Trust Me

Spoiler warning!
alertThis article contains major plot details for **BOTH SEASONS** of Dead End: Paranormal Park. If you haven't seen the series yet, and don't want to know anything, stop reading now.

> You don't understand! My fear world is the real world!
>
> Norma

### Writer

* Hamish Steele
* Furquan Akhtar

### Director

Liz Whitaker

**Trust Me** is the third episode of the first season of the Netflix animated series, *Dead End: Paranormal Park*, and is the third episode overall.

## Summary

The park's employees head to the beach for some terrifying team-building exercises. But Norma's new friends help her face her fears.

## Plot

Barney and Pugsley are seen going about their morning routine around the park, breakfast, cleaning, and bathing in the fountain. After they are relaxing in Dead End when Courtney falls from the floor above in a bathtub, to Barney's surprise that they had one.

Courtney and Pugsley are in the attic of Dead End, Courtney digging through some possessions before finding the spell book she was looking for. Handing the book to Pugsley she explains her suspicions that he inherited some of Temeluchus' powers and that he could get her home. Pugsley is reluctant due to the danger but agrees to help her. Barney then comes to get them for the beach day team building camp, noting Norma not responding to his calls.

At the beach Norma is with her mother in the car, nervous that the other employees will dislike her. Her mother encourages her to get out and try and make some friends among the other park workers. Her confidence is almost immediately shattered by Josh misunderstanding her smile.

Norma is frustrated that Barney has already made friends when she approaches him, telling him of her fear of people. He asks her if she knows any of the other employees names, which she responds to referring to each other by where they work in the park. Barney thinks she should know there real names, though Badyah likes Norma's nickname "Deathslide."

The team-building guru Harmony arrives at the beach, Norma's literal mindset conflicting with his statement about material things not being able to bind people and the opposite of trust which he said was fear. Harmony then impersonates a monkey as part of a metaphor, to Norma's discomfort, Logs sadness about tossing away invisible monkeys, and Barney's confusion.

The park employees then do several trust exercises of Harmony's design. A trust maze where Norma takes Barney's directions literally while Courtney plays a prank on Pugsley, leading him into a hole. The Stare of Trust where Courtney messes with Pugsley again with an eye trick while Barney doubts Norma taking the excessive serious, as she is wearing sun glasses to avoid eye contact. The Fall of Trust where the others all complete the trust fall, Pugsley sinking into the ground but still succeeding, except for Norma who falls forward.

During the next exercise, the Human Knot, everyone finds the exercise to be funny except for Norma who quickly gets overwhelmed being tugged around forced to hold hands. As the exercise continues she grows more and more stressed until she has a panic attack in the center of the circle, fleeing from the group while Harmony smiles.

Badyah comes down next to Norma, Norma wondering why its so east for everyone to socialize, pointing out how Barney is able to do it unlike her. Badyah comforts her and jokes about Harmony to cheer Norma up.

Harmony states that the exercises were warm ups, to Norma's discomfort, and tells them to find there greatest fear and tells them to feed it to a skull he had. The skull confusing them, except for Courtney who thinks it's normal. Harmony tells Norma to feed her fears to the skull, the attention causing Norma to start panicking again so Badyah takes the skull.

Badyah is then in a field, a hamster crawling up her pants to her shirt causing her to scream as more hamsters do the same, she is then being chased by a horde of hamsters on a giant hamster wheel. In the real world Badyah is running in place, Harmony tossing the skull to Pugsley who is suddenly alone on the beach when a giant vacuum appears, chasing him to Harmony's van. In the real world Logs starts to protests, as the Health and Safety Officer, Harmony passes him the skull and Logs is in a cafe with his laptop about to die and having no available outlet with clones of him at ever table.

Harmony continues passing the skull around while Norma tries to tell Barney, who is trying to wake Pugsley, of her suspicions of Harmony. Harmony tosses the skull to Barney, Norma touching it just after and landing in his fear world. Barney is at the dinner table with his parents and grandmother, Norma questioning his fear until his grandmother lurches to her feet saying something that only Barney hears while his parents do nothing. Norma tells Barney's grandmother to leave him alone causing his grandmother to vanish, breaking the spell on Barney.

Norma deduces how to break the spell on Pugsley, with Barney stealing the skull so they can touch it with Pugsley and get into his fear world. Pugsley's fears growing as he appears possessed once again by Temeluchus, growing massive and tries to destroy Barney and Norma. Norma appeals to Puglsey telling him it's not real so Barney is able to snap Pugsley out of the fear world.

The three then go into Courtney's fear world where they appear in the demon realm, Barney thinking Courtney's fear is going home with Norma pointing out that's Courtney's dream. It's then shown that Courtney's fear is never being able to go home by being trapped in a glass box. Barney figures out the way to get in the box, the three comforting Courtney, promising not to leave her freeing her from the fear world.

