Pipe Screams
Written By: Daniel Kraus
An animated prologue shows the Creep holding a mug made from a severed head up to a tap. As he pulls the tap, laughing maniacally, the tap spits out a large clump of hair and soap scum. Letting the viewers get a good glimpse at the contents of his drink, the Creep proceeds to guzzle it down.
When the residents of an old and decrepit apartment complex issue numerous complaints about the plumbing, the building's arrogant, heartless, and blatantly racist owner Victoria Smoot (Barbara Crampton) calls Carruthers Brothers Plumbing, hiring financially struggling plumber Linus Carruthers (Eric Edelstein) to investigate the problem. Making his way to the basement, Linus hears Victoria rant about the mess that the pipes are causing, blaming it on the "foreign food" and "different" hair that her predominantly multicultural tenants flush down their drains. Linus then discovers that the building has highly toxic lead pipes. Linus informs Victoria that per the law, he can't repair lead pipes; only gut them. When he says that he’ll need to report the pipes to the city's Health & Safety Department, Victoria, paying no mind to the danger her tenants and their children are in, blackmails Linus into keeping quiet and finishing the job by threatening to sue him for everything he's got and ruin his already failing business. With no other options, Linus is forced to agree to her terms, desperately needing the money to repair the damage his deceased brother has done to the business. While Linus inspects the pipes for whatever the cause of the issue may be, something slithers out of a nearby washing machine and mauls Fluffy, a cat who was currently in the basement, to death. After discovering the remains, Linus attempts to leave the building, but he reconsiders after hearing the playful banter of children upstairs.
Linus tracks the source of the problem to Apartment 236. The apartment’s resident, single mother Janet (Selena Anduze), determines that Linus is a plumber and invites him into what she calls "the Presidential Suite". She informs Linus, as he examines her bathroom, that her neighbors have reportedly heard, felt, and seen some kind of furry creature in their sinks, showers, and toilets, prompting Linus to assume that the problem is rats. Janet is forced to leave Linus to work on the problem so she can pick up her daughter Leila. Linus then hears odd chirping sounds and the rattling of pipes, and traces the noises to a small, sludge-covered hole in the drywall. Hearing the chittering sounds behind him, Linus discovers a trail of slime leading underneath the kitchen sink. When he opens the cabinets, he finds nothing but a hole in the pipes. As he moves in to investigate the hole, some kind of creature suddenly emerges from it.
The creature, a sentient pile of hair and slime (which the story's cover refers to as "Cloggy"), latches onto Linus’ hand. After an intense struggle, Linus finally manages to get Cloggy off of him, whereupon he discovers that it has eaten the flesh on the top of his hand. Cloggy comes at him again, but he manages to stop it by trapping it under a pipe. Cloggy manages to squeeze itself through the pipe and latch onto Linus’ face. He manages to pry the clog off of him once again and throws it at the wall, but just before it charges at Linus a third time, Janet, who has just returned with her daughter, comes to his rescue by trapping Cloggy under a bucket. While Linus considers calling animal control or the CDC to deal with the clog, Janet says she has a different idea.
Later that night, Linus calls Victoria to report a problem that she should take a look at. Arriving in the basement in the middle of the night, Victoria finds herself face to face with her angry tenants, all of them brandishing Linus' tools as weapons. Janet and an injured Linus, leading the mob, identify Victoria as the true problem of the building, tearing into her for keeping the lead pipes concealed from them and fully willing to let their children succumb to brain damage to save herself money. While pleading with her tenants to spare her and nervously backing away, Victoria ends up standing above a storm drain in the floor. Cloggy, now several times bigger, wraps its hairy tendrils around her leg and pulls her down the drain, devouring her alive and belching up one of her bloodied shoes. With the problem solved, the tenants give Linus back his tools and leave the basement, followed by Linus himself. Sometime later, Leila visits the drain where Cloggy lives before she goes off to school. She leaves a bowl of food and a drawing of herself and Cloggy holding hands, having befriended the creature.
This episode contains examples of:
- Actor Allusion: Linus, the plumber who deals with Cloggy, is played by Eric Edelstein, who had previously voiced a talking blob in Monsters vs. Aliens.
