The episode begins with an old man and his granddaughter, Leah, exploring the woods around Muddy Creek, aptly named for its creek full of mud [Very creative lol]. Leah’s ball falls into Muddy Creek’s muddy creek, and as Grandpa tries to get it for her, a muddy hand rises from the muddy mud and yanks the poor old man in. The Mud Monster fully reveals itself [And looks very similar to the ones on the book’s cover, which is nice] as Leah runs away, never to be seen again [!!!].
This turns out to be a story being told to the class by ultimate brown-noser/show-off Courtney King, who’s met with a round of applause from her classmates. The story is a town legend she’s researched as part of her report, and Courtney believes people make up these sorts of stories because ‘”it helps us believe that the real world isn’t as scary as the monsters we dream up”‘ [Wow, deep], but points out evidence that monsters like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster may actually exist.
While Courtney’s busy showing off her knowledge, our protagonists, best friends Eddie and Hat [Because he’s always wearing a hat, I suppose. Again, very creative] are bitching about her, calling her a monster. To take her down a peg, Hat stuffs a small snake from a container into her lunch bag before she returns to her desk [He literally just pulled it out of his own bag hahaha]. The teacher turns her attention to Eddie, who’s own report is allegedly stuck inside his computer [Hahaha what?]. Courtney kindly and generously offers to help him print it if he can download it onto a disk, which the boys take offence too [I mean yeah she’s a know-it-all which is annoying, but Courtney seems quite nice? The boys come across as jealous bullies hahaha].
At lunchtime, Courtney [She’s wearing a two-toned pink outfit and it’s gr8] sucks up to another teacher, Mr. Finley, offering to share her lunch with him since he left his at home [She’s so fkn lame hahaha]. She won’t take no for an answer, handing him her backpack so he can help himself, and he can’t say no to ‘”smoked salmon with cream cheese”‘. He reaches into her lunch bag and pulls out the snake [Which is now rubber and a completely different design to the live one we saw earlier hahaha] and fling it away. Courtney picks up the harmless corn snake [Back to the real one we saw Hat with], completely unfazed because she loves all creatures, and apologises to Mr. Finley, implying Eddie and Hat snuck it in there.
The next day as Eddie and Hat walk into school, they overhear Courtney [In another great outfit!] telling her friend ‘”that’s the thing about computers these days – anyone can figure them out”‘. They cross paths immediately after and she apologises to Eddie, explaining she didn’t see him [Hahahaha I love her but hate her at the same time. She’s a shady bitch without even trying but such an annoying nerd]. Lucky for Eddie, Hat’s got a new idea to get her back!
At the end of the day, they sneak into the science room and kidnap the tarantula, storing it in a plastic container. They hear someone coming and hide in a cupboard just in time as Courtney enters with the science teacher. Courtney’s on the hunt for an extra credit project to to make her grade higher, even though she’s already got an A+, suggesting ‘”We’re in science class, we can invent one!”‘ [Gross, I think we all had a Courtney in our class at school].
Noticing the cupboard is unlocked, the teacher closes the latch and unwittingly traps Eddie and Hat in there, before offering Courtney a ride home. Surprisingly, Courtney declines the offer to brown-nose even more, preferring to walk because it ‘”gives me time to think about my classwork”‘ [Hahahahahaha fkn hell this girl is killing me], and the teacher heads off.
Meanwhile, the tarantula has somehow escaped it’s plastic prison [What? Did you not close the lid? Idiots] and is crawling all over Eddie. The boys start screaming and are rescued by Courtney, who plucks the ‘”misunderstood creature”‘ off Eddie’s shirt and places it safely back in its tank.
The next day, Courtney’s Mud Monster story has been published in the town’s local newspaper, which pisses Eddie and Hat off even more. She reveals she used to be afraid of Mud Monsters as a child but overcame her fear during her research, and credits the teacher, since writing the report helped her confront her fears, ‘”And now I’m not scared of anything”‘. This gives Hat another idea and after class, the boys dare Courtney to meet them at Muddy Creek tonight to prove she’s not afraid of Mud Monsters. Never one to back down, Courtney promises to be there.
At Muddy Creek, Hat covers Eddy in mud so he can pretend to be a Mud Monster when Courtney arrives, and he ‘”can’t wait to see big brave Courtney begging for her life!”‘. Hat then tells Eddie to put more mud on and heads off to find their victim. As he stumbles through the woods, Hat comes across a real Mud Monster [!!!!], who starts chasing him [Honestly, it would be terrifying].
Hat eventually reaches Eddie, who doesn’t believe his story about being chased, and Courtney quickly arrives [In an all blue outfit this time! I think we have a fashion icon to rival Cher Horowitz from ‘Clueless’] to insult their intelligence and gloat about her own. She’s not bragging though, she’s ‘”just stating facts”‘ [Hahaha sounds like something I’d say… Wait, was I the Courtney at my school? :'(]. She finds their persistence to scare her interesting, and as she talks, the Mud Monster appears behind her [!!!!].
She turns around but shows absolutely zero fear, and just as the Mud Monster is about to attack, she literally starts scolding it for its aggressive behaviour [Hahahahahaha]. Cue a time lapse as Courtney continues to talk and talk and talk until eventually the bored Mud Monster dries up and hardens in the sun, because ‘”Only Courtney could talk a Mud Monster to death”‘.
Cut to a bunch of reporters surrounding the dried up villain, interviewing Courtney about defeating the Mud Monster. As she brags about her phone call from the President and ‘”saving the lives of two frightened little boys”‘, Hat and Eddie, it starts to rain, so Courtney and the reporters head to City Hall to continue.
As Eddie and Hat head off too, unaware that the rain is reviving the Mud Monster [Why hasn’t it been taken away to a museum or something to preserve it already?], and the episode ends as it grabs them from behind [Which makes for a great group photo, if you ask me].
Final thoughts
This was a fun one! Courtney was great as a know-it-all brown-noser, and although Eddie and Hat weren’t as likeable, I can understand their frustrations with her. Courtney was also an absolute fashion icon, so I’ve gotta stan her. I remember the book being a hard one to find, for me at least, but from memory I think I enjoyed it and I think was a pretty good adaption.
The episode wasn’t particularly scary, although being chased through the woods by the Mud Monster would be terrifying, but I really enjoyed it, so 88 corn snakes in a lunch bag out of 97!
