Cuckoo Clock Of Doom – The episode opens with a frantic James (Miles McKenna) banging his head on a cuckoo clock while preparing for the Halloween party. It doesn’t take Margot Stokes (Isa Briones) or Allison (Rhinnan Payne) long to notice and ask about the fresh head wound. Isaiah Howard (Zack Morris) jokingly asks him if he wants to sit the party out or show everyone how a sexy cat gets down (Referring to his costume). James assures them he’s fine and ready to party, but mentions he might later need assistance getting out of the costume. As the guests arrive and the party rages on, James makes an awkward attempt to speak with Sam (Aiden Howard). Sam’s aerobics instructor costume and their shared Spanish class are the topics of discussion until James gets caught in a lie about being a soccer fan. James shares his embarrassing failure with Isaiah before deciding to call it a night. After taking a few steps outside, he walks through an invisible field of electricity that transports him back in time to where he banged his head on the clock. He immediately realizes the time loop and runs back out the front door to only receive the same results. After several unsuccessful attempts and escape routes, James exhausts himself.

After another conversation with Sam and his insistence on making the most of a bad situation, James becomes hopeful. He uses the time warp and Sam’s love for Arsenal to lure him into an intense makeout session. They end up leaving the party together but not before James disabled the cuckoo clock, which disables the time warp.

The next morning, James’s excited mood only grows when he receives a text from Sam suggesting they catch the Arsenal game that Saturday. This changes when he’s ambushed by what appear to be several evil clones of himself. Before he’s kidnapped and thrown down an abandoned mineshaft, he learns that every time he used the portal he created a copy of himself.

It soon becomes clear that the clones plan to upend James’s life when one of them approaches Allison at school and hints at a secret relationship between Isaiah and Margot. James’s relationship with Sam is attacked next when the clone requests a meeting and purposely skips it. When confronted, the copy refers to Sam as “clingy”. While shooting pool with Isabella (Ana Yi Puig), the clone stages a fake “exploding” scenario to embarrass both Isabella and Victoria (Francoise Yip). The clone continues to harass her when he shows up outside her bedroom later that night and reminds her to be quiet.

Isaiah appears to be unwilling to accept what he and Margot saw at the Harbor Stop was a monster. She begins to bring up the ghost and camera before Ben’s (Leonard Roberts) unexpected arrival ends the conversation. Once alone, Margot suggests speaking with James.

After tracking James down at school, Isaiah chides him for not returning his texts. He claims that he thought James was dead while Margot brings up all the strange occurrences in town. James claims he already knows what’s going on and accuses the two of them of hooking up behind Allison’s back. They both deny the claims but it is Isaiah who asks what he’s been telling Allison. Margot steers the conversation back on track by revealing her and Isaiah’s encounter with the monster. A patronizing James asks if their conversation is really about Isaiah panicking at the big game. Before he can respond James also tells Margot that her pursuit of Isaiah stopped being cute when they were 7. Isaiah demands an apology before Isabella surprises the clone from behind and “explodes” him into a pea soup-looking liquid substance by smashing him in the head with a metal baseball bat.

After Isabella shares her discovery of the troll mask, they connect it and the camera to the Biddle house. Isaiah claims he knows exactly where to go to find more information.

The three of them visit and question Nora Parker (Rachael Harris) about Harold Biddle (Ben Cockell) but she’s hesitant to reveal any information at the earlier request of Ben. It takes Margot mentioning James’s disappearance to get Nora to suggest they speak with Sarah (Lexa Doig).

The real James is shown alive but trapped in some pit where he slurps water from a dirty puddle. He does manage to find a hammer and several other utensils that seemingly give him an idea.

Nathan Bratt (Justin Long) dances along to The Proclaimers “I’m Gonna Be” while cleaning his house. When the song starts skipping, it causes him to lash out and attack his CD player until Colin (Rob Huebel) interrupts at the door inquiring about the ruckus. Nathan claims he didn’t hear anything before inviting him in. Inside Colin admires the interior of the home before bringing up the kid’s vandalizing it on Halloween night. Colin claims it’s his responsibility to dole out the punishment if Nathan is interested in pursuing it. They share a laugh when Nathan claims if he wanted to punish the kids, he wouldn’t do it through official channels. At Colin’s encouragement, Nathan agrees to drop the matter and leaves.

James has managed to throw together a rickety ladder using wooden pallets but only gets halfway up before crashing to the floor.

Isabella, Margot, and Isaiah spy on James from the bushes in his front yard. Margot quickly claims that Sarah is too busy to speak with them when Isabelle mentions it. One of the clones puts an end to the conversation when he exits the home. They follow him to the family’s mineshaft where he leads them into a trap. What appears to be the real James arrives in the nick of time and leads them through another exit. Once they reach a safe distance another copy shows up, claiming to be the real James. As the two clones argue back and forth, Isaiah uses the opportunity to “explode” the fake. This, however, only reveals that were duped again. As they try to flee, Isaiah is captured and thrown down in the pit with the real James. A quick rock to the head reveals that Isaiah is dealing with the real James. James’s genuine hurt over Isaiah not being able to tell the difference between him and the fakes starts an argument. Isaiah accuses James of being fake at times. James says that’s easy for someone with Isaiah’s popularity to claim. Their dispute doesn’t get much further thanks to the arrival of Margot and Isabella who have found an escape route. An ensuing chase leads to James and Isaiah getting separated from the girls again. Working together they don’t have any problem “exploding” the 5 clones that have trapped them.

Celebrating at the cafe, James scarfs down pancakes while Isabella reapproaches contacting Sarah for answers. This angers Margot and leads to her admitting that she thinks her parents have separated. It is James’s insistence that finally convinces her to call. Once she does it only takes the mere mention of Harold Biddle to spark Sarah’s interest. Before abruptly hanging up and claiming she’s on her way, Sarah encourages Margot to not say another word and especially don’t trust the other adults.

The final scene shows one of the clones delivering a suitcase to a very pleased and excited Nathan. His mood, however, changes completely and he “explodes” the clone when he learns the suitcase is empty.

 

Goosebumps Review

Not a horrible episode, but for under 40 minutes, it seemed like too much was going on. It’s certainly not that the content is hard to follow, but it just seemed a bit busy. There’s also a lot of abrupt jumping around and some of the mine scenes were so incredibly dark that it was hard to tell what was going on at times. The scene near the beginning where Isaiah and Margot discuss all the weird things going on in town before confronting the fake James at school would be the perfect example. The quick transition made things feel a bit rushed to me. For these reasons, I would give the episode a 4.9 on a scale of 10.

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