Back in the real world they confront Harmony saying he's a demon, he shows his true form and name as a many eyed many limbed demon named Harm Many that feeds on peoples fears. Norma strikes a deal with Harm Many of going into her fear world in exchange for everyone else, Harm Many agrees and she touches the skull.

Norma's fear world shows her going through the day, highlighting the sounds around her, and everyone either taking offense at her actions or laughing at her. Barney, Pugsley, and Courtney touch the skull trying to remind her it's a fear world, but she responds that her fear world is the real world, the skull then starts to crack. Noticing it, Norma piles on her fears into the skull many of them being her co-workers laughing at her, the fears overloading Harm Many until he explodes from Norma's fears, to Barney, Pugsley, and Courtney's shock, freeing everyone.

Norma explains to Barney that her fear is the real world and how it is already around her, Barney saying his fear seems silly, revealing that his real fear is his parents not having his back. Norma says she does and he tries to pat her, with her stating "baby steps."

The other workers start to relax and start tossing a volley ball around, Badyah invites Norma to play though she says that she might play next time. Norma then sits down next to Barney, Pugsley and Courtney saying how she can handle the demons but that people are hard and don't make sense to her. Logs then accidentally hits the ball in Norma's direction, Pugsley stopping it with magic, the episode ends with Courtney's comment, "Awesome."

## Features

### Characters

* Employees of Phoenix Parks:
	+ Barney Guttman
	+ Norma Khan
	+ Badyah Hassan
	+ Logan Nguyen
	+ Josh
	+ "Burgers" *(Debut)*
	+ "Smoothie" *(Debut)*
* Pugsley
* Demons:
	+ Courtney
	+ Gord *(Cameo)*
	+ Harm Many *(Debut)*
* Swati Khan
* Guttman family (Illusion; non-speaking)
	+ Roxie Guttman
	+ Saul Guttman
	+ Grammy Gram

### Locations

* Phoenix Parks
* Dead End
* Unnamed beach
* Guttman Household (illusion)
* Hell (illusion)

### Transcript

*Read the **transcript** of this episode here!*

## Trivia

* Norma's social anxiety, which was foreshadowed in the first episode, is highlighted in this episode.
	+ Additionally, she is revealed to only remember her co-workers by their stations at the park and not their names, excluding Barney.
* At several points in the episode, Norma shows some of her autistic traits:
	+ Literal thinking to Harmony's metaphors.
	+ Avoiding eye contact.
	+ Aversion to physical contact.
* It is revealed by Swati that it has been a week since Norma (and Barney) have been working at Phoenix Parks.
* The fears of the other Phoenix Parks employees and co. are also revealed in this episode.
	+ Badyah is afraid of hamsters.
	+ Pugsley is afraid of vacuum cleaners, as hinted in the beginning of the episode.
		- It is also made unclear if Temeluchus overtaking Pugsley in his fear world is a part of the latter's fear, or if the demon lord is genuinely messing with Pugsley's mental psyche.
	+ Josh is afraid of anything bad happening to his physical appearance.
	+ Logan is afraid of his laptop running low on battery, perhaps being afraid of disturbing others in public. Though, it is unexplained as to why his fear also included duplicate clones of himself.
	+ Courtney's fear is never being able to go back home. But, she later on adds how she is also afraid of the park employees leaving her.
* This is the first and only episode so far to incorporate a change of artstyle. Specifically, during the scene where Norma looks into her fear world.
* Harm Many's van has eyeballs with wings painted on it, commonly how biblically acurate angels are portrayed, possibly forshadowing the angels in Season 2.

### Cultural References

* The scene where Courtney answers Pugsley with "You're a wizard, Pugsley!" is a reference to the *Harry Potter* series.
* When Pugsley says "I’ve only just finished that book Barney gave me about the overly insatiable caterpillar," he is likely refering to the childrens' book *The Very Hungry Caterpillar*.

## Continuity

* Barney's fear of not being accepted/supported by his family appears in his fear world.
* Barney uses hairspray as part of his daily routine, like he did in the first episode.
* Barney's phonescreen still has its cracks from when Temeluchus broke it in the first episode.

## Errors

* Pugsley is seen without his fez in the opening shot, but it appears in the next.
* Unless it was done for plot purposes, Patrick doesn't appear during the family dinner as part of Barney's fear world.
	+ Despite this, he is still credited in the other language end credits.
* In the Netflix subtitles, when Pugsley shouts "Watch out, Norma!" he is mistakenly labeled as Logs.
* Roxie, Saul, Jennifer, Pauline, and Zagan are also credited despite not having any speaking role in the episode. While the latter three has not made an appearance at all throughout the episode, with Zagan not even making her official debut until later on in the season.