Dead End Paranormal Park Spoiler Recap: The Tunnel

Author’s note: In my last recap for “The Job,” I referred to Norma and Badyah as MENA (Middle East and North Africa) people. Since then, my friend pointed out to me that the more accurate term is SWANASA (South West Asia, North Africa, and South Asia). I apologize for this. Moving forward, I will be using SWANASA.

Dead End: Paranormal Park’s second episode “The Tunnel” really sold the series for me. While I liked the first episode, I really loved this second entry.

With such a solid second episode, I want to go ahead and get my small weird thought out of the way. It’s not even a negative point, more of thinking that a story choice in “The Tunnel” was interesting and got me thinking. I was really surprised there wasn’t a bigger moment of Barney finding out that Pugsley could talk. It was the cliffhanger of episode one. I had assumed that “The Tunnel” would open with Barney freaking out, asking questions, and wondering how and why it happened.

To my surprise, “The Tunnel” simply accepted the new norm and moved right past it. Which is, to me, a pretty bold choice. Showing Barney’s response is what most shows would do. It would probably be played up for humor as Barney learned that Pugsley wasn’t possessed by an evil demon and is actually still Pugsley. In hindsight, it would have taken up a chunk of the episode, easily the first several minutes. And every single minute in animation is precious.

This furthers what I was saying in my first episode recap that Dead End: Paranormal Park is refreshingly going against the norm of animated shows that came before it. It doesn’t need to show Barney freaking out, because it’s been done before. It accepts the new normal very fast to blast forward with “The Tunnel” without hashing over common tropes. It makes me like the show more. Dead End is doing a lot of cool, new things.

Also, it’s hilarious that Norma doesn’t care that Pugsley can talk. That bit made me laugh.

There are many different kinds of storytelling when it comes to queer content, especially in animation. One of the most common writing tropes is called “Queer coding” which is “when characters may not be explicitly stated to be queer, but there is enough subtext available for an audience to read them as queer.” This is very common, especially in all-ages animation. Only recently have we seen a jump in characters that are openly queer on screen. Before the 2010s, having queer characters heavily relied on coding.

Another kind of storytelling for queer content is being blunt and confirming someone is queer on screen. It’s clear and obvious, it’s straight from the character’s mouth, or they have a queer relationship in the story. This is actually not as common as you might think. Yes, we’ve made a ton of strides over the last decade, but many studios are still hesitant to have openly LGBTQIA+ people in animated shows. They would rather pander to pearl-clutching bigots and save a few pennies.

What I really loved about “The Tunnel” is it utilized both of these writing techniques to excellent effect.

Pugsley is coming to terms with his new ability to talk. He’s excited to see what he can say. Everything is still fresh and there’s plenty to discover. While during “The Tunnel” he didn’t mean to summon the mascots, trailers show that he’s aware of his powers in upcoming episodes. This is a new side of him that requires patience as others learn to adjust to his new life.

Barney is initially very excited to share this with Pugsley. They’ve always been close and this development changes how they communicate. It’s only when Pugsley goes into the public that Barney tries to hide him. Barney gets distracted by his new love interest, Logan, and completely ignores Pugsley during his first full day in a new body.

This all comes to a head when Barney and Pugsley get in a fight. Barney yells that he wants Pugsley to act like the pug’s old self. Pugsley drops a cold line of dialogue, saying that Barney is acting just like his grandmother who doesn’t understand why Barney transitioned.

This is a very trans-coded story. They are using Pugsley to tell Barney’s narrative. This is an effective tool for people who might be experiencing trans storytelling for the first time. They’re essentially using Pugsley as an avatar. The showrunners are going, “This dog that you love is going through a new body, new life, and a lot has changed. This is a defining thing for Pugsley as a character. Also, this is what Barney has gone through.” It helps explain in a very basic way one of the many ways a person can be transgender. It gives sympathy to both Barney and Pugsley in a very powerful story. The queer-coded writing in “The Tunnel” is excellent.

