"Halloween Enough" is the twenty-third episode (and the forty-fourth story overall) of Close Enough.
Synopsis[]
When a thunderstorm makes trick-or-treating impossible, the gang tells Candice a trio of scary stories to save her Halloween.
Plot[]
The gang is all dressed up to go out for Halloween, but a rainstorm comes in and cancels their plans as the streets of Los Angeles fall into chaos. Instead of going out on the town they decide on watching The Simpsons's Treehouse of Horror special, however that event is also postponed until November 23rd in favor of the World Baseball series. As a second backup plan Pearl and Alex propose to everyone to each tell a scary story in order to pass the time. Josh goes first with a tale wherein Alex is the bad guy, much to his housemates's initial chagrin.
Josh's story, "Margarita Vampires"[]
Josh and Alex are spending a night out on the town together, but Josh gets tired and begins missing his family. Alex, on the other hand, wants to keep going and proposes to visit the local Margaritaville bar. Josh ditches him, leaving a disgruntled Alex to go in the bar alone. Inside he is warmly greeted by the hostess and immediately begins drinking heavily and partying, resulting in him passing out. After waking up Alex is invited by the hostess to join in her and the other patrons in a never ending party, to which he accepts with drunken glee. The patrons and the hostess reveal themselves to be vampires and have Alex turned into one of their kind.
Back at their apartment building Josh and Emily are sound asleep, but Josh is woken up late into the night by Alex, now wearing tropical-themed tourist clothes and oddly asking for permission to be let inside. Josh becomes suspicious of Alex's new attitude and immediately picks up on the fact that his friend has been turned into a vampire. His housemate enjoys his undead lifestyle, all of the merriment that comes with it and as such offers to have Josh turned so that they could party forever. Josh refuses to leave his family behind and goes back to bed. This results in Alex badgering him for days on end with the perks of vampire life. Soon enough Josh gets fed up and decides to kill his friend, but is instead told by Bridgette to simply tell Alex to leave. Josh walks in on Alex and tells him to vacant the building, both he and everyone else have become fed up with his selfish behavior and want him out. Alex is forced to leave, but not before threatening to retaliate with his new undead friends. Alex leaves by turning into a bat (having failed miserably at it before), prompting his former friends into preparing for the upcoming battle by fashioning an assortment of anti-vampire weapons.
The Margarita vamps arrive at the apartment where they are greeted by Josh with daiquiris. Because the cocktails are non alcoholic it kills the vampires who drank them. Alex leads a charge inside the house and fight ensues. Although several vampires are reduced to ash the housemates are eventually overpowered and cornered, with Roxy, the vamp hostess, desiccating Phil to death (an unseen and unmentioned upstairs neighbor as of that point in the story). Roxy and the remaining Margarita Vamps intend to have the gang drained of their blood until they die, much to Alex's horror, who despite having been offended by their reactions never wanted to have them killed but rather turned as well. In an act of redemption Alex throws a pitcher of daiquiri on Roxy which causes her to burst into flame. This gives his human friends an opportunity to kill off the remaining vamps, minus Alex who promises to never try and turn his friends into vampires and kindly asks to be forgiven. Just as the gang forgive him, Alex is unfortunately staked through the heart by Randy, who was unconscious during the later portion of the fight. Randy is unmoved by his deed and instead begins vacuuming the vampire dust left around the house.
Josh has just finished his story and is met with a lukewarm response from the rest of the gang, minus Candice who is impressed that her father had made it all up. He tells them that the story is based of off real events, to which Alex corroborates this fact. According to him, after Josh had turned in with an Uber, Alex got a nosebleed after going to a House of Pies dinner. Next up is Bridgette who begins relating a story that took place soon after she and Alex had gotten divorced. This leaves Alex once again disgruntled at the prospect that all the stories will feature him as a villain, but Bridgette denies this is a snide manner.
Bridgette's story, "Haunted House"[]
Shortly after having divorced from Alex, Bridgette is hosting a livestream where she shows off a 1960s Googie style house that she had purchased for cheap as fresh start in life, as well as to flex at her ex. She finds the retro look to be tacky and has her best friends Emily and Josh help her renovate the interior. During renovations it soon becomes clear that the house is haunted: the faucets let out screams instead of water, bubble chairs blink like eyes, and any attempt of theirs to change the interior results in the house assaulting then. Emily and Josh propose to Bridgette to move out, but Bridgette is instead even more interested in the house do to the clout it would bring her on social media. She calls over the brothers Joe and Scott Miller, a team of home improvement developers/paranormal exorcists to help ward off the evil spirit and renovate the place. Through a seance the brothers reveal that the house's architect, Ludwig, had died of embarrassment after having been laughed at by any potential buyers, and that his ghost is currently haunting the house and preventing it from being renovated. The Millers give a rundown of their renovation plans, but are immediately killed by the ghost of Ludwig inside of the house's chimney. Ludwig chases the gang through the house with the intent of killing them as well. Suddenly, Alex breaks into the house by busting through a window. He takes the time to admit, in an uncharacteristically humble manner, that he had been cyber-stalking Bridgette and that he feels inferior to her. Ludwig, while possessing the chimney in human form, proceeds to bludgeon Alex to death with a sofa. But before he can do the same to the rest the front door rings. Several hipsters have come in person to witness and hang out at the haunted house in hopes of posting further footage of it on Instagram. Do to the house's newly gained popularity Bridgette and Ludwig make peace, with the first enjoying a stronger degree of popularity on social media while the later finally feels appreciated for his taste in home decoration. Bridgette ends her story by further bashing her ex, trying to banish Alex's desperate for attention ghost from the premises.
