The episode begins as our protagonist, Jodie, and her younger brother, Mark, arrive at their grandparents farm for the summer. Mark is eager to go frog hunting tonight, but the farmhand, Stanley, warns him to leave the frogs alone because ‘”the scarecrows might just end up catching you.”‘ [Ooky spooky!]. The kids aren’t able to do any fun things today thanks to a storm that comes through, and as they get ready for bed later, Mark is practically frothing at the mouth in anticipation for tomorrow’s breakfast – Grandma Miriam’s chocolate chip pancakes [Yummy!].
Meanwhile, Grandma Miriam notices one of the farm’s scarecrows is no longer on its post and starts stressing about whether the doors and windows are locked. Grandpa Kurt reassures her the house is secure and attempts to calm her nerves by suggesting the scarecrow was simply blown off its post by the storm [‘The Scarecrow Gets Blown Off its Post at Midnight’ has a nice ring to it].
As they head off to bed, we see the silhouette of a scarecrow walking past the window before stopping outside the back door and trying to get in [And it is terrifying!]. He eventually walks back to the window and stands there for a moment, allowing us to see his cute little burlap-sack head when a flash of lightning illuminates the yard.
The next morning, Jodie and Mark are disappointed to learn choc-chip pancakes are no longer on the breakfast menu, and instead they’re served bowls of boring, bland Corn Flakes. Miriam, Kurt, Stanley, and Stanley’s son, Sticks, all seem on edge when Mark, clearly disgusted by this plain Jane Breakfast, questions the lack of pancakes. After an uneasy glance at Stanley, Miriam [Very clearly] lies that she forgot to buy chocolate chips [So make normal pancakes then?], which gets a subtle nod of approval from the farmhand [Why’s Stanley got such power over the grandparents?!] but further disappoints the kids.
Later, Mark and Jodie are playing catch when the ball ends up rolling into the cornfields. They find it near a scarecrow [Not walking around, but back on its post], and suddenly Stanley appears, telling them ‘”The scarecrow walks at midnight.”‘ He explains that he’s made them walk several times, but Jodie and Mark think that’s impossible until the scarecrow kicks its leg out at them [!!!!]. But it’s just a prank played by Sticks, who warns them ‘”This isn’t a place for city kids. You two should have never come out here”‘ [Fuck off, Sticks].
Later that night in bed, Mark and Jodie discuss how weird things are around here – ‘”Grandma’s never forgotten to buy chocolate chips before, ever”‘, and Stanley is acting stranger than usual. Despite them both agreeing that everyone seems to be acting different, they decide ‘”Maybe it’s just us”‘ [How are you gonna discuss how everyone is being strange and then decide you’re both just imagining it? Idiots].
As Mark gets up to close the window, he notices that the scarecrows are moving on their posts [Why are they so close anyway? Shouldn’t they be spread out?], but when he calls Jodie over to look, it just looks like they’re blowing in the wind. Jodie thinks Mark’s just letting Stanley get to him and reminds him that Stanley is slow and often doesn’t make sense, like the time he said ‘”Pigeons like their toenails polished”‘ [I wonder what colour they like? Also does Stanley have some sort of mental disability maybe?].
The next day, Jodie and Mark are playing hide and seek in the cornfields, but Jodie’s unable to find her brother. After noticing one of the scarecrow posts is empty [So the scarecrow walks at midday too!] Jodie hears rustling all around her in the fields. She heads to the barn to keep looking for her brother but finds Sticks instead, who scares her once again. Jodie rages at him, assuming he was trying to scare her in the cornfields too, and storms off as Sticks yells a warning to turn around and go home ‘”before it’s too late.”‘ [Maybe stop being so mysterious and tell her why you’re saying this].
