Typical supervillain horsefeathers. Can’t wait to hear this guy’s monologue. ‘I am the palindrome. Feel my power. Power my feel. Palindrome the am I.’ Peter Piping weirdos. – The Middleman

Middleman HQ 6:16pm

Etched mirror pictograms are being left at crime scenes and the Middlegang are trying to work it all out. Unsuccessfully, it seems. They’ve been at it for hours and the theories are getting worse and worse. “Sometimes putting your nose to the grindstone just gives you a bloody nose.”

Wendy’s illegal sublet 9:59pm

Wendy cooked. A Cold Pocket is on offer to Tyler because after all, “Hot Pockets are the American empanada.” Because Tyler’s three hours late, he brings a diamond tennis bracelet. His problem is that he spent too much of his childhood watching badly dubbed versions of Dallas and always wanted to bring his lady diamonds. Plus, he kinda loves her. Normally, that might be considered an unfortunate turn of phrase, but she kinda loves him too so he pulls it off.

The Middlewatch and Tyler’s phone go off simultaneously and both young lovers agree to take one last call before putting their respective communication devices on ice for the night. Middleman’s got a truly crazy theory but Wendy puts him off. Unfortunately, Tyler has to go, but he’s there until his ride arrives. Oops. Manservant Neville sent a chopper. He’s going *now*.

Wendy’s illegal sublet 9:39am

Wendy and Lacey discuss Tyler’s confession, but Wendy’s worried Fatboy will change Tyler. Lacey tells Wendy it’s only his circumstances that have changed, not him. Just like when she started her job, Lacey had to learn to cope by putting fewer eggs in the Wendy basket. And Tyler does love her.

Wendy and Middleman en route to a toy factory. After stealing a beryllium sphere and an oscillation overthruster, the mysterious mirror-leaving thief has hit a toy factory? What could he possibly want there?

Duke of New York Toy Factory 10:01am

The thief has left a third etched mirror at the scene, this one of a river. Putting the pieces together, The Middleman realizes it spells out the palindrome “a man, a plan, a canal.”

But he doesn’t care about the palindrome or the inevitable palindromic monologue once he finds out what the 100,000 baby doll eyes the thief made off with were made of. Turns out the factory owner “went green before Ed Begley, Jr. made it cool.” So he’s made the eyes out of polydichloric euthimal (a popular imaginary chemical: Google it!) Middleman loses his cool!

Back in the Middlemobile, Middleman has Ida run a search through the OCD. With the materials he has, The Palindrome can build a machine to create a quantum singularity, opening a door to another dimension. All he needs is power. Ida tracks a source spiking to 1.012 GW to…

Carpenter Rd. Transformer Station 88 seconds later

Middleman and Wendy spot The Palindrome and his final mirror – a (Panama) hat. Wendy heads around back while Middleman takes the frontal approach. No one can shoot because of the ionized polydichloric euthimal in the air, but Middleman figures he can get the villain to wax on and on and on about his plan. He’s oddly reticent. No long monologue, no clever gloating. Nothing. He turns on the device and is sucked through the quantum singularity.

The Middleman is knocked out by a piece of singularity-sucked debris and Wendy is pulled through.

Where am I? How long have I been out?

Wendy comes to in a horrible aerosol-soup parallel universe where Fatboy Industries runs the world. Manservant Neville wears a goatee! He must be evil.

Wendy gets into immediate trouble with a jackbooted thug. She’s got no Fatboy ID and has to hide out from black-visored security.

“I’m pretty much trapped in Alan Parker‘s 1982 theatrical film version of The Wall.”

An evil hallway in an evil parallel universe. 11:52 am

Huh. First time chyron in the episode that isn’t a palindromic time. Not sure why, but with this being The Middleman I have to assume it means *something*. Echoing the first scene Wendy had with Noser, evil Noser asks about Shaft. That’s doubly cool, as Isaac Hayes was in Escape from New York as the very Duke of NY. Of course this time, losing beat the band means getting a bellyful of buckshot.

Wendy enters the apartment and finds it to be an exotic lounge run by Lacey. Joe 90′s there. He’s an evil lawyer who works for Fatboy Industries. Lacey hates Wendy for getting her sent to Fatboy Darning Camp. Wendy was supposed to meet Lacey for a protest rally but sold her out.

Noser comes to throw her out but Fatboy strorm troopers show up. Wendy and Joe 90 take off outside and Joe 90 bails. Wendy hops into a Hruck Bugbear driven by Father Pip. Oh yeah, that’s right. Pip’s a celibate, honorable, heroic man in the evil parallel dimension. Wendy finally, completely realizes she’s in a mirror universe and tells Pip, explaining it as being like Star Trek. “You mean the sci-fi series from the ’60s starring the great George Takei?”

The regular universe. Middleman HQ 12:21 pm

Middleman keeps watching the recording of the events and he and Ida figure out The Palindrome is probably The Palindrome from another universe.

Evil parallel universe Middleman Headquarters, 12:33 pm and 21 seconds…

Heidi Marnhout, playing the evil-verse’s version of Ida, does a fantastic impersonation of Mary Pat Gleason. Spot on, other than being hot and all. She tells Wendy to skip the backstory; as long as she’s got money, she can hire them. Evil Middleman is shirtless and working on the Middlehog while Ida gets into a tanning booth.

Middleman guesses that Wendy’s a Middletrainee and got sucked through a quantum singularity. He won’t help unless Wendy pays. But Wendy’s only got greenbacks, not the pinkbacks of the Fatboy controlled world. She does, however, have the diamond tennis bracelet Tyler gave her. That buys Middletime. Sidebar: this mirror Middleman’s a bit of a potty mouth and it strikes Wendy: “Wow. Profanity really does cheapen the soul and weaken the mind.”

Both universes’ Idas figure out who the Palindromic opener-of-wormholes is at the same time. He’s Ivan Avi of 1997 Plissken Circle.

The home of Ivan Avi. AKA “The Palindrome”, 1:21 pm

(Simultaneous in both universes, of course.)

Middlemen come to take Ivan Avi into custody and he destroys his machines.

Regular Universe Middleman HQ, 2:59pm (and one minute later in mirror world)

Interrogation commences. Ivan-without-goatee was born in the mirror world. A horrible universe. At the age of 13 during his bar mitzvah, he had a freak limbo accident and severed his pineal gland. Those led to visions of a better world of “anti-trust laws, lead-free toys, non-aerosoled soup.” He realized he was seeing this world through the eyes of his mirror – who also lost his pineal gland in a freak accident. They learned to communicate – the sensitive artist born in the horrible mirror world and the not-so-nice twin born in ours. They decided to switch places.

If Middleman and Wendy could fire phased polaron cannons at the same black hole at the exact same instant…

Ivan-with-goatee gives Wendy the message, then takes her weapon. Evil-Middleman shoots him dead. Ivan-without-goatee only knows his brother is dead.

Evil-Middleman doesn’t have the phased polaron cannon anymore. He sold it to Fatboy Industries already. And he’s not going to help Wendy steal it from Fatboy. Wendy’s disgusted by him and can’t understand how he and her Middleman can share the same bodies and minds, but Ida clears things up.

Evil-Middleman wasn’t always so evil. Not until he lost his Middleboy – Tyler Ford. Tyler was killed by an unknown gunman with a red, anodized ray gun and this mirror Middleman hasn’t been the same since.

So Wendy asks Lacey for help.

An evil loft in an evil parallel universe, 5:15pm

Wendy offers Lacey the apology the mirror Wendy couldn’t offer. Lacey accepts and blackmails Joe 90 to help them sneak inside…

Fatboy Command (in an evil parallel universe), 6:16pm

Joe 90 helps them in. Oddly, there are no cameras allowed on Fatboy premises. He can’t get them into Manservant Neville’s private offices, but Wendy hacks the lock. She does recognize the combination, though.

