[AYAOTD Recap with Erin Callahan] 3.8 "The Tale of the Guardian's Curse"

RECAP

Gary loses his shit over Tucker stealing his ankh, but calms down long enough for Tucker to spin a tale about ancient Egyptian artifacts.

When a stolen sarcophagus is discovered behind a false wall at a museum, Josh and Cleo’s ski vacation gets cancelled because Egyptoligist Dr. Capel-Smith calls their dad, Professor Dugan, in to investigate. Professor Dugan takes the sarcophagus to his lab, where he and Cleo geek out over the mummified body of Mina the Guardian and Josh rolls his eyes and says, “Ew.” When Josh and Cleo return to the museum to pick up something for their dad, they knock loose a secret panel on the sarcophagus and find the Ring of Eternity and the Elixir of Life, which they accidentally spill on the mummy. Later, they discover that the mummy is missing. When they run home to tell their dad, they find the house ransacked and a note that says he’s gone back to the museum to get something. They return to the museum, where the mummy chases them into the basement. In the basement, they find their father half-conscious and are confronted by Dr. Capel-Smith, who demands they give him the ring and elixir or he will spark up the kerosene he’s poured throughout the basement. Cleo convinces the doctor to put on the ring, which immediately turns him to stone. Josh puts the ring on the mummy’s finger, transforming her back into Mina the Guardian.

Tucker finishes the story and sneakily walks off with Gary’s ankh. Gary chases after him, leaving the rest of the Midnight Society to extinguish the campfire.

REVIEW

E: OMG OMG Budnick is in this one!!!

T: Gary chases Tucker through the EXTREMELY well-lit forest because Tucker went through his “private drawer” to steal his ankh. Good thing he didn’t discover that fake compartment… The writers sure love Tucker. To be fair, he’s not that irritating in this one, it just feels like a lot of Midnight Society material now revolves around him stealing Gary’s stuff or being a scamp.

E: BUDNIIIIIIIIIIICK!!! *collects self* So I actually remember seeing this episode as a tween and thinking, “Woah, an ankh must be a really cool, important thing if Gary is so upset about Tucker stealing it.” Now of course I realize Gary’s nerdy hissyfit, which has to be defused by Sam, is supposed to be funny. Oh, Gare Bear.

T: Sam plays mom to Gary and Tucker really well. I like her taking charge and de-escalating the tension.

E: Same! It’s sort of a cute moment for her and Gary, but also reveals the maturity gap in a fun way.

T: Tucker’s opening monologue is basically, “I stole my brother’s ankh ’cause it’s a symbol everyone knows. And since none of you know it, I’ll tell you that it means life. And life is good. But sometimes life is bad.” And he repeats himself. This might be the worst opening spiel any Midnight Society member has given.

E: Haaaaaaa! I don’t know if the writers intended this, but it’s the right level of messy and melodramatic for a tween/young teen storyteller. It’s the kind nonsense you scribble in a diary when you’re thirteen and then cringe over when you’re sixteen. So then you go off and write slightly less messy and melodramatic dreck, which makes you cringe again when you’re twenty.

T: First off, technically, this is a complicated, big episode. D.J. MacHale writes and directs this one and damn, he’s not pulling any punches. You get long, sweeping shots of the coffin discovery with a lot of action. It’s one of the more cinematic episodes.

E: It certainly is! And in addition to the grand sets and sweeping action, this one feels like it has really high stakes. Maybe it’s the line about the Egyptian government losing their shit if they found out the stolen sarcophagus had been in the museum this whole time? I can’t think of a single other episode where the action potentially has international political consequences.

T: I didn’t even think about that, but good point. I love the Dugan family. You get a take on the absent-minded professor and smart alec-y teens.

E: The dynamic between Josh and Cleo is particularly well done. Both teens react to their father’s obsession with this work in completely different ways. Cleo is quick to defend him, explaining that his work is what keeps his mind off their dead mom. Josh argues that’s not a good excuse to neglect his kids. Both reactions are totally valid. Josh easily could’ve been written as a sullen pouty-pants who’s only whining because he didn’t get to go skiing. But he doesn’t come off that way at all.

T: Speaking of Josh, he’s played by special guest star Danny Cooksey--as Erin already pointed out, Salute Your Shorts’ Bobby Budnick himself! He’s so good here and so not Bobby Budnick. No surprise, as he had a long career before this, with roles in Diff’rent Strokes and Terminator 2. He still works a lot and has done way too much voice acting to list here. I appreciate Josh plays around with a guitar since Danny is also a musician.

E: In the same way that Jewel Saite jumps off the screen and outacts the rest of the cast at every turn in “Watcher’s Woods,” Danny Cooksey really steals the show here and he’s a ’90s TV legend. Also, he wasn’t just “a musician,” he was in a freaking hair band called Bad4Good. You can’t make this shit up.

T: I wonder why Cleo got the Egyptian name (Cleopatra) and they don’t bother with Josh.

E: LOL. I wondered the same thing. Like, why not Ray? But I guess it tracks considering Cleo is the Egyptology nerd and Josh is all like “Ew.”

