Season 2, Episode 6 "Big Town"
"Big Town" synopsis version two - page two (back to page one)
Having made it to the theatre, the group form a quick plan to get inside: Zak can bust them in. He appears a little reticent at first. "Step up there, son, and pop that lock!" Brian encourages his son the budding burglar. Zak effects an entry though a window and lets the team in through a convenient side-door. Cellphones set to vibrate, and phasers set to "cynical", the team take up their positions: Zak in the ticket office, Brian and Hube in opposite boxes, Cynth and Candy seperately backstage.
Before long the main door opens and Louis enters, leading a procession of demons into the theatre. Zak text-messages the others, "Creeps coming". The procession enters the auditorium. Amongst them There are a pair of garishly-clad bickering old tourists named Stan and Ethel, a bespectacled young man, a large man in a leather jacket, a cat demon, a trio of ridgehead demons (such as were on the surveillance video), a trio of Mandarin-robed Asian women, a bald white clad slack-jawed man carrying a box, a very large blue-clad being near the rear, and right at the back, Sophie.
Louis begins to spin a hyperbolic tale of the theatre ghost, a tale of lost love, doomed romance, clashing swords, chandelliers, hacksaws, train rides and death. "If you'll just follow me, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the St. Columbus Theatre, a grand old theatre and like any grand old theatre it has its ghost. Now the Columbus theatre ghost is a particularly macabre story, and a particularly powerful creature, so keep your sense alert for any rumblings in the spiritual plane."
Brian receives a message from Hube: "I know the blue one at the back." Brian stares at the little green screen, waiting for the vital information on at least one of the hoarde before them. Nothing happens. He batters and shakes the phone, then sends, "Well?! Name, type, description!" The reply comes back, "Ult, troll, nordic." "And?!" "Nice."
Meanwhile, backstage, Louis is shovelling it on with both hands. The young boy expresses derison, only to have Stan round on him. He is cowed, and the tour continues. The bespectacled young man approaches Louis and asks him about the similarites in the theatre ghost stories between this theatre and another... "It sounds just like the Albany Theatre ghost in Boston, even the name is the same." "Unh, yeah, amazing coincidence!" Louis says with a fixed grin. "Yes, a lot of actresses have bad luck. Now, Christine -" "You said her name was Marie." "Christine _Marie_, she proceeded from the stage down to the dressing rooms, and it was there she met her grisly fate. If you'll follow me through the wings..."
Backstage, the cat demon sniffs something in the air. She moves over to an area of the backstage and pulls back a heavy curtain, revealling a nervously smiling Slayer. Candy smiled and waved. "Look here, Louis," the cat drawled. "Seems your ghost isn't as dead as you say." Brian sends a text message to the group: "Oh crap".
Zak has approached Sophie, who sits smokling at the back of the theatre. (I can't remember what he said to her , but it was part of some crazy bluff). Sophie's no blunt tack: "So if you're here, that means the Slayer's here too, right? Everyone was real interested when I said we'd met."
COMMERCIAL BREAK
Louis introduces Candy as a local thespian who will re-enact the ghost's movements on the night that she (Christine) died. The tour members reacts in different ways to the unexpected "bonus", with Ethel quite taken with the young actress, breaking out the dreaded cheek-pinch. Louis puts his arm around Candy -- she notices his arm is scaled: he's a demon as well -- and they go downstairs to a small dressing room, touted as the last place Christine Marie was seen alive. Cynth sneaks after them. Below, Candy waits as the tourists come in one by one. She spoke to them all, trying to glean information. They included Laysier, the cat woman; Villa, the bespectacled youth ("I'm from Boston. Might be going to Penn State next year,"); Sid and Ethel, two cranky elderly Florida-living vampires "So, ypu're from Florida? Lots of sun down there." "Oh, we don't go out in the sun. We're more night people." "Oh, I know a couple of people like that. 'Skin condition'." "My, you _have_ been well briefed!"); two ridged demons, who refused to open their mouths; three oriental women in fine clothing ("We are from China. ... Fascinating country,"); a tall baldhuman in a trance holding an ornate box with something rustling inside it; Ult, the troll from Norway; and two more vampires who spoke only one word: "rope". (A similar vampire had been a principal servant of the White Lady.)
Satisfied, Louis beckons them back upstairs, and hisses instructions to Candy: "You stay put in here, little lady, and nothing bad will happen to you. You cause any trouble and I can't be responsible for what might happen. Okay?" Candy nods, but as soon as he's gone, Cynth opens the dressing room door and the two of them head back up top.
