Spoilers Below

Man, Terry is a strange dude. He may be THE oddest character on Out There (and that includes the unicorn girl). Not to be outmatched by his strangeness, is his broke-ness. We are more than a few episodes into the series and we still have no idea how Terry has managed to charismatically slither himself through life all these years. I mean we know that he has found SOME kind of paper-chasin’ schemes from here to there in order to get by, but we don’t know if hes ever even worked a real job (that you get interviewed for, hired to carry out, and then paid for your time #definition). We do know one thing though, his loafing days have come to an end. In this week’s episode of Out There entitled Salem, My Salem, Terry…. HAS TO FIND A JOB #SUSPENSE.

As much as Joanie (Chris’s mama) loves her off-beat mexi-lover, she can no longer afford to provide for his ‘lavish’ lifestyle (like a $500 water bill – stemming from his ‘need to bathe’). Terry semi-decides on his own [but is really semi-forced by necessity] that he can’t let his damsel be in economic distress any longer, so a’job huntin’ he goes. More sooner than later, after dragging his good-for-nothing-hippie-ass to a variety of entry level interviews and getting promptly denied, Terry falls to the door of the Stevens’ house pleading for a job. Out of the goodness of her heart, Rose decides to hook Terry up with a job cleaning her local church, which includes but is not limited to polishing her beloved organ. It seems Terry, no matter how bumbling, may have actually found a job that he can handle… until he finds the stash of church wine #Foreshadowing.

Meanwhile on the other side of Holford, our homeboy Chad is tasked with giving an oral presentation to his class [about the Salem witch trials], which is proving to be harder said than done #LOLUNINTENTIONALPUN. After giving the traditional route a crack (and promptly running in fear out of the classroom and into the janitor’s supply closet), Chad decides that making a movie about his topic (with Chris’s assistance of course) will be an easier way of presenting his info ‘in front of the class’ (aiming for a bit of loop hole chasin’). After filming begins modestly, Chris slowly starts snowballing the movie’s ‘wow’ factor until it blows totally out of context (a talking space witch dog being persecuted instead of a normal human earth witch). In order to bring things back into reality, and yet still add some pizazz to his film, Chad decides to steal his Mom’s keys, sneak his crew into his church, and record a scene of his movie there ‘on location’. Quickly, as things often do for Chad and Chris, the situation spirals out of control as Grump knocks over a pillar, smashing Rose’s organ and sparking a huge fire. As the kids run out of the church in a panic they wake up drunken Terry, who is left to take the blame (citing that ‘mischievious goblins’ had started the fire). Although they had carried out ‘the perfect crime’, Chad soon turns himself in as the guilt proves to be overwhelming and Terry’s name is cleared (although he doesn’t get his job back because … he’s Terry and surely this kind of thing would happen again).

I liked that the two plots in the episode found a creative way to cross paths, and I liked watching Terry get denied over and over while looking for employment, but I wasn’t really a huge fan of this episode as a whole. This episode went back to a slower pacing than some of the previous, which I had felt were finally speeding up to a much more comfortable pace as they gained momentum – compare the first season of The Simpsons or Family Guy to the ones now and it will be painfully apparent what I mean by ‘gaining momentum’. At the end of the episode, I was surprised and amused that Chad’s teacher refused to watch his video, but then was let down that he considered Chad’s rebuttal as an acceptable replacement for his oral presentation and ended up passing him anyway. Furthermore, I’ve seen the “someone ended up taking the blame for us and we got away with it – but the guilt is too much so we end up fessing up” plot line too many times to not be jaded by seeing it once more.

Still solid, but not the best

7 out of 10

@Achilles_Word