T: Dr. Capel-Smith is a giddy fellow. I forgot that he was the twist villain. Are there any other episodes when the villain is a completely normal human? I guess “Locker 22” if you count Mr. Shaffner, although he’s just an incompetent douche, not a villain. I’m not sure how I feel about him. What did you make of him?

E: I kept thinking there wasn’t quite enough groundwork laid for the twist to really work, but that’s the problem with a half-hour timeslot.

T: Yeah, it comes out of nowhere. There really needed to be a scene with Capel-Smith midway through the episode.

E: I would’ve really enjoyed a scene of him chilling at the Magic Mansion and bartering with Sardo.

T: The dad’s glasses are on point. While we’re talking dads, nine out of ten times, if there’s an AYAOTD? single parent, it’s a mom and the dad’s absent. It’s refreshing to see this hard-working single dad who loves his kids and his only flaw is he works too hard.

E: Is it gross that now that I’m watching this in my late-30s I’m like, “Oh damn, Professor Dugan is kind of a hottie”? You know me and smart guys in cardigans.

T: And that is why Mina the mummy falls for him instantly. His sweater game is on point.

E: Get it, girl!

T: The humor feels earned. It’s not slapstick or in your face, but it comes from the characters. Josh and Cleo have great chemistry. They’re supposed to be twins, right? There doesn’t seem to be any age power imbalance between them and twins pop up a few times in Egyptian mythology.

E: Oh interesting! I actually thought Josh seemed older, but they could be twins. Then again, I think you just like twins in fiction.

T: I mentioned the yellow and black plaid a few characters have worn? Josh is wearing the same oversized shirt in blue and black. I can’t stop noticing this pattern now.

E: Many plaid. Such ’90s.

T: When Dr. Capel-Smith turns to stone, the dad looks straight ahead, Josh looks up, and Cleo looks down. It reminds me of a classic Doctor Who episode when the Doctor falls and there’s this shot of his three companions watching him but they didn’t give the actors a sightline. So in their reaction shot, the three of them have completely different head movements.

E: I’m not nearly enough of a film nerd to notice something like this, but that’s pretty hilarious.

T: Speaking of the stone bit, is the gimmick of “you want immortality, well now you’re stone!” from something? Gargoyles did the same trick when they turned Owen’s hand to rock, and that’s another show that pulled from many literary inspirations.

E: I can’t think of a literary classic in which someone is punished for their hubristic dreams of immortality by being turned to stone, but there are lots of stories in which characters who seek immortality are punished. I mean, that shit dates all the way back to Gilgamesh.

T: Oh, that mummy dummy might be the cheapest looking prop in the series.

E: Agreed, though most of the shots make the best of what they have, focusing on the loose bandages, or just the hand.

T: The ending seems a little too neat with the dad and the mummy falling in love. It’s a good idea, but there’s so much going on that it feels a little tacked on as is. They might have been better off skipping Dr. Capel-Smith’s completely needless flashback and giving that screentime to show the romance. Although with the poor mummy affects, who knows if that would help or hurt it.

E: For reals? I totally predicted Professor Dugan and Mina hooking up as soon as Josh said his dad needs a life and a girlfriend. Ta-da!

T: The stone painting of a fire fading to the Midnight Society fire is pretty cool. Did you catch Kiki and Frank having nothing to do in the last scene so they just step into frame and give each other a weird handshake?

E: As hilarious as that was, I will forever be disappointed that the writers didn’t have one of them point out the very obvious pun of this entire episode: Josh and Cleo got a new mummy. Yuk yuk yuk yuk.

T: HOW did Gary miss that one?!

QUEER OR NOT?

T: Maybe it’s a stretch, but Dr. Capel-Smith feels like he would fit in with all those queer-coded villains from the black and white movies, especially since this episode is inspired by those films.

E: I was thinking the same thing, so I don’t think it’s much of a stretch. There are some definite Joel Cairo vibes here.

TRIVIA, USELESS TRIVIA

T: To no surprise, this episode is loosely inspired by 1932 Universal romantic horror film The Mummy.

E: Ah yes, the movie that was sort-of kind-of remade in the late ’90s and then AGAIN in 2012.

T: Isn’t the world due a fantastic mummy movie?

E: 🤦🏻‍♀️

MODERNIZE ’90s CANADIAN KIDS

T: Since it’s in a museum and dealing with ancient Egypt, it doesn’t feel all that dated to me. How would you twist things around?

E: I’d either ditch the queer-coded villain or make him eplicitly queer, but other than that, so much of this episode holds up. The only flaw I can think of is that with information spreading the way it does these days, there’s almost no way the Egyptian government wouldn’t find out within hours of the sarcophagus being discovered.

JUST GIVE IT A NUMERICAL RATING ALREADY

T: Tween Troy was hardcore into Egyptology (and AYAOTD?) but I don’t remember this one very well from childhood. Maybe they didn’t air it as often as some of the others. There’s so much to like here, but I can’t help but feel like there’s some missed opportunities. I don’t know, I want to like it more than I do. It’s certainly not bad at all, but that pointless flashback sequence and the poor mummy effects drag it down to a still respectable 7.9 OUT OF 10 CAMPFIRES.

E: Definitely some missed opportunities, but the lore is pretty solid, the dialogue is quippy, and BUDNIIIIIIIIIICK. 8.5 OUT OF 10 CAMPFIRES.