REPORT: F/X
FILE #: 209

Jarod assumes the identity of Jarod Lugosi, a special effects coordinator on the set of the “Super Sunday” television commercials for Blaster Brewery Beer, after stuntman Dave Dugger was severely burned in an effect that blew out of control. As the episode opens, Dave is currently in Queen of Hope hospital, and his childhood friend, stunt coordinator Mickey Clausen, is blamed for his injury.

AT THE CENTRE : Miss Parker receives a wooden crate from Jarod with a sound-activated combustible device in it. After it explodes in her office, she finds inside of it a note which reads, “Ring a bell?”, a glass eyeball, a stone cherub with a broken wing, and a photo of a monster. Written on the photo is a cryptic note which tells Miss Parker that Igor knows “the secret.”

ON THE BLASTER BREWERY SET: Jarod auditions for the Blaster Beer company and its advertising representative — a woman named Brynne McClain — by staging a full-fledged stunt during which he’s chased by a speeding car, blown up in a trailer, and set ablaze. Impressed with the demonstration, Brynne and Blaster Beer welcome him into the group, and Jarod shows them his conception for the next Blaster Beer commercial — in which an explosion will be ignited OVER the “Blastermobile” (a customized red Cadillac with a giant beer bottle attached to it), to minimize the danger to the drivers, “Sean and Joey”, and maximize the visual brilliance of the effect. Jarod then admits that he’s never actually seen any of the Blaster Beer commercials, so Brynne and the beer rep hurry him off to a trailer where they gush over the concept of the commercials and show him one of them. Jarod’s not impressed and asks, instead, to hear more about the commercials with the “talking frogs” in them [Budweiser].

MEANWHILE, MISS PARKER comes home to find the monster (Igor) from Jarod’s photograph sleeping — and gurgling — in her bed. Later, in The Centre, she’s able to sound-activate the monster through the ringing of a cell-phone. Igor coughs up a remote control device, which, when maneuvered, causes the monster to repeat: “Igor knows the secret… You look exactly like her… Igor knows the secret…” Sydney suggests that it means that somehow Igor knows “the secret” about the death of Miss Parker’s mother, Catherine (who looked just like Miss Parker).

BACK AT THE COMMERCIAL SITE: Jarod is talking with Ray Slater, who is acting as his assistant on the commercials, and who was also an assistant to Mickey Clausen. Ray says Mickey and Dave got him to go to AA and stop drinking, and proudly announces that he’s been sober for over five years. Jarod congratulates him, then asks him about the toy car he’s putting together. Ray explains that the toy is a “model”, and asks Jarod if he’s ever built a model before. Jarod tells him that he once created a miniature version of the Empire State Building, and, “I carved the design which later became the AMC Pacer out of a bar of soap… It wasn’t my best work…”

Jarod later goes to see Mickey, who’s so despondent over the accident that left Dave severely burned that he can’t even watch the video “dailies” taken on the day of the accident, or face Dave and his folks at the hospital where Dave is recuperating. He gives the video dailies to Jarod and lets him view them.

In his warehouse lair, Jarod puts together a perfect miniaturized model of the Blastermobile while he watches the dailies from the day of Dave’s accident. Viewing the tape he realizes that what was supposed to be a controlled burn (with the Blastermobile going through an exploding billboard), went out of control because there were two fires going, instead of the single one that had been planned by Mickey Clausen. Mickey had meant for the billboard alone to start on fire, but Jarod finds proof on the tape — and on the under carriage of the burned-out Cadillac used for that day’s shooting– that fire accelerate (namely napalm) had been applied to the car’s radiator. On the day of the accident, the car started on fire before it hit the billboard, and when the billboard flames were added to the car flames, the fire raged out of control, injuring Dave Dugger.

Jarod later discovers that Ray and Mickey often made home-made batches of napalm to use in their effects… and he also learns that Ray is drinking again.