Sophie goes to find Louis,and Zak takes his leave to report back to the "dynamic duo" of Brian and Hube; they "meet in the middle" and puzzle over what to do about the plethora of demons. Sophie returns along with the tour group as the three "Night Shift workers" assume the position behind the rows of seats. Sophie reports there are other visitors in the theatre. Realising their cover is blown higher than Skylab, Brian, Zak and Hube stand up sheepishly. Brian holds up his wristwatch. "Found it," he reassures the onlookers.
A mighty roar goes up from the blue troll. "Hube! My old friend!" Hube is smothered in a mighty blue-demon bearhug. "He defrosted me!" the joyous Ult explains. "I was -- part of a team-" Hube gasps. "Oh, you can take all the credit...!" the mighty Nordic one cheers. "We're going to the pub!" he announces, dragging the reluctant Hube away.
Brian is left patting his pockets in disbelief. "I had a plan here somewhere, I _know_ I had a plan here somewhere ..."
The unimpressed Sophie calls out to her boss, who realises there's more going on here than he realised. As the tourists "soak in the sinister ghostly atmosphere" on the stage, he leaps off for a "pow-wow" with the Slayers East. Zak sells the intrusive visitors as being inspectors of sorts, and that Louis is in a Union area without having payed his dues. Louis plays along, proclaiming loudly that he's all paid up and that he'll sort this out quickly. Sophie lets slip that Candy is a Slayer, and there is an impressed murmur through the tourists; the vampires all take a step back. Candy smiles and waves politely. Stan and Ethel hobble over for another gawk and a poke and a pinch respectively. "Hey, Ethel, I just poked the Slayer! OW! Ethel, she poked me...!"
Zak tries to caution Louis against having so many demons in the one place at the one time -- they make something pf a target. Louis sells himself as just an honest businessman. "We're not hurting anyone! In fact, we're doing you all a favour. My tour operates on a strict no smoking, no killing policy. I take killers of the streets and give them something to do, take them out of circulation for a while! I give them a hobby! Just let us out of here, we'll go out to the Irie Totems in the middle of nowhere, camp for the day then we'll be gone! No-one'll turn up dead, no problems, you won't even know we were here!"
Ever the enterprising young person (probably to have her own .com business empire any day now), Cynth sets up shop selling "genuine theatre dust" to the demonic tourists. Ethel is amongst her first customers. Villa confides to Candy that he "loves your work." As the demons troop back on to the bus (and Ulf and Hube disappear in the direction of alcohol), Cynth shows the tour leader her latest bestseller.
"Look, Mister Louis, genuine Slayer stake!"
"Don't push it, kid," he cautions.
As Sophie readied the bus to "bug out", Zak spoke to her, warning her that Candy wasn't the only danger in town. "Be careful," he insists. "If these other people find out about this the whole tour will end up dead." Sophie doesn't seem to be perturbed by the concept. She sends Zak on his way, and the bus loads up and drives away. The Slayers dedide not to tell Pipe about the tour, as (judging from his track record) he'd try to wipe them out. And they _are_ behavng, at least at the moment. It's an easy and quick decision to stake out the Irie Totems the next day.
COMMERCIAL BREAK
And we're back the next morning. A quick call to Hube reveals he has the mother of all hangovers. The group consensus is still that Pipe and Madsen's offer doesn't ring true -- the insistence of signature alone could be the portent of a spell on their part.
The "Cheyne Gang" pull up at Old Johnny's cave. They notice the bus parked there all natural-like... and Sophie running towards it at a rate of knots. She sees the Slayers and changes course to intercept. "I'm glad you're here," she puffs. "You know how Louis said there wouldn't be any killing? Well, that's changed..."
She leads them to a grisley scene: a bloodstained young man is tied to a tree, very dead. Cynth and Candy fell ill and back away. Brian swallows his unease and pulls on a pair of rubber gloves produced from his pockets. He checks the body for any obvious clues, aware that know the Slayers might be considered accessories after the fact to First/Second Degree Murder.
The victim's wallet identifies him as one Carl Weathers. There's what appears to be a stab wound in his throat. On the ground lies a knife adorned with Chinese characters. Brian straightens up. "He's dead," he announces somewhat unnecessarily. Zak peers a little closer and notices clumps of cat hair scattered around the body, and two sets of vampiric puncture marks on the neck. Sophie is ashen: "I better tell Louis."