Then on the other end, they just confirm on screen that Barney is trans. He tells Norma point blank that this is the reason why he’s living in Phoenix Park now. He doesn’t feel open with his family, at school, or anywhere else. People who know him have that memory of who he was before he was Barney. Again, this is a big reason it was so important to have Pugsley's story to help frame up this end scene.

It really is mind-boggling how game-changing this is for an animated show. Again, there have been a lot of strides in queer content lately. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power had the Catra and Adora kiss at the end. They also had Netossa and Spinnerella as a married couple. Steven Universe had the Garnet wedding with Ruby and Sapphire. More recent shows like Amphibia confirmed that Sasha was bisexual, but it was through a sticker on her car and the official confirmation came off-screen on Twitter by creator Matt Braly. The Owl House has multiple queer couples like Luz and Amity dating, Eda and Raine as a broken-up couple rekindling their relationship, and through a livestream, confirmed that Lilith was asexual. My “favorite” example (read that with sarcasm) is Star Wars Resistance where Orka and Flix were coded as a couple but were never confirmed to be together on screen. It only came out because one of the writers of Resistance went rogue and spilled the beans, forcing the producers to out these two as the first on-screen queer couple of Star Wars.

The reason Barney’s point-blank declaration is important is that you so rarely hear the label in a kids show. I can’t remember the last time I heard a character in an animated show say “I’m trans,” “I’m bisexual,” “I’m non-binary,” and so on. Now, I do know that one of the characters in Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts flat out says that he’s gay. But I haven’t watched Kipo yet (I know! I know! It’s been on my to-watch list forever! Don’t boo me!). I don’t feel comfortable commenting too much on a show I haven’t seen. The point I’m trying to make is that Barney’s confession to Norma that he’s trans is a big deal. As queer animation continues to move forward, I hope this kind of declaration becomes less and less of a big moment. That it’s just part of the story and doesn’t have to be some groundbreaking thing in a series.

For now though, Dead End: Paranormal Park is stellar in their queer writing so far. They are two-for-two on their episodes up to this point.

The introduction of Logan and Badyah was fantastic. I particularly like Badyah and how she interacts with Norma. I get the feeling that Badyah has been around Phoenix Park for some time because she’s not terribly fazed by the mascots coming to life. She’s scared like the rest of the group, but after everything calms down, Badyah is happy to follow the Pauline Phoenix mantra of ignoring it like it didn’t happen. Badyah seems like she’s going to be an important character down the line when it comes to Norma and Barney getting settled in at the park. Also, I know that she’s Norma’s potential love interest so I can’t wait to see how all that develops.

I do wish we got a bit more with Logan. But that’s a tiny gripe. There are still seven episodes left of the season. I’m sure we’ll get plenty more of Logan down the line.

One note about that lore that I wanted to talk about was a moment that really stuck out to me. In the cold opening, Norma meets one of the mascots as a child. The mascot’s head falls off, but at no point do we ever see the performer or look to see if the mascot is person-less like later in the episode. One of Temeluchus’ abilities was to bring armor to life for his army. Have the mascots never had people inside of them? How long has Temeluchus been at Phoenix Park? Does he have more abilities to control things like the mascots? It seems there is a lot more magical and paranormal stuff going on behind the scene than meets the eye.

Also, I cannot ignore Pauline’s presence in the series. She’s on everything from the branding to discarded mascots in the basement. It really feels like they’re setting up for her to make an appearance at some point in the show. Maybe she’s the one who tangled with Temeluchus first. She could have been the one who trapped Courtney and the demon king there in the first place. Like the ghost in the first episode, Pauline is this specter that’s hanging over the series. I would be very shocked if we didn’t see her in person at some point, perhaps closer to the finale if I had to guess.

Overall, I adored “The Tunnel.” It was a solid second episode setting up the new norm for Barney and Pugsley with his powers. We got some fun new characters like Badyah as well as learned more about Phoenix Park. It was an amazing episode. I can’t wait to see what they do next.