with few inhibitions and little to no interest in politics, and yet, here she is, working for Help America Rise Again, a right-wing organization, and more so, she's spouting off support for Trump. So obviously, my "politically neutral heads reject aliens by exploding" theory has been shown to be wrong. We'll see what happens to Stacie following her infestation, but it's not clear to me why some people take to this and others don't.
But let's look into some individual characters. Laurel's relationship with Gareth has hit quite the snag in this episode - I expected Gareth to be one of Laurel's partners in discovering the truth behind these aliens, but at the moment, it's looking less likely, especially with new characters such as Rochelle Daudier and Gustav Triplett being introduced. Rochelle I'm less sure about insofar as future importance of the show, but Gustav seems to be quite an important character. Laurel reached out to him at the end of this episode, so perhaps she and him will meet up next week and trade information. Regardless, I do think his addition is an interesting and important dynamic moving forward.
Back to Laurel, though. She's becoming the conniving, backstabbing person that personifies exactly what she hates about politics. Even though she's not infected, in a way, she's still playing the partisan game she hates. And despite Gareth's generally polite nature, he too is being sucked into backstabbing and tricking others for his Senator's gain. Neither one seems overly happy about this, but can they let go of each others' slights and work together? Over time, I do think that's likely, but insofar as the next episode's concerned, I'm thinking that Gareth will be on the backburner.
Another character who's place in the show I'm not yet sure about is Agent Onofrio. Despite his comments early in the episode about Daudier's exploding head being linked to potential terrorism, he seems like he genuinely wants to help and is interested in the information that Laurel brings to him. What he'll do with this new-found information isn't yet clear - he is still an FBI agent, after all. Still, he seems like a positive character, and while he's rather one-dimensional at the moment, perhaps over the time of this series, he'll grow into almost a hero-type character.
Luke's becoming more and more unbearable, by design, I'd think. He's the typical politician who cares more about his position in the party than he does the struggles that other people go through. He did avoid being infected this episode, though I expect he won't be able to avoid it for long. He was never going to be one of the focus characters, and once he gets infected, than Laurel will really need to figure out what's going on. Infecting a friend who Laurel's not seen in awhile is one thing, but Luke would be much more close to home.
I'm not sure where this show is planning on going, which is a good feeling. While I expect Gareth to be an important player down the road, who's to say that he doesn't get infected next episode? Wherever this show takes us, I do think it's going to be quite the exciting and sometimes suspenseful ride.
The pilot set this show up well, and luckily, at least based off this episode, things are still going pretty good. Hope to hear "You Might Think" more as the series goes on, though. Until the end came along, I almost thought it'd be absent. It's just a small touch in a quirky series.
Rating: Above Average
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