- Admiring the Abomination: Once Victoria is taken out of the picture, Janet's daughter Leila seems to have taken a shine to Cloggy, giving it a bowl of food and leaving a drawing of the two holding hands as she leaves for school.
- And Then What?: Victoria invokes this to keep Linus and her tenants from attacking her, asking them where else they could go; what other place they could afford to live in. The tenants don't care one bit.
- Asshole Victim: Victoria, which goes without saying.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: Victoria hisses at Fluffy and kicks her when she finds her having caught a rat.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- Linus prepares to open the cupboard Cloggy seems to be hiding in, but finds nothing when he does so. The little clog then latches onto his hand from a small hole in the pipes.
- Later on, the tenants arm themselves with Linus' tools in a manner that seems like they're going to beat Victoria to death. They instead lure her onto the storm drain Cloggy is hiding in, which promptly eats her.
- Big Damn Heroes: When Cloggy is about to attack Linus for a third time, Janet comes to his rescue by trapping the clog under a bucket.
- Blackmail: Knowing that Carruthers Brothers Plumbing has the highest number of complaints made to city hall out of any repair business, and that it's only one more bad review away from going under, Victoria blackmails Linus into fixing her lead pipes (despite the danger they pose to her tenants and their children) by threatening to give him that last review and sue him for everything he's got.
- Blatant Lies: Before she dies, Victoria tearfully insists that she didn't know about the lead pipes. Janet sees right through it.
- Blob Monster: Cloggy is a noticeably tiny example. That doesn't make it any less deadly, though.
- Card-Carrying Villain: From her very first, over-the-top, exasperated sigh while calling Linus, Victoria makes it clear that she's utterly irredeemable. For those familiar with how a horror anthology format works, all you have to do is count down how long it takes for her to go.
- Conscience Makes You Go Back: After finding Fluffy's remains, Linus intitally drops the job, packs up his tools, and goes home. The only thing that makes him reconsider is the sound of children playing upstairs.
- Contemplating Your Hands: Linus takes a short while to stare at his hand after Cloggy eats half the skin on it.
- Covered in Gunge: Linus stumbles to the floor after Fluffy's death cries startle him, landing face first into a puddle of slime and stagnant water.
- Cranky Landlord: With her unashamed bigotry, her willingness to sue maintenance services into bankruptcy instead of paying them, and not giving a damn that her lead pipes are going to kill her tenants and their children in the name of saving money, calling Victoria "cranky" would be a massive understatement.
- Death by Irony: Fluffy is devoured by Cloggy, a slime-coated hairball.
- Dirty Coward: When surrounded by her angry tenants, Victoria nervously tries to bribe them into leaving her alone with free rent. When that fails, she begs that she didn't know about the lead pipes, which also doesn't work. Even as she's being devoured by Cloggy, her last words are screaming about how she just wants to go home.
- The Dog Bites Back: After years of Victoria treating them like dirt, her tenants team up to ensure that she meets her death by the tendrils of the very creature her toxic pipes created.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: The tenants are finally freed from Victoria's arrogance and racism, and they even give Cloggy its own home in the basement storm drain, with Leila treating it as a pet.
- Entertainingly Wrong: Despite his discovery of Fluffy's mutilated remains, Linus believes that the source of the furry things that Janet and her neighbors have been observing in their bathrooms to be rats, attracted to the smorgasbord of sludge that's built up in the pipes. While there are rats infesting the building, Linus discovers the truth about the disturbances once he finds the hole in Janet's wall and the slime trail leading under her sink.
- Everyone Has Standards: Linus is very clearly uneased by the fact that Victoria doesn't care that her tenants and their kids will slowly-but-surely die from continued exposure to her toxic pipes, and after he finds Fluffy having been mauled to death, he nearly leaves right there. Only the sound of children playing through the floor is what persuades him to stay and make things right.
- Evil Detecting Cat: As Linus investigates the basement, Fluffy hears Cloggy noisily moving throughout the pipes on the ceiling, growing nervous and trying to escape before Cloggy catches her.
- Evil Is Hammy: Victoria, one of Barbara Crampton's campiest roles.
- Flipping the Bird: Linus does this behind Victoria's back as she leaves him to go to work, right before he calls her a "Karen".
