Jen Goosebumps: The Vanishing Hulu

Goosebumps: The Vanishing Season 2 Episode 1 Recap

Stay Out Of The Basement Part 1 – The episode begins in 1994 Brooklyn with a group of kids entering what appears to be an old haunted sanatorium on a dare. Not very long after entering one of the areas there is a loud crashing noise that turns out to be Matty Brewer’s brother, Anthony ‘Stink’ Brewer (David Schwimmer). While Matty runs his brother off, the other kids notice an electrical junction box that still has power. Matty is the only one to touch it and a few seconds later, he appears to be melting.

In 2024, twins Cece (Jayden Bartels) and Devin Brewer (Sam McCarthy) arrive in Brooklyn to meet their father, Anthony, for the summer. He takes them home, where he gives them informational packets to help them have a safe and fun summer. After also telling them to stay out of the basement, hegives them a brief tour of what appears to be a botany lab.

Seconds later, they are out at dinner where they celebrate their arrival while also discussing their plans for the summer. Cece is apparently starting debate camp in the city on Monday. Devin, on the other hand, doesn’t appear to have any plans. On their way out of the restaurant, Anthony and the kids run into CJ (Elijah M Cooper). Anthony briefly mentions Devin spending the summer working for CJ and Gwen at the restaurant, but Devin doesn’t appear too interested.

Anthony and the kids return home to find Jen (Isabella Ferreira) waiting on them in the driveway. Jen not only tells Anthony that Joe Jr. filed a harassment complaint on behalf of Trey but she returns his brother’s belongings. When she tries to bring up what happened that night in 1994, he rushes off to his lab.

Devin wakes the following morning to overhear Anthony on the phone arguing with Tori about her letting Cece attend a debate class in the city. By the time she hangs up on him, Anthony realizes Devin is eavesdropping. Cece briefly stops by but finds an excuse to leave when she leaves Anthony has cooked breakfast. Devin follows her.

At the pharmacy, Cece realizes that Devin’s attentiveness to hair styling products has to do with Frankie (Galilea La Salvia) and their invite to the park from CJ. He admits to being attracted to Frankie but the conversation goes no further thanks to a disturbance at the front door where the manager tries to shoo away a trouble shopper. Cece uses the distraction to shoplift beauty products.

While at the park, Devin learns that Frankie is dating Trey and the trouble shopper from the pharmacy shows up to forcefully collect what she’s owed from Cece’s haul. Just as Devin and Cece are about to leave, CJ shows up and takes them to meet with another group of kids, where they talk about their uncle’s disappearance in 1994. It immediately becomes clear that Cece and Devin aren’t comfortable talking about the disappearance but at the same time, Frankie is drawn to the fact that it doesn’t scare Devin. Trey also picks up on this and tries to embarrass him by daring him to visit the place where his uncle disappeared.

Cece is even more uncomfortable with Devin going into the room where their uncle disappeared and tries talking him out of it but he is dead set on impressing Frankie and showing Trey up. Trey becomes frustrated the longer Devin stays in the room and when the others aren’t looking he finds a hidden electrical panel and uses his bolt cutters to short out some of the contacts, killing the electricity. In the room where Devin is, the same pattern from the open replays, and Devin begins to melt just like his uncle. Somehow Devin manages to escape and makes his way halfway down the tunnel where Cece finds him.

The following morning, Devin doesn’t remember anything but going into the tunnel. He and Cece are arguing over his careless stunt when Anthony shows up and asks them to go to the nursing home to visit their grandma, Naomi, who apparently had a rough night. Cece uses her debate camp as an excuse and leaves Devin on the hook.

Anthony Goosebumps: The Vanishing Hulu

Naomi is raving like a lunatic about finding Matty by the time Anthony and Devin make it to the nursing home. It takes just a bit but Anthony manages to calm her down. He also introduces her to Devin. Shortly after this, Anthony is called to speak with the doctor. While Anthony is away, Naomi grasps Devin and tells him that he smells like Matty. When a nurse steps in to help, Devin overhears Anthony talking to the doctor about running tests. When it is just the two of them, Devin asks why Naomi was raving about Matty being alive. Anthony tells him that she could never accept Matty’s death.

Both Devin and Anthony are starving when they return home from the nursing home. Anthony shows Devin where the takeout menus are and tells him to go wild while he goes down to the basement for a minute. While looking through the takeout menus Devin comes across an old photo album of Matty. At the same time, Anthony finds an oil/dirt stain on the Beasite Boys’ t-shirt Matty was wearing when he disappeared. He scraps a sample to look at under the microscope. When looking through the photo album, Devin has a flashback of seeing Matty. He tries to tell Anthony about it, but the sample taken from Matty’s shirt has literally started coming to life in the form of a small plant. Before Anthony knows it the small plant is a huge vine and dragging him all over the basement. Devin also starts hearing a loud humming sound, which prompts him to flee outside and call Cece.

While he’s outside, the vine grows up through the sewer and drags Devin down into it. It begins to choke him and nearly subdues him but he manages to grab a steel pipe and hits a clamp holding a steel grate. The grate falls onto the vine and causes it to retract all the way down to the sample form. Devin wakes and has no idea as to how he got to where he is and Anthony develops a rash all across his inner forearm.

The episode ends with Jen studying an evidence board of Matty’s disappearance.

 

Goosebumps: The Vanishing Review

Well, they at least got the name right. With that said, if you liked the first season it’d be hard not to like this season. As a matter of fact, it is practically the same thing with a bit of a different story. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing because I did enjoy the first season. I wouldn’t feel right saying which story is more interesting because this was merely the first episode but I will say, it’ll be hard to compete with the first season’s puppet story. I was surprised that the acting wasn’t atrocious.

Of course, there were some bad scenes, and some of the cinematics left a lot to be desired. The whole last 7 minutes or so was so dark that I couldn’t tell what was going on. Other than that, I’d have to give the premiere a 5.6 out of 10.

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