Goosebumps: The Vanishing has dropped on Hulu, the second season of the Goosebumps series, based on the popular children's books. I can't tell if it is episodic or not at this point, so I just clicked on Episode 1, which stars David Schwimmer, Ross from Friends; and teen idol Sam McCarthy.
Scene 1: Brooklyn, 1994. Bill Clinton is in the White House, I'm in West Hollywood, Mariah Carey is topping the charts, and Friends premieres on CBS:
So no one told you life was gonna be this way
Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's D.O.A
Four teens (Sameer, Matty, and two girls) descend into eerie catacombs, until they come to the room where "they conducted medical experiments." They're doing a "truth or dare" thing where they have to spend the night.
Sameer: "I'm not scared. I just like to sleep naked, and it could get a little awkward."
Uh-oh, Matty's younger brother Anthony followed them! Mom's going to be furious. Matty forces him to leave.
Suddenly a machine switches on, gas squirts out, and Matty's face dissolves. A gruesome image.
Scene 2: Brooklyn, 2024. Teen twins Devin and Cece (Sam McCarthy, Jaden Bartels) exit the subway and complain about having to leave their friends in Manhattan to live with Dad, the grown-up Anthony (a craggy, dissolute-looking David Schwimmer). He picks them up in a car. Are you sure this is Brooklyn?
At home, Dad Anthony yells at neighbor Trey, also called James Junior, for blocking his driveway. "But your mom always let me park there."
"She didn't have a car."
Inside, the living room is crowded with boxes. Back story: Dad has moved into this house after his mother went into assisted living with dementia, and he's going through her stuff.
In other news, "I've really been looking forward to your aunt's brain surgery." WTF? Who looks forward to that? He means because then they can come live with him.
Wait -- the twins are living with their aunt, not their father? What's wrong with him?
The micromanager passes out his extensive list of rules, but emphasizes that the main rule is: "Stay out of the basement." He gives them a tour: he's a botanist, working on a lot of plant types that will revolutionalize the botany world. Shouldn't you be working in a lab somewhere? But stay out!
Scene 3: Dinner at Gwendolyn's restaurant. Gay couples at the tables behind and in front of them. Back story: Cece is starting debate camp tomorrow. She hates it, but you need "a thing" to get into college.
Next up, Devin: He claims to be ok, given "everything that happened," but he was suspended for getting into a fight. Nope, not gay.
CJ drives up on his motorcycle. Dad introduces him to the twins. Back story: he's working here, at his parents' restaurant, for the summer. Dad suggests that maybe Devin would like to work there, too. Playing matchmaker, buddy? I don't have any hope that he'll be gay, but there may be a gay-subtext buddy-bond between him and Devin.
He has to make a delivery, but the guys are all meeting at the park later. "Y'all should come." Maybe specify which park, and what time?
Scene 4: On the way home, Dad sends the twins inside so he can chat with a crying woman in a car. She notes that the father of Trey/JJ, the neighbor who Dad argued with, stopped by the police station to file a harassment complaint. According to the Google AI, harassment consists of repeaed acts that cause the victim to "fear for their safety," Telling someone to not block your driveway certainly doesn't count.
The woman promised to talk to Trey/JJ's Dad, but "be careful. He's big on conspiracy theories."
In other news, she managed to pull some strings and retrieve his brother's things from the night he and his friends dissolved. . Moldy clothes with dissolved Matty all over them, from 30 years ago?
The woman has been thinking a lot about that night, but Dad doesn't want to hear it. He cuts her off and heads inside.
Scene 5: The twins come downstairs while Dad is arguing with his ex wife on the telephone. Wait -- they were living with their aunt, but she's having brain surgery, so they moved in with Dad. Why weren't they living with their mother?
Dad assures them that although they hate each other, they both love the twins. He made burnt waffles, which they reject. It's the next morning. What happened to meeting the guys in the park later?
Left: This show is a little beefcake-light, so here's a photo of Sameer, one of the melted teens (played by the 28 year old Arjun Athalye).
More Sameer after the break