Back at evil-MiddleHQ, Ida tries to convince her Middleman to do right and help out Wendy, but he’s a hard sell. She finally gives up and walks out on him.

Wendy grabs the cannon and is about to leave when Lacey presses a red button – seriously people…never, never, never press the red button, even accidentally – and wakes Manservant Neville from cryogenic sleep. But wait…isn’t he running the world with an iron fist?

Mancicle Neville recognizes Wendy. He tried to return control to the people but ?she? betrayed him?

Oh. Evil-Wendy.

Evil-Wendy doesn’t like things happening beyond her control, not since her father disappeared when she was 14. When she realized Fatboy was going to run things, she joined them and worked her way up. Then when Manservant Neville was going to return control to the people, she put him in cryofreeze and took over, running the company and the world.

She kills Joe 90 and is about to kill Wendy and Lacey when Sensei Ping’s training comes to good use. Wendy knocks her out and takes her glasses and jacket. She and Lacey will be escaping with one of the classics: the pretend to be your evil doppelganger with a gun to your friend’s head ploy. But Evil-Wendy comes to too quickly.

Fortunately Middleman remembered he’s a hero. And Lacey realized he’s hot.

The geographical center of an evil parallel city, almost 9:29pm

Middleman and Wendy set up the cannon as she thanks him. She tells him he can fight. Tells him he should fight. Wendy steps through to her Middleman who salutes his twin. Then evil-Middleman offers Lacey a job fighting evil.

There’s no place like home, 11:11pm

Middleman’s a bit unsettled. Thinks he’s close to being like his mirror, but Wendy reassures him. Tells him his inherent goodness in all versions of him is what saved her. Which becomes clearer back in the mirror world. Middleman has taken off his facial hair, joined forces with Lacey, and reverted Ida to her proper Mary Pat Gleason form.

And Wendy’s happy. Really happy.

Shout outs

One look at evil-Middleman should tell you who he was modeled after. And knowing that, it’s no surprise that as Wendy tried to Escape from the Mirrorverse, there were a lot of references to another classic escape movie.

• Officer Russell and Officer Van Cleef
• Duke of New York Toy Factory
• Carpenter Rd. Transformer station
• 1997 Plissken Circle

Final Thoughts

Man. What an awesome finale. We might not get another season (boo!) but at least we got a solid 12 with a satisfying ending. Having *finally* gotten my copy of “The Collected Series Indispensability”, and read it this past weekend, I’ve got to say that as much as I enjoyed it, I’m happier with the ways the TV path diverged. I’ve loved this show since the pilot and it never got old for me. It just got better and better as the season progressed.

Everything, from the goofy pop culture references to the repetitive time and location chyrons to the way it wasn’t afraid to wear its heart on its sleeve once in awhile made this the best new thing this summer. So let’s get our M&Ms and send them to ABC Family with very polite requests to return the show next year.

R.A. Porter is an aspiring television writer who currently toils away in the software mines. He can be found at his personal blog and stalked on Twitter.

I’m so glad I got attacked by that tentacled ass monster back in the lab and that you framed me so that I’d have to be your sidekick. Because I am so proud to be a MM. I’m proud to know you. And I want you to know, that since my dad disappeared, you’re the closest thing I’ve had to a father. – Wendy Watson

It was a blast this week. Let’s go through the checklist:

• Mark Sheppard, check.
• An ambiguously evil corporation that looks like Apple, check.
• Tyler Ford dressed like a shifty talent agent, check.
• Nanobots, check.
• Vejar references, check.
• Many Doctor Who references, check.
• Even more Die Hard reference, check.
• Dubby’s very touching Code 47, check.
• Oh yeah. And WENDY WATSON IN UNDERWEAR!!!

A whirlwind of an episode which opens with an “accident” that ends up getting Tyler a job interview with Manservant Neville. C’mon. If you were watching, and if you’ve ever watched TV before, you just KNOW that the accident was faked. The beater hits the Boxster and the guy in the beater grabs a bat? Really?

And if Badger offers you a job, you should probably think long and hard about taking it. If you decide it’s a good idea, think longer. You’re wrong.

Forget it Lacey, It’s Chinatown

At the illegal sublet Wendy shares with another young, photogenic artist, we now stand at 4 hours, 6 minutes before the inevitable detonation. Lacey and Noser drink coffee and Wendy and Tyler come down from the loft. Wendy gets a call on the Middlewatch and The Middleman shows up at the door in a hazmat suit.

Voyager 2 was detected streaking across the solar system on a collision course with Earth. Middleman figures there are three options

1. The probe carries an alien virus, hence the suit.
2. The probe carries actual aliens, hence the suit.
3. The probe has developed artificial intelligence and is returning to pass judgment on its creators. No suit required.

The black box survived and Middleman and Wendy go to retrieve it. A black van arrives and disgorges NASA retrieval experts, unhazmat-suited. But Middleman handles it. Commander Benton and Spc. Herriet are on the scene. Mr. Lethbridge-Stuart and his boys will have to leave.

Back in the hallway of the illegal sublet, Lacey and Noser are listening to Tyler’s newest track. They’re in love with it. But their impromptu listening party is broken up by the arrival of Manservant Neville and two of his…henchmen. He tracked Tyler down, and knows everyone’s name. He’s got an intuition about Tyler and wants him to come for an interview.

Meanwhile, at Middleman HQ, the blackbox is opened, revealing a device with Clotharian writing. It explodes, contaminating HQ. Lockdown protocols are initiated and Dubby and Middleman head to the decontamination chamber.

A Silkwood Shower

Okay. A moment if you please. This auspicious event deserves some sage words of commendation. Words to echo through the ages. Ahem…

NATALIE MORALES IN UNDERWEAR!!! WOO-HOO!!!

Okay. That’s all.

Yes, that’s right. Snicker if you must. Middleman and Dubby strip to their skivvies for scrub down. I’m reminded of the decon scene in the pilot of Enterprise. The moment it was clear that show was never on the rails to begin with. But here, it’s *intentionally* funny.

While Dubby and Middleman take a steam, Lacey and Tyler show up at Fatboy Tower. Everyone’s waiting for Tyler and everyone knows his name. It would be creepy, but c’mon. We know they’re an evil organization, right? We’ve all read comic books and seen Bond films before!

In case you weren’t sure yet, Tyler has to take some tests first. So we get a montage of B&W stills just like Wendy Watson’s tests in the pilot! If they’re not an evil organization bent on world domination, then what are they? A backup Middleorganization?

Redressed in the showers, Middleman tells Wendy about Code 47. In the event a Middleman dies, a microwave burst from his Middlewatch delivers a coded message. He personally records a Code 47 for Wendy during every mission. And now he plays them for her. Great stuff. He suggest Wendy do the same, but she says she’s an open book. The people she cares about already know how she feels.

A little later, Middleman is recording a new Code 47 for Wendy…while she’s right behind him.

They call Ida to ask when they can get out of quarantine but she’s not there. It’s just a recording of Ida on a loop. Time for the Nakatomi Incursion Protocol. And no, it’s not like the movie. It’s “like the real-life events that inspired the movie.” Middleman plays “Ode to Joy” on a keypad and all is set. They head into the air ducts which were conveniently expanded by the protocol.

What’s up with the vents? I mean, we’re coming from an isolation chamber inside a secret headquarters built by an organization so covert we don’t even know who they are, yet somehow we have vents large enough to crawl in through with accessible registers everywhere. Was this building designed by TV writers, or what?

They espy the Interrodroid 6000 fiddling with Ida…

Ida’s turned evil.

