It’s not often that Gayly Dreadful gets to promote an exclusive article, but leave it to Troy to really dig deep and find some gold. What starts as a simple dream hook-up filled with BDSM undertones dives into the dark crevices of the human psyche.

I’d been researching an article about the queer coding of Freddy Krueger, sidestepping the all too obvious reading of Freddy’s Revenge and diving into other aspects when I was contacted by a source who wishes to remain anonymous. They showed me a video on the grounds that I couldn’t make any recordings of it, but I can describe it to the best of my memory. What follows might be paraphrased in some instances or condensed or out of order, but it’s a mostly accurate record of the stunning video. The video in question? A long, lost episode of MTV’s Catfish.

And readers, it’s a doozy.

First of all, the episode wasn’t completely edited for broadcast yet. It was missing the segment highlighting what was going to happen later in the episode or those bumpers around ad breaks. The editing itself wasn’t super tight and some scenes still had the time code stamped at the bottom. So I’m not sure what season this would have been in, but it feels like early, classic Catfish.

The episode starts off like they all do with Nev and Max having coffee and scrolling through their emails. One of them is from this guy named Kincaid. He’s worried that his best friend, Joey, is falling for someone who’s not who she says she is. Kincaid explains how Joey’s had a rough couple of years. Turns out, he was hospitalized and was mute for a while and basically, he’s this lonely outsider.

Obviously, Nev and Max are like, “Yes, we’ll help Joey out. He sounds like a nice kid. School’s hard enough when you’re not focusing on a relationship that’s not even real.”

Springwood, Ohio

Upon landing, Nev remarks, “It’s amazing how much this small town in Ohio looks and feels like California.” They shake off the weird feeling and then drive over to Joey’s house to meet him and Kincaid.

Kincaid, it turns out, is this tough-as-nails-yet-oddly-high-pitched type. Even from the brief initial interaction, it’s obvious he cares for Joey. He leaves to walk his dog and Nev and Max get to know hopeful Joey, who’s sixteen but looks twenty. He’s head over heels in lust with this hot, older, blonde nurse. The only problem is, they've never spoken IRL; they’ve only had hot make-out seshes in his dreams. He shyly admits to a little BDSM kink and Nev and Max nod at each other, surprised, but accepting.

Nev and Max vow to Joey that they’ll get to the bottom of it all with fist bumps and hugs, before collecting his dream journals and heading back to their hotel to investigate. First things first, Nev is skeptical and Max is cautiously optimistic. Maybe the nurse is just shy or worried about losing her job? So they look up the Westin Hills Psychiatric Hospital website and call this bitter old crab apple Dr. Simms who reluctantly puts them on the phone with the nurse. And they keep bleeping out the nurse’s name so you immediately know it’s not her. And she denies it, says she barely remembers Joey and she has had zero contact with him.

So Nev and Max go back to Joey’s dream journals and they see this house on Elm Street mentioned; 1428 Elm Street, to be exact. So they Google that shit real quick and find out it belongs to a cop in town. Lt. Donald Thompson. He’s married. Or maybe separated? Divorced? It’s honestly not really clear. But he has a young daughter.

“It’s obviously him!” Max says. “Middle-aged cop. Doesn’t know how to come out or deal with his feelings, so he creates a persona of The Sexy Nurse.”

“I don’t know,” Nev says. “Just because Joey’s dreamed about the house doesn’t mean it had to be the homeowner.”

“It’d be a pretty big coincidence,” Max says. “Why don’t we reach out to him? See how he reacts?”

Nev locates Don Thompson’s number, but it’s a dead end. A recording tells them the phone’s been disconnected. Not easily dissuaded, they try the Springwood police to see if they can put them in touch with him, but they learn he’s not on the force anymore.

Another dead end.

Nev shrugs. He’s like, “Okay, I guess we just bring all our findings back to Joey and take it-”

That’s when Nev’s phone rings. An unknown number. And Nev’s all giddy and excited. Max leaps to action, grabs his camera and shoves it in Nev’s face when he answers. An older guy on the other end gruffly says, “This is Don Thompson, I heard you were looking for me? What’s this all about?”

Nev goes into question mode but Don’s all slurring and denying everything and hangs up. Max says, “He was definitely drunk, right? It’s, like, noon,” he says, staring at the clock.

“Let’s just go back to Joey and give him our findings,” Nev says.

