Season 7, Episode 3
Directed and Written by James Roday Rodriguez
Shawn and Gus join two college filmmakers that are shooting a documentary about Bigfoot in the woods. Juliet and Lassiter get roped in, leading to Lassie having one of his worst days ever. What's lurking in the woods is a mystery, but it's clear the group isn't alone...
This is the series' Homage to The Blair Witch Project.
Tropes:
- Action Girl: Juliet really gets to shine in this episode during the fight against the Serbians, dual-wielding a handgun and knife as she battles them outside the cabin.
- Affectionate Parody: The episode as a whole affectionately parodies Found Footage Films.
- All Women Are Lustful: Comically exaggerated with Kate Favor, who regularly comments on her lustfulness.
- Amusing Injuries: Both the laundry list of injuries poor Lassie gets over the course of the episode and Kate & Chavo's bullet wounds are played for humor.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Lassiter's got a good point about why they should trust Ed.
Lassiter: Because he saved my life and he's got a died wife and he served our country and he's got a garden, Guster!
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Chavo yells out in alarm when he hears Kate shout for aid, and she in turn immediately goes to help Chavo after he's shot in the shoulder.
- Beyond the Impossible: First, unbelievably, a hawk grabs Shawn's camera (A lady hawk? How does he know it's a lady hawk?), then it circles back around and drops it where Lassiter can catch it. Then Lassiter, in a river, clinging to a fallen tree, with a bear trap on his leg, catches it with one hand.
Kate: That was the sexiest thing I've ever seen. Or, at least, top eight.
Shawn: Wow. [clap] Wow. - Big Eater: Gus spends most of the episode incredibly hungry, even eating a turkey leg he found in a tree that had a transmitter implanted in it (Kate and Chavo put it there in hopes of getting Bigfoot).
- Big Damn Heroes: Just when one of the Serbians is about to kill a wounded Kate and Chavo, Lassie shoots him three times and brings him down for the count. Similarly, Big Ed saves Shawn and Gus from the last surviving Serbian by coming up behind him and crushing his ribcage.
- Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: The episode's initial Framing Device is Kate and Chavo making a movie for their college class about discovering Bigfoot in the woods around Santa Barbara, inspired by reports of a hairy giant lurking in the forest (actually Big Ed Dixon).
- Bilingual Bonus: Doubles as a Running Gag. Chavo tells Lassiter to "¡Chúpalo!". Spanish for "Suck it!"
- Brick Joke: The Glory remark with Kate picking up the camera if Chavo goes down comes back around when she attempts to do exactly that.
- Bring My Brown Pants: Chavo starts peeing his pants after getting shot in the shoulder.
- Butt-Monkey: Poor Lassiter steps in a bear trap, falls down a cliff, nearly drowns in a river, almost dies of hypothermia, and then gets shot in the shoulder. According to Timothy Omundson himself, Rodriguez described the episode as "Lassie torture p*rn".
Lassiter: This really hasn't been my day, O'Hara.
- Call-Back: Gus is still terrified of 1) the woods, 2) being eaten by a bear.
- Casual Danger Dialogue: Shawn is more excited about how badass Juliet is during the gunfight at Dixon's cabin than worried about the fact that he and everyone else might get killed.
- The Cast Show Off: Kate and Chavo break into an impromptu rendition of Eternal Flame by The Bangles, eventually joined by Shawn and Gus. Broken up by Juliet reminding them that something produced multiple human corpses.
- Concealment Equals Cover: Justified. The gang are taking cover from Serbians inside a log cabin. A bullet could easily penetrate the well insulated but flimsy siding/foam/plaster of a modern house, but Ed's log cabin? Come on, son.
- Cryptid Episode: The episode involves Shawn and Gus joining a pair of student filmmakers who are trying to film a documentary about Bigfoot in the woods of California.
- Didn't Think This Through: After they get lost saving Lassiter from the river...
Shawn: What, didn't you guys bring a map?
Chavo: I accidentally kicked it into the creek.
Gus: What?! That's the worst thing you could've done, Chavo!
Chavo: I'm just kidding! We didn't have a map. - Dying Declaration of Love: While thinking that he's going to die, Lassie tells Marlowe that he loves her and also apologizes to his mother and her new wife about making off-color jokes at the holidays.
- Escalating Punchline: Big Ed, introducing himself to the group. After trading terrified screams...
Big Ed: Don't shoot, I'm unarmed!
Kate: Dear God, you can speak!
Juliet: SHOW ME YOUR HANDS.
Lassiter: He's okay, O'Hara.
Big Ed: Okay, I may have fibbed little bit right out the gates there, I'm armed, but I'm not dangerous. [puts down giant machete]
Gus: Well, you look dangerous.
Big Ed: I mean, I'm really dangerous, I'm just not vengeful or vindictive. - Found Footage Films: Every shot represents someone's camera feed and references to The Blair Witch Project abound. At the end, Shawn is revealed to have edited together the footage to present to Chief Vick.
- Genre Savvy: "You'd better not be snooping around back there, Shawn!"
- Homage: The episode as a whole is one to the found footage genre and The Blair Witch Project in particular, with Lassiter's crying confession being an obvious spoof of Heather's confession in the aforementioned film.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Played for Laughs. Even when everyone (except Juliet) thinks that Lassie was killed and dry-roasted by Bigfoot, Gus is so hungry that he samples the "Lassie" dry-roast when everyone heads up to Dixon's cabin. Shawn is appropriately disgusted.
