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| "The Jack O'Lantern Syndrome" | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Season | 2 |
| Episode | 6 |
| Episode in Total | 19 |
| Air Date | October 31, 1998 |
| Production Code | 19 |
| Directed By | Michael Goguen |
| Written By | Robin Jill Burger |
| [Source] | |
"The Jack O'Lantern Syndrome" is the sixth episode of Season Two. It orignally aired on October 31, 1998. It was written by Robin Jill Burger and directed by Mike Goguen.
Synopsis[]
It's Halloween night and trick-or-treating and J goes with the worms. Things get dangerous when Jay comes across an alien that kidnaps children.
Plot[]
The episode begins in a pumpkin patch in Hackensack where a group of kids gather around in a circle and perform a seance to summon the dreaded ghost Jack O'Lantern. At first they get no results, but then a spaceship from the planet Barthok lands in the pumpkin patch and its pilot steps out. The kids mistake Bartoquian pilot for Jack O'Lantern himself due to his helmet being shaped similarly to a pumpkin. They flee in terror.
Meanwhile, back at MIB Headquarters, Agents J and K arrive as J complains about how he and K don't get payed. When they arrive, J gets caught on fake cobwebs and is soon confronted with Edwin the Bug and shoots him. It turns out to be a a mechanical costume piloted by Ambassador Pinney, prompting a scolding from Zed. It turns out that it's Halloween and aliens like Halloween. Troy the Symbiote announced the Jack O'Lantern scare-athon, but Zed said that alien criminals like Halloween too and had Agents K and U patrol New York while J acts as a chaperone for the worms while they go out trick-or-treating. One worm wears a coffee cup costume, another a percolator, and the last two Agents J and K.
Agent K arrives at Frank's newsstand where Frank tells him that he got bitten by a werewolf and is worried that he would become one himself. K is skeptical of his story and tells him to get a rabies shot, but Frank tells K that he will hold him responsible if the werewolf transformation happens. Meanwhile, the Barthok kidnapper abducts a trick-or-treating child.
The Worms visit a woman's home and ask for a treat. She gives them candy, but when the worms and J leave, they looked in their bags and it turns out that three of them got candy and the fourth got sardines. Because the worms mainly wanted coffee, they were so upset about getting candy instead, that they perform a toilet paper prank on the woman's house, even though J tells them that giving out candy is Halloween tradition. It turns out they got the TP rolls from MIB headquarters, which Zed finds out the hard way. J tells them that unless the worms accept the traditions of Halloween trick-or-treating, he would take them back to headquarters.
Back at MIB Headquarters, Agent L, Zed, and several aliens including Troy and his host are watching a Jack O'Lantern horror film until the power went out despite the MIB having five backup systems. Troy tells everyone that it was Jack O'Lantern. When Zed tries to reassure everyone that Jack O'Lantern wasn't real, a ghoulish evil laugh appears out of nowhere.
Agent J tells the worms it's time to head home
Agent J finds the worms drinking coffee at an old woman's house as she tells them the legend behind Jack O'Lantern and how he rises from the Netherworld on Halloween night under a full moon, and sucks out the bones of children. Agent J tells the worms that it's time to head back home.
As J brings the worms back home, he expresses disbelief in the story of Jack O'Lantern, only for the Barthok alien to confront them immediately afterwards. The worms immediately mistake him for Jack O'Lanturn and J tries to fight him, but the Barthok knocks him aside and kidnaps one of the worms.
Agent K enters Jak Jeebs's shop and calls him out on selling human suits to humans, which is illegal. In exchange for getting off his back, Jeebs tells K and U about the Hackensack landing.
J calls Zed asking for backup in rescuing the worm that the Barthok kidnapped, but the worms kept cutting him off, insisting that it was Jack O'Lantern, which did little more than irritate and frustrate Zed, who was already upset about the kidnapping. Zed ended transmission with J telling him to stay off the line, but then the chairs in the room started floating in the room. Agent L, while dispelling Troy's idea that Jack O'Lantern was behind it, claims that it was due to a haunting.
As J tries to find ways of tracking down the Barthok, the remaining three worms plan to prepare a spell to send Jack O'Lantern back to the pumpkin patch. To perform the spell, they would need a brown onion, fat from a hog, and a bell. Though the did get some of the components confused to a degree.
Back at MIB Headquarters, the power briefly seems to have been come back on again, but then an electrical current from the MIB mission screen grabs Bob and sucks him into the screen. A bunch of empty human suits started floating about as if they were dancing. L and Troy argue whether it was Jack O'Lantern or a poltergeist, but then in an instant, Jack O'Lantern appears before them and the alien crowd. Zed blows Jack O'Lantern's head off, but he turns out to be another costume worn by Ambassador Pinny. Pinny runs off in anger and frustration. L proposes a seance.
K and U arrive at the Hackensack pumpkin patch and find the Barthok spaceship. There K informs U about the Barthok's capturing of little people such as children to sell them as slave labor back on their home planet. They find and free the kidnapped child from before sending him back home, and they also find the kidnapped worm.
Trivia[]
- This is the only Halloween-themed episode of Men in Black: The Series.
Watch[]
Men in black the series S2E06 - The Jack O'Lantern Syndrome