The episode picks up the next day, where we find Zane mowing the huge lawn with a manual mower [Ew, using one of those would suck]. This is his punishment after Trina and Daniel tattled on him, and they’ve come by with some fresh lemonade to drink while poking fun at Zane. Zane apologises, admitting he got carried away with the whole dinner thing, and Trina kindly offers him her lemonade. Trina and Daniel forgive him and actually seem proud of how well he pranked them back, and they’re soon all friends again [Not that they were friends before though]. Mum and Dad are watching this interaction from inside the house, excited and horny that they can go out tonight without having to worry about any issues between the kids. They’re so caught up in their love for each other that they fail to see Slappy and Rocky walk by in the hallway carrying more of Dad’s dummies [!!!].
Later that night, Slappy watches Mum and Dad leave from the window while Trina, Daniel and Zane are upstairs looking forward to the night ahead. Trina heads down to the kitchen to fetch a drink, where she spots Slappy and Rocky clinging to the ceiling fan in the living room. Her hollering brings the boys running out, and Trina and Daniel are quick to blame Zane for yet another prank, because “Who else could have done it?” Zane, however, notices that a dummy’s been stuffed inside the water cooler, and even though he explicitly says “you can’t fit anything that huge inside this bottle, it’s impossible,” he thinks Daniel is responsible [How’d he do it if it’s impossible, Zane? Hmm?].
A sound behind them alerts the trio to Slappy now perched on the dining table [It’s definitely a person in a costume again too!]! Trina and Daniel quickly realise that Slappy must be alive – after all, he did kick Zane yesterday [I think they’re supposed to be frightened, but Trina and Daniel’s performances here seem almost trancelike?], but their cousin’s much less willing to accept the truth. Zane sticks his butt out in front of Slappy, daring him to kick him again in an attempt to disprove Trina’s and Daniel’s theory, but imagine his surprise when Slappy kicks him to the floor and jumps off the table!
Slappy chases the kids into the living room, but Trina and Daniel manage to get the upper hand, pinning him down while Zane fetches Slappy’s case from the attic. Despite the dummy’s constant struggling, the trio manages to stuff him in his case before carrying it outside and throwing it down a well as Rocky watches through the window. Back inside, the trio decides not to tell their parents because it’s such an unbelievable situation and head to their bedrooms to sleep [Wouldn’t you want to stick together after something like that?].
Trina reads for a while, but as she’s getting ready to sleep, Slappy appears and coughs up a frog in his throat [How’d he get out of the well?]. Daniel bursts into the room just as Trina’s trying to leave, and neither of them break eye contact with each other while Trina explains what happened. Daniel thinks she’s joking around, even though Slappy can clearly be heard cackling in the background as Daniel entered the room [The plot calls for selective hearing, I guess!], and when they finally look back to the bed, the dummy is no longer there. He’s left a trail of wet footprints though, which go up the wall and into a vent [He can walk up walls? Incredible].
The siblings rush to Zane’s room, but find it locked while Slappy blows his green CGI breath into Zane’s sleeping face [Uh oh!]. Trina and Daniel manage to get the door open and find every single one of Dad’s dummies sitting on the bed, with Slappy and Rocky front and centre. Slappy introduces the siblings to his friends and his bodyguard Rocky, who’s ‘”not too bright, but he’ll do anything I say.” Trina demands to know where Zane is, prompting Rocky to turn a chair around to reveal Zane in a brand-new puppet form [And it looks nothing like him!].
Slappy warns them not to tell anyone unless they want to follow in Zane’s footsteps, and a frightened Daniel hauls ass out of there. Trina follows and manages to calm him down, suggesting they just need to find Slappy’s weakness. She quickly deduces that the card she’d read from Slappy’s pocket is a spell that brought him to life, and Daniel proposes that reading the card backwards will reverse the effects [Sounds reasonable!]. Trina threw it into his case after reading it the other day, so they head out to the well to retrieve it, completely unaware that Rocky’s heard every word!