BACK AT THE CENTRE: Aggravated with the lack of progress with the monster, Igor, Miss Parker attacks the thing and rips its head off. Reaching down through its exposed gullet, she pulls a security video tape out of its stomach. The video is dated 04-12-70, one day before her mother, Catherine Parker, died. On the video is footage showing Catherine Parker talking with a man named “Mr. Fenigor” (Fen-Igor) who keeps in the shadows and cannot be seen. Catherine is talking about Jarod and another boy named Timmy, and her hopes to remove them from The Centre as soon as possible. She asks Mr. Fenigor to fix the video cameras so they can’t see or hear her, and asks him to tell her where Timmy is. Mr. Fenigor tells her that Timmy is being kept in SL-27, in room 155.

Following those clues, Miss Parker, Sydney and Broots return to the burned-out SL-27, and find room 155. Inside the small room is a chair with a generator behind it. Sydney explains that it’s a “neuroelectric chair” (used in shock therapy) but sized down to fit a child. There were rumors, Sydney tells the others, of “brain wave manipulation” experiments being done on subjects in The Centre at one time.Broots remarks that he’s “going to hurl” at the idea of such a device being used on children, and tells Miss Parker that he doesn’t think they’re going to find anymore answers to who Timmy was or what happened to him since the room had been burned with the rest of the sublevel. Sydney suggests that they bring Angelo down to the room and let him try to “empath” what happened there.

When Angelo is brought near the room, Broots has trouble trying to get him inside of it. Angelo is terrified and fights to stay out of the room, and when he’s finally forced inside, he goes berserk, howling, “Timmy! Timmy!” He destroys the electric chair and then collapses in a near catatonic state on the floor. While Sydney cradles Angelo’s head in his lap, Angelo mutters, “No more Timmy… no more Timmy…”

MEANWHILE, Jarod tricks Ray into going to Queen of Hope hospital to see Dave. When Ray enters the hospital room, he finds Dave — wrapped in bandages, but with portions of burned and scarred skin showing — in bed, conscious, but only barely able to speak. Dave whispers to Ray that he needs his friendship now that Mickey has “betrayed” him, and tells Ray that he’s his only “real friend.”

Ray crumples in his chair, and admits to Dave that he’s started drinking again. Dave asks him why, and Ray says, “Because of the guilt.” Ray then admits that it wasn’t Mickey who caused the accident that left Dave so badly injured. Ray says he had been showing off some of his home-made napalm to Brynne McClain, and she’d stolen some from him to spike the burn during the car commercial to make the blast more impressive for the cameras. With his alcoholic background he didn’t think anyone would believe him if he told them what Brynne had done, and he was afraid to lose his job, so he kept his mouth shut about the accident. “I sold you and Mickey out to save myself,” Ray admits sadly. To his astonishment, Dave sits up in bed and pulls off his bandages. It’s not Dave in the bed. It’s Jarod (in disguise), and, smiling, he tells Ray that the first step to forgiveness is telling the truth.

Later, after finishing his miniature models for the commercial’s effects, Jarod calls Brynne on the phone, tells her that he’s come up with a super effect for her next commercial, and asks her to meet him on the set the next morning before the crew comes in so he can show it to her. Excited over the prospect, Brynne arrives the following day, on time, and waits to see what Jarod has in store for her. First he shows her a mock-up of the effect using the miniatures and some home-made napalm. Brynne likes the effect, but is somewhat disturbed by the sight of a FEMALE passenger in the miniature car whose face burns and melts once the stunt is completed.

Jarod distracts her from the sight by inviting her for a private ride in the Blastermobile with him before its trashed in the filming of the commercial. Brynne accepts his offer, and gets into the Cadillac. When she buckles her seat-belt she finds she can’t get it to release (because Jarod has rigged it with Mighty Stick Glue). Jarod then tells her that he’s in a fireproof suit, is coated in fire retardant Zel-jell, and has a crash helmet with him to protect him when he drives himself, the Cadillac, AND the unprotected Brynne through a billboard which, he says, has been spiked with enough napalm to make it go up like a bombed city. Brynne laughs, thinking he’s joking.

