[AYAOTD? Recap with Erin Callahan] Episode 3.4 "The Tale of the Phone Police"

RECAP

In a hilariously meta move, Tucker tells his story via telephone because it’s about...telephones.

When Jake’s sister catches him and his friend Chris in the pre-caller-ID pastime of making prank phone calls, she warns them about the Phone Police and Billy Baxter, who was caught pranking by the Phone Police and never seen or heard from again. That night, Jake finds Billy Baxter in the phone book, listed with a six-digit number. He calls and hears static and a strange voice. The strange voice calls back over and over, even after Jake unplugs the phone. The next day, Jake and Chris answer a ringing payphone and Jake hears the same voice. Jake and Chris go to the “Phone Company” and ask to look up the six-digit number. The receptionist directs them to the basement, where Jake is accosted by the Phone Police and locked up. Chris escapes and runs to Jake’s house, only to discover that Jake’s sister has no memories of Jake, but recalls an urban legend about a kid named Jake O’Brien being locked up by the Phone Police. Chris sneaks back into the basement of the Phone Company and he and Jake escape through a manhole. Jake’s sister remembers him when they return home, and she claims she made up the story about the Phone Police. Jake and Chris wonder if she’s right, but a pizza delivery guy with the wrong address has the Phone Company logo on his car.

It’s revealed that Tucker was in the woods the whole time, talking on a cell phone. He startles Frank when he pops into the clearing and shouts, “The End!”

REVIEW

E: Can I say it?? JAKE. GOT. BLIPPED!!!! Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all recap.

T: If you’re playing Midnight Society bingo, make sure to dab “the episode opens with complaints about this weeks’ storyteller being late.”

E: For reals, I’ve never seen a group of fictional teens so concerned about punctuality.

T: You gotta love the ’90s phone technology of Gary hooking up a speaker to a clunky cell phone. Their dad must be doing well at the magic shop if he can afford all that AND pay for after hours cell minutes.

E: The youngins are going to think you’re kidding, but cell phones used to be ridiculous looking and hella expensive. I didn’t get my first mobile phone until 2003, and I remember I could only call my family between 7pm and 9pm on weeknights because that’s when we had free minutes. Can you imagine?

T: I’ll never not laugh at Tucker telling them, “If you think about it, a telephone is probably the scariest thing in your house.”

E: Such a great line. But if you think about it, phones seemed a lot more mysterious back then. Now we have them on us every second of the day, rely on them constantly, and know not to pick up if we don’t recognize the number. Back then, caller ID was rare, so you never knew who was calling. Plus there were all sorts of weird 1-800 numbers (remember 1-800-I-FEEL-OK?), and strange little secrets baked into the telephone system (remember *69?). It’s no wonder that early hackers were obsessed with phones.

T: Jake’s sporting the American flag in his room. And last week the camp had American state flags. Is the production department going out of its way to sell these Canadian kids have all just moved to the states?

E: LOL - damn, you’re really paying attention to the mise en scène here. Maybe Nickelodeon wanted kids to think these characters were American? I can’t imagine giving a shit at that age.

T: Sister Annie is the oldest teen girl I’ve ever seen and I’m living for it. She’s sporting this power executive coat and she makes Jake know she’s in charge.

E: Oh, come on. Sarah Michelle Gellar looked like she was thirty in Cruel Intentions, even though she was probably only like twenty-two. But Annie is the tits. In the hands of another actor, some of those lines would’ve crashed and burned, but they don’t because her delivery is so on point. I hope she had a fabulous career in Canadian TV.

T: Don’t get me started on the whole system of hiring twenty-something actors to play teens. I can rant about that for ages.

E: Oh I know. Because you have.

T: What is Annie even doing in the kitchen? While she’s telling the boys about the Phone Police, she pours herself a glass of something spunge-green colored, looks out the window, and then pours her glass in the sink without even taking a sip.

E: First off, stellar call back. Second, I did not even catch that she didn’t take a sip, but who can blame her? I think it was supposed to be lime Kool-Aid, but it looks positively barfalicious.

T: Hey, remember when phone books were a thing?

E: Technically, phone books still exist, though they’re not nearly as thick as they used to be because no one in their right minds has their number listed. But yes! Again, another phone-related thing that’s a potential jumping off point into an incredible mystery. Or you could, like, use it as a doorstop.

T: Elevator pitch time: A coffee table book that’s about all the ways people used telephone books! Door stops, bookends, Halloween scarecrow stuffing…

E: Yes! For fuck’s sake, email your agent!

T: I appreciate that Jake one hundred percent does this to himself. He hears a warning tale about Billy Baxter, so he immediately calls up Billy Baxter? It’s like everyone in the Candyman movies. “They say if you say his name five times in a mirror, he’ll kill you. So you know what? I’m a gonna do it!”

E: I think you and I are both too risk-averse to relate to those who can’t say no to a dare. To be fair, those people rarely fare well in horror.

