The Tunnel

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.

> Indubitably!
>
> Pugsley, to Barney

### Writer

* Hamish Steele
* Nicole Paglia
* Elijah W Harris

### Director

Liz Whitaker

**The Tunnel** is the second episode of the first season of the Netflix animated series, *Dead End: Paranormal Park*, and is the second episode overall.

## Summary

Pugsley accidentally unleashes a horde of creepy old mascots on the park. Are they truly ghastly - or just misunderstood?

## Plot

The episode opens with a young Norma visiting Phoenix Park with her mother Swati waiting in line to get her picture taken with theme park mascot Buster Scruffs. However when Norma's turn comes she starts to have a panic attack, hyperventilating curling up. The mascot's mask falls off and lands at her feet, one eye popping out, and Norma suddenly starts laughing, getting her picture taken with the mask head.

In the present Barney is talking to his dog Pugsley, whom after getting possessed by demon Temeluchus, has gained the ability to talk and easily walk on two legs. Because of this, Barney is making him say a variety of words. While he is doing this, Norma walks in, angry because Barney was earlier in the park than her. Courtney then appears, holding a box. Said box is filled with stuff from former/deceased employees. Norma finds a gold pass and immediately takes it. They then go to the Mandatory employee initiation.

At the Mandatory employee initiation, Barney sees Logan for the first time. He immediately develops a romantic liking to him. They become partners. Badyah then jokingly offers Norma to do the tour. Norma (of course) takes this opportunity. They enter the monorail train and as soon as Pugsley enters, the doors close, scaring Pugsley. He then goes up to Barney to tell this, but Barney tells him to be quiet in public, so they don't hear him talking.

After the tour, they all leave the monorail train, except Pugsley. This is because he is too scared to exit the doors. The doors then close, with Pugsley starting to loudly knock on the windows and calling for Barney, though he couldn't hear this because they were doing a pop quiz. The monorail train then continues its route and rides to the depot in the under-park with Pugsley still inside.

The depot isn't only filled with monorail trains, there is also a lot of junk that isn't used by the park anymore, including the old mascots. Pugsley is then taken by one of the mascots. Another mascot then gets on board the monorail and it leaves.

While the others are still taking the pop quiz, the monorail train arrives. Within the train, an old dinosaur mascot. The door that the mascot stands at, stops right before Josh. The dinosaur then takes Josh and all the others run away as fast as they can. Barney doubts for a bit, but he then also flees the scene alongside Norma. When walking down on the staircase, he realizes that Pugsley is gone. He tells Norma that he has to look for him, but Norma tells him that he shouldn't because they didn't know any other escape route. They then continue walking down.

Norma and Barney enter the under-park. Barney then hears a noise that scares him. Norma isn't scared by this, though. The sound emerges from a box, the two then both walk towards it. Inside the box sits Courtney eating trash, she then teleports to the light switch and turns on the light. Barney then noticed that Courtney is wearing Pugsley's fez. Courtney says she found it in the tunnels, and that she knew where it came from. Barney asks Courtney if she could take him there.

Meanwhile, Pugsley was put in a laundry basket with wheels by an old mascot, and said mascot was driving him towards the laundry room. Pugsley looked around with fear. When they eventually arrive at the laundry room, Pugsley gets put inside a circle of old mascots. He tells them to eat him quickly. They then say "meat" in unison. One of the mascots then shows Pugsley a picture of the mascot meeting a child. Pugsley tells him that he shouldn't eat children, and the mascot then yells at Pugsley. Pugsley then realizes they want to meet children instead of eat them.

Meanwhile, Courtney shows Barney and Norma the place where she found the fez. Norma then sees a map of some sort and is really amazed by it. She then hears something say "meat." This sparks her interest, and she goes to look where it came from. She peeks around the corner of the depot and sees that Pugsley is leading mascots into the monorail train.

Barney is telling Courtney that he is scared he might never see Pugsley again. Norma then calls them over. When they come to look, they all see that Pugsley is leading mascots onto the monorail train. Barney whispers to him. Pugsley loudly asks Barney how he is. Barney signs to him that he should be quiet because there are mascots behind him. Pugsley tells them that he is bringing them into the park. Barney then gets angry and tells him that this is bad behavior. They then get into a fight about Barney accidentally left him behind. He then says to Pugsley, "Why can you just be like you used to be?" Pugsley then tells him that he sounds like his grandma. Which in their case is offensive, because their grandma is transphobic. Pugsley then enters the monorail train end the doors close and the train leaves the depot.

