On the Dream Weaver Train
ASTRID & LILLY SAVE THE WORLD – Season 1 Episode 8 – SPOILERS
Lilly and Candace
All those involved with Astrid and Lilly’s monster hunting (except for Val) find themselves in the school library on a Saturday afternoon. Most are there for six hours of detention, policed by Michelle (Megan Hutchings), and all are there for good reasons. Tate (Kolton Stewart) pantsed someone at soccer practice; Sparrow (Spencer Macpherson) kidnapped a frog from the biology lab; and Candace (Julia Doyle) spiked the lemonade at the fair. The monster hunters are there for inadvertently destroying dance decorations when they vanquished Copiosi Liberi, the monster from Episode 7. When a puzzled Michelle asks Eggs (Michael McCreary) why he’s there, Eggs delivers the episode’s best line: “It’s the library.”
The Somnium Viatore, played by Grace Ryan. (and stunt double Kylene Barrett), has teeth, but is not seen to bite anyone.
Eggs has been performing calculations involving a protractor and the 2022 Farmers’ Almanac. He tells Astrid and Lilly: “So, I know you guys aren’t ‘hunting monsters’ [he puts those two words in air quotes] however I do have some really important information for anyone who was ‘hunting monsters’.” Astrid admits they are monster hunters (over Lilly’s objections), and Eggs continues. “According to my research, the three solar flares that create the triangulation all occurred on full moon nights. There’s a series of special solar eclipses set to happen over the next couple of months. which means something big is gonna happen.” Asked what that might be, he responds: “I don’t know. I’m not the monster hunter.”
From Episode 5 — Eggs, whose full name is Egon Walczak, and Valerie Long (Christina Orjalo). Val hasn’t been seen since Episode 6 and might have feelings for Eggs.
As a result of keeping her feelings for Candace a secret, Lilly (Samantha Aucoin) has been having trouble sleeping. After she dozes off in detention, a monster invades her dreams and is soon loose in the school. One by one, the Somnium Viatore (dream traveler) envelops each of them in hair cocoons. Lilly rescues everyone before their skin dissolves, but not before the stress of the situation causes everyone’s secrets to be revealed. Now everyone is on the outs with everyone else, and that hearkens back to the quote from Brutus (Olivier Renaud) that appears on screen at the start of the episode: “And these monsters that you chase as they try to invade your world can infect your constitution. Be aware of what you’re fighting for.”
Having watched Astrid (Jana Morrison) and Lilly vanquish the monster, Sparrow utters the second best line of the episode: “O my God, I’m dating Buffy!” He is upset, however, to learn that Tate knew about the monster thing before he did. Candace is displeased with her own snobbery and, while looking in the mirror shortly before being cocooned, calls herself a dick. (She is somehow surprised to learn that others call her “the c-bomb” behind her back.)
Astrid and Sparrow
For the third time this season we hear Michelle on the phone with the same (unidentified) friend, who clears up the general location of Copper’s Cove when she calls Michelle “the best party planner in Ohio.” Michelle is seemingly very insecure about her appearance. (She tells her friend she is considering butt implants.) Michelle is also concerned about having no one with whom to go to the dance, and her supervision of detention is somewhat lax. She does her nails, and after talking to her friend she falls asleep. Thus she is completely unaware that her charges end the afternoon covered in monster slime.
The Somnium Viatore can only be contained by sucking it into a video camera (capturing its soul?) and the tape must never be destroyed or viewed by anyone lest the creature reenter the world. Lilly asks Eggs to find an appropriate place to hide the tape. Without telling anyone, he labels it “2008 Mathlete Semi-Finals“, and puts it in the drawer that once held the video cam, certain that no one will ever watch it.
Danishka Esterhazy, who directed this episode, also directed SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE, a remake of the 1982 Amy Holden Jones classic.
Looking through storybooks from his youth, Brutus determines that The Guardian is real, and is in town attempting to open all the portals with a giant orb. He is pleased to learn that the monster hunters have dispatched the Somnium Viatore, but puzzled and concerned to find them at odds with one another.
While walking home, Sparrow is offered a ride by Christine (Geri Hall), which he reluctantly accepts. (They live across the street from one another.) Once he’s inside the van, she locks the doors and The Guardian, whom we still don’t get to see, says hello from the back seat.