The tour leader calls a hasty pow-wow. "Look, this is no problem, we'll just get in our bus and drive away. A daylight trip, a departure from our usual routine, it'll be jazzy!" "Ah, no, I don't think so," Candy replies, and Louis is cowed. Villa sat nearby reading, listening to the exchange intently, then closed his book hurriedly and went around the back of the bus when Candy mentioned how important it was to find out "who did it!". Louis continues to caution the Slayers, begging the group not to aggrivate the Chinese women -- they're very powerful human sorceresses.
The cat hair, Chinese knife and puncture wounds all point to different members of the tour group. Candy confronts the cat demon, Laysier. There's much verbal sparring and "pussy-footing" around. Meanwhile, off a ways, Ult roars that he feels great and announces a test of strength by attempting to uproot a tree. The demoness refuses to give anything away in terms of information (incriminating or otherwise), and Candy comes away empty-handed. Not so Ult, who tears the tree from the earth with a triumphant bellowing guffaw. "...I sleep now," he announces, and collapses in a blue heap, leaves being shaken from the trees.
Turning on the post-slacker charm, Zak attempts to recruited Laysier to sniff out clues at the crime scene. "What's in it for me?" the demoness languidly sneers. "A can of tuna?" Cynth pipes up. Laysier's eys flick wide open. Candy scrabbles in her backpack and comes up with a small gourmet cheese and ham sausage. Laysier's smile is a mile wide. Polishing off the delicacy, Zak returns to the murder scene where the Cheyne Gang's consultant goes to work. The rest of the Night Shift split up to go to work.
Candy finds Villa skulking behind the bus. She puts some of the ol' Slayer cross-examining on the nervous youth, and he confesses to his involvement in the incident. He wanted to be supernatural like the others, so he kidnapped someone, and stole the Chinese sorceress' blade, but he couldn't go through with the ritual. Candy asks what the ritual was for. There is a long silence as Villa examines his shoes, he mumbles: "Unh... potency". Candy's hard-pressed to believe that the unassuming Villa had any part in a bizarre ritulistic murder, but is determined to get to the bottom of this. She presses further, and Villa breaks down, saying it's really hard travelling around with all these demon-types when he himself feels so powerless. He just wanted to be like them. "Nobody tells them what to do..."
"What?!" Candy is incredulous.
"They're powerful, demons rule the night..."
"They so do not rule the night!" Candy fairly howls.
"I have to put out the garbage and do what my parents say and..."
The lonely, disaffected Villa swears he didn't kill the young man; he just dropped the knife and ran, leaving the aborted sacrifice tied to the tree, figuring the guy could free himself. But it didn't work out that way.
Meanwhile, Laysier explains the difference in fur texture to Zak: though she is indeed shedding, her fur doesn't come off in clumps as it appears at the murder site. The hair-clumps are a plant -- she's been framed. Moreover, she's picked up the distinctive smell of Ethel's overpowering perfume.
Cynth decides that there might be something in Old Johhny's Cave, and goes to investigate. As is the custom, it's pitch black inside, and there are ominous noises coming from the depths. She goes inside. "Hello? Is anybody there?" No answer. The crunching sound gets louder as she progresses, like rock grating against rock. A sudden beam of light illuminates a gaping maw, jagged teeth glinting diamond-like in the sun. It's the two ridge-headed demons. Chynth tries to speak to them, but they clam up, even with full mouths. She quickly realises she's not going to get anything from them, and leaves before they decide they need some iron in their diet.
COMMERCIAL BREAK.
We're back, and Brian decides to investigate the bus, intending to ask the Chinese sorceresses about their missing cutlery. Sophie cautions him as he enters, saying that he'd better not wake anything. Louis is hunched over the wheel. Brian asks where the sorceresses are; Louis tells him they perform a cleansing ritual in the woods every morning. Brian nods in understanding, looking around the bus filled with all manner of supernatural life, and once again mourns the loss of his whitebread picketfence existence.
"So, Louis... how does a demon get into the tour-gide business?"
"A demon runs up a few gambling debts, and then those debts get called in, and a demon's about to go to the wall... when he has this great idea that he thinks can solve everything. A tour of the haunted sites of this great state. What could be better? All these demons, you know they love a long time and accumulate a lot of wealth... and it's not a lot of use to them. So along I come, ready to perform a service... How can it have gone so wrong?"
Brian reassures Louis they're doing all they can, and mentions as he's leaving the bus that he's going to question the sorceresses. Louis balks. "Please don't anger them! They're _very_ powerful! If anything happens, it's my neck on the line!"