- Fold-Spindle Mutilation: When Cloggy drags Victoria down the storm drain, her leg protrudes from the drain's opening, alongside her head and arm.
- Frivolous Lawsuit: Janet mentions to Linus that Victoria is a fan of these, taking contractors to court instead of paying them for repairs. She also actively hunts down failing businesses for maintenance work she needs done because they're easier to sue.
- Harmful to Touch: Cloggy is noted as being painful to touch, the chemicals contained in the slime surrounding it would be the possible cause as to why. Linus even says, as the clog is wrapped around his head, that his skin is burning.
- Hated by All: Victoria's tenants despise her, but they rent her apartments because it's the cheapest place for them to live.
- Hate Sink: Victoria. In spite of her cartoonish and over-the-top behavior, she makes no attempt to hide just how horrible a person she is. For starters, she's unapologetically racist, leaving her multicultural tenants (which she shamelessly refers to as "animals") to live in the most decrepit building she owns while she herself lounges in luxury. She also cares only about herself, showing no sympathy to the fact that the lead pipes in her building could very well bring harm to her tenants and their children, and doesn't want to spend the money to have said pipes removed. She's also incredibly petty, willing to sue contractors rather than actually pay them for repairs, to the point where she actively seeks out failing businesses because they're easier to take to court. With all these negative traits, it honestly wouldn't be much of a surprise if she was a descendant of Upson Pratt.Linus: (to Fluffy) I think you ate the wrong rat, cat.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Linus' deceased brother left a definite stain on his and Linus' business, to the point where Linus himself is only one bad review away from bankruptcy. Despite this, he does manage to help save the day and (presumably) keep his business afloat.
- Horrible Housing: The apartment building where the story is set in. Along with the lead pipes, the rooms and hallways are decrepit, vermin of nearly all sorts live throughout the infrastructure, and the rent is outrageously high. Janet even tells Linus that he's the first sort of repairman to come to the place in years, largely because all the others are afraid Victoria will sue them.
- It's All About Me: Victoria clearly despises anyone who isn't her, especially if they happen to be of a different race, religion, or nationality.
- It Came from the Sink: Cloggy, a sentient, flesh-eating pile of hair and soap scum that was presumably given life by the toxic chemicals contained in the lead pipes.
- Killer Rabbit: Despite its vicious streak and appetite for flesh, Cloggy is one of the smallest monsters featured in the series thus far.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Linus, Janet, and the tenants arm themselves with the former's tools, preparing to lure Victoria into Cloggy's clutches.
- Licked by the Dog: Fluffy rubs up against Linus' legs while purring, showing that he's a good person underneath his crude and grimy exterior.
- Muck Monster: Cloggy, a tiny flesh-eating creature formed from dirt, grime, soap scum, and human hair, given life by the chemicals housed in the building's lead pipes.
- Mythology Gag:
- Leila's cat, who Linus finds in the apartment complex's basement, is named "Fluffy", the same name given to the monster from "The Crate" in the original film.
- Similar to that story, all that remains of Victoria after her death is a bloodied shoe.
- Also, Victoria arrives carrying the glass of booze she prepared for herself, similar to what Wilma did.
- Victoria meets her well-deserved death the exact same way Deke from "The Raft" does. Cloggy even belches after devouring her, like the blob in that story did.
- The "Father's Day" ashtray is seen on a table in Janet's apartment, holding colored pencils that Leila uses for her activity books.
- Cloggy attacking Linus's head by wrapping hairy tendrils around it mirrors the bathroom scene from IT Chapter One, where Beverly was similarly restrained by such tendrils.
- Leila's cat, who Linus finds in the apartment complex's basement, is named "Fluffy", the same name given to the monster from "The Crate" in the original film.
- Nice Guy: Linus, who shows that he has a heart underneath his rugged exterior, as well as a soft spot for kids and pets. Though he earnestly warns Victoria (who he gradually hates as much as her tenants) that her lead pipes are both dangerous and illegal, he's forced into fixing them after she threatens to sue him into bankruptcy.
- No Sympathy: Victoria doesn't give two shits that her building has children living in it, all of which are at risk to illnesses and disorders from the lead pipes she's too cheap to have removed.
- Oh, Crap!: Linus, once he finds Fluffy's collar in a puddle of gore.
