Twittering from the Circus of the Dead
Blake (Joey King), a stuck-up, phone-obsessed teenage girl, is stuck on a miserable road trip with her family. She frequently uses Twitter to document whatever's going on to her followers, usually as a way to endlessly complain about how bored she is and vent about her family, particularly her mom, who she isn't on good terms with. According to Blake, she and Mom are always squabbling due to Blake's obsession with the internet and social media, since Mom has a low opinion of it. Even when she and her family, including her bookworm dad and her pervert brother Eric, manage to find a moment of peace on during a stop at a diner, it ends up ruined when Blake "barely glances" at her phone when the waitress shows up and her mother complains once again.
In the Utah desert, Dad ends up taking a detour that adds 100 miles to their trip. At the end of the detour, the family finds a peculiar attraction known as "Circus of the Dead". They meet with the ticket-taker, a weird, sick-looking man with a rat on his shoulder, and are escorted inside by another weird man wearing a hazmat suit. Inside the tent, Blake tweets about the darkness, the stench, and the cramped seating arrangements. The lights come on, revealing a seductively-dressed ringmistress on a pair of stilts, who welcomes the audience to the Circus of the Dead.
Blake and her family soon discover that the circus is filled with ravenous zombies dressed up as clowns and other performers. The hazmat-suited staff utilize the zombies for a variety of gruesome acts, including stuffing one into a cannon and firing its guts onto the audience, sending a horde of them to devour a defenseless lion, and jamming a torch down another's throat so it burns to death from the inside out. Eventually, Eric is chosen to volunteer for one of the performances, and is cuffed to a wooden wheel and spun around while a zombie throws hatchets at him. When one of the hatchets lands right in Eric's neck, Mom forces Dad to go and check on him.
At that point, the ringmistress tearfully informs the audience that she twisted her ankle, and thus tonight is her last show. Breaking down, she admits that her real name is Gayle Ross, and she has been a prisoner of the circus for six weeks. She wanted to marry her boyfriend Craig, who had been eaten by the zombies on the first night of their capture. She further reveals that the ushers dispose of the audience's cars outside the tent and that 12,000 people disappear on the road leading to the circus every year. Before she can say any more, the zombies, led by a now undead Eric, emerge behind her and ultimately devour her. The zombies then manage to form a pyramid against the wall of the ring. Eric scales the pyramid, reaches the bleachers, and lunges into the audience.
The circus erupts into complete chaos as Blake and Mom remain quiet so the zombies will not find them. Blake soon discovers that, save for her family and a small number of others, everyone in the audience is dead, nothing more than corpses roped to the seats. As the zombies pile up the corpses so they can be eaten, Blake tearfully and desperately attempts to tweet for someone to come and save them, while also mentioning that she loves Mom and never meant any of the bad things she said about her. Dad, having also become a zombie, finds the two women. As he kills Mom offscreen, Blake is ambushed and is last seen being dragged into the darkness.
The ticket-taker finds her phone and uses her Twitter account to promote the Circus of the Dead, which will soon be touring the country with its new ringmistress: Blake the Black-Hearted. The Creep is seen reading the tweet on his own phone, and he laughs maniacally as he retweets it.
This episode contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: From Blake's point of view, Mom is a total bitch who wails on her for her phone/social media addiction.
- And Then John Was a Zombie: Eric, Dad, and Mom become zombies, while Blake becomes the next ringmistress.
- All Part of the Show: Blake and her family originally think this way about the circus, even when an audience member gets an accidental hatchet to the face. They grow more unsure about this the longer the show goes on.
- The same can be said for Blake's followers, who triple in number the longer Blake tweets about what's going on.
- Aww Look They Really Do Love Each Other: Despite what Blake says, she and her family are actually pretty tight-knit:
- After spending the whole story sniping at each other for the former's phone obsession, Blake and Mom take cover from the zombies together, with Blake even saying that she loves her mother and never meant any of the bad things she said about her.
- Blake also says that she loves Eric, despite the fact that he's a "completely gross" pervert.
- Even Dad, the family member Blake interacts with the least, calms her down after she cries over the lion act, telling her that the lion escaped through a fake floor built into its cage.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The Circus' staff get off scot free for killing Blake's family and what few audience members showed up. The end reveals that they're even deeming Blake the next ringmistress and having their circus tour the country.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: The staff of the circus bring out a lion as part of the second act, then promptly sic the zombies on it.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: While being her moody self in the van, Blake hopes that the road trip will be the last one she ever has with her family. She certainly gets what she asks when the ending rolls along.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: Dad is an absent-minded bookworm, Mom is a chronic complainer, Blake is a phone-addict, and Eric is a creepy pervert.
- Bookends: The segment begins and ends with someone tweeting on Blake's phone.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: Blake spends a majority of the story as one, only dropping the attitude at the end out of her growing fear.
- Brick Joke: Blake's first tweet in the episode says that she broke her nose attempting the trapeze. The end of the episode has the ticket-taker saying that Blake, the new ringmistress, will be announcing the acts from the trapeze. This should make it clear that she won't last long at her new "job".
- The Cameo: The Creep is seen at the end of the story, retweeting the ticket-taker's tweet of how the circus is touring the country. A skeleton in a cloak that resembles him is also seen near the sign that advertises the Circus of the Dead, and his laughter is heard at a few points in the story.
- Celebrity Resemblance: Dad mentions that the Circus' usher looks like Mickey Rooney, who Blake is not familiar with.
- Circus Episode: A circus filled with zombies.
- Circus of Fear: The Circus of the Dead, naturally.
