Little Brian seems to be a bit of a firebug.  When we first meet the 7-year old, he is getting quite the little campfire going in the backyard, but he ain’t camping.

His sister Julia, who calls him “The Mutation” wishes that he would actually torch the house so she wouldn’t have to stay there anymore. Their mother, who Julia refers to as “Der Fuhrer” comes out and turns a hose on the little fire (not to be a grammar-Nazi, but wouldn’t she be Die Fuhrer”?).  Mom reminds Brian that she has told him not to play with matches.  The 7-year old outsmarts her by holding up a lighter.  If the matches ain’t lit, you must acquit.  His mother laughs and gets all kissy-face at his dangerous insolence.

Julia says that lately she can’t even look at her mother without wanting to stab her repeatedly. ^[1]  She hates being there so much she takes out a small cassette player and says, “I hate this place.”  She likes it a little better when she sees a local slab of beefcake mowing the lawn.  Well, not lawn so much as he is mowing a wooded area whose chief vegetation seems to be dead leaves on the ground.

At lunch, Mom throws the lighter at the Dad, blaming him for Brian’s indiscretion.  Mom repeatedly protects Brian against suggestions from the others that some punishment might be in order.  Quite reasonably in this crazy family, Dad breaks out the scotch at lunch.  Julia opines that “Dad is like an echo.  A tiny pathetic reflection of whatever mother says.”  He certainly echoes her attire — both sport an odd pairing of flannel shirts covering a turtleneck.^[4]

According to Julia, her father said he bought this place to get away from things, but she thinks what he really wanted was to get away from his family.  Again, understandable, but why would buying a family vacation home accomplish that?  Claim you have to go out of town for work.  Or send the kids to camp — that Camp Crystal Lake has a nice brochure.

Julia sees the handyman still working in the yard.  She wants to take him a drink, but Mom tells her to knock it off, that he is here to work.  Julia later sees the handyman drilling holes in 2 x 4’s.  She unbuttons a couple of buttons on her blouse and approaches him.  He doesn’t acknowledge her.  In fact, he walks toward the house and passes right through her like a ghost.  The man, his wood, and the drill all disappear.

Julia tries to tell this to her family. Brian says Mom says there is no such thing as ghosts.  Dad says he has heard Mom say that.  Julia correctly points out that the hunky handyman always seems to be working here but, like Ralph and Alf ^[2], he never seems to get anything done.   She concludes that he must be a ghost.

Julia is pining away for the “10” woodsman in her bed that night, dreaming of being drilled. She hears a noise, and sees the man pounding nails into the wall, which is almost as good.  She tries to speak to him, asking how long ago he died.  It is only after hitting his thumb with the hammer that he can see Julia, so apparently profanity pierces the veil.  He flees the room.

The next day, Julia asks her mother why she never believes anything she says.  Julia’s case might have been stronger had she not lied about crying 3 seconds earlier.

The next day, she sees the handyman washing his ghostly SUV.  He gets in the vehicle and Julia jumps in the front seat, unseen by the man.  When she touches his face, he suddenly sees her and crashes his SUV.  He screams that he just wants to be alone, that he is not responsible for what happened to them, that they’re dead . . . dead!

Julia is suddenly transported back to the house.  Now she sees that it is a burned out shell.  Brian finally burned the house down.  She realizes the handyman was horrified seeing her dead body, scarred by the fire.  Mom is able to convince her to accept that they are dead.  Once Julia buys in, they all continue living in the sunny day on the lakefront vacation home for ever and ever.

The basic story has been done countless times — one notable example is The Others which opened just 2 weeks before this episode aired.  But originality is overrated, it is really more interesting to see how the story is presented.

The actor portraying Brian is just unbelievably awful.  For a 9-year old, though, this is really more about the casting and direction than his talents.  Plus he was playing a 7-year old, so at least he had range.  The father was written as a non-entity, but I’m not sure why. Maybe grief over what happened to his family, but he seems to be more a victim of depression and a nagging wife.

On the positive side, the Mom was very good even if I often found her motivation baffling.  Julia (Marla Sokoloff) really carried the episode, though.  She was in every scene, sometimes just providing narration.  She also played a few years younger than her age, in 20+ minutes convincingly portraying anger, teen angst, indifference, insecurity, crush-love and finally acceptance of her reality.  She has a great career in shows I never watch.^[3]

Overall, a very enjoyable outing; and with Bitter Harvest, a very solid episode.