Joey’s happy to see them, but he comes off as a little aloof. He didn’t even have any wet dreams last night. He still can’t quite believe that the sexy nurse isn’t the real woman he knew from the hospital. Nev says, “Maybe it really is her and she’s lying so she doesn’t get arrested for statutory rape even though you look twenty.”

And Max says, “That drunk ex-cop has to be hiding something, too. Could be him.”

Nev asks, “How would it make you feel if the sexy nurse you’ve been making out with in your dreams turns out to be a lonely alcoholic middle-aged father?”

“Uhhh, not great,” Joey says. “I just – I just can’t believe she’s not real. She’s so hot.”

“What about Kincaid?” Nev asks. “Maybe there’s feelings there and this is the only way he knows how to get closer to you?”

“Kincaid?” Joey laughs. “No way. He’s the toughest, most macho guy in Springwood.”

“The Kincaid we met?” Max asks, sharing a look with Nev, who just mugs to the camera.

Nev and Max head back to their hotel, feeling dejected and hopeless that they won’t get any closure for poor Joey. They consider calling Don Thompson and Westin Hills again, but they’re not feeling very great about it. They start packing up and then Nev runs inside, super excited and catches his breath.

He’s all, “I was just outside and I saw this woman across the street and she looked at me and I could tell she wanted to say something so I chased her down and – and she was a nun. She said she knows why we’re here and who we’re looking for and she gave me an address.”

“Who is she? What?” Max asks.

“I was going to ask her more, but then she just vanished.”

“She vanished?”

“She vanished! We got to check this lead out!”

They get their equipment together and Joey, he’s all nervous, but he rides with them. They leave the suburbs, they keep going, and it’s getting more isolated and Nev’s wondering if the nun sent them on a wild goose chase and then they arrive at an old power plant. It’s creepy, it looks abandoned, the boys aren’t sure if they should even go in.

Nev goes in first while Max keeps Joey company.

The Big Reveal

The person entering Joey’s dreams and masquerading as a sexy nurse to make out with him, is in fact a middle-aged burn victim named Fred!

So Fred admits it’s been him all along, and Joey’s horrified. He screams about the Springwood Slasher and runs away.

And Fred's all, "What? It's not a gay thing. It was just fun. I wasn't really into it. I had to get revenge and lure Nancy Thompson into a trap."

“Wait, Nancy Thompson?” Max asks.

Fred explains his arch-nemesis lives at 1428 Elm Street, where he used to live, and Nev and Max nod to each other, realizing how Don Thompson is connected.

“See?” Fred asks. “Definitely not a gay thing.”

That's when Max gives Fred the side eye and is all, "Man. Man, come on. There's no other way you could have murdered the Elm Street brats and lured Nancy to your nightmare hellscape besides catfishing a vulnerable teen boy? I mean, you tricked him into making out with you. That was the only way?"

Fred doesn’t reply, he just scuffs his boot on the ground.

Nev says, “You just said it was ‘fun’ didn’t you?”

“I guess.”

Things start to get heated and Fred’s stonewalling them and Max isn’t having any of it, so Nev tries to calm things down and continue on.

NEV: Look, maybe this started as a revenge plot. Sure. But, I guess what I want to know is, when you’re invading someone’s dreams –

FRED: Sure.

NEV: It kind of feels like you’re puppeteering everything…like some off stage director?

FRED: I mean, I am involved directly.

NEV: So when you’re in someone’s dream, and they see, say, a high school hall monitor -

FRED: Gotcha, oh sure.

NEV: That’s you, right? I mean, that’s you making them see you as a high school monitor?

FRED: That is correct.

MAX: Who happens to be a teenage girl! Not just you from high school. And how about when you’re in drag as the school nurse?

FRED: That’s just old-fashioned fun.

MAX: Right! You think it’s fun to pretend to be a girl and it’s extra fun to make out with Joey. Just admit that.

Fred doesn’t say much, and Nev says, “We’re not going to get anywhere today. Why don’t we just take a break. And we should see if Joey’s all right.”

Production packs up and Fred just silently watches them leave.

The screen goes black and a title card reads:

Joey told producers he no longer wanted to be a part of the show. We respected his wishes and attempted to reach out to him four months later, but he had been murdered in his sleep.

Fred declined to be interviewed.

There you have it. That’s everything I remember from the lost episode of Catfish. It sure does make you think though.