No Clue

"**No Clue**" is the eighth episode of *Vagrant Queen*. It premiered on May 21, 2020.

## Synopsis

Adrift in space, the team find themselves in the middle of a very strange murder mystery.

## Recap

Our heroes had just reconciled and boarded the Winnipeg and set course for Arriopa, to defeat the ascendant Lazaro. While they scheme their attack, they also indulge in some of the devil's water — which, arguably, is not the best combination for coming up with well thought out plans. After Isaac orders takeout as a cure for his munchies, the Intergalactic Parking Authority that's been dogging our heroes storms the ship in pursuit of the unpaid parking tickets.

The debt collectors are there to impound the ship and arrest its owners — and, understandably, our heroes don't want to go. They buy some time by offering to ply a few of the guests with snacks, this case soup. Unrelated, one of the collectors (Lloyd) is suffering from "the flu" and is keeling over on the main deck. When a power surge shudders through the ship and kills the lights, a single shot is fired, and it kills, guess who, sickly Lloyd. Now, the ship is a murder crime scene, and this chapter has turned into an Agatha Christie whodunit.

A heated argument ensues, and solves little, and then the group find another dead body on the floor of an exit portal; this one's named Khan. Another argument ensues when the parking enforcers look out a window and find: their ship's been taken. When they all return to the main deck, they find that Lloyd's body's gone missing. That's strange. Stranger? Another dead enforcer's body flops out of a utility closet. Oh wait, it's Lloyd.

The ship controller that was in Khan's possession is now missing. The parking enforcer in charge is able to track the controller on her tablet, only it must be faulty because it locates the device on the Peggy. Just at that moment the doorbell rings, heralding the delivery guy with the food that Isaac ordered earlier. He's asking to use the bathroom on the ship (long trip) and Isaac obliges… and then locks him in the loo to keep him from learning too much about the dead bodies. The survivors then pair up and split up to search for the roving device.

Two of the enforcers while poking around the underbelly of the ship find a trap door that leads to… the bathroom. (In case you need to go, but don't want anyone to know.) When they arrive at the other end, they find the delivery man murdered. He had dropped his last package, so to speak. When the ringleader tries to call the Admiralty, Elida shoots the phone out of her grasp. While that's going on, another enforcer is taken down. That leaves six.

Down in the basement, the perpetrator reveals itself to be some sort of arachnid-like alien, a space bug. The survivors arm themselves and set out to exterminator the intruder. They find it crawling around the basement on yet another rampage. Elida fires a shot… and misses.

Meanwhile, on the deck, Isaac is chatting with his partner on how to get back to the Milky Way when one of the corpses comes back to life and shoots her. Isaac flees, and the whole team reconvenes in the control room. Amae has a theory: What Lloyd had wasn't flu, but rather was hosting a parasite in his body that hatched. That creature then went around the ship implanting eggs in all the others. Meaning now there's a small family of those creepy crawlers lurking about. Fun!

Elida, Amae, and Isaac snap back into usual form, and take on the resurrected offspring en masse. But the lead parking enforcer manages to slip away and get impregnated by the mamma parasite in the basement. Just then, the power runs out, and Winniebot shuts down, and our heroes have to skulk around in the dark, making the hunt for the progenitor ever more treacherous. They manage to zap the alien in the head with a taser, and it drops like a lead balloon. Amae pokes around the intruder's insides for the remote control to the Parking Authority ship, finds it, and deactivates it, which brings back power, and much needed oxygen, to Peggy.

The heroes eject the corpses into space and continue on their previously scheduled destination of Arriopa. Isaac reveals a little consolation prize leftover from the night's murder spree: two tickets to Lazaro's ball, which one of the parking enforcers had and obviously has no more use for. Then the team get a transmission from the monarchists: the rebels are planning to bomb Arriopa. That might collide with their plan of a stealth mission.

## Allusions

* The *Alien* franchise: The illness and death that started the murder mystery parodies the "chestburster" from the first movie.
* *Clue* (board game and the 1985 movie): The episode draws heavily on the 1985 movie and to a lesser extent the North American version of the board game:
	+ The attack dogs seen on the screen reference the guard dogs at the mansion.
	+ The episode title is along the lines of "no clue as to what's going on", part of the mystery of the movie.
	+ The floor plans of the palace Elida draws from memory closely resembles the board game layout.
	+ During the drunken planning session, she points to a room and states the murder should take place there with a machete, following how it's announced in the game: committed by (person), in (room), with the (weapon).
	+ The "who owns the ship" debate is similar to the "is there anybody in the house" debate.
	+ Wadsworth is told there is "no need to shout". Amae says there is no need to shout to the Intergalactic Parking Authority officers.
	+ The doorbell Amae installed makes it possible for the subsequent characters to announce their arrival, as occurred in the movie via ringing a doorbell.
	+ The surprise appearance of the Intergalactic Parking Authority officers is similar to the surprise appearance of the police officer at the mansion.
	+ The Intergalactic Parking Authority officers have color coded uniforms that match the characters and the names.
	+ Each of the Intergalactic Parking Authority officers are named after the actors in the movie.
		- Lloyd — Christopher Lloyd
		- Mull — Martin Mull. His appearance, especially the mustache, resembles Martin Mull's character Colonel Mustard.
		- McKean — Michael McKean
		- Eileen — Eileen Brennan
		- Kahn — Madeline Kahn
		- Lesley — Lesley Ann Warren
	+ One of the IPA officers states he wants to go back to his former career of being a singing telegram. A Singing Telegram Girl is shot in the movie moments after arriving.
	+ The Bill Haley & His Comets version of the song *Shake, Rattle and Roll* from the movie plays in the episode.
	+ The increasing number of deaths and the crew racing back and forth to find them follows the events of the movie.
	+ The discussion about whether to let the Gluuber Eats delivery person in and locking him in the bathroom follows the movie for a stranded motorist.
	+ The Gluuber Eats delivery person is dubbed "Mr. Body" by Isaac, the name of the murder victim in the North American version of the game and the host/murder victim in the movie (spelled "Boddy"). (In the UK version of the game, *Cluedo*, he is called Dr. Black.)
	+ During the "bug hunt" (to borrow a phrase from *Aliens*), the crew goes in search of a weapon. They open a cabinet and the six weapons from the board game are there. Elida chooses the candlestick (a flamethrower), Amae says the wrench belongs in a different spot, the lead pipe turns out to be an electrocution device, and Isaac is disappointed to learn the rope is just common rope.
* When everyone calls out "Kahn!", it is similar to how Captain Kirk yells it in *Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan*.

## References

1. ↑ Vagrant Queen Episode guide. *Zap2it*.