BrainDead: Season 1, Episode 8 – “The Path to War Part One…”

“Be careful, by the way.”

Take your own advice, Laurel (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Take your own advice. Because sure, this is what she says to Gustav (Johnny Ray Gill) and Rochelle (Nikki M. James) after it’s established that Red Wheatus (Tony Shalhoub) is coming after them because of episode seven’s whole “let’s make the bug people look like idiots” fiasco, but after this week”s “The Path to War Part One: The Gathering Political Storm”, our lovely protagonist best not forget her own words.

Because, holy cow, this shit’s starting to get real.

As it goes, last week’s Big Moment involving Dean (Zach Grenier) turns out to be an interesting wrinkle in the overall narrative, and frankly, it’s a wrinkle that BrainDead has desperately needed. Because now, magically, we have depth. Laurel’s dad is, in fact, a Bug Person, but he’s also not quite like any of the other Bug People we’ve met thus far.

He has Parkinson’s. Or, well, that’s his excuse, at least. Laurel finds this out after rummaging through his stuff, only to find medicine that treats the disease. She then approaches brother Luke (Danny Pino) about it, who confirms the news. Dean wanted her to move back to the area, we learn, because he wanted to spend the final year of his life around his daughter. Laurel’s put off by as much (how are you not going to outright tell your child something like this, especially after you ask her to move across an entire country!), and rightfully so.

But … twist! Because while Dean actually has Parkinson’s, the bugs have helped him battle the illness. So, he accepts this. He’s OK with this. He tells Laurel it’s inevitable that the ants are going to take over the world anyway. There’s no use in fighting it. And, oh by the way, one more time, they apparently can cure Parkinson’s Disease. So, Alien Ants: 1; World Health Organization: 0.

What this does is now establish a solid through-line for who’s going to represent good and who is going to represent evil in the BrainDead universe. We’re given an exclamation point on the end of that thought as the week’s episode winds down and The Great Staring Contest Of 2016 commences between Laurel and her father. He essentially asks her if she’s going to be a thorn in his side forever now. She essentially says she’ll be just that.

Why are they staring each other down? Well, that’s because we officially know now that the bugs are trying to get America to go to war with the Middle East so America doesn’t concentrate on fighting the ants. We officially know that because an Ant Man tries to attack Rochelle in her apartment, Rochelle knocks him out with an absurdly large piece of meat, and Rochelle and Gustav promptly tape him to a pole. This ends up being where the two best characters of the series spend almost the entire episode. Eventually, the guy fesses up to all of this stuff, but not until after a truckload of mini liquor bottles is forced down his gullet.

This ultimately leads to perhaps this week’s most significant takeaway: Between Taped-Up Ant Man and Dean, we are now seeing people who have the ants in their heads act more normal than anyone with ants in their heads has ever previously acted on this show (or in real life, too, because my guess is it would be odd to walk down the street tonight and see some dude casually strolling through the park as ants crawl out of his ear; just saying). Dean’s been overtaken, but he seems no less weird than he’s ever been, and, in fact, these things are actually having a positive effect on him. Taped-Up Ant Man did a hell of a job selling the fact that he’s not an Ant Man for the first three-fourths of this week’s episode; so much so that I was convinced they were going to have to let him go because he was fated to turn out to be a normal dude.

It’s significant because this makes the entire production feel at least slightly more real. Yes, that’s a stupid thing for me to say because this series is so far away from real, its last name should be “Kardashian” (“BrainDead Kardashian” actually works on a few different levels, come to think of it. Anyway. I digress). My point now is that the series kind of feels like it has a backbone. The absurdities of how wacky these people are due to these ants felt so one-note for so long. If now, as viewers, we’re going to have to work to decipher who’s been once bitten, twice shy by these things … well, that makes things more interesting, if nothing else.

Plus, really: Could you blame Dean? I mean, if a doctor gives you a year to live, and then all of a sudden something comes along that completely changes that diagnoses, how would you react?

So, here we sit. The battle lines have been drawn. Dean is trying to influence Luke to do what the ants think is best. Laurel is trying to influence Luke to do what she believes will help battle the ant invasion. What happens next is anybody’s guess. But, at least now, we feel like a baseline has been established. What BrainDead does with it will be beyond critical.

Because there are only so many times you can ride a rollercoaster before the ups and the downs become too much to bear. Eight episodes into this thing, this series is running out of chances to prove that it can sustain an interesting, fruitful trip.

You Might Think

This was, by far, the funniest episode of the series. It was the first time Red’s humor really worked. The sequence between Red and Gareth (Aaron Tveit) about black people and dwarves was laugh-out-loud funny and some of the schtick between Rochelle, Gustav, and their hostage actually worked, too. It was refreshing.

Speaking of Gareth, I’m fully warmed up to Gareth and Laurel’s romance at this point. The ketchup-on-the-mouth scene was cute and it kind of/sort of works that their D-story is sometimes featured prominently while other times, it’s not. This week, it wasn’t, but ultimately, that was OK. Plus, to our knowledge, this week brought about the first time those two had real sex, instead of Bug-Infested Sex. I like him. I like her. I like him and her together.

Whoa, there, Laurel. That outfit was … memorable.

After coming back much more solid this week than it was last week, BrainDead has officially become that relationship where you argue five nights a week, but because the two nights that are great are great, you keep coming back, hoping to trust that perhaps next week, you’ll only have four fights. But then you come back the next week, and you actually have five-and-a-half fights, and you start to wonder if you should even try to keep investing in the relationship at all because, frankly, who needs this shit? Got all that? Good.

I found the mating scene weirdly comedic, slightly off-putting, and smarter than any reasonable logic could suggest. That said, this is quite literally the only series in the history of television that could get away with an act so absurd. There’s something to be said for that.

So, did the bugs change the frequencies or has Gustav’s device just bitten the dust?

Really, really liked the touch of Rochelle following Taped-Up Ant Man after they released him and us still having no resolution. It makes me want to come back next week, and those moments, as outlined above, are few and far between for this series.

Really, really didn’t like the musical recap this week. Yeah. I said it.

Things I’m interested in: Taped-Up Ant Man. Dean. BrainDead‘s costume designer. Luke’s fate. Alien Ant Mating (which, admittedly, sounds like the third step-child of the band Alien Ant Farm). Gareth and Laurel. Gustav and Rochelle. Where Rochelle goes grocery shopping. Dean’s mistress. Dean’s wife.

Things I’m not interested in: War in the Middle East. Sentimental pictures of animals. Ella (Jan Maxwell). Who can hear whom. Red’s problem with Gustav and Rochelle. Where FBI agent Anthony Onofrio (Charlie Semine) was this week. Dean’s Viagra intake. Taped-Up Ant Man saying, “You can’t beat us”. Any political committee, ever. Any grand jury investigation/hearing/testimony/thing where people sit in a three-quarter square and talk into microphones, ever.