Maximum Aldwen

Tyler goes into a boardroom with a bunch of suits and gets berated by head suit for a cavalier attitude toward intellectual property. Then he notices the following:

• Man1 can’t pronounce Manservant correctly…
• Man2 has a watch ticking loudly, despite the Cartier Paget case…
• Man3 has a machine-sewn suit with an ostentatious Italian cut…
• Man4 has a *really* bad toupee…
• Man5 has cufflinks made of plastic…
• Man6 has a clip-on tie…
• Man7 has reading glasses without magnification lenses.

Tyler’s escorted out.

Back at Middleman HQ, Middleman beheads the Interrodroid 6000 and uses the severed head to contact the Clotharians. It’s then we learn that Voyager 2 got sucked through a wormhole and started taking pictures of a top-secret military installation on the other side. Not only do we blanket the cosmos with our reality shows and sitcoms, but now we’re peepers. So the Clotharians sent back nanobots that will destroy all of our technology. All of it. Ida will be first, and then will explode with enough force to vaporize The City and send the nanobots all over the planet.

Oops.

The Middleman’s clever plan is to use the HADAR’s shrink ray – yes, it has one – and then its particle accelerator – yes, it has one – to be Fantastic Voyaged into Ida in order to hit the reset button in her brain. That will trigger her antivirus systems, “like a space android Norton Utilities.”

But the plan is foiled and in order to save Wendy from Ida’s blaster he has to send her in his place. More Raquel Welch than Donald Pleasance. When Wendy comes to, she’s in Ida’s sinus cavity. Which is filled with steampipes. She’s got to get to the cortex, hit the reset button, and get out before re-embiggening. Ida’s titanium skull will kill her if she’s re-embiggened inside her.

Outside, Ida tracks down her boss. He says she can’t hurt him, or through inaction let harm come to him. She tells him to “kiss her Asimov.” (Okay, Javi’s working on so many levels, I’m not sure he even knows what he did here. Sure, Asimov robot reference. But who wrote “Fantastic Voyage”? That’s right. Good ol’ Isaac.)

Wendy distracts the nanobots and slips through the hatch into…

Ida’s Brain. 5 minutes, 15 seconds before the inevitable detonation

Ida’s cortex is a mod white room. Ida’s brain is Ida, tastefully dressed in black with a string of pearls. She tells Wendy the reset button was a good plan, but the nanobots already trashed it. The only hope is to be returned to O2STK. They can destroy the nanobots and send a new copy of Ida back. So Ida’s brain tells Wendy what to do.

Middleman has to bring Ida to ops, then turn on and off the banker’s lamps in a specific order. That will open a hidden passage to a pneumatic tube that heads back to O2STK. Just when it looks like everything’s going to be alright, the nanobots start breaking into the cortex. There’s no other way out and Wendy can’t be re-embiggened inside Ida. So she gives her boss a live Code 47.

But then…an idea. Ida opens the hatch and Middleman re-embiggens Wendy. She appears in ops surrounded by nanobots as body armor. They are indestructible, after all.

Final Thoughts

Oh, poor Tyler. Just when things were looking up for old Wendy Watson…her boyfriend joins an evil organization. Oh well. At least he got a nice suit out of it.

I caught most of the Bruce Willis/Die Hard references tonight, along with one or two of the Doctor Whos, but as usual I missed a ton. Here’s Javi’s list.

What did everyone else think?

R.A. Porter is an aspiring television writer who currently toils away in the software mines. He can be found at his personal blog and stalked on Twitter.

Young Noser will be rent limb from limb to save you!

You really can’t get much more literal than that, can you Middlefans?

Tonight’s episode of The Middleman finds Wendy Watson fighting to save Middleman, fighting to save Lacey, fighting to save Noser, and fighting puppets. Seems a bit of a let down that her big fight of the night was against a couple of vampire puppet minions, but she sure did kick their puppety butts.

Nosiree, No Noser Here

We open in the illegal sublet Wendy shares with another, photogenic young artist as she and Lacey doll up for a party. TMI for Wendy and us as Lacey tells her she had a sex dream about Pip. In her recollection of the sex dream, Pip was dressed as the Middleman which should have told her something, but Lacey didn’t seem to realize.

At the party, Noser is nowhere to be found, but when her Tarot is read by a poser goth girl, someone or something possesses the goth and tells her the fate to befall Noser. Then the little Noser Tarot card bursts into flame. With cause, Wendy will be worried about Noser throughout the episode.

Cleaning up the next morning, she expresses her concerns to Lacey and finds out Lacey had ANOTHER sex dream about Pip in an Eisenhower jacket. She’s about to start a hard-target search of every farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse, and doghouse in the building when the Middlewatch beckons. Lacey tells her to go; she’ll find Noser.  Unfortunately, Pip is looking for Noser as well – he owes rent money – and Lacey ends up joining forces with her nemesis/sex dream partner.

At Middleman HQ, Wendy finds the Middleman packing a bag with wooden stakes and mallets. There’s an auction of Vlad the Impaler’s possessions and the Middlemission is to buy every single item for sale. Ida grabs loads of cash from the Middlesafe and adds that to the weapons they bring.

Wendy may have encyclopedic knowledge of vamps, but she doesn’t know that not just any wood will kill one. Only purest Carpathian wood will do. Unfortunately for us, we don’t ever learn what it means when a vampire offers you soup. I imagine you say no.

The Young Transylvanian Puppeteer

Lots of resources means lots of winning bids at the auction house. With their Middlecash, the Middleduo buy everything right up until the final, surprise item. Middleman’s a bit worried with only $400K left, but it doesn’t really matter. When the auctioneer puts Vladdy, the puppet made in the image of Vlad on his hand, he is possessed by the spirit trapped inside its wooden heart. Middleman and Dubby give chase – outside and into the sunlight – but when they finally corner Vladdy and his meatpuppet, Vladdy turns into a Bat Puppet and flies them away.

Vladdy is looking to bring about the Eternal Night of Blood, and by tracking down the last living owner of the puppet and talking to him through Senor Wences-style puppets Middleman and Wendy learn that a second vampire puppet – Lizzie, Vladdy’s lover – exists. Should the two of them be married while on the hands of two true loves getting married, they will reverse the curse trapping them in their wooden forms. A quick check from Ida finds Lizzie in the Middleman archives.

While Wendy and Middleman are searching the archives, Wendy gets a call from Lacey. She and Pip found security camera footage of Noser accepting a shiny silver briefcase from a stiking Eastern European woman. Wendy goes to check the license plate on the Hadar and Middleman continues his search. The woman: Irena Dubrovna who lives at 1010 Holmwood Drive. The puppet: found.

Unfortunately for Middleman, vamps don’t show up on security cameras, so as soon as he finds Lizzie, he is set upon by Vladdy!

Noser’s Gift

The Middleman is bitten by Vladdy and loses Lizzie. With a puppet on each hand, the possessed auctioneer leaves Middleman HQ and heads to destination unknown. Not totally unknown, as Middleman slipped his Middlewatch on them in the scuffle. He gets a shot of the antidote and tells Wendy she might have to fight this one alone. Once a vamp tastes the blood of his victim, he knows everything about the victim. Middleman is an open book to Vladdy and a liability in a fight.

They track the puppets to MacFarlane & Gray Hotel and Convention Center. It should be easy to find two puppets on a single possessed man, right. If only it weren’t the International Ventriliquism Grand Championships!

Lacey and Pip show up. They were told by Irena that Noser was a great artist, a master by age 6, retired by age 13. He gave up touring the world, entertaining kings and queens to be a goat farmer. A great ventriliquist as it turns out. Pip takes off to get his camera and Lacey heads inside to find Noser. Middleman and Wendy head in to find the vampire puppets.

