Everything comes to a head on tonight’s Metalocalypse, in which Mr. Salacia, looking a little more stone-blue than usual, declares, “It is time for me to reveal myself and show them my true face.” Who is he referring to, the band? As far as I can remember, they’ve never even seen his false face. As the band is performing what has been announced as its final show in Rekjavik, Iceland, Salacia comes literally flying in, his long tresses flowing in the wind, so that he looks like an airborne cross between late-period Howard Hughes and the Bride with White Hair. He shoots power bolts from his palms, melting the upturned faces of many in the crowd, and is still in pursuit of the band as Offdensen manages to steer them to safety. All in all, it’s a pretty effective rejoinder to anyone who suspected that the plan has always been for him to run out the clock on the whole series, just sitting there looking menacing.
Whatever role Salacia is meant to play in the title event, Dethklok has clearly forced his hand by teetering on the edge of self-immolation. Last week, Pickles vowed to end it all over Nathan’s doomed attempt to lay claim to the band’s now-departed producer. The fact that Nathan and Abigail won’t actually be picking out a kindergarten together has done nothing to slow the forward trajectory of the band’s disintegration. The only thing that could save Dethklok, everyone agrees, would be Nathan telling Pickles he’s sorry. No one says this as if they were talking about something that might actually occur.
With the band’s final death throes scheduled in ink on the kitchen calendar (and with the fans responding with outbreaks of “catastrophic violence around the world”), the band members themselves do their best to plot out their second acts. Pickles has acquired a vineyard and plans to produce and market the world’s most alcoholic wine, “Whore’s Blood.” But he becomes frustrated with having to operate according to Mother Nature’s timetable and instructs his minions to speed up the growth of the grapes using “unlicensed metabolic hormones.” As a result, the big inaugural tasting ceremony is an unmitigated failure in the eyes of everyone who doesn’t grade wine according to the amount of heaving it inspires in those who swig it.
As for Murderface, the “future former Dethklok bassist” decides to run for the United States Congress, because the current state of electoral politics doesn’t give the people on The Newsroom enough to be indignant about. Toki is along for this ride, pitching in on the office chores. Murderface instructs him to do the heavy lifting on a mass email to his supporters, explaining that Toki is to go online and send out the photos marked as campaign literature but absolutely, under no circumstances, is he to send any of the pictures “from my personal account.” I can’t imagine anyone needs me to spell out how this goes.
Saddest of all is Nathan, who, in collaboration with Dick Knubbler at the engineer’s station and Skwisgaar as producer, is trying to craft “the next big thing” that will completely erase people’s memories of Dethklok, as effectively as Chinese Democracy erased everyone’s memories of “Paradise City.” Early results are not encouraging. “It sounds,” complains Nathan to his new hires, “like you’re trying to sound like Dethklok.” “That’s more has to be extra sounds,” explains Skwisgaar. “Dat’s the idea, so do dat.” Doing dat doesn’t help, even with the new hires replaced by hard-working studio ringers and Nathan scatting. “I think this is hip,” Dick Knubbler says. “This is what platinum sounds like.” In some ways, the end of the world might be arriving not a moment too soon.
Stray observations:
- “Scit, scat, scittley-do, scit scat scittley ding dong do, I’m talkin’ scit cat scittely-do, futley ut-n’duttin’ scit scat scittley do…”
- Worth tuning in for all by itself: Toki assuming the friendly voice of a gargoyle-shaped paperweight. (“I am the gargoyle, sitting on the papers, making sure they don’t blows away…”)
- Skwisgaar’s final requiem for his broken band: “It am a shame. I was really getting used to dis gigs.”