Post-Post:

• ^[1] Julia attributes this line to “a girl in some TV show.”
• ^[2] Shamefully, there are no decent clips available of Ralph and Alf from Green Acres.  Internet, pfff!  Here is Hank Kimball instead.
• ^[3] Except when she was Joey’s sister in an episode of Friends.
• ^[4] When grabbing pictures, I finally realized that Brian shares this sartorial quirk.  Mom, Dad and Brian do share a bond that Julia does not, but how this corresponds to flannel, I have no idea.  Sadly, unlike Mort’s in the Bazooka Joe comics, Brian’s turtleneck does not cover his mouth.
• Title Analysis: Presumably a take-off on the TV show that had gone off 5 years earlier.  Maybe that was the show.^[1]

For anyone who thought the Home episode of The X-Files was too much of a light-hearted romp, this is the episode for you.  It might have dipped too much into realism (like Megan is Missing) for my taste.  If this is what you’re looking for, though, bon appetite — this is great stuff.  Spoilers ahoy.

Young Shane Watkins and a couple of pals are checking out his horse Ginger who will be having babies in a couple of months.  They are wary of neighbor old man Jennings walking by.  They have reason to be concerned as he 1) is carrying an axe, and 2) is portrayed by Jack Palance.

The rumor is that old man Jennings shot an encyclopedia salesman and buried him behind his barn.  Also that his mother was a witch.  He lives on a farm bordering Shane’s in a house with several No Trespassing signs.

Occasionally, Shane has ignored the signs and snuck over to fish at a fishin’ hole on Jennings’ property.  And by “snuck”, I mean walked across a large open yard in broad daylight.

One day, as he is sneaking to the fishin’ hole, he checks out behind the barn just to be sure.  There is indeed a mound of fresh dirt.  Well, looks like dirt on You Tube, but I’ll give Shane the benefit of the snout when he says it is just cow manure.

Jennings catches him.  As Shane runs away, he accidentally switches on a combine.  Or maybe it is some other piece of farm machinery, but I like the sound of the word combine so all farm equipment is combines to me.  Jennings, following closely behind, trips and his hands get caught in the gears. Shane’s mother then emasculates me by knowing that the machine was an auger rather than a combine.

One night, from his window, Shane sees Jennings standing at the barbed wire fence separating their properties.  Barbed wire fences make good neighbors if you live next to a pissed-off Jack Palance.  Tragically, he lost both arms in the auger.  Also tragically, the dolt from the county who is helping him has dressed him in a button-up coat.

The next day as Shane is working on the horse, or whatever it is that you do in a barn, Jennings shows up. He tells Shane’s father that the boy has been naughty — Shane has been trespassing on his property to fish. The thing about causing him to have his arms chewed off does not come up.

In exchange for whatever fish he caught, Shane’s father offers his son’s services to help Jennings out until his prosthetics arrive.  The next day, Shane knocks but gets no response.  As in every show I have watched for this blog, Shane just walks right in.  He is startled when Jennings comes out wearing a short-sleeve shirt.  As am I.

Jennings puts Shane to work cleaning the gutters where he nearly falls, and does badly cut his hand.  Later in chopping wood, his hand starts to bother him, but he is not going to mention this to the guy whose arms he destroyed.

While Jennings is at the hospital for rehab, Shane sees a brown mound that really is dirt. Shane naturally digs it up. It contains a blanket belonging to his horse . . . Jennings severed arms are also wrapped up in it.  The episode is so good I won’t question how he buried this stuff with no arms.

The next day, when Shane goes to Jennings’ house, the old man is bobbing for soup.  It is just very sad to see his face covered with food, and him have to ask Shane to feed him. On the plus side, Jennings does say it is time to do some auguring. When it jams, Jennings suggests that Shane stick his arm in there.

At the end of 2 weeks, Jennings actually pays Shane for his time.  As Shane goes to leave, he tells him to take Ginger’s blanket saying , “I won’t be needing it no more.”  As he arrives home, Ginger is giving birth — to a foal with no legs.

I was pretty satisfied at that ending.  The accident was squirm inducing, and seeing a beautiful horse suffer for the accident was tragic.  But then, holy shit . . .

Jennings is again staring at Shane from across the barbed wire.  His parents console him that there was nothing that he could have done, but that the horse will have to be destroyed.  On a happier note, his mother says she is going to have a baby.  Jennings continues smiling in the moonlight.

I give this one 5 out of 5 bushels.

Post-Post:

• Jack Palance was in the classic Shane.
• For anyone who didn’t get it, no-neck says in his epilogue that Shane will find out in nine-months how vindictive Jennings is.  So, apparently, his mother is zero-days pregnant.  That must have been some conception last night.
• And Jennings could have been a little more focused with his vengeance.  Yeah, sucks to be Shane; but it sucks more to be his little brother.