Lizzie takes control of Lacey and that’s about it for our heroes. Knowing what non-evil lurks in Middleman’s heart, Vladdy takes possession of him. Wendy is left to fight off vampire puppet minions while Vladdy and Lizzie seek to bring on the Eternal Night of Blood (and extract their cursed souls from their puppet prisons.) Wendy dispatches and dismembers the vampire puppet minions in short order and tries to find the Middleman and Lacey. But first, she runs into Noser.

(There’s a marriage ceremony going on right now, but really if you’ve seen one evil vampire puppet wedding ceremony you’ve seen ‘em all.)

Lacey finds out that Noser spent all his money on his concept album and needed to come out of retirement to win the prize money at the IVGC. His puppet is Little Noser who looks just like him, and interestingly enough is made of purest Carathian wood!

In the chapel, Wendy finds Vlad and Elizabeth in human form, ready to rain death and distruction. Middleman and Lacey have been transformed into puppets. Not wasting anytime, Wendy shoots two arrows of purest Carpathian wood through the black hearts of the vamps, dusting them. They return to their puppety forms while Middleman and Lacey are depuppetized. She’s fortunately forgotten all.

Lacey’s final sex dream is appropriately about the man she actually loves – the Middleman. Middleman confesses to Wendy that he does love Lacey, but she’s not the only woman he loves!

Shout-outs

Well, I’m super-happy Javi is posting his references himself after the shows air now. I caught a good handful tonight – it was pretty easy if I just assumed most were going to be Dracula references – but felt I’d come up pretty short. Here’s a link to the complete list.

Final Thoughts

Only two more episodes and I have a bad feeling we’re not going to find out who the other woman Middleman loves is. Let’s all send M&Ms to ABC Family to make sure the show makes it back next year. I want to know what happens with Lacey and Middleman. I want to hear Noser’s concept album. I want Wendy Watson to wear the catsuit some more!!!

What did everyone else think?

R.A. Porter is an aspiring television writer who currently toils away in the software mines. He can be found at his personal blog and stalked on Twitter.

Crack wise all you want about my Eisenhower jacket Dubby. But I wear it because it’s named after a man who led soldiers through harsh times against the darkest of evils. This jacket says something about…about me. The man I choose to be.

Middleman 2008 is all about honor and duty and pride and sacrifice. He watches westerns and believes in true love. He drinks milk and eschews obscenities. He’s a throwback to a simpler time. But that’s not the job, that’s the man. So when Middleman 1969 – a suave and slimy Kevin Sorbo – is thawed out to face off against his arch-nemesis, there’s more than a little tension the Middleranks.

Breakfast for Dinner

Wendy Watson meets Tyler for dinner at The Batter of the Bulge Pancake House. Known for their luftwaffles and panzer cakes, she’s a little surprised that on a third date Tyler would choose to shoot so low. But little does she know that…I mean…Gut Wrencher 1, banned in 17 countries and denounced by both Tipper Gore AND the Dalai Lama! The goriest, bloodiest, most hellacious arcade game ever.

After a scant $18, Tyler and Wendy finish the game, killing the 86th Level Blood Lust Catamite with a SCUD missile. Out of breath, glowing with post-coinop sweat, they kiss passionately. Not long after, they retire to the illegal sublet Wendy shares with another young, photogenic artist. She removes her Middlewatch and…Ida gets a show.

Ten hours later, after oh so much spending of the night together, Wendy shares her fears with Lacey. Specifically, she tells Lacey that her mutant power is seeing how every relationship she has will end. But she can’t see the end of this one. Noser, ever rational, thinks this is a coping mechanism.

Like Butter

At Middleman HQ, Middleman is a bit awkward and uncomfortable. He mentions her watch, and its recording capabilities. Wendy…gets it. She’s flustered. Middleman points out that there is a way to turn it off, with Code 86. Wendy’s uncomfortable. Middleman’s uncomfortable. They really wish there were some crime to investigate. Ida obliges, telling them someone melted a jewelry store.

At Klebb’s Fine Jewels, Middleman and Wendy discover that someone looking like Andy Warhol melted a wall and stole $1M worth of jewels. The M.O. looks familiar to Middleman, which calls for quick and decisive action! To the Middleman HQ Archive!

Dubby thinks the research is a bit less than exciting.

MM: In the immortal words of Bertolt Brecht, ‘Hungry man reach for the book it is a weapon.’”
WW: Brecht was a communist.

Slowly thumbing through the Middlelore, Dubby and Middleman take note of some of the great villains of the past:

• The Domino, a Lithuanian who tried to knock down all the buildings in the city.
• The Fabulous Face, who replaced everyone in the White House with an evil double. He succeeded, but no one noticed.
• Dr. Solaris, who tried to poison the water supply with a boredom toxin.
• The Candle. Prof. Lloyd Kramden, PhD, whose family died in an ice rink meltdown and decided everyone else should suffer the same fate.

Ida, Ho

Alright. She’s not a ho. But her heart belonged to another before it belonged to the Middleman. When she hears that The Candle is back to his evil ways, she initiates the Middlecryogenic chamber and unfreezes Middleman 1969.

If The Candle can get his hands on Balthorium G, he’ll be able to power his melting rays, so 69 plants an ad in The Thrifty Nickel, offering to sell some. Middleman gets antsy, but the phone surely rings for Harry Lime. The Middletrio head out for a stakeout.

As 69 tells Wendy that love is not for those who wear the uniform of the Middleman, the current model gets in a fight with a melting ray-wielding maniac who looks like Andy Warhol behind the car. You see, 69′s first, third, and fourth wives were all killed by supervillains. His second wife left him for a supervillain. Love’s not in the cards for the Middles.

Having subdued The Candle – who after all was just a kid – he’s interrogated back at Middleman HQ. Turns out that The Candle found Jesus and stopped being a villain. He gave the kid a letter telling him to give the melting ray to science, but the kid thought – hey, melting ray! Lemme steal something!

Not buying the kid’s story, 69′s about to start beating him when Middleman stops him cold. Then Ida comes and breaks it all up. This leads to a retirement ceremony for 69, and Middleman forces him to give his civilian name. “Guy Goddard. Choke on it.”

Old Middlemen Never Die…

At the illegal sublet Wendy shares with Lacey, Guy shows up. He starts hitting on Lacey and she…well she clearly has a thing for Middlemen. But Guy’s really there to get Wendy to help him out with his plans. He knows The Candle’s still alive and plotting. 4000 angstroms of Balthorium G. are in the basement vault at Lord Jeremiah Purcell’s house. One angstrom is enough to melt a city. 4000 is “the perfect gimlet of meltageddon.”

The plan is to get invited to a game of Shaboomey (see, How I Met Your Mother, episode “Atlantic City” or Friends, episode “The One with the Baby Shower” for similar games) so Guy can sneak about the house. But it’s a very complicated game. One for which the penalty of making a mistake, or not knowing a rule, is beheading. But Dubby’s fine. She played Gut Wrencher 1.

For those of use who’ve waited patiently…Natalie Morales in the catsuit. Thank you, Javier Grillo-Marxauch!

Each player at Lord Jeremiah Purcell’s nefarious mansion brought a rare and priceless artifact. Guy brought the missing 18 and a half minutes (he spent five days in the ’70s back in ’66.) The rules of the game are byzantine and labyrinthine and…and any other words you can come up with for complex and confusing. But when Guy heads out to snoop, Dubby holds her own. Including bunnies.

When things do head south – Anatol Gogol cheated building a house of cards by using a glue stick – and Dubby has to pull her gun, Middleman comes sailing through the window and gives her a helping grenade. He had her back the whole time. They head down to the basement, but Guy’s hand has been melted! He says The Candle is alive and absconded with the Balthorium before he could plant the tracer.

