[AYAOTD? Recap with Erin Callahan] S04E07 "The Tale of the Silent Servant"

RECAP

Kiki and Frank arrive all salty that Betty Ann foiled their plans to sneak into a movie. Betty Ann defends herself and tells a story about the power and danger of silence.

Twenty years ago, something weird was happening at Mr. Earlstead’s farm. Cousins Jarred and Anne pass by his old barn while they’re supposed to be delivering beans and working to pay off a window that they broke while playing catch. Hoping to find some wood to build a baseball dugout, they go inside and instead find a seriously creepy scarecrow. Despite its obvious creepiness, they take it home. Anne also takes a talisman topped with two dragons. Since they’ve forgotten to deliver the beans, they have to return to the barn the next day, where they find a former farmhand mumbling about “the dragons” and how “only the true master can separate them.” Finally remembering the talisman she found, Anne digs it out of her pocket and finds a scroll inside. Jarred reads the incantation on the scroll aloud. Jarred and Anne don’t realize the incantation has awakened the scarecrow until they find him outside, off of his pole in the field. He starts doing their bidding by delivering the beans, fixing the broken window, and building a fence. But when Jarred accidentally commands the scarecrow to kill Anne’s dad, she has to think fast. Knowing that only the true master can separate the dragons, she snaps the talisman over Mr. Earlstead’s grave, reducing the scarecrow to a pile of smoldering clothes.

Frank and Kiki made amends with Betty Ann by offering to buy her ticket next time they all go to a movie.

REVIEW

T: Frank and Kiki are pissed that Betty Ann didn’t let them sneak into a movie. I’m with Betty Ann on this one. I have a goody-goody-two-shoes streak. Where did that term come from? Like bad kids only have one shoe? Anyway, yeah, sneaking into movies is something I’d never do, unless I was under seventeen and I wanted to see an R-rated movie. No bigoted, political governing body is going to tell me I can’t see a movie (that’s a flip-off to the MPAA).

E: LOL -- I love that you’re willing to sneak into a movie, but only if the circumstances align with your ideology. But seriously, fuck the MPAA. Also! I was so intrigued by your question that I googled it. Apparently the phrase comes from an Eighteenth Century nursery story about a girl nicknamed Goody Two-Shoes. She’s literally so poor at the beginning of the story that she only has one shoe and when someone finally gifts her another she runs around shouting, “Two shoes, ma’am!” Oh wait -- this isn’t the Useless Trivia section? I’m sorry, let’s get back to the review.

T: That’s amazing! Goody Two-Shoes is really Goodwife Two-Shoes!

E: Who knew?!

T: So Kiki tells a story about a silent library and a few weeks later, Betty Ann’s like, “Nah, I’ll one up you with a silent servant.”

E: I suppose in the universe of the show it makes sense that the members of the Midnight Society would influence each other, but silence does seem to be a running motif this season. Also, this is at least the fourth time the protagonists have been cousins and one of the cousins has been sent off to live with the other for some significant period of time.

T: Boy/girl cousins! Is this the first time the cousin protags haven’t been the same gender?

E: Hmmmm...I think yes? “Lonely Ghost” and “Hungry Hounds” both had girl cousins, and “Water Demons” had boy cousins. But is this actually a thing that happens? Do you know anyone who was sent off to spend the summer with a cousin? And was their cousin an asshole? Because it always seems like there’s one asshole or almost-asshole in the pair. In this case, it’s whiny, selfish Jarred.

T: Spending a whole summer is a bit extreme. A couple times when I was a kid, I’d spend a week in Maine with my aunt and uncle. My cousins were a little older so out of the house, but I still saw them. But yeah, that’d be for a week, and there were never any supernatural shenanigans.

E: What a shame. You were robbed.

T: Jarred doesn’t need to wear jeans; his T-shirt is a dress.

E: As were so many T-shirts of the ’90s. A few years later, the jeans would be just as big. Remember JNCOs? Jeezus god, who let that happen? I wonder how many scarecrows are wearing ditched JNCOs these days.

T: I did notice Simon from “Renegade Virus” wears dark jeans that are big enough for the Virus to share.

E: LOL.

T: The older bro is Tyler Labine! He’s a fantastic Canadian actor still working in film and television. His work is so prolific, once I accidentally did a Tyler Labine weekend, where I watched three random movies and realized he was in all of them. I’m not even going to list credits because it would go on and on and I’d have to start geeking out over some of them (like Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil).

E: I knew he looked familiar! And we haven’t seen many older siblings on this show who are practically adults, unless you count the big sis from “Phone Police” who easily could’ve been twenty-five. The brief glimpse we get of his post-baseball-game party feels like a peek into a whole other story. Maybe the start of a slasher?

T: That’s what this story needs! The scarecrow picks off Mark’s group of friends one at a time. Also, don’t forget the flirtatious, flannel nightgown wearing brother in “Final Wish.” The actor wasn’t that much older, but he was serving old man vibes.

E: OMG, he totally was!

T: Jarred has no concept of reality. He thinks his uncle will be like, “I told you to build a fence, but you found a ratty old scarecrow instead? Score!”

E: In addition to whiny and selfish, we can add completely clueless to the list.

T: The magical dragon lore bit feels SO out of place. It just plain does not work. I wish they’d gone with Native American iconography instead of Chinese. Although, I wouldn’t want them to butcher Native lore like they did with banshees and leprechauns so maybe it’s for the best?

E: Very good point, because the cultural references here seem weirdly jumbled. The dragons are clearly Chinese but the incantation is Latin or Latin-esque? Maybe they should’ve gone with more standard occult imagery or Midwestern folklore?

T: I love folk horror. There’s so much to mine there with this setting. But nope.

E: It’s tragic.

