Season 4, Episode 16: Altair Cookiehands

Episode 16: Altair Cookiehands

As the station approached Pleasure-9, Commander James T. Blanket was having nightmares about the crew dying horribly on the planet.

Edwina & Jacob held the newborn Scoopella. Edwina warned Jacob that her half-android nature would cause the baby to grow up very quickly. When Jacob mentioned that he’d be raising Scoopella in the Amish tradition, Edwina was upset that he hadn’t included her in such an important decision. She told Jacob that, whatever the actual parentage may be, they had to think of her as THEIR daughter.

Dwayne Tomagachi (a.k.a. Angus McMurder) held Armageddon Uno prisoner, forcing him to watch reruns of “Golden Girls.” Releasing Armageddon from the force field, Dwayne admitted that his heart hadn’t been in his evil plans since falling in love with Armageddon’s sister Cody Gage.

DWAYNE: “There’s a certain purity about her…that stoned naiveté…”

Armageddon offered to swear a blood oath with Dwayne, promising that he wouldn’t give Dwayne away if Dwayne would look after Cody. Dwayne agreed, on the condition that Armageddon take a blood test first.

Cody was explaining her duties to Dwayne’s twin brother Heinous McMurder. The conversation turned to Cody’s engagement to Dwayne/Angus, and Heinous revealed that the last girl Angus had been engaged to had broken his heart. Cody gave a more-than-usually incoherent reply involving Dr. Laura, but the gist of it was that she would never do that to Dwayne. Cody and Heinous hugged, despite Heinous’ difficulty expressing himself non-violently.

Commander Blanket met Darren Johnson, the winner of a radio contest to visit the space station. Blanket suddenly realized that he didn’t need to risk his crew’s lives on Pleasure-9 when he could sacrifice an innocent civilian instead. He offered to put Darren through a rigorous training montage.

Wracked with guilt over killing Scoop, Altair-9000 had replaced his hands with dough-filled oven mitts to make sure he couldn’t hurt anyone again. Dr. Shika talked with Altair about his grief, then gave the robot a copy of Judy Blume’s “Super Fudge” to help him with these difficult feelings.

Darren Johnson’s training montage began.

Cody and Edwina went over the plans for Edwina’s wedding to Jacob. When Cody started crying about wanting a wedding of her own, Edwina assured her that “happiness begets happiness,” and her own wedding might just follow. Cody told Edwina about her fiancé, but her description was so garbled that Edwina didn’t realize she was talking about Dwayne Tomagachi. Cody sang a peppy upbeat song about her relationship.

The training montage concluded.

BLANKET: “All right! You’ve learned how to attract, kiss, seduce, push aside, kill, and seduce women.”

Darren confessed that he’d never had much time for women due to his work as producer of the horror movies Retarded Death-Stalkers I through III. As the atonal screams of the people of Retardo-Montalban 6 echoed through his head, Blanket urged Darren to stop exploiting special-needs people, and instead make films to help them. Darren was inspired to develop two new ideas: Retarded Flower Girl and Retarded Driving Instructor.

That night, Commander Blanket had an even more disturbing, inexplicable nightmare involving a naked Blue Man (not to be confused with Blue Man Group or Dr. Shika).

Cody and Darren talked shop about the station’s engines. Darren tried his newly-learned seduction techniques on Cody.

DARREN: “There’s three types of girls in this world. There’s fine-looking girls, there’s finer-looking girls, and, well, there’s the finest-looking girl!”

The McMurder brothers waited to ambush Commander Blanket on the bridge. Ensign Boggess entered and was immediately killed by Heinous McMurder. Blanket arrived and found the crewman murdered, just like in his nightmare. As Dwayne spun the station’s steering wheel out of control, Ensign Armit entered and was (you guessed it) immediately killed by Heinous McMurder. Commander Blanket told the brothers that the station wasn’t even orbiting Earth anymore, but had arrived at Pleasure-9.

BLANKET: “If you love evil, you’ll love a planet full of women.”

As Jacob cradled Scoopella, Armageddon Uno came in, still holding a grudge. Armageddon’s anger subsided when he saw the baby. Jacob gave Armageddon a Bible Bar (“Based on a recipe from Deuteronomy 8:8”) to celebrate the birth. After taking a bite, Armageddon quickly “fed” his chewed-up mouthful to Scoopella.

Commander Blanket held a staff meeting, while Jacob handed out Bible Bars to everybody. (The Commander gave his own bar to Darren as part of his “training.”) From their hiding spot behind the computer, the McMurder brothers saw Darren flirting with Cody. Blanket informed everybody about the dangerous mission to Pleasure-9, explaining that the away team would consist of the McMurders and Darren Johnson—the most expendable people on board. As Cody pleaded for Dwayne to stay safely on board, a fight broke out between Dwayne and Darren. Altair tried to intervene, but his dough-hands were useless. Heinous McMurder brought the fight to an end by stabbing Darren.

TO BE CONTINUED…