Unfortunately the card isn’t in the case when they yank it from the well, so the kids head back inside realising Slappy must have it. Zane’s room is empty now, so the siblings sneak up to the attic where Slappy, Rocky and Puppet Zane appear to be sleeping [I think they think this because they’re all sitting motionless and quiet but like it’s a very obvious trap…]. Daniel’s lighter than Trina, so she forces him to approach Slappy across the creaky floorboards to nab the card. Of course Slappy jumps up as soon as Daniel reaches for the card, causing it to fall from his pocket and onto the armchair he was just sitting on, although no-one seems to notice yet. Slappy decides it’s Daniel’s turn to be woodified, but in an efficient display of self-defence, Daniel shoves him away while Trina simultaneously kicks Slappy before he can get his stinky breath on Daniel.
Trina notices the card and plucks it from the chair, and Slappy begs for mercy as she starts to read it backwards. As soon as she’s done, Slappy drops to the ground motionless [He’s definitely acting], followed closely by Rocky [Which makes me question whether they actually are acting or not, because surely Rocky’s not smart enough to realise what Slappy’s doing?]. Trina cautiously approaches Slappy, just to make sure he’s really down for the count, but the dummy pops back up and laugh at their stupidity. Rocky jumps up and laughs too, but is quickly accosted by Slappy because “who said you could laugh?” [Wow, rude] Slappy then explains that Trina and Daniel will become his slaves, “just like Rockhead over there,” before instructing his the rock-head in question to teach them a lesson.
Trina appeals to Rocky’s family values, insisting he doesn’t need to be anyone’s slave and has always been Dad’s favourite. Rocky seems torn between the two sides, but Slappy orders him not to listen to Trina, calling him a “sorry sack of sawdust!” [Insulting someone is always the best way to get them to do your bidding, right?]. Trina continues to drive her point home, reminding Rocky of how Dad made him part of the family after he found and repaired him. Slappy points out that he’s the one who gave Rocky life, though, and although it initially appears Rocky is siding with Slappy, he quickly turns on and attacks his master, presumably fed up with the constant insults.
Slappy pleads for the other dummies to help him, but Rocky doesn’t want his bad breath stinking out the attic anymore and yeets him out the window and into the stormy night. Slappy’s able to cling onto the gutter to stop himself falling to his death, cackling as he declares himself invincible! Mother Nature has other plans for this hunk of wood, though, and with a conveniently timed bolt of lightning that travels along the gutter to strike Slappy, our favourite dummy explodes [We have a budget for this episode!]. With the master now dead, Rocky drops to the ground, lifeless again, and Zane reverts back to a human, believing the past hour or two to have just been a crazy dream.
The next day, Trina’s tidying up the attic and makes sure to thank Rocky for saving their lives, and surprisingly after she leaves, Rocky doesn’t show any signs of life [It seriously is shocking; there must be another little twist coming!]. Downstairs, Zane’s being picked up by his father, and Trina returns just in time to sincerely tell him that they liked having him around and hope to see him again soon [Cute!]. Zane suggests they come to his house next time, and as luck would have it, Mum and Dad were already thinking of sending Trina and Daniel to stay with Zane’s family over Christmas. The siblings watch as Zane heads to the car, and the main story ends with them standing there, stupefied, after Zane’s head swivels 180 degrees to tell them “I’ll be seeing you real soon, cousins.” [He sounds evil when he says it, so I wonder if Slappy is living through him now? Or if he just has some puppet powers left from his time as a piece of wood?]
Stine’s back to wrap up the episode, quipping “There’s a story that’s sure to turn some heads,” [Good one, Stine!]. As he bids us goodnight, it’s revealed that although our beloved Stine can think and talk for himself, he’s now some kind of marionette puppet, his arms being controlled by some higher power pulling on string [Ooky spooky!].
Final thoughts
This two-parter would have benefitted from some more Slappy action in the first half, but overall it’s not a bad episode. Our three heroes were decent enough characters, but I feel like the stakes could have been higher if Trina or Daniel were the one to be turned into a puppet, forcing Zane and the remaining sibling to really work together and set their new friendship in stone [Or wood]. Rocky was cute too; I wish we’d seen more of him since he was the real hero, but he had a good character arc in his short screen time. The other puppets being alive would have been nice too, but oh well.
61 fractured familial relationships healed by an encounter with a living dummy out of 87.