T: So that’s ten minutes of screen time devoted to Crazy George kinda wasted. They spend way too much time on him sputtering about dragons, right? Doesn’t make sense, and doesn’t lead to anything.

E: He does provide the “only the true master can separate them” clue, but I’ll agree that most of the time spent with this character seems unnecessary. I’m sure it was supposed to up the creep factor and serve as a warning to the protags, but mostly it’s just a jumbled mess. Also, they never reveal what happened to Mr. Earlstead? Obviously he’s dead, but how? Did George kill him in self-defense? Or in an attempt to steal the scarecrow? So many questions.

T: I really love the cousins running up to Tyler Labine all upset sputtering about what’s going on and Anne screams, “Silent Servant!” at him.

E: LOL. But it’s so much easier than shouting, “There’s a sentient scarecrow on the loose who is about to kill our dad because our cousin is a selfish, thoughtless prick! Christ on a cracker, Mark! Do something!”

T: Are there stakes in this episode? I guess at the end they nearly kill the uncle. Basically they just find a creeptastic scarecrow and it makes Jarred a dugout, and that’s the story?

E: Crazy George aside, I actually think the story does a decent job of building dread (or at least unease) and then finally upping the stakes to life and death. We know something is going to go terribly wrong with the scarecrow -- it’s like a “be careful what you wish for” fable -- and Jarred accidentally putting a supernatural hit out on his uncle is a nice way to reveal how far the scarecrow is willing to go to serve its master. The core story here works for me, but there are some messy elements that detract from the overall impact.

T: That’s some fun overacting of Jarred and Anne trying to break the dragon charm. I can only guess director Jean-Marie Comeau was like, “Here’s the deal, the prop isn’t that sturdy. So just do your best. Action!”

E: Freaking hilarious. It’s borderline slapstick!

T: What is even the point of a dugout? It’s where the players sit while waiting to play, right? It’s just him and Anne playing baseball, so it’s absolutely pointless.

E: I think team sports in general are mostly pointless so you’re preaching to the choir here. I guess it's to keep players out of the sun? Or rain? But yeah. Unless Jarred plans on recruiting a bunch of local farmhands to form a baseball league, there is no point to this dugout. Jarred really is living in a fantasyland.

T: I feel like I didn’t take that much note of Anne because Jarred’s ridiculousness overshadows her. She’s not played by a future celebrity or a total jackass.

E: She’s not unlikable but definitely a bit on the forgettable side.

T: The scarecrow itself is pretty frightening, right? The design is very adult, very textured. I feel like if it had an identity and/or a weirder story, it would have gone down as one of the series’ better monsters. It’s just really worn down by the story it’s stuck in. Just imagine if it replaced the ghoul in “Tale of the Quicksilver,” it would have been a better use of the design and elevated that story.

E: “Pretty frightening”??? Troyson, that thing is the stuff of nightmares. It looks like it was made by Leatherface. But, again, the messiness of the episode is detracting from the overall impact. This scarecrow doesn’t need a dragon talisman. It just needs a clear mythology and an incantation or something simple to bring it to life.

T: The solution of breaking the talisman on a gravestone is a cool solution. Thinking about everything, I’m wondering if this episode is just two distinct story ideas merged into one? I have zero evidence to back this up, but what if D.J. had thirteen stories planned, but then decided to turn “Cutter’s Treasure” into a two-parter and Frankensteined two lesser developed ideas into “Silent Servant?”

E: Oooooh! Interesting theory. Given that this one feels like such a mashup, that seems totally possible. As a writer, sometimes I know that combining multiple story ideas can work in your favor, but that’s probably less likely when you’re dealing with a twenty-minute time slot. I can just imagine D.J. preparing to ditch the Chinese folklore episode and then Real Proulx screeching, “But we already have the dragons, goddammit!!”

QUEER OR NOT?

T: No. Because we don’t get enough material about the cousins or the uncle because Crazy George and the dragon talk take up way more time than they should.

 E: Agreed -- zero queerness. Through a feminist lens, we have poor Anne continually forced to bear the brunt of clueless boyishness. Jarred keeps thoughtlessly creating more of a mess because of his very stereotypical desire to build a baseball dugout, and Anne keeps trying to clean up after him. No doubt many women and queer folks will identify with that feeling that they have no choice but to deal with the literal and figurative messes created by some hetero dudebros who stomp through the world with little to no accountability because privilege. At least Anne gets to play the hero at the end.

T: I do appreciate that Anne saves the day instead of Jarred.

TRIVIA, USELESS TRIVIA

T: If Uncle Pete looks familiar it’s because Brian Dooley appeared way back in “The Phantom Cab” as one-handed ghost cabbie Flynn. Did not expect to see him again, but he does a decent job here.

E: Fun!

MODERNIZE ’90s CANADIAN KIDS

T: There’s a good story buried somewhere in there. I’d have Tyler Labine play the uncle, and the whole dragon material would be jettisoned. Just focus on cousins who get a scarecrow to do their chores and it goes wrong. Keep it simple.

E: Yes! And I love the idea of having the scarecrow kill Mark’s friends, slasher style. Also,Jarred needs a fitted shirt.

JUST GIVE IT A NUMERICAL RATING ALREADY

T: Jarred is ridiculous. The scarecrow has a great look. Tyler Labine’s a surprisingly sympathetic older brother. The dragon stuff doesn’t work. All of this adds up to a super mixed bag. I really like parts of this, and other parts fall flat/aren’t great. Math tells me the average of not that bad (5) and pretty decent (7.5) is 6.25 OUT OF 10 CAMPFIRES.

E: Wow, I like your calculation here. Even though I think we rarely dip below a rating of 5 and I usually round out my rating, in this case I’ll second your 6.25 OUT OF 10 CAMPFIRES.