…They Just Fade Away

Ida gives Guy a hook and plans are made. The Candle’s island fortress is on Snake Island, but Dubby’s suggestion of strafing it with the Middlejet is laughed at by Middlemen of two generations. Supervillains outfit their island fortresses with landmines and missile defense systems and androids and a lot of Scandinavian furniture. Then Wendy asks how they’ll get to the island and Guy says “maybe Scottie can beam us down. It’s…an obscure reference to a canceled television show. I’m sure you’ve never heard of it.”

No, they’ll need the Model 4600 Middlesub with the protective layer of asbestos.

Arriving at Snake Island near Dead Man’s Bluff Just Below the Devil’s Throat, Middleman and Guy are in wetsuits. Wendy is in a bikini (thanks, Javier!) Honey Ryder‘s bikini. Even with the big old knife on the waist. Nice touch.

They hear the melting ray kick on – the ray that’s going to melt the moon – and the Middletrio split up. Guy and Wendy end up coming right back to where they started, but Middleman is trapped in a room with a giant melting ray. It doesn’t look good for him. But when Wendy wants to go back to save him, Guy pulls his gun.

Of course. Lure them to the island to kill the Middleman and retake the helm. The “plan is sheer elegance in its simplicity,” Wendy says. Because yeah, the bad guys still say that. She takes his gun, but it’s not necessary at that point. Just telling him he was acting like a bad guy was enough to shake him free from his momentary flirtation with evil. He’s a Middleman, damn it! He destroys the melting ray, killing himself in the process.

Wendy and Tyler, Sittin’ in a Tree

After the heat of the arcade-fueled evening, things cooled off a little bit between the young lovers. Mostly, that’s because Wendy was self-sabotaging, but once she finally got over her fears and let go…well, Ida has multiple surveillance cameras in place.

Shout-outs

Almost all of these refer to fictional spies. All but Nolan Bushnell. For that one, you should check your geek cred.

“sweet mother of Nolan Bushnell”
Code 86
Rosa Klebb
Dr. Alexander Scott and Kelly Robinson
Lloyd Kramden
Balthorium
Harry Lime
Harry Rule and Contessa Caroine di Contini
Anatol Gogol
Count Manzeppi
The Scot (really…just look…it’s a SEAN CONNERY lookalike)

Final Thoughts

I thought the Star Trek joke was funny on two levels. At first it just looks like a silly, throwaway line. But Kevin Sorbo spent a good long time flying around in his space pajamas aboard the Andromeda. He knows from silly sci-fi for the kids.

Beyond that, there were a few really touching moments between Wendy and Middleman. Her hug when he was still alive, him telling her that true love is as much an option for Middlemen as everyone else, and his very heartfelt explanation of the Eisenhower jacket. There were a few things that felt a bit off for me tonight, but I thought they nailed the emotions, both of two people whose friendship is deepening as they fight evil, and of two people just falling in love.

What did everyone else think?

R.A. Porter is an aspiring television writer who currently toils away in the software mines. He can be found at his personal blog and stalked on Twitter.

…Lacey Thornfield.

Things aren’t shiny for Wendy.

Who You Gonna Call?

While scanning various frequencies, Ida picks up a call from nearby Reitman University. Seems a call came in from a sorority regarding ghosts.

It may all seem like light and magic at first but the next thing you know the walls are bleeding and you’ve got 25 pregnant women running around screaming Mary, Mary, Mary! And clawing their eyes out with knitting needles while your own hair grows to three times its length and tries to strangle you.

Louis, a frat pledge, had dressed as a girl to sneak into the third floor of Omega Theta Nu, but when he got there he saw a ghost. As it turns out, he had his pineal gland removed during surgery, and as *everyone* knows, that lets you see and hear ghosts.

Going undercover as an ΩΘΝ from State, Wendy wears a pair of glasses especially crafted by Ida to duplicate the pineal gland-ectomy. Wendy won’t be able to hear the ghosts, but she will be able to see them.

That turns out to be a mixed blessing.

See, these aren’t your run of the mill ghosts. No, these run of the sorority house ghosts are actually alive.

Oh Chrissy Seaver, You Sure Did Grow Up Purty

I’m old enough to have been freaked out when Punky Brewster grew up all hot and bothersome, so I wasn’t quite as shocked by Ashley Johnson‘s appearance on tonight’s episode. But it’s still disconcerting. (Hold on. I’ve got to yell at some kids to turn down their music and get off my lawn. Okay, I’m back.) Makes me feel old, you know?

Wendy went to all the trouble, and it was trouble, learning the official ΩΘΝ handshake and cheer from Lacey – Barbara Thornfield, MD, PhD was a sister – and then when she showed up no one used the handshake. Eleanor Drake said they only use hugs.

When Wendy gets a moment of privacy and calls Middleman on the Middlewatch, she tells him the ghosts she’s seen are still alive.

Middleman: Ghosts of the Living!
Wendy: Is that one of your snappy exclamations or are you just defining what we’re up against?
Middleman: A little of both I suppose.

Ali, one of the non-spectrally displaced sisters, doesn’t trust Wendy at first, but comes around when Wendy gives her the handshake. When she gets an opportunity – with the sorority cheering for Wendy – Ali dishes. Eleanor had been brought in as an “emergency pledge” a few weeks earlier at the same time the executive board began acting strange. Now, it seems the officers are doing the bidding of Eleanor.

Middleman rushes to Wendy’s aid and pulls her out. Back at Middleman HQ they pull Eleanor Jean Draper’s records. She’s a genius. An evil genius. Hell, she even won the Egon Spengler award for Physics!

Bosom Buddy

With her glasses broken, Wendy can neither see nor hear the ghost girls, so she brings Louis back to ΩΘΝ with her. In drag. He looks nothing like Jennifer Love Hewitt in that dress, but he repeats what the ghosts say to Wendy. She discovers that Eleanor kicked them out of their bodies and replaced them with her friends. Middleman heads to the physics lab.

Using a Quantum Processor, Eleanor has taken over the bodies of the sorority’s alpha females. Because they rejected her! As Middleman tries to take out the equipment, he discovers his weapon won’t fire. Eleanor’s tech knocks out radio communication and his gun. She jumps onto a slab and plugs herself in, knocking Middleman’s ethereal spirit out of his body!

Right now, I just want to say how great a job I think Matt Keeslar does in this episode playing as Eleanor inhabiting his body. Sure, he might get a little too high pitched some of the time, but the way he turns his upright, square jawed body into that of a 20-year-old girl is spot on.

Especially when he and Dubby fight. We’ll get to that.

Oda Mae Brown, Meet Louis Tully

When Eleanor-in-Middleman meets back up with Wendy, s/he tells her that all is well. Head home. Job well done. Wendy does just that, only to discover Lacey and Tyler still enjoying their daylong first date. Opting not to be a third wheel for at Vegan Palace, Wendy hangs all alone. Finally too bummed to take it any longer (because even her beloved bad-zombie movie reminds her of Tyler) she calls Ali. She hears a bacchanalia in the background.

Wendy: Hey what’s all that noise? Sounds like Caligula is raging in the living room.
Ali: I don’t know who Caligula is, but if she’s like a total drunken slut, then yeah.
Then Ali tells Wendy that her “brother”, Middleman, is there.

Ali hangs up and heads for the door. As she opens it, she sees Louis outside. Middleman’s ghost is there, and speaking through Louis. Wanting to be sure, Wendy asks for some piece of information only he would know. She’s positive it’s her boss when Louis repeats, “Dubby, I’m afraid I can’t divulge sensitive Middlesecrets though a civilian interpreter.”