After dinner, Miriam brings out some cherry pie for dessert, severely underwhelming Jodie and Mark who were expecting apple pie, ‘”Grandpa’s favourite.”‘ Cherry pie is Stanley’s favourite, though [And cherry is always a better flavour that apple anyway, right? These kids are lame], and Miriam insists it’s ‘”a nice change”‘ while looking at Stanley, who’s glaring ominously at her. Jodie and Mark then beg Grandpa Kurt to tell them one of his scary stories that they love so much, but Stanley doesn’t like them because ‘”they make me scared”‘, which is just another disappointment for our heroes.
In bed that night, Jodie has a nightmare that Miriam and Kurt are turned into scarecrows and have come to get her [Good job to the crew because these costumes are fucking terrifying].
As Jodie and Mark ride their bikes around the cornfields the next day, a scarecrow comes out of nowhere and knocks them to the ground [!!!]. Jodie thinks Sticks threw it at them and vows revenge, but Stanley comes running out of nowhere and protests that Sticks wouldn’t do anything to hurt them. Jodie kicks the scarecrow’s head away before they head back to the house, and once they’re gone, the camera pans down to show us the scarecrow is no longer there [Ooky spooky!].
That night, Jodie puts her plan for revenge in motion. Out in the cornfields, she dresses Mark up as a scarecrow before heading off to find Sticks so they can scare him. As she reaches the house, a scarecrow follows her out of the fields. She assumes it’s Mark, even thought this scarecrow is way taller than her, let alone her younger brother, and tells him to get back in the field, and then it grabs her [!!!]. She realises it’s not Mark when its head falls off, and her screams lure Sticks from the house, who brings Jodie safely inside [Uhhh, what about Mark?].
Sticks explains that a few months ago, Stanley found a book of spells and used one to bring the scarecrow to life so they could keep the birds away and he wouldn’t have to work so hard, ‘”except it wasn’t the crows they wanted to scare.”‘ Stanley agreed to put the scarecrows back to sleep as long as Kurt and Miriam did things his way for a while. Sticks insists his father isn’t evil, he just gets confused and wanted to see what things would be like his way.
It’s clear that not all of the scarecrows were put back to sleep, but Sticks hasn’t told his father because he’s scared of them [But Stanley is well aware, you idiot?]. Stanley has overheard nthis whole conversation from the next room, and he disappears into the cornfields with the spell book as Jodi and Sticks follow, finding Mark along the way, still in his scarecrow costume. The kids soon find Stanley in a clearing within the fields, surrounded by scarecrows on their posts as he reads from the spell book in an attempt to put them all to sleep. Unfortunately it’s the wrong spell, and he’s actually awoken these scarecrows who were already asleep [Oopsy poopsy!]!
They all escape to the barn and lock the door behind them, but the scarecrows quickly break down the door and start attacking them. Mark ends up saving the day by turning the thresher on without even moving [Seriously. It’s a miracle!], it manages to mow the scarecrows down and tear them apart [The scarecrows basically jump into the blades, lol. Also, if these scarecrows have been walking around for months, why has no-one thought to take the scarecrows apart in the first place? It was that fucking easy this whole time?].
The next day, everyone celebrates things being back to normal [And Stanley is completely forgiven?] with some delicious apple pie. Stanley finds a stray page from the spell book on the floor and stupidly reads it, bringing the thresher to life, and the episode ends with the gang watching in horror from the window as the thresher heads straight for them.
Final thoughts
This was pretty fun and had some scary moments! I’m sure I’ll be seeing the scarecrow-grandparent hybrids in my dreams for years to come. The scarecrows were creepy themselves, too, and looked exactly like the one on the cover of the original book, which is nice. It was a huge disappointment how easy it was to overcome the scarecrows though. Seriously, how did no-one think to shred the scarecrows or take them apart already?
Also, why were the grandparents so scared of Stanley if he wasn’t actively trying to scare them into doing his bidding with the scarecrows? Seems kind of weird that no-one thought to just take the damn book off him and reverse the spell themselves? They all clearly think Stanley is stupid, but he was clearly the smartest of them all if they were that scared of him lol.
Oh well, 89 super easy solutions to a problem that apparently no-one thought of out of 112.
