Subject: Desert Squid Recap

The show opens with an RV parked in the middle of some desert, and text appears onscreen telling us this occurred “somewhere in East Texas…two days ago.” Inside the RV, Derek and a little dog are looking at a television screen filled with static. Derek hits the side of the TV, yelling at it, “Come on! Work!” Chloe tells Derek he “can’t avoid this.” Some guy tells Derek to take it easy on the VCR. Jason asks to try it and Derek snaps at him. Chloe wants to know why Derek thought he could keep them out of the loop. Derek protests, but Jason says that Derek is always going off by himself. The guy wants to know if this is how the gang normally works. Suddenly, there is a loud noise from on top of the RV, and the dog starts barking. The guy grabs a shotgun and cocks it. Chloe falls into Derek’s arms, and they look at each other, and separate quickly. The RV continues shaking, and Derek picks up his camera. The guy doesn’t want to be photographed. Derek talks into the camera, saying that there is “definitely something up on the roof.” The RV shakes again, and Derek drops the camera. Something reaches in through the skylight in the roof and grabs Chloe, pulling her up to the ceiling. Everyone tries to pull her down. Chaos ensues.

Cut to Freakylinks office in present day. Derek is narrating the story into the computer, telling us that the RV belonged to someone named Falcon. The video clip on the computer is paused on a shot of Chloe being dragged up to the ceiling. Jason interrupts and tells Derek not to start with Chloe being attacked, because people will be confused. Jason says he’s worried that “the people in the black Suburban” followed them home. The door slams, and Lan walks in and drops some suitcases. She sarcastically thanks them for picking her up at the airport, and asks about the dog; the same one from the RV. Derek ignores her question and asks her to dig out “the stuff underneath the static” on a videotape he has. Lan asks about the label on the tape, which says “De Santo” but Derek ignores her questions yet again. Lan asks about Chloe and Derek and Jason exchange a look, but still don’t answer her question. Lan finally asks what’s going on, and Derek reminds her about an email they got last week.

Flashback to earlier in the week, where Lan asks Derek to pick her up at the airport. She calls him over to check out an email. It contains pictures of cattle mutilations, and there are strange marks on the dead cow. The email also contains “a v-mail” and Lan works at unzipping the file while Derek watches. Chloe and Jason walk in, just as Lan says, “unzipping it” and Derek is standing over her with his back to the door. Jokes are made about it. Derek explains about the cows and Jason guesses “aliens,” while Chloe guesses, “Chupacabra.” The “v-mail” turns out to be a video clip of some guy in shadow saying that aliens or chupacabras did not cause the cattle mutilations, but that if the Freakylinks gang want to know the truth, they should come to Spano, Texas. The guy gives the address as 3450 Sex Road, and gives them a date and time to meet. Lan says she’s off to Chicago, and Derek says he’s off to Texas. Chloe decides to go to Texas too, because “what the hell else [does she] have to do?”

Cut to Derek, Jason, and Chloe driving through Texas and hooting and hollering. They pass a sign that says, “Welcome to Spano, Texas” and some guy is spray-painting it. Jason says it must be “an East Texas tagger.” Cut back to the sign, where we see that the guy has painted, “Home of the Desert Squid.” Derek is interviewing an old cowpoke type about the mutilations. He says they “ought to be looking for the Desert Squid.” Cut to an interview with a girl selling grapefruits at the roadside. The girl says that she has seen the Desert Squid, and shows them what looks like a piece of a tentacle in some liquid inside a jar. The girl asks if they want to buy it, as Derek opens the jar and then nearly drops it. The girl tells them that it’s “only fifty bucks” and that it’s “one of a kind.” Chloe sneaks around behind the girl, and opens a cooler to reveal four or five other jars like the one the girl was trying to sell them. Back to the cowboy, who tells them that there were “circular marks” on the cows, and gives them directions to where the creature was last seen.

