BrainDead Episode 11: Thank God Gustav is Back
You know that nothing significant happened in the last episode when even the show’s regular recapping jingle starts singing about a different show. At least this week’s episode was somewhat more exciting than the last couple, although it’s still been a long build up to the finale.
Gareth finally sees something he can’t believe- a giant queen bug climbing into Red Wheatus’s head. And I must say, Gareth’s various disbelieving facial reactions as he finds out more and more about the alien bugs are pure gold. Instead of screaming as a bug climbs into his boss’s ear, he just slowly turns away and walks quickly down the hallway with the expression of a man who’s just realized he’s gone insane, but is not entirely surprised about it. Of course, then Gustav can’t keep quiet about the fact that these bugs are from space and we lose Gareth again for a bit.
The writers also couldn’t seem to resist throwing in an awkward conversation with Gareth’s parents about his ex-girlfriend. Why they feel the need to bring in a potential love triangle at this point in the season is beyond me. Perhaps they were just trying to humanize Gareth after making him look like a jerk the past couple of episodes, but it was really out of place and unnecessary.
As for the space bugs, with Gareth as their man on the inside, Laurel, Gustav, and Rochelle hatch (no pun intended) a plan to take down the queen ant- Red Wheatus’s bug. This plan could have been significantly improved with more planning. Their main idea was to wait for Red to let the bug loose, then attempt to hit the bug to death with rolled up magazines. All of this while Red’s newest intern was in the other room. Laurel and Team were not surprisingly, unsuccessful.
Meanwhile, the show’s subplot of the day is that Luke is being vetted for the position of CIA Director. Why offer this to the man who, as the show points out, tells his sister literally everything? You guessed it- the bugs have something to do with it. While it was fun to see Laurel convince two CIA agents that her bug obsession was actually a metaphor for her artistic filmmaking, it was fairly obvious where this was going from the beginning. Honestly, this show needs a plot twist that’s not “Guess what? He was actually a bug all along!” The CIA Director’s Director is really in cahoots with Red Wheatus and told Luke that he and Laurel need to back off to let the CIA deal with it. While Luke may be dumb enough to buy it, I highly doubt this will stop Laurel. It definitely won’t stop Gustav.
And yay Gustav is back! He still had barely any part in this episode which is something that needs to change. Instead, the role of the slightly annoying, but lovable genius was taken over by Cole Stockwell, an expert at translating plain English into obscure Congressional jargon and back again. He discovered that Red’s new budget bill calls for money to go towards building internment camps in various towns. What could they be for? Surely not the human race! We will hopefully find out in the upcoming penultimate episode of BrainDead.