Brian's had enough of the rank surrealism, and he rounds on the spiv-like Louis. "It's in your interests to help us. We can't let this happen again. You said you wanted to keep a low profile? If we don't find out who did this, what's to stop it happening again? What's going to happen to your precious 'cover' then? Louis, I've got three words for you: 'America's Most Wanted'!" Louis can't find an answer, and Brian turns his back on the scaly demon. As the academic leaves the bus, the large white-clad human's eyes track his departure...
The Slayers meet up and compare notes. Villa and Laysier are exonerated. Brian still suspects the sorceresses. The consensus is that with the lack of blood on/in Weathers' body, the bite on the neck that Zak found, and the confirmed presence of Ethel, they need to speak to the Florida-dwellers. Back on the bus,the Slayers and Louis pick their way through the sleeping gallumifry of supernatural beings before arriving at Stan and Ethel.
Gingerly, Louis wakes Ethel. The aged vampire popped in her false teeth, and said hello again to that nice young girl. Ethel thanks Louis for their treat before bed. "Treat?" Candy asks. Ethel smiles as she recalls the freshly-dead young man they'd found on their walk. The Slayer see that Stan and Ethel really only finished what someone else started. They let her get back to her beauty sleep.
Suspects are falling like ninepins, but the Slayers are no closer to discovering the murderer. Candy comments that they just need to know the middle of what happened, as they have the start and the end. Louis comments on Knussus, the beetle in the box, at which point the box replies louldly "not a beetle!"
The group rounds on the mysterious, opening the box and talking to a winged black scarab-like creature with a vertical mouth in its back. Tough the demon might not have been able to kill Weatrhers, suspicion falls on his hulking servant. Knussus is questioned as to how in controll of the large human slave he is. The scarab demon protests wildly. "Is not slave. Is friend! Good friend! Knussus is all-powerful!" It said its slave was a good slave, and reiterated that that it was all-powerful, but soon a degree of panic set in. "... Louis...?"
"Yes, Knussus?"
"I... think my slave might have killed someone..."
The ugly truth comes out. Knussus admits that his thrall, who had been resident in an asylum before becoming a slave, had stumbled upon a trussed up body and a discarded knife and had killed the young man. The scarab asserts that the slave is a good slave, and Knussus' only friend, so he begs leniency. The slave looks around fearfully, dimly aware of what was transpiring around him.
A swift consensus is reached. The rest of the demons can go -- but they have to go right now. The thrall must be left behind to be discovered by the authorities. His background as an asylum inmate will probably be known, he's blatently not compus mentis enough to stand trial or be held accountable for his actions, and there's nothing that ties him or poor Weathers to the Night Shift or Louis. Not the best solution, but a solution nonetheless.
A decision was made. Everyone else would go, but the slave would stay, and be picked up by police for the murder. Not the perfect solution, but it'd have to do. Louis rushes everyone on to the bus; the ridge-head demons heave the still unconscious Ult back on board. Candy has a quick word to Laysier. "Hey, we met another of your kind a while ago. His name was... Brisker. Uhm, I don't think he's doing OK."
"Brisker?" Laysier's nose twitches. "Oh, don't worry about him. That old tom's got nine lives!"
As everyone's all 'Spike Lee' and back on the bus, Sophie hesitates. She isn't sure she wants to go. "You have to come!" Louis insists. "You owe me! I saved your life!"
"I don't owe you anything. You've never even paid me!"
"Come on, stop being foolish and get on the bus!"
Candy intervenes. "Don't go, Sophie. Come stay with us. There's a spare room at Alison's place."
"You'll regret it, Sophie," Louis snarls. "You'll regret you ever crossed me!"
But the troubled young woman, saddened by the loss of life she'd witnessed, and with a new perspective on her employer, chooses to join Candy and the others as the bus pulls away. Knussus' thrall sadly watches the bus rumble away. A tear rolls down his pudgy cheek - and, in the back window of the bus, is that a beetle-limb sadly waving goodbye?
Brian scratches his neck and takes stock of their situation. "Okay, so it's mid-morning, we're standing in the woods, near a murder scene, with a departing busload of demons, a dead body, and a mute demon's thrall..." He claps his hands together. "Starbucks?"
The Cheyne Gang silently pile onto the Stevensmobile and drive away. Sophie breaks the silence. "Starbucks... Do they let you smoke there?" Brian mulls it over. "We'll work something out," he asserts paternally.
FADE TO BLACK; ROLL THEME AND CREDITS.