The gang is driving their truck to the location the cowboy gave them. Derek does an intro for the camera, and Jason and Chloe laugh at him. Chloe asks if they can go eat somewhere. Derek pulls into “Last Chance Vittles.” Inside, a dog walks up to Derek, who slips him a little food. It’s the same dog from the RV. Derek and Jason harass Chloe for not eating meat. A one-armed man, who is also the diner owner, walks up and asks them if they want pie. Derek eyes the pie, which has flies buzzing around it, and turns him down. Derek asks about the address they got in the video clip, the “Sex Road” one. After some initial confusion, they realize that the address is actually 3456 Rhode Avenue. Derek wants to talk to one-armed man, but he won’t talk on camera. Derek asks about the mutilations, and the Desert Squid, but all the guy will say is that both things “might be good for tourism.” He gives them the check, and Derek excuses himself to “hit the head.” Derek enters the scary, broken-apart bathroom. There’s someone in one of the stalls, but the person’s feet are facing the wall, and not the toilet or the door. The urinal is broken off the wall, so Derek decides to use the sink. A voice tells Derek not to piss in the sink or he’ll report Derek. Derek walks over to the stall and pushes the door open, just as Elsing grabs him from behind and accuses Derek of “sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong.” Elsing insists that “there is no Desert Squid.” Derek asks whether this has something to do with Adam. Elsing warns Derek to “stay away from this one” because “it’s between them and [Elsing].” Derek wants to know who “they” are, saying that he needs to know what’s going on. Elsing grabs him and throws him up against the wall, saying that “what’s going on is good and evil.” Elsing throws Derek to the floor. Derek gets up and runs outside, but Elsing is nowhere to be found. He asks Chloe and Jason whether they saw anything, but they don’t know what he’s talking about. Derek sees a black Suburban taking off, and says they have to follow it in their truck.

They didn’t catch the black Suburban, it’s 11 PM and Derek, Jason, and Chloe are at the address they got from the dinner, to meet the guy who sent them the video clip. They knock, and when no one answers, they walk in. The place looks like it has been ransacked. Chloe wants to leave. Jason takes note of a bulletin board with clippings about every conspiracy theory ever. Derek yells for “Falcon,” the name of the guy who sent the video clip. Chloe and Jason want to leave. Derek sees the bulletin board and keeps looking at clippings until Chloe and Jason persuade him to take off. Outside, Jason says that he thinks they are being set up, because if they report this on the website, tourism in the town will jump five hundred percent. Just then, an engine starts up and a vehicle starts speeding towards Derek, who jumps out of the way just in time. The Freakylinks gang jump in their truck and take off after the vehicle. While chasing the vehicle, the little dog from the diner runs out in the road. Derek tries to avoid the dog, but something splatters on the windshield. Derek stops and gets out to inspect what happened. There is a quivering tentacle laying in the road.

Cut to the Freakylinks office. Lan is still working on the video, but it’s not ready yet. Lan reviews that Derek thought he saw Elsing in the bathroom, but he didn’t tell Jason and Chloe, and that the dog sitting in the chair is the dog he didn’t hit on the road. Jason tries to think up a better name for the Desert Squid, like “Octopussy” or “Octocabra.” Lan ignores Jason and gets Derek back to telling the story.

Derek, Jason, and Chloe check into a motel. Derek is carrying a box containing the tentacle they found in the road. It keeps bumping around, arousing the suspicion of the motel manager, who won’t allow pets in the rooms. They tell him it’s some fish they caught. The manager also doesn’t allow cooking in the rooms. They tell him they’re going to eat it raw because they are observing the sabbath. They grab the room key, and split, but not before agreeing to buy a souvenir Desert Squid t-shirt. Once in their room, Derek applies menthol to his upper lip, because the tentacle smells bad. Chloe makes a fart joke. Derek opens the box to show the tentacle to the camera. Chloe offers some explanations as to how it could all still be a hoax. Derek sees headlights flash through the room. He looks out the window and sees the black Suburban outside, so he turns out the lights so the occupants of the Suburban can’t see inside. In the background, we see the tentacle climb out of the box. When they realize that the tentacle is loose, Chloe and Jason jump up on the bed while Derek looks for it. Some men in black get out of the Suburban and pull out a lock pick to attempt to get into the motel room. The gang hears the doorknob rattling, but just then, the tentacle wraps around Chloe’s leg. There’s a funny scene of Chloe hopping across the room with the tentacle on her leg. Derek finally pulls it off, and the tentacle flies across the room and sticks to the door like. Another car pulls up outside, and shotgun blasts are heard, which scare away the men in black. The door is kicked in, and Falcon is standing there with a shotgun. He tells the gang, “If you want to live, come with me.” so they do. He is the owner of the RV. As they drive away, we see the guy from the black Suburban.