T: Billy calling back is creepy enough, but then when they pass the phone booth? Yeah. Reminds me of that iconic episode of Pete and Pete with the ringing payphone.

E: OMG, yes! Fuckin-A I loved that show.

T: I don’t really care for Jake or Chris. I don’t think they’re bad characters, they’re just kind of flat? Like, Annie is a good character, and the receptionist and Phone Police clerk are entertaining. Jake and Chris are kind of bland, right?

E: Yeah, they’re pretty flat, though I found myself liking Chris more than Jake, mostly because he seems to share more of my risk-averse tendencies. Neither of them can hold a candle to Annie’s badassery.

T: Jake having blipped is a nice turn, and I appreciate Annie threatening to bash a tween’s head in with a pretty heavy-looking flower pot.

E: The bitch pulls no punches.

T: Did the Phone Police change Annie’s last name? She says, “Some kid named O’Brien, Jake O’Brien” like that name’s really foreign to her. Her name is Annie O’Brien…

E: Oh wow, good point. I’m going to go with yes. In the Blipped Jake Timeline (BJT), her last name is Oakley, like the sunglasses. :) But seriously, there are roughly three-bajillion plot holes in this episode. Like, in this scene Annie says she’s heard an urban legend about a kid named O’Brien, but then later claims she made the whole thing up? And does the Phone Company have supernatural powers? How else would they make unplugged phones ring? And will Jake be monitored for like forever by pizza guys in silly mouse hats? So many questions.

T: Chris breaking Jake out of phone jail is actually a fairly clever escape plan.

E: For a tween/young teen, yes, fairly impressive. It helps that the receptionist for the Phone Company clearly does not give a shit about her job. Like, in general, for a generic-scary-semi-secret-bureacracy, the Phone Company appears to be full of buffoons.

T: Is it me, or does the score in this episode remind you of Dragnet? That’s a fun little homage.

E: I definitely picked up a police procedural vibe. It’s funny how much the score can vary between episodes -- we should totally add a Best Score category to our end-of-season recap.

T: Good point. I’ve only researched the score process a little bit, but I believe there were only two musicians creating the score, and they alternated episodes. It’s extra impressive knowing the wide range of music throughout the series is only done by two people.

E: Totes impressive!

T: Everyone seems to have warmed up to Tucker by now. Gary even high fives him. This is how I prefer the character. Being fun-precocious, not annoying-scrappy. I have a feeling he’ll fluctuate between the two for a while, but I hope he lands on this side of annoying.

E: Agreed, though I kind of adore the extent to which he pisses off Frank.

QUEER OR NOT?

T: Is Annie queer coded?

E: Probably not but let’s just make that our headcannon, because now I’m suddenly imagining Annie in all her mouthy glory packing up her power blazers, moving to the big city, and doing stand-up at drag bars.

TRIVIA, USELESS TRIVIA

T: The Phone Clerk previously played one of our all-time favorite AYAOTD? villains back in season one. Griffith Brewster was old Pete Kirlan III in “Captured Souls.”

E: For a second I wondered if he was Old Man Corcoran, but that makes more sense.

T: The inspiration for this tale was George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Featuring a character named O’Brien, the plot revolves around the government’s Thought Police controlling the public and making offenders disappear.

E: *blinks at Troy* Seriously? I’ve read Nineteen Eighty-Four multiple times and did not pick up on this at all, but it does make sense. For the record, Nineteen Eighty-Four is about ten thousand times more terrifying unless you’re cool with your face being eaten off by rats. But if that’s the case, now I’m wondering if there was supposed to be some queer subtext between Jake and Chris? Because in Nineteen Eighty-Four, the Chris-equivalent is O’Brien’s female romantic interest.

T: If only they went there, then maybe our protags wouldn’t have been quite so flat. Not that queer automatically means dynamic, but any extra characteristics would have helped these two.

MODERNIZE ’90s CANADIAN KIDS

T: Prank calls are still a thing, but I’d focus on the prankster aspect. How about it’s a pair of YouTuber pranksters trying to make it big and pranking some Internet Police? You could even go darker with it and make the bad kids online trolls.

E: Absolutely -- internet mysteries have a slightly different flavor, but they’ve obviously replaced phone mysteries when it comes to technology-based fears. I vote to keep Annie’s power blazers.

JUST GIVE IT A NUMERICAL RATING ALREADY

T: This one’s a mixed bag. I love the idea of the Phone Police, but some of the execution doesn’t work for me, like not really explaining how the jail system works and Annie claiming she made it up. What? Jake and Chris are bland, but Annie is great. I wish they’d dialed up the weirdness to eleven, and there’s fun spots, but not enough. 6.7 OUT OF 10 CAMPFIRES.

 E: I’m charmed by all the phone mystery nostalgia, but the plot holes are hard to ignore. I’m going with 7 OUT OF 10 CAMPFIRES.