- Pet Monstrosity: After Cloggy kills and eats Victoria, Leila, Janet's daughter, takes a liking to the creature, giving it a bowl of food and a drawing of the two of them holding hands.
- Pipe Pain: Despite the fact that the pipes in Victoria's building aren't actually used as weapons, they are made from lead and therefore highly toxic. The chemicals housed within them are what end up bringing Cloggy to life.
- Plumber's Crack: Linus is a plumber, and so there's an obligatory scene where his ass is exposed, crack and all.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Victoria is an utterly unashamed bigot who hurls insults at her tenants, treating them all like animals simply for having multicultural backgrounds.
- P.O.V. Cam: We get a couple of brief glimpses of Linus from Cloggy's point of view while it's hiding in the pipes, and again as it charges at him.
- Sadist: There are quite a few hints that Victoria is as sadistic as she is racist, not showing an ounce of sympathy that the lead pipes she wants fixed will slowly kill the children living in her building.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Victoria is astoundingly rich, so much so that she refuses to spend even the slightest amount of money to have her dangerously toxic lead pipes replaced, and blackmails Linus into fixing them by threatening to sue him into the ground if he reports them to city hall.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After spotting Fluffy's remains, Linus collects his tools and attempts to leave the building behind him. He's only persuaded into staying by the sound of children playing upstairs, all of them at risk to the lead pipes.
- Shout-Out:
- A plush version of Robert the Doll, one of the most infamous allegedly haunted toys in the world, which was also said to be the basis for the Child's Play franchise, can be seen on a shelf in Janet's apartment.
- Much like the old man from The Blob (1958), there's a scene where Cloggy latches on to Linus' hand and won't let go. After that, Cloggy proceeds to latch onto his head like a Facehugger.
- Linus' attempts to get Cloggy off his hand also mirror Ash's battle against his possessed hand from Evil Dead 2, such as smashing dishes on it.
- Skewed Priorities: When Linus informs her that her lead pipes are a massive health risk to her tenants, Victoria only cares about how much money repairing them will cost her, even though Linus can't repair them under the law.
- Spiteful Spit: After believing that he's stopped Cloggy by trapping it under a pipe, Linus spits into the pipe's opening to mock the creature.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Early in the episode, Linus tells Victoria that the building has children living in it, and the lead pipes are a huge risk to their health. Near the end, Janet tells her the same thing.
- Struggling Single Mother: Despite being a mother, Janet displays no evidence of being married, and often has to deal with the abuse of Victoria, her racist landlady.
- Take a Third Option: Linus was originally planning to call animal control or the CDC to deal with Cloggy, but Janet puts the little slimeball to good use by telling him that she has "a better idea".
- The Teaser: Before the story begins, an illustrated cold open showcases Victoria's tenants angrily complaining about the building's plumbing, prompting Victoria to call Carruthers Brothers Plumbing and threaten Linus into meeting her.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Before the above mentioned Cold Open ends, Linus sarcastically rebuts that his latest assignment is sure to be a lot of fun.
- Toilet Humor: Many of the noises Cloggy makes as it moves are rather... flatulent in nature.
- Tube Travel: Cloggy is able to squeeze its way through pipes and walls, an effective mode of travel for a being that's constantly lubricated by slime.
- The Unreveal: The circumstances of how Cloggy came to life, aside from the indication it was the chemicals in the pipes.
- The Voiceless: Janet's daughter Leila has no dialogue throughout the episode.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: While Linus does help Janet and the tenants get rid of Victoria, we don't know what exactly happens to him by the end of the segment. The whole reason he took Victoria's job was because he needed the money, but it's unclear whether or not he actually completed the job and saved his business, since we don't get any indication that the lead pipes have actually been removed.
- Would Hurt a Child: Victoria doesn't harm any of the children in the building herself, but she is more than willing to let them suffer brain damage, learning deficiencies, and behavioral disorders brought on by her lead pipes to save money.
- Would Harm a Senior: The Cold Open has one of Victoria's tenants complaining that the lead pipes are said to have given her grandfather pneumonia, putting him at the risk of dying.
- You Are Number 6: Victoria refers to Janet as "236", her apartment number, when she and the other tenants confront her.
