Review: Dream Corp LLC “Staff Infection”

Meat pops: A circus in your mouth.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Patient 30 comes into the doctor’s office to treat hypochondria, her anxiety-filled belief that she has a debilitating disease. Meanwhile, the staff accidentally spills some dangerous-looking brightly colored chemicals, which creates a hazardous chemical gas that floods the facility. With hazmat masks on, the team tries to cope, while Patient 88 freaks out.

The doctor tries to treat Patient 30’s condition while Ahmed begins slowly mutating into some kind of fish man. This causes chaos throughout the facility, which is all the more troubling since Patient 30 is trapped in her anxious dreams. The doctor encourages her to pay attention to her surroundings and listen to what the image of her ex-girlfriend has to say, but her mind resists the therapy. Ahmed continues to grow more violent and mutated all the while, while Patient 88 tries to hold him back.

Ahmed starts literally climbing the walls while Patient 88 cowers in the corner, while the doctor decides to take matters into his own hands. With Doctor Robert’s guidance, Patient 30 is able to trust her own sense of safety, leaving Roberts to lead his crew into dealing with the chaos caused by Ahmed’s mutation. With tranquilizer guns in hand, they manage to put down the monstrous Ahmed before he can do too much damage, and preserve the lab for another day.

Our Take:

This week’s foray into the wild and wacky world of Dream Corp and its highly skilled medical professionals is much less of the usual therapeutic fare and much more a story of straight-up monster hunting. As always, of course, the quality of the episode is top notch, with lots of great little tidbits and jokes to keep things moving at a brisk pace, but the jokes and the story didn’t quite hit me as much as other episodes have in the past.

Patient 30’s hypochondriac anxiety didn’t pull me in like some of the other patient’s issues have. While that may seem like a small complaint, one of the genuine joys of this show is the blend of surrealist, black humor with a sense of therapeutic positivity. It rarely takes itself that seriously, but there is a narrative that usually flows throughout the episode and brings everything together in the patient’s mind. Its kind of like a traditional medical mystery show, where the satisfaction comes from seeing the answer to the patient’s problem. We don’t really get that in this episode. Patient 30 just gets better and there’s not a lot more to it than that.

Of course, all this is because the episode focuses so much more on Patient 88 and the Dream Corp team trying to contain the chemical spill in the office. The best moments are when Patient 88 is fighting for his life against the always eccentric Ahmed, who even when mutating, still tries to be a chill dude. I think Ahmed goes underused a lot of the time, so its great to see him have some more focus on the screen. The other members of the team don’t really pull their weight comedically, however. A lot of this comes from how difficult it is to understand and appreciate the jokes with the team’s voices being muffled through their hazmat masks.

This isn’t a bad episode by any means. Even the weak episodes of Dream Corp LLC are still the concentrated baskets of weird chuckles that you know and love. It’s just that this episode doesn’t quite hit the high marks I like to see from the show. The gags aren’t that strong and the story is mostly just window-dressing, even though I did enjoy Randy’s obsession with meat pops. There’s a good time to be had here, just don’t go expecting to be wowed too much.