- Creator Cameo:
- Joe Hill, author of the original story, appears as one of the few living audience members in the circus.
- Greg Nicotero plays the ticket-taker, who also promises that the Circus of the Dead will be travelling the country.
- Creepy Circus Music: This plays incessantly from the moment the family discovers the Circus of the Dead.
- Creepy Crossdresser: Blake's brother Eric, already a creepy and pathetic pervert, wears his sister's leggings and a skirt as the family stop at a diner. Blake says that Eric initially wanted to wear the leggings because it's "the closest he'll probably come to getting laid in high school", but he threw in the skirt because Blake dared him to do it, promising to invite a hot goth girl he had a crush on to a pool party she was throwing next spring.
- Creepy Souvenir: Eric apparently wants to keep the lip of the zombie areialist as a souvenir when it lands on Dad's head.
- Dead All Along: The majority of the circus' "audience" are revealed to be corpses roped into the seats.
- Deadpan Snarker: Blake, fitting for a phone addict like her.
- Downer Ending: Blake loses her entire family to the zombies, and then ends up being made the next ringmistress, forced to avoid the ravenous undead on a daily basis for her captors' amusement.
- Dull Surprise: Blake's usual expression throughout the story, even after watching zombies actively devour people as a source of entertainment.
- The End... Or Is It?: Once Blake and her family have been disposed of, the ticket-taker uses her phone to promote the Circus of the Dead, which he promises will begin touring the country.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Mom and Dad never have their real names spoken throughout the story.
- First-Person Smartass: Blake, no doubt a side effect from being a moody, teenage phone-addict.
- Foreshadowing: Before the Imagine Spot, Blake muses that her own survival skills would amount to tweeting for someone to save her and her family. At the end of the story, that's exactly what she does.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: This story, like the previous one, is animated in a comic-book style.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Whenever the camera focuses on Blake's phone, some of the tweets that pop up are readable.
- Fur Bikini: During her Imagine Spot, Blake imagines that her mom would fashion one of these out of squirrels she would kill.
- Greasy Spoon: Blake and her family stop at one for a bite to eat. While it starts out pretty affectionate, the mood quickly sours when Blake "barely glances" at her phone when a waitress attempts to take her order and gets Mom riled up in the process.
- Human Cannonball: The first act of the Circus of the Dead has the staff stuffing a zombie dressed as an arealist into a cannon. When the cannon is lit, the resulting explosion splashes the zombie's pieces onto the audience.
- Imagine Spot: Blake has a brief one comparing the family cramped inside their van to a duel to the death, prompting a visual of her and her "Bitchtopian Queen" mom fighting in a Mad Max-style cage match.
- She has another one when she imagines her family getting stranded in the frozen wilderness when their van gets stuck in a snowbank, and describes what each member of the family would be doing.
- Incongruously-Dressed Zombie: Every zombie in the Circus of the Dead is dressed as a circus performer, usually a clown.
- I Want My Mommy!: After spending nearly the entire story complaining about her, Blake breaks down and admits that she loves Mom and never meant all the bad things she said about her. By the time Blake and Mom discover Dad has been zombified, she is reduced to screaming "Mommy!" over and over.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Blake is moody and sarcastic, and very rarely looks up from her phone, but it's clear to say that she truly loves her family, and has a soft spot for cats as well.
- Jump Scare: When the undead Eric reaches the bleachers and lunges into the audience.
- Kill and Replace: Gayle, the original ringmistress, is killed by Eric and the other zombies. The staff proceed to replace her with Blake.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: Blake is shown to have a soft spot for cats, gushing over the lion when it is brought out and crying when the zombies devour it. Her dad cheers her up by telling her that the lion's cage had a fake bottom through which it escaped (which isn't true, of course).
- Knife-Throwing Act: Before everything goes to hell, Eric is chosen to volunteer for one. He is cuffed to a wheel as a zombie chained to a stake in the dirt approaches a box of hatchets. The zombie then proceeds to throw the blades at Eric, the last one landing straight in his neck.
- Man on Fire: The Circus' take on a fire-breather is performed with them shoving a torch down a zombie's throat, then watching as fire erupts from its face and it blindly runs around while it burns from the inside out.
- Monster Clown: The clowns, much like every other "performer" in the circus, are flesh-hungry zombies dressed up in costumes and makeup.
- Ms. Fanservice: The Ringmistress/Gayle. Blake notices that Eric and Dad perk up when she first appears.
- Mythology Gag:
- Eric is seen reading the same issue of Creepshow that was featured in the original movie. The film's poster is also seen behind the Creep in the epilogue.
- The Stand and The Fireman can be seen among the books being burned during Blake's Imagine Spot.
- The ringmistress' name is revealed to be Gayle Ross. This is a reference to Gaylen Ross, the actress who played Becky Vickers in the original film, who also played Francine in Dawn of the Dead (1978).
- Narrating the Obvious: Blake's narration about the Ringmistress' true identity is said at the same time Gayle herself says it.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Eric is said to have a crush on a hot goth girl and Gayle, as well as fantasies about the former putting him in the rigs the staff use to restrain the zombies.
- Nothing Is Scarier: The origins of the Circus of the Dead and its "performers" are left completely unexplained. For all intents and purposes, the zombies have just... been there, before they were abducted by a band of sadistic carnies for their own sick pleasures.
- The way in which Eric and Dad are made zombies is completely unexplained as well.
- Obviously Evil: Every employee of the circus is a sick, sadistic carny who gets their jollies by siccing zombies on audience members and their ringmistress.
- Painting the Medium: To accentuate the fact that all of Blake's lines are basically her narrating her tweets, everything she says is 280 