Before he heads the car toward the billboard, Jarod gives Brynne a chance to admit to her tampering with the effect that injured Dave Dugger. When she refuses to admit her guilt, Jarod mocks her with: “Maybe a little third degree burn will help job your memory,” and aims the Cadillac toward the billboard. Realizing that he’s not joking, Brynne admits that she was responsible for the accident. If she hadn’t created a spectacular display for the commercial, she says, she would have lost the Blaster Beer account, and all of her years of climbing the corporate ladder and breaking through “glass ceilings” would have been for nothing. Jarod admonishes her, telling her she would have only lost a JOB; Mickey and Dave nearly lost their lives. As retribution for her selfishness and misdeeds, Jarod puts on his crash helmet, grinds the gas pedal of the Cadillac to the floor, and races the car toward the billboard.

Believing the billboard will explode when the car hits it, and that she’ll be burned in the crash, Brynne screams all the way to — and through — the billboard. The car strikes the billboard at full speed… and drives right through it. There’s no explosion; no fire. Brynne is scared, but safe. Jarod removes his helmet and tells her that her confession has been recorded by a miniature camera attached to the car’s rear view mirror. He shows it to her… as Mickey Clausen walks up and tells her that he’s heard her confession, too.

BACK AT THE CENTRE : Unable to get any more information out of a traumatized Angelo, Broots, Miss Parker and Sydney steal some of Mr. Raines’ DSA’s, looking for information on Timmy and Mr. Fenigor. Broots is able to find two DSA’s with Timmy on them: one from the day before Catherine Parker died, and one from the day of her death.

On the DSA dated 04-13-70 (the day Catherine Parker died in the Centre elevator), Broots, Miss Parker and Sydney find images of a horrified Catherine who’s come across Timmy after he was subjected to one of Mr. Raines’ experiments. Screaming and crying, Catherine demands to know what has been done to Timmy, and threatens to tell her husband what Raines has been up to. Mr. Raines warns her that Mr. Parker isn’t the sort of man Catherine thinks he is, and that she should learn to keep her mouth shut. Catherine runs into room 155, where Timmy is sitting unconscious on the floor next to the neuroelectric chair. Timmy doesn’t respond when Catherine touches him, and she cradles his head against her chest and cries over him. Tearfully, she asks Mr. Raines what will become of him now. Raines tells her, “There is no Timmy anymore… From now on his name will be… Angelo.”

AT QUEEN OF HOPE HOSPITAL, Jarod is on hand to see the cheerful reunion of Mickey Clausen and Dave Dugger and his family. They all embrace one another, and thank Jarod for his assistance.

AT THE CENTRE: Miss Parker goes to find Angelo and apologizes to him for upsetting him. Holding the broken-winged cherub Jarod had sent, Angelo looks up to Miss Parker and mewls, “Timmy’s gone.”

IN HIS LAIR , holding another, unbroken, cherub in his hands, Jarod watches a DSA of Sydney and himself as a child. They are talking about Timmy. The child-Jarod asks Sydney where Timmy is, and Sydney tells him that Timmy had been discharged from The Centre because he wasn’t “special” enough to keep. Grown-up-Jarod looks away from the DSA, holds the cherub, and says, “You were special, Timmy.”

Later, Jarod calls Miss Parker and asks her what she’s found out about “Igor” and “Mr. Fenigor”. Miss Parker tells him she hasn’t been able to discover who, exactly, Mr. Fenigor was, and demands to know where Jarod got the copy of the security tape. Jarod tells her he found it in one of Catherine Parker’s many safe deposit boxes; that there were all sorts of interesting things in them. When Miss Parker demands to know what else he’s found, Jarod tells her she’ll get no more answers to her questions out of him until he gets some answers to his questions out of her. He wants to know who he is, and he wants to know who Mr. Fenigor is because he believes Fenigor is the clue to all of their pasts. Miss Parker says she doesn’t have those answers, and Jarod tells her to “find out.”

As the episode ends, Jarod hangs up the phone and turns to a small box nearby. He opens the box, and carefully peels away a layer of tissue paper from what’s inside. Then he lifts from the box a red plush, locked, Diary… with Catherine Parker’s name embroidered on the cover.