They head for the sorority house where Middleman has her use a grenade that bums everyone out. That does it. Now Eleanor’s plan of having the house shut down for throwing a rager is shot down.

Which brings us to the aforementioned fight between Eleanor-in-Middleman and Wendy. A weird girl-on-almost-girl fight. Wendy’s got Sensei Ping’s training, but Middleman’s body has muscle memory. A shot to the jewels gets Eleanor-in-Middleman’s attention, but Wendy celebrates too soon as Eleanor-in-Middleman knocks her out and runs to the Middlemobile.

Curses, Foiled Again!

In the Middlecar, Eleanor is given several destination options: church, the creamery, top-secret headquarters, or the duck pond. Eleanor chooses Middleman HQ.

When she comes to, Wendy lets Ida know this isn’t the real Middleman, but Eleanor has hacked Middlecomms and locks HQ down. She sets the self-destruct sequence, knowing she’ll end up back in her own body safe and sound while Middleman will be permanently unmoored. Unfortunately for Eleanor and fortunately for Middlefans, Wendy, Louis, and Middleghost get to the physics lab and shut down the Quantum Processor.

That’s it for Eleanor. Except of course for that trip to Greenland to use her scientific knowledge for good instead of evil ends.

Oh Yeah, Tyler

During the party, Ali takes Wendy’s phone and tells Lacey quite clearly that Wendy likes Tyler. Lacey’s confused, because Wendy had said she didn’t care, but gets it. She and Tyler break up. Freeing Tyler to wander over to the Booty Chest for wings and clarity. While he was there, one of the busboys and he get to talking and Tyler discovers it was not Lacey with whom he’d flirted during his two-day bout of amnesia, but Wendy.

Wendy and Tyler decide to watch Zombies of Mora Tau – the perfect zombie palette cleanser – and eat wings together.

Shout-outs

This week’s “hidden” popculture theme was Ghost Busters. Sort of interesting considering what Jason reported the other day about a possible Ghost Busters reunion.

• 55 Ray Parker Jr. Ave
• Stantz and Zeddemore
• Reitman uni
• Louis (obviously Tully)
• Keymaster and Gatekeeper
• Egon Spengler award

In addition to the GB themed references, there were a few other references of note. First off, Wendy compares Omega Theta Nu to Mos Eisley. Then when she gets to the physics lab to shut down Eleanor’s Quantum Processor, she proclaims, “holy Wachowski brothers!”

What did everyone else think?

R.A. Porter is an aspiring television writer who currently toils away in the software mines. He can be found at his personal blog and stalked on Twitter.

Great Randolph Scott!

Wendy Watson‘s got a big night ahead of her. The night prior, she killed a giant pig-insect hybrid in the back of the Middlemobile and now she’s got to muck it out. That leaves Middleman with an evening free to catch the twilight matinee at a neighborhood revival theater. His favorite hero, Randolph Scott, is gracing the silver screen in Ride Lonesome. But someone’s on his tail. And that someone is Lacey Thornfield.

Lacey’s crush on sexy bossman has brought her to this, following he of the “pillow lips” to a western revival. The sexual tension between the two of them is the highest it’s yet been, with each breath and stutteriffic utterance from Middleman clearly limning his feelings. Lacey’s book is open just as wide. They decide to sit together…in the otherwise empty theater. There was no organic, cruelty-free vegan candy for Lacey, but Middleman brings her a water while he pours himself a tall milk from his hip flask.

Of course, the Middlewatch goes off and Middleman has to head back to MiddlemanHQ, but not before Lacey gives him her number.

A Cursed Tuba?

Showing up at the Peckinpaugh Hotel, they discover a body, “drowned in the icy waters of the North Atlantic.” Perfectly normal, except for the part where the body is in bed, and there was no sign of forced entry of the water. CSI on the scene, Cecil Rogers, tells the Middleduo his on-the-spot findings. The salination levels of the water definitely indicate its North Atlantic origins.

Middleman’s got a little man-crush on the efficiency and knowledge of the charming CSI. So much so, that he gets the wool pulled over his eyes after Cecil takes off and the real CSI show up.

Back at MiddleHQ, Ida gets them info on the victim while Dubby draws a picture of Cecil for facial recognition scans. We’ll find out more about the phony CSI later. Now, we find out that Artie Atkins – Double A – was a fence. His partner, Johnny John, is home at 8660 Hawks Lane, Apt. 9.

A real schlub of a guy, he wants the Middleagents to hold off because he’s got a real hottie inside. He asks if they know how rare that is and with a quick glance up and down, Dubby tells him she does indeed. Ouch. They wait outside while Johnny John goes back in and goes at it.

Sounds of sex ensue: springs springing; headboard crashing; bloodcurdling screams from Johnny John. Wait. That can’t be right! Kicking in the door, Dubby and Middleman find a succubus attacking him. She’s after the tuba the portly paisan and his partner stole. Uh-oh. Looks like Roxy Wasserman is up to no good.

At Famouse Fashion House, Middleman and Dubby walk in with their captive succubus. MM gives Roxy a solid right hook and starts yelling. Roxy broke her deal. She’s collecting magical artifacts. But it turns out Roxy was up to good, not no good. Good! She’s just trying to find the cursed tuba before its e-flat rumble kills all who hear it. Really. They drown in the icy waters of the North Atlantic. It’s a cursed tuba, you see.

Hide the Tuba

Back at MiddleHQ, Ida starts a search for the tuba. She gets a lot of hits. Every time someone mentions a tuba, emails the word, writes it on the web…she gets a hit. This is going to take a while. Long enough for Wendy to head back to the illegal sublet she shares with Lacey and for Middleman to take another shot at seeing the end of his movie.

Wendy’s a little saddened when she gets home. Lacey’s dolled up and takes off as soon as she gets a text. Wendy’s alone. But Lacey isn’t. She’s back at the theater to see Ride Lonesome with sexy bossman. And this time he’s brought cruelty-free vegan candy for her.

Unfortunately, the Middlewatch goes off again. He’s never seen the end of the movie. Lacey tells him she’ll watch it for him so she can tell him how it ends. Honestly? Might have been the sweetest moment I’ve seen on TV in this calendar year.

Ida’s hit is gold. Arturo Arroyo, the teenaged son of the Peckinpaugh’s manager, is thrilled to finally have a tuba. He’s headed to band auditions at his school. Dubby and MM head there to save those kids, but Cecil Rogers gets to Edward J. Smith HS ahead of the Middleteam and steals the tuba. Outside, he’s shot and loses the tuba to his attacker. Then, the bullet wound heals and he comes back from the dead.

(And now a brief moment to complain about our sponsor. They run the new JCPenney ad that’s supposed to be an homage to the Breakfast Club. Stop crapping on my youth! Okay, back to our program.)

Cecil is in fact, immortal. As long as the tuba is intact, that is. He was the tuba player on the Titanic. While the ship was sinking, instead of playing with the string quartet, he wrapped his tuba in a blanket and said it was his three-year-old. With that cruel lie, he sealed his fate and that of his large, brass instrument. His curse is intertwined with that of the vile instrument of sonic death.

In ’55, Cecil stashed the tuba in a bank vault and started living guilt- and worry-free. Until Titanic fetishist Arthur Mendelson hired Double A and Johnny John to steal the tuba. And tonight, on his private ocean liner (three feet longer than the Queen Mary and 86 feet longer than Titanic) he will unveil it to all the Titanic collectors of note.

Save the Last Dance for Me

Lacey does Dubby’s hair and expresses some small jealousy over the date-like arrangements of the evening. So when Middleman and Wendy show up on the liner in period attire – a dashing tux and a gorgeous gown – it’s little surprise when they are joined moments later by Noser and Lacey in white tie and smokin’ hot dress. See, Lacey’s mom – Barbara Thornfield, MD PhD – knows Arthur Mendelson and Lacey called her (assistant) and got tickets.