Falcon and the gang are having a campfire outside Falcon’s RV. Falcon thought they were with De Santo, a multinational conglomerate. Derek asks whether De Santo wants to kill them, and why. Falcon doesn’t really answer, and Derek surmises that De Santo is behind the cattle mutilations. Falcon explains that De Santo made the Desert Squid; he knows, because he was there. Falcon used to work for De Santo when he was younger, disposing of “certain waste products in the desert.” We see a flashback of Falcon dumping a crate into a hole in the ground. Falcon narrates that one time he heard something moving in a crate, so he pried it open to check. Inside, he found a body bag that was still moving, and he assumed it was “some sort of zombie corpse.” Falcon dumped the crate, took off, quit his job, and “went underground.” Derek asks exactly what De Santo is up to, and Falcon admits that he doesn’t know exactly, but it’s “got to be something bad.” Derek asks what was in the body bag, and Falcon doesn’t really know that either. Derek asks why, if the incident happened twenty years ago, the cattle mutilations are just happening now. Falcon says he doesn’t have all the answers, but implores Derek to put his story on the website so that they can get more information.

Cut to the RV driving through the desert. Derek goes back into the diner bathroom where he saw Elsing, and yells out “Vince!” which is Elsing’s first name. There’s no one there. Inside the diner, the rest of the gang is having similar results. Falcon decides to go outside and keep watch. Derek and the rest decide to search the place. Chloe wants to know what’s going on with Derek, what he’s hoping to find. They start looking through a bunch of boxes in a meat locker. Chloe is frustrated that Derek won’t tell her what they are looking for. Jason finds something, a bomb that only has four seconds left on the timer. He throws it out of the meat locker, and they all duck and cover. Outside, Falcon goes flying as all of the windows blow out and fire billows out of the windows. Someone, probably one of the men in black, observes and then the black Suburban takes off.

Back at the Freakylinks office Lan learns that diving in the meat locker saved them. Except that it wasn’t a meat locker, it was an elevator, which led to the underground lab. We see Chloe, Jason, and Derek plunging into the underground lab. Chloe worries that there’s no way out. Derek thinks that the Desert Squid thing might be real. They film lots of lab equipment, and bottles filled with murky substances. Derek finds the videotape with the De Santo label, and pockets it. Chloe finds file folders that say De Santo as well, and they’re all twenty years old. Jason wonders why, if this lab was abandoned twenty years ago, all the lights are still on. They come upon what looks like a bedroom. Chloe finds a fuse box hooked up to a bunch of car batteries, which explains the lights. There are a bunch of tubes and chains hanging from the ceiling, and we see Derek-cam and Jason-cam searching the room. There is a rustling noise and every once in a while, a tentacle swings down behind one of the gang, but none of them see it. They wonder if the tentacle followed them from the hotel. While looking around, they find the little dog, which scares them half to death. Jason deduces that the one-armed man was squatting down there. They realize that the dog probably knows the way out, and follow it up through a vent of some sort, ending up outside.

The gang sees the smoking wreck that used to be the diner, along with Falcon’s RV. They run over and nearly get shot by Falcon himself. They tell him about the underground lab, and how it was abandoned twenty years ago. Derek produces the videotape. Cut to them watching the tape in Falcon’s RV. Though it’s very snowy, you can make out a man giving a report from a lab meant for De Santo bigwigs. The man is Vince Elsing, who reports that his team of scientists has nearly achieved, “complete biological…” and then the tape cuts out. Jason deduces that this “has something to do with Adam” and Chloe is angry with Derek for knowing that Elsing was involved and not telling them. Outside, one of the men in black is watching the people in the RV with night-vision binoculars. Standing behind him is another man, in shadow. The guy says he’s “had about enough of this.”