- Kubrick Stare: Big Ed kicks open the door as the gang tries to leave his cabin, then stands there, swaying, as Lassiter demands an explanation. Then he falls to the floor with an ax in his back.
Big Ed: None of you will get out of here alive.
- Lampshade Hanging: Juliet asks why Chavo is randomly following her, he gives the typical "People need to know!" response, then explains that that's the response people give to justify Found Footage movies.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After making some mildly racist comments concerning Chavo's Latino ancestry, Lassiter steps in a bear trap.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Shawn recalls the tattoo on the female corpse discovered in the woods, the footage in the episode "flashes back" to show Shawn's camera footage of the corpse pit in a similar manner to how his "visions" in an actual episode look. Woody even lampshades what a nice editing choice it was at the end of the episode.
- Leave No Witnesses: The Serbians send three hitmen to Big Ed Dixon's cabin to kill everyone who saw the corpses and compromised their dumping site for bodies.
- Made of Iron: While he does repeatedly lapse in and out of consciousness, Big Ed still managed to survive getting an axe to the spine.
- Misunderstood Loner with a Heart of Gold: After his wife died, Big Ed gave up on humanity and went into the woods around Santa Barbara to live on his own. Despite this, he's actually quite friendly and saves both Lassie and Shawn & Gus' lives multiple times.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Kate's photographs showing their planned shooting location alerted the Serbians that their dumping site for corpses had been compromised, and so they would need to kill all of the witnesses as soon as possible.
- Non-Action Guy: Justified; Kate and Chavo are just college students, and as such are completely out of their depth when things turn deadly.
- Not Quite Dead: Despite getting an axe to the spine, Big Ed survives and ultimately makes a full recovery in the hospital off-screen despite Shawn and Gus both originally thinking that he was dead and Shawn giving him an informal eulogy.
Big Ed: Doesn't anyone check for a pulse anymore?
- Oh, Crap!: Everyone's reaction is fearful shock whenever they think they see Bigfoot (actually Big Ed in his forest disguise).
- Only Sane Man: Juliet is the only person who doesn't get entirely wrapped up in the episode's insanity.
- Reality Has No Subtitles: The Serbian assassins have no subtitles given to their speech, both making them scarier and reflecting the episode being found footage.
- Reality Is Unrealistic: Big Ed "coming back to life"... twice. An object in a wound will keep the broken blood vessels blocked off (depending on the weapon/object). A serious wound can maybe only become immediately fatal after the weapon is removed. Hence, don't touch sh*t if you're not a trained professional.
- Red Herring: Big Ed Dixon seems to be first introduced as the killer... before it turns out to have actually been the Serbian crime syndicate from up north.
- Ruthless Foreign Gangsters: Unlike most Santa Barbarian Psych villains, the Serbian crime syndicate is not Played for Laughs at all. The Serbians are cold-blooded assassins seeking to kill everyone who found their body dumping ground.
- Self-Deprecation: The opening crawl warns that the following footage "may not be suitable for those who struggle to digest milk products..." AKA it's really cheesy.
- Sexy Discretion Shot: Kate's enthusiastic... "celebration" with Chavo over one of their first successful shots is kept off-camera, though Gus watches from a distance since Shawn had him acting as lookout while he snooped around Kate's tent.
- Shout-Out:
- Kate discovered Shawn from his postings on a Harry and the Hendersons fan site.
- Shawn explains his reasoning behind filming a documentary about Kate and Chavo's failed attempt at making a documentary about finding Bigfoot by recalling Lost in La Mancha.
- Kate says a suited-up Dixon is "like Predator, but totally doable."
- Skewed Priorities:
- Shawn, Kate, and Chavo all aren't that worried about their chances even after discovering three corpses in the middle of the woods, and are more concerned about winning the Student Academy Award. Even when they all learn that at least three highly trained Serbian assassins are coming after them with intent to kill, Chavo just asks if the Student Academy Award has ever been given posthumously. That bring said, they are willing to submit their footage as police evidence, which means that they can't use it to win the award.
- Instead of helping rescue Lassie from the river, Gus ran off to go to the bathroom and get rid of the transmitter he'd eaten earlier. Later on, he takes the time to grab some crackers to munch on during the life-or-death struggle at Dixon's cabin.
- Take That!: After Big Ed explains why he went to live in the woods...
Shawn: Lost faith in humanity. You know, Gus and I thought about doing the same thing after seeing The Village (2004), but then we didn't, because that movie is horrible.
- Tempting Fate: Lassie shouts "I will not be toyed with!" just before he steps in a bear trap and becomes the episode's Cosmic Plaything.
- Understatement: After getting caught in a bear trap, rolling down a hill, and falling into a river, Lassiter says that wasn't a good day.
- Wham Shot:
- Shawn's camera catching what actually appears to be Bigfoot.
- The reveal of the corpses in the pit Gus had fallen into.
- Big Ed falling forward to reveal an axe buried in his back.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: It's not until both Kate and Chavo are at the makeshift blind and they see the suited Dixon (who they all believe is really Bigfoot) that Shawn stops thinking that Kate and Chavo are trying to pull a "Scooby-Doo" Hoax for their documentary and aren't taking it seriously.