Moser gets in a little Styx love just at the ship starts, “sailing away into the virgin sea” and Middleman and Dubby go looking for the tuba. They find it, after using Sensei Ping‘s Twisted Stones on Johnny John and two other goons, but get knocked out before they can destroy it.

Coming to in the engine room, they find they’ve been handcuffed by Arthur Mendelson who just doesn’t believe in the curse.

But Cecil does. And he realizes that this is the perfect opportunity to kill all the Titanic collectors and fetishists at one time, thereby taking out everyone who knows about the curse of the tuba. If no one knows it’s cursed, no one will try to take it or destroy it, and he can live forever, unconcerned.

Up in the ballroom, Lacey wants to find Wendy and MM. She’s getting pretty jealous. Poor Noser just wants to finish his lobster dinner, but that doesn’t matter. Middleman texts Lacey to come help them.

Wendy: Wait. Why do you have my roommate’s number?
Middleman: I have a good memory for numbers. I know lots of them.
Wendy: Why do you have my roommate’s number?
Middleman: I got it from your emergency numbers on your startup paperwork.
Wendy: My mother’s my emergency number. Why do you have my roommate’s number?
…
Wendy: Why don’t you just date my mom while you’re at it?
Middleman: Is she nice?

Personally, I think that’s a great joke, but Wendy’s in no mood for it. Fortunately, Lacey and Noser show up and free the trapped heroes.
Lacey and Noser earplugged-up and out of the way, Middleman and Dubby run to save everyone. Middleman punches Cecil while Dubby grabs the tuba. She starts running, but the gown’s too long and the tuba too big. She finally makes it to the railing and gets ready to throw it into the bay, but Cecil gets there quicker. He gets the drop on her, thanks to a conveniently located rope, and leaves her hanging from the rails while he runs to a gathering of guests.

Sweet Molly Brown! At least, that’s what Middleman says when Dubby nails the tuba and the tuba-ist with a harpoon in the nick of time.

Middleheart

Middleman can’t date Lacey. It’s not fair to Wendy, and it’s dangerous for her. So he dances with her and tells her they can’t be together, quoting Sam Boone from Ride Lonesome: “there are some things a man just can’t ride around.” Lacey cries, Middleman looks miserable, and Wendy looks sad for the both of them.

Then Lacey tells sexy bossman how Ride Lonesome ends: unexpectedly but perfectly. Just the way it had to.

I honestly didn’t think this show could have this much heart. I’ve enjoyed it for the cute factor and for its unapologetic goofiness, but it had only hinted at depth before tonight. There’s a good amount of chemistry between Matt Keeslar and Brit Morgan, and this is an unusual way to take that. I don’t know if this is going to resolve the unrequited romance between these two or not, but whichever tack Javier Grillo-Marxuach takes going forward should be fun to watch.

Shout-outs

Two different tracks of references tonight. First up and not so hidden, Titanic:

• Agents Harland and Wolff
• Edward J. Smith High School
• Molly Brown

And, westerns:

• Peckinpaugh Hotel
• 8660 Hawks Lane, Apt. 9
• Agents Boetticher and Kennedy

What did everyone else think?

R.A. Porter is an aspiring television writer who currently toils away in the software mines. He can be found at his personal blog and stalked on Twitter.

Breakfast Time

On the balcony to the illegal sublet Wendy shares with another young, photogenic artist, she and Lacey are preparing for Art Crawl, a semi-sporadical festival of the arts. Dubby’s talking on the phone with her moms and Lacey’s a bit jealous. See, her moms – Dr. Barbara Thornfield, M.D. Ph.D. – is the absent type. But Lacey’s got Dubby to prop her up and keep her sane. She can always count on Dubby.

Snack Time

It’s Wendy Watson‘s first session with Sensei Ping. Sadly, we don’t get to see the master battler of the Clan of the Pointed Stick in action, we only hear him behind door number one. One hour of training – 59 1/2 minutes actually – and Dubby’s not dead. She’s thrilled.

That was awesome. That was the best thing ever. The teaching, the learning, the laughter, the bonding. I swept the leg!

Hammer Time

Lacey’s so happy. Dr. Barbara Thornfield, M.D. Ph.D. is going to show up for Art Crawl. After 45 minutes on hold, her mother said yes, though the doctor’s assistant broke onto the line to say she might not be able to go in case Henry Kissinger needed her. So Lacey will have the two most important people in her life at Art Crawl: moms and Dubby.

Of course something comes up and Dubby has to bow out for a bit of setup.

Nap Time

“Dubby, there is nothing cool about zombies.”

Bullet Time

But there is something cool about seminal British band The Zombies, led by Rod Argent on piano and Colin Blunstone on vocals. So when Middleman and Wendy Watson show up at St. Albans hospital to interview Mr. Argent about the attack he suffered at the hands and teeth of his wife, Dubby is of course Ms. Blunstone from Time of the Season Unlimited Mutual.

After hearing the details of the attack – trout gore all over Mr. Argent from fishing, his crazed wife biting him, his super-strong wife throwing their RV at him – MM pulls the curtains around the bed and pulls his gun. It’s going to be curtains for Mr. Argent. A quick convo with Dubby about the sad fate of the man follows until Mr. Argent cries out that he doesn’t want to die. Fortunate. “Zombies lack any sense of self-preservation.” Middleman cheerily lets him live.

Ida calls: zombie attack in progress.

Back at the hall outside the illegal sublet Wendy shares with Lacey, Lacey and Noser argue with neighbor (and bad artist) Pip. He’d like to perform his epic monologue “Hey Mr. God” for Art Crawl. No one wants to see that. Really.

Country Time

At the Grundy Fish Market, Mr. Argent’s poor, trout-craving wife is…what? Yes. I said this zombie craves trout. Anyway, his poor, trout-craving wife is on a rampage. Looking for trout. To eat.

Middleman tranqs her. With “enough tranquilizer to take down a Bengal elephant.” Oops. Two Bengal elephants.

High Time

Back at Middle HQ, we find out the zombie’s not a zombie. She’s got a heartbeat. Unfortunately, it’s accelerating a half-beat every 1005 seconds. They need to find an antidote before it explodes “like a sausage casing full of weasels.” Ida runs zombie-girl’s blood while the brown-clad heroes head to the Middlegarage.

Back at Art Crawl, things are going apace. Art’s getting hung, recyclables are being recycled, and Pip’s wearing a black track suit. All is well, until Lacey gets a call from moms. Henry Kissinger needs her.

Three-Quarter Time

In Middlemobile 2, MM is quizzing Dubby about her training. She thinks he’s jealous of her progress with Sensei Ping, but that’s not how MM rolls. He’s just proud as a new poppa.

Lacey calls to let Dubby know her moms won’t be making it to Art Crawl. Henry Kissinger.

“That guy! Cambodia, Chile, now Art Crawl?”

Quittin’ Time

At the Beechwood Park RV Park, MM and Dubby look for evidence. Ida calls MM with the blood work. She was bitten by a Peruvian Flying Pike. Its venom turns its victims into trout-craving zombies. Oh, by the way, while Ida and MM are chatting on the Middlewatch, Dubby’s fighting a Flying Pike in the background. If only she’d left it alive to make the antidote…

But that’s okay. There’s a tag on the fish from the Odessey and Oracle Fishery. Helpful bad guys, leaving clues like that lying around.

Big Time

At the fishery, MM and Dubby find a boatload of Peruvian Flying Pike. And then they find four men with shotguns. Dubby suggests Pain’s River – the first thing Sensei Ping taught her, even though it’s very complicated – and forty-seven seconds later the thugs are bound. Mr. White is running the operation, but the thugs have never seen his face.