Back inside the RV, Chloe and Jason are yelling at Derek. It’s the opening scene, but now we know the context. Derek hits the side of the TV, exhorting it to, “Come on! Work!” Chloe tells Derek he “can’t avoid this.” Falcon tells Derek to take it easy on the VCR. Jason asks to give it a try and Derek yells at him. Chloe wants to know why Derek thought he could keep them out of the loop. Derek protests, but Jason says Derek is always going off by himself. Falcon wants to know if this is how the gang normally works. Suddenly, there is a loud noise from on top of the RV, and the dog starts barking. Falcon grabs a shotgun and cocks it. Chloe falls into Derek’s arms, and they look at each other, and separate quickly. The RV continues shaking, and Derek picks up his camera. Falcon doesn’t want to be photographed. Derek talks into the camera, saying that there is “definitely something up on the roof.” The RV shakes again, and Derek drops the camera. A tentacle reaches in through the skylight in the roof and grabs Chloe, pulling her up to the ceiling. Everyone tries to pull her down. Chaos ensues.

Falcon pulls out a knife and starts sawing through the tentacle. The tentacle finally releases Chloe, who crashes to the ground, breathing raggedly since the tentacle had been wrapped around her neck. Derek wants to grab his camera and film it. Jason tries to talk some sense into Derek, since Chloe is obviously hurt. Derek finally realizes his lack of priorities, and comforts Chloe. Jason says that he and Chloe are done, and that they have plenty of stories for the site. They can always come back, because “that thing” isn’t going anywhere.

Cut back to Lan asking where Chloe is. Derek says she’s upstairs resting. Lan can’t believe they left without any proof of the Desert Squid. Derek says their proof will be the video, which Lan promises is almost ready. Outside, we see a tentacle crawling up the window. Chloe comes downstairs with a huge red mark on her neck. Everyone comforts her, especially Derek. Chloe has been doing some research on De Santo. Apparently, twenty years ago De Santo applied for a bunch of patents in the area of “cell regeneration” and “Wall Street thought they were onto something big,” but then suddenly De Santo just dropped what they were doing. The computer beeps to indicate that the video is ready, and they all gather around to watch it. Elsing talks about “Test Subject 148″ whom Derek identifies as the one-armed man from the diner. Before the gang can figure out what they are seeing in the video, the power goes out. Chloe thinks it might be the storm, Jason thinks it’s something else, and Lan notes that it “took out the backup power too.” Derek volunteers to go start up the generator.

Once Derek is alone, Elsing shows up to tell him that he “screwed around with the forces of nature” and went too far, but now he can’t get back, and neither can Derek. Derek hears glass breaking and turns away, and when he looks back, Elsing is gone. The glass broke when the men in black broke into the house. They say they are going to take “the hard drives and all the tapes.” Derek tells them that everything has already been posted to the website, but head man in black says he knows that’s not true. Other men in black takes out a gun, which causes the gang to put their hands in the air. Just then, a tentacle busts in the door and takes out the guy with the gun. Jason punches the head man in black, but not very well. Just as the head man in black is fixing up his gun, he is also grabbed by a tentacle and dragged away. After ascertaining that Jason is okay, the gang look outside to try to figure out what’s going on. A door opens and a tentacle waves in, followed by the one-armed man, who turns out to be the Desert Squid. The tentacle is attached to him. He gives the Freakylinks gang a speech about how he was dumped in the desert twenty years ago and woke up to find the tentacle attached. Now, just when he gets his diner going, the Freakylinks gang shows up and his diner gets “blown to hell.” It turns out that all he wants is his dog “pepper” back. Derek can’t believe he came all the way there for his dog, and Chloe points out that he almost killed her. He apologizes, he thought she was his dog. The one-armed man asks them to write the Desert Squid story on the website because he’ll need the publicity for his new diner. He admits to being responsible for the cattle mutilations, and using the cattle for hamburgers for his diner. He takes the De Santo videotape and leaves, taking the men in black with him. Lan asks what he’s going to do with the men. Cut to someone eating a steak or something. A patron gets a bill, it’s Elsing. He puts out his cigarette and leaves a $1000 tip. As Elsing leaves, we see a shot of the window of the “Desert Squid Diner.”