Just as the second story ends Emily notices how late it has become and proceeds to take Candice to bed. Her daughter laments that she hasn't even been scared once, which prompts Emily to allow Candice to head one final story before bedtime. She begins telling her story, with the added highlight that it revolves around a magical pumpkin that wants to eat Candice.
Emily's story, "The Magic Pumpkin... that wanted to KILL CANDICE!"[]
Emily is doing late night work at FoodCorp when she gets a call from Josh, reminding her to pick up a pumpkin for Candice's pumpkin carving contest at school tomorrow. Emily decides to steal a genetically modified pumpkin from work and brings it with her at home, unaware of the warnings written in the grimoire sat on top of a Satanic altar that describes the pumpkin as an Elder Gourd. At home the family begin carving the pumpkin, all the while ignoring its ominous reactions. The family decide to take a selfie with the finished sculpture until they are interrupted by the pumpkin growing to half the size of the kitchen, sporting a singular green eye, tentacle-vines and a fanged maw. The monstrous pumpkin tosses Josh across the kitchen and through a wall, then gives chase as it tries devouring Emily and Candice. Bridgette has her head bitten off by the creature while Alex is accidentally stabbed in the forehead with a meat cleaver by Emily, believing him to be the monster on account of his pumpkin monster mask for celebrating Samhain. The pumpkin monster reaches for Emily, but Candice catches one of its vines inside a blender and presses the ON button, resulting in the monster getting slashed to pieces as it gets pulled inside. Despite them having survived Candice is left without a pumpkin to present the next day. As a makeshift plan the young family instead bring Alex's decapitated head to the school, pretending it to be a pumpkin, which Timothy Campbell awards it with third place and then immediately chucks it to the garbage.
Candice Breaks the Fourth Wall[]
Candice is once again unimpressed by the latest story and asks for one that is actually scary. She turns her gaze around the living room and notices that the adults have disappeared, leaving her all alone and scarred. Candice is searching for the missing housemates until she runs into an invisible wall that seems to bend the space in front of it. After pushing against the unseen force Candice falls from a small height and onto the floor of a cubicle, wherein the invisible wall from before is revealed to be a still frame of her home's living room. As she's walking down the halls of the mysterious building Candice makes several disturbing discoveries. There are drawings of her family and her housemates pinned against the offices walls. Posters with the caption "Close Enough" are showing Candice and the rest of the gang on them. In a board meeting room there are notes on the walls with ideas and details regarding the events of that current Halloween. Several people are animating previous adventures of her family and friends. Even more frightening, Candice comes across a man identical to Josh who does not recognize her, currently working on the "Close Enough" show, and three women whose respective voices are identical to those of Emily, hers and Bridgette. Her interactions with these people, coupled with the images on the walls, reveals to Candice that she is a fictional character in an animated series, same as her mother, father and friends. In desperation she runs down the building stairway and runs out of the building, revealed to be Cartoon Network studios. Out on the streets, Candice is surrounded by a hoard of fans of the show, pressuring her for autographs.
Candice lets out a loud shriek and wakes up back on the couch of the apartment's living room, surrounded by Emily and the rest of the gang, minus Josh. Candice briefly relates to them her nightmare, to which Emily comforts her that they are all real people as well as revealing that they never told scary stories, but rather after the rain had started the gang decided to stay in and watch a horror movie and Candice fell asleep. Emily then picks up her daughter and takes her to bed. On the way the two pass by Josh. Emily asks if he had gotten his head stuck in a pumpkin, mirroring her doppleganger's lines from Candice's nightmare. Candice turns her gaze back and sees her father pulling off a pumpkin mask and smiling back at her with a large grin and green colored eyes with slit pupils.
Characters[]
- Josh Singleton
- Emily Ramirez
- Bridgette Hashima
- Candice
- Alex Dorpenberger
- Pearle Watson
- Randy Watson
- Roxy
- Phil
- Ludwig
- Joe Miller
- Scott Miller
- Elder Gourd
- Timothy Campbell
- J.G. Quintel
- Gabrielle Walsh
- Jessica DiCicco
- Kimiko Glenn
Trivia[]
- This is the second 22-minute episode of the series, with the first being "The Canine Guy".
- This is the highest rated episode of the series on IMDb with a 9.4/10.
- In the hallway of the Cartoon Network studio Candice sees several real-world season posters of Close Enough. Likewise, character sheets are posted on a board which reveal the the character's clothing changed. One of these sheets shows an eighth initial housemate, Payton, who was apparently written out as indicated by a red "X" over him. There are three extra sheets: one is a diagram of the apartment building, a second is a chart of Mordecai (one of the main characters in Regular Show)'s mouth movements, while the last is a list of working show titles.