Call fish and game, take a few live Pike back to MiddleHQ, and make the antidote.

And Dubby still has hopes of making it to Art Crawl which has already begun with Stump the Band. Noser’s awesome at Stump the Band. He stands on stage in his purple jacket holding his guitar close. The crowd yells out songs…he ponders…then says, “yeah, I know that.” Truly awe-inspiring!

A quick cure for Mr. Argent’s zombie-bride, and the Middleteam starts looking for Mr. White. But Dubby bails, claiming MM just wants busy work.

Lacey begins her performance before a rapt Art Crawl audience. MM buzzes the Middlewatch, calls on Dubby’s cell, and then shows up. While Lacey continues, MM tells Dubby a zombie attack is in progress. They exit, with Lacey on the verge of tears.

Past your Bedtime

Another zombie. Man, what is it with zombies? While the zombie recovers from the antidote, Lacey shows up at the Jolly Fats Wehawkin Temp Agency to express her anger to Dubby. So angry is she, that when MM comes out to drag Dubby back inside she doesn’t even flirt with him. He’s visibly wounded by that, but soldiers on.

Turns out the party girl-zombie had gone on a casting call to be a spokesgirl for !!!!, an energy drink that smells like Peruvian Flying Pike with a touch of trout. Oops. Someone’s got an insidious plan to sell zombie-making juice as an energy drink!

Prime Time

Downtown at !!!! Industries, the Middleduo find cases and cases and cases of !!!!. Plus vending machines and…Mr. White! The head thug from the fish hatchery!

A former poacher, he was attacked by a school of Peruvian Pike. One bit his neck and turned him into a zombie. A friendly native gave him the antidote and Mr. White devised his heinous plan to, as MM puts it, “concoct the perfect cocktail of aquatic addiction to make yourself rich by fish-hooking the world on your energy drink.”

He gets the drop on the Middlepair and drops trout on the pair. Then he lets loose his secret weapon: hot zombie spokesmodels!

MM and Dubby duck into an office where she apologizes for letting her good day with Sensei Ping go to her head. But MM’s not in it to say “I told you so”. He’s in it to fight evil. So they battle together, taking out the hot zombie spokesmodels with the Devil’s Dance. Kicks the crapola outta SYTYCD, I tell ya!

Time to rise up and greet the dawn

In Middlecar 2, Dubby learns what the second key is for: jet power!

Jail Time

Thanks to the jet power, they catch up to Mr. White and Dubby tranqs him in the nick of time. But Middleman steps on her line. So she gets a do-over and goes with “swift justice.” It’s all in her delivery.

Next Art Crawl? Zombie-themed.

Shout-outs

They were all zombie-themed this week, and all the ones I caught were related to The Zombies:

• St. Albans
• Mr. Argent
• Ms. Blunstone
• Time of the Season Unlimited Mutual
• Grundy Fish Market
• Beechwood Park RV Park
• Odessey and Oracle Fishery
• Mr. White

What did I miss? And what did everyone else think?

R.A. Porter is an aspiring television writer who currently toils away in the software mines. He can be found at his personal blog and stalked on Twitter.

USA has been doing this for years, with Psych, Monk, and now Burn Notice. Even SciFi does it with the excellent Eureka. Now ABC Family is getting in on the fun with their new show, The Middleman.

I’d been looking forward to this premiere for a couple of weeks now, getting clued in from some reviewers I like and (I’m a little embarrassed to admit) ads in comic books. Based on the Viper Comics title of the same name, The Middleman is similar in tone and substance to Men in Black. A secret organization, advanced weaponry and technology, a recruit plucked from the general populace when she shows great acumen under fire, and aliens. And not just aliens: monsters, mad scientists, evil magicians…the gamut.

Created and executive produced by Javier Grillo-Marxuach – who created the comic along with artist Les McClaine – this show is a *blast*.

We meet and learn just about everything we need to know about Wendy Watson (Natalie Morales) in the first two minutes.

She’s on the phone with her mother, telling her about her job at a lab working with the top scientific minds in the country. She gets another call and puts her mother on hold: Wendy’s working reception. Back to her mom: “lots of art school grads get science jobs.” Another call, and in the lab behind her we see an explosion and a lot of smoke. Back to mom: “Yes mother. I am still dating that guy. And his name is Ben. No. He is not a homosexual. He’s in film school.”

By the time a giant, tentacled monster breaks through the glass behind Wendy, we’ve gotten to know a lot about her. And now we learn the rest. Unfazed, unworried, she tries to run by gets snagged by a tentacle. She grabs a letter opener and stabs at it.

The Middleman (Matt Keeslar) arrives to save her – not without a bit of humor about whom he’s saving – and that’s that. Wendy is convinced to keep the truth to herself and The Middleman disappears. I should point out here that I momentarily forgot I was watching ABC Family when Wendy asked “what about the hentai tentacle monster?”

The Middleman isn’t necessarily the nicest guy, however. He does steal Wendy’s Zippo (a memento of her father who disappeard mysteriously) and use it to frame Wendy for the “gas main” accident at the lab. This makes her unemployable by any of the temp agencies in town and she’s forced to turn to the Jolly Fats Wehawkin Temp Agency – a front for the Middleman and his sidekick, Ida (Mary Pat Gleason) the very grumpy android.

Once she’s passed her series of increasingly frightening tests – typing, IQ, polygraph, stress, some kind of crazy-helmet-and-video, ESP – she finds out the truth. This leads to this great exchange:

Middleman: You ever read comic books?

Wendy: Yeah. I think Jughead’s a real hoot…Powers, Fell, Astro City, The Spirit, X-Men – old school, not Ultimate – Mouse Guard, and the Flash.”

Middleman: Barry Allen or Wally West?

Wendy: Do you want me to leave?

Ah, nothing quite hotter than a super-cute girl who digs comics.

On the Job

Understandably upset that she was set up, she takes off. Goes home, puts on some emo music to paint by…then turns on something that actually rocks and paints the tentacle monster. Realizing she’s got no job, no prospects, and lives in a world where aliens, monsters, and mad scientists exist, she meets her new boss at the crime scene.

Someone’s bumping off all the mobsters in town. Some careful detective work – they find a banana peel and then analyze it, and if you don’t know what kind of villain we’re dealing with, you haven’t been following along – leads them to the culprits. Off to Simionics LTD where they meet Jack Bauer’s ever-competent Chloe (Mary Lynn Rajskub). I always figured she’d be a mad scientist. And that’s surely what she is. Wendy puts it best: “Genius primates. Because that’s a problem that needed solving.”

One of the gorillas has “gotten lose” and is killing off all the mobsters in town. In the end, poor Spanky the Gorilla is less Gorilla Grodd and more unwiling pawn of a mad scientist. Chloe couldn’t really help it, though. Every year, the government gives her less and less money for her research. She needs to complete her research so she can realize her dream “to build an army of genetically engineered super-apes to take over the world.”

One completely non-gratuitous Planet of the Apes reference later and the case is wrapped up.

This show’s a blast. Kid-friendly, yet not kid-only.

This is about the closest I’ve seen to a live-action comic book in years. It’s funny, witty, doesn’t take itself too seriously, and doesn’t slow down from start to finish. My one complaint is that Matt Keeslar might need to step up his aerobic routine. He’s running out of breath on some of the more word-packed lines. And they *are* word-packed. Like Gilmore Girls x 2.

All in all, a fun show that I recommend as light summer filler.

R.A. Porter is an aspiring television writer who currently toils away in the software mines. He can be found at his personal blog and stalked on Twitter.