The monorail then arrived at the next station. All the mascots got out and roamed around the center of the park, disturbing visitors and staff. Soon the park was filled with terror, with Pugsley realizing this was a mistake.

Meanwhile, Barney is still angry about being called Grammy gram by Pugsley. He is going over all the reasons why he doesn't sound like Grammy gram. Norma immediately suggests that they have to find Pugsley before he does something irresponsible. Norma opens the door and realizes it's too late. Barney is still going on defending himself while Norma is thinking of a way to stop this madness. After countless seconds of thinking, Barney realizes that he does sound like Grammy gram. While he realized it, the mascots had broken the windows and entered the building. Norma and Courtney then go around throwing stuff at the mascots, hoping that it will work. Eventually, they run out of things to throw, and they throw the box at the mascots. This doesn't work, and Courtney teleports away, leaving Norma and Barney with the mascots.

The mascots keep walking towards Norma, and she trips over her bag and falls on the stairs. One of the mascots then grabs the diary and signs it. Norma came to the conclusion that Pugsley was right. The mascots didn't have any bad intentions. Barney is still in misery that he sounded like Grammy gram.

Meanwhile, Pugsley was trying to convince everyone that the mascots weren't bad. But everyone kept panicking and running anyway. Barney then has a heroic entrance. And realizes that he should listen more to Pugsley

In the meantime, Norma had an idea. She plays the mascot parade tune via the intercom, so the mascots will follow them back to the under-park. This plan succeeded. They all followed Barney and Pugsley back to the under-park. When the mascots were all entering the tunnel. One of the mascots hugged Barney.

Barney and Norma follow the mascots to the under-park and put them in the washing machine. Barney then told Norma that the park was the first place he could really feel himself. Because everyone already knew he was trans. And in the park, he could choose when he told people.

When Courtney, Barney, and Pugsley were in the haunted house. Courtney tested her theory. And it showed that there was still a piece of Temeluchus inside Pugsley.

## Features

### Characters

* Employees of Phoenix Parks:
	+ Barney Guttman *(Present and Future)*
	+ Norma Khan
	+ Logan Nguyen *(Debut)*
	+ Badyah Hassan *(Debut)*
	+ Josh *(Debut)*
* Pugsley
* Demons:
	+ Courtney
	+ Gord *(Cameo)*
* The Demonic Royal Family:
	+ Temeluchus *(Cameo)*
* Phoenix Parks mascots
* Grammy Gram *(Mentioned)*
* Swati Khan *(Flashback)*
* Pauline Phoenix *(Mentioned)*
* Jennifer Swan *(Name Only)*

### Locations

* Phoenix Parks
	+ Dead End
		- Elevator
	+ Underpark Railways
	+ Diner-saur (mentioned)

### Transcript

*Read the **transcript** for the episode here!*

## Trivia

* Barney reveals to Norma that he is a transgender man near the end of the episode. This was hinted in the first episode during his short conversation with his mom just before he leaves for his job interview.
* When the dinosaur mascot hugs Barney, there is a “misplaced” sound effect.
	+ It is revealed in "The Watcher's Test that this supposedly misplaced sound effect was actually Barney from the future warning himself about The Watcher.

## Errors

* A part of the wall in the background clips over Courtney's tail when she swishes it around after meeting up with Barney and Norma in the underpark.
* During the scene where Norma and Barney first enter the underpark, the outline for one of the fringes in Barney's hair ends crooked for one frame.
* The outline for one of Pugsley's toes extends outside his paw during the scene where he points at Barney.
* The color of the dinosaur mascot switches between a dark green and a vomit green throughout the episode,
* The inner outline of Courtney's left leg flickers for a split second before she teleports away and bids Norma "See ya!"
* During the scene where the interracial couple sitting by the table takes a selfie, the dinosaur mascot was already behind them. But, in the next shot, it's shown to just be approaching them.
* During the scene where Barney tells Pugsley "I am listening to you," a small part the outline for his jacket overlaps the stripe on his right sleeve for a split second.