The captain of the failing basketball team uses the book to become a top player, but it turns out that the top player also drove himself off a cliff with a girlfriend very much like Jenny.
Oh, so close. The knob jokes are dialled right back in this episode and the story is cohesive and entertaining right up until just before the end where the show's worst impulses take over again. It's a shame because this was the best episode that the show had come up with to date.
A drama club member uses the book to become a great singer so that she can be in the musical production, but when she loses her tongue she decides that if she can't be in the show then nobody will be.
This episode of TODD AND THE BOOK OF PURE EVIL doesn't so much channel THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA as mug it and steal everything that it owns. Using an existing story, and a classic at that, as the backbone of the episode actually makes it a good deal better than others have been.
The musical play, staged by Atticus Murphy to purge his childhood pain, is suitably awful and really rather fun and Curtis gets a good musical number as well as an emerging love story.
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Checkmate
A member of the chess club uses the book to gain the gift of foresight. He foresees that Todd will be the downfall of the whole school and so sets about killing him, using Curtis and Hannah as his hypnotised slaves.
The pulsing eye effect used in this episode is simple and yet really very creepy. The revelation that Todd could be turned by the book into the worst evil of them all is a nice moment, so nice that the sequence gets used twice.
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Farewell to Curtis' Arm
Todd is having problems dealing with the fact that he might destroy the world, so much so that he doesn't notice Jenny go missing or that Curtis has used the book to create himself a giant evil arm.
It's the season finale and for the the big climax we get a story about Curtis that reveals how he lost his arm. Love will be professed, a son will come to power and Todd will face his destiny in the school's closed down machine shop.
The plot has more going for it than usual and the reliance of toilet humour is reduced. The resolution also has a surprise or two in store and if this is what we can expcet from season two then there might be hope for the show yet.
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