Watkin (episode)

**"Watkin"** is an episode of the series *Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency*, the fourth episode of season 1.

## Synopsis

Dirk and Todd find themselves in a complicated and dangerous situation left behind by Patrick Spring. As the police begin putting together the pieces of their imponderable case, an FBI agent's unlikely return complicates matters for Amanda and Farah.

## Plot

Agent Weedle is dragged into a room and swapped with Fred, a member of the Men of the Machine, into the body of a mouse. After the swap, the mouse is eaten by Rapunzel (in Lydia's body), ending his life.

After much prodding from Amanda, Todd accompanies Dirk and Farah to the power grid entrance. Farah and Dirk explain that in 1978, Edgar Spring, the father of Patrick Spring, buried a power grid of 3 mile radius and called it Springsborough. He was able to solely power the neighborhood on his own leading people to theorize that he had discovered an unlimited power source. No one knows what happened to him after that.

Fred, now as Agent Weedle, arrives at the police station and demands to know why Todd hasn't been arrested yet. He leaves to find Todd on his own but not before Estevez and Zimmerfield notice his strange behavior. Arriving at Todd's place and finding Amanda there instead, Weedle insists on waiting outside the apartment until Todd returns.

Back at the power grid entrance, Dirk attaches Patrick Spring's crank to a latch in the wall, inadvertently sending him and Todd through a trap door and into an underground passage way. Before Farah can figure out a way to rescue them, she receives a call from Amanda about Agent Weedle. Suspicious as to why Weedle is acting against protocol, Farah decides to return to Todd's apartment.

Back at Todd's place Weedle has discovered that the door is broken and confronts Amanda. When Farah confronts him, he leaves to wait in his car. Fearing for Amanda's safety, Farah decides to remain there for the time being.

Still trapped underground, Dirk and Todd use the lightbulb, which Dirk coins as the "Everbulb", to navagate their way to a door. They enter and find themselves trapped in a room filled with lightbulbs. The walls begin converging inwards but before they can be crushed to death, Dirk and Todd located an empty socket and screw the Everbulb in, revealing an exit. Continuing to follow the passage way, the find their way to yet another trapped room. In the center lies a statue of a horn and a plaque reading "Here lies Pepe unless otherwise activated" along with a door that has a mounted Rhino statue on it. Dirk touches the plaque and the soul of Pepe emerges and electrocutes both Dirk and Todd. When Pepe recharges to electrocute them once more, Todd leads Dirk into making a human circuit out of themselves to connect the horn to the rhino. Once the electricity successfully passes through the horn, the door opens and reveals a room full of lit monitors. Dirk presses the monitors for kitten, shark, dog, and girl. The monitors display changes to a bunch of numbers. Pressing the monitors for 3 and 1, they change once again to reveal a map before short circuiting.

Amanda and Farah begin to smell smoke rising from the street vents, caused by the monitors short circuit. Following the sounds of Dirk and Todd's screaming, the two are able to pin their location to behind a wall. The Rowdy 3 arrive and use their weapons to free the two. They suck energy from Dirk and quickly depart. Todd and Dirk clue Amanda and Farah in on what happened to them and Amanda realizes that she saw the monitors in the visions she experienced at the supermarket. She enters the room and uses the crank to restart the monitors and reveal the map. The center monitor has a message: Save her Dirk and Todd.

In an empty bar, Gordon approaches a woman named Sammy and presents her with a fur coat that he used to wear as Lux Dujour. He leads her to the room with the machine and is able to convince her that he is the same Lux that she once knew and loved. As a demonstration to the fact that he's moved on from his previous life, he calls in the other Men of the Machine and bludgeons the woman to death with his guitar.

## Behind the scenes

* The episode title comes from dialogue spoken by Dirk referring to a supposed Star Wars character, "Burnt and crushed to death like **Watkin** in *Star War* [sic]!". It also shares a name with a character in the original novels, Professor Watkin.

### Cast

* Samuel Barnett as Dirk Gently
* Elijah Wood as Todd Brotzman
* Hannah Marks as Amanda Brotzman
* Fiona Dourif as Bart Curlish
* Jade Eshete as Farah Black
* Mpho Koaho as Ken
* Michael Eklund as Martin
* Dustin Milligan as Sgt. Hugo Friedkin
* Neil Brown, Jr. as Estevez
* Richard Schiff as Zimmerfield
* Christian Bako as Ed
* Aaron Douglas as Gordon Rimmer
* Michael Adamthwaite as Zed
* Osric Chau as Vogel
* Viv Leacock as Gripps
* Zak Santiago as Cross
* David Lewis as Agent Weedle
* Alison Thornton as Lydia Spring
* Jeremy Jones as Fred
* Grayson Gabriel as Young Coroner
* Caroline Cave as Sammy
* Mark Brandon as News Anchor #2

### Crew

The crew for this episode has not been recorded yet.

## Notes

### Holistic Connections

* Lydia is addressed as Rapunzel. It was established in the previous episodes that Rapunzel and Lydia were body swapped.
* The Men of the Machine transfer their souls into the body of rats before moving to a new body.
* When leaving, Todd's door fails to close. This is a reference to the fact that his door was broken in Horizons by the Rowdy 3.
* Gordon gifts Sammy repeatedly despite her lack of interest in him. This is because she loved him while he was Lux Dujour. She was also dating the FBI agent Nathan who was killed by the Men of the Machine in Lost & Found.
* Dirk says that he knows that he and Todd are on the right track because he always ends up where he needs to be. This is a reference to how he calls himself a holistic detective.
* Inside the second trapped room, there is a plaque that reads "Here lies Pepe unless otherwise activated" Farah and mentioned that Patrick had a pet rhino named Pepe in Rogue Wall Enthusiasts
* Dirk had told Farah that the lightbulb and crank were very important, this was seen to be true when they needed both objects to make it through Patrick's secret passage alive.
* Gordon's gift of a fur coat is the same fur coat that Todd saw himself wearing in Horizons
* The monitors that Dirk and Todd come upon have a striking resemblance to the title screen of the show. They are also the same monitors that Amanda saw in her visions
* Farah says"too bad about your jacket" to Todd. Amanda had suggested Todd wear the jacket to get Farah's attention.

### Other Notes

* Amanda calls Todd the "shadiest person in the world"
* Todd has been working with Dirk for 3 days
* Weedle says that Farah was denied entry to several federal agencies due to psychological reasons
* Dirk's distressed screaming is what alerted the Rowdy 3 to his location
* Amanda tells Dirk that his hunches are wildly suspicious
* The monitor reads "Save her Dirk and Todd" meaning that Patrick knew who they were
* Fred is the name of the person currently inhabiting Agent Weedle's body.