- This episodes features several members of the show's cast and crew as animated characters during Candice's nightmare sequence. Actresses Gabrielle Walsh, Jessica DiCicco and Kimiko Glenn all voice themselves, as does show creator J.G. Quintel. Unlike Walsh, DiCicco and Glenn, however, who look nothing like their respective characters on the show, Quintel is drawn identically to Josh because Josh on account of Josh being an author's surrogate. It should still be noted that Quintel's hair is actually black, while Josh has light brown hair, which technically qualifies this as an artistic error.
- As Candice walks in on two animators they are panicking over the unfinished scenes of the Ferris-wheel rolling down the Santa Monica pier from the previous episode "Legend of the Pier" This could imply that the episode may have had some production issues.
Pop Culture References[]
- The episode's title is an obvious reference to the name of the series.
- The costumes worn by the gang are, for the most part, based on characters from various popular franchises:
- Josh is Mordecai from Regular Show (who was also voiced by J.G. Quintel).
- Candice is Chucky from the Child's Play franchise.
- Emily is Prince.
- Pearle is Morpheus from The Matrix franchise.
- Bridgette is Jubilee from Marvel Comics, specifically the '90s X-Men cartoon based off of the character's Jim Lee design.
- Randy is Solid Snake from the Metal Gear video game franchise.
- Alex is the only character not in costume as he finds Halloween to be a garish commercialized rip-off of the Celtic festival of Samhain (which he mispronounces). Much like modern Halloween practices during Samhain people would dress up, sing carols and then receive food as part of a tradition. Alex practices this festival during Emily's story and subsequently leads to his death. Whether or not Alex is an active practitioner of the holiday, or if Emily was just trying to poke fun at him, same as Josh and Bridgette, is never specified, though the latter seems more likely.
- During the storm, the gang decides to watch a "Treehouse of Horror" episode of The Simpsons, but it is delayed until November due to the World Series, an event which frequently happened to the series in real life throughout the early to mid-2000s.
- The episode's structure mirrors that of a "Treehouse of Horror" episode, and this formula was also used several times on Regular Show as part of their "Terror Tales from the Park" Halloween centered episodes.
- Josh's story incorporates some elements of classical vampire lore, as well as several pop culture elements:
- The Margarita vampires are immune to Christian crosses, which would normally incapacitate their kind according to Western lore. Instead, they are repelled by signs forbidding the wearing of slippers or sandals.
- Other vampire weaknesses include: garlic, wooden stakes and an inability to enter a home without first being invited in. Beheading is a weakness demonstrated only in movies, comic books, novels, television series and video games. Likewise, crossbows are commonly associated with vampire hunting in modern fiction, but otherwise are not especially traditionally associated with them.
- Vampires turning into bats is an element derived from Dracula movies. In popular cultural, both Western European and in Slavic traditions, vampires were presumed to be therianthropes, people who could turn into animals.
- The Margarita vampires flock together in a pack, yet another entry popularized by American vampire movies.
- The way in which the vampires turn to dust after being staked may be derived from television and movies such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Blade. Bursting into flame is also a pop culture depiction of vampire deaths, but often associated with exposure to sunlight or to open flames.
- An elderly looking Margarita vampire can split his mouth open into three prolonged lips with spiked teeth, similar to the super-vampires from Blade Trinity.
- One of the Margarita vampires appears to be a Jiangshi, also known as a "Chinese Hopping vampire". These revenants are popularly characterized by their Qing Dynasty wardrobe, a Taoist talisman on their foreheads, their white complexion and their unique form of hopping around instead of walking or running. Jiangshi were popularized by Hong Kong movies of the 1970s, '80s and '90s, and later by their appearances in Japanese video games, comic books and animation. Aside from his attire and a brief scene of him hopping, the Jiangshi in this episode doesn't show much other characteristics typical of his kind.
- Bridgette's story contains a reference to the 1982 movie Poltergeist in the form of the ghostly portal inside Bridgette's closet inside the haunted house.
- One of the genetically modified foods that Emily passes by is a pickled cucumber modeled after the Sesame Street character Elmo. The food's title, "Pickle-Me-Elmo" is an obvious nod to the toy Tickle-Me-Elmo.
- The Monster Pumpkin featured in Emily's story is identified as an Elder Gourd and it contains Shoggoth DNA. The creature is likely named after H.P. Lovecraft's various elder god races, or the Elder Things, the indirect progenitors of all life on Earth within the Chthulu Mythos. Within Lovecraft's literary universe the Shoggoths were a race of gelatinous, giant, shape-shifting beings, initially subservient to the Elder Things. The tome warning about the Elder Gourd is likely also a nod to Lovecraft's favorite plot device The Necronomicon.
- Candice's nightmare has similarities to the 1998 movie The Truman Show, both Candice and Truman Burbank realized they where part of a show while being unaware of it.
- The episode's ending parodies the final scene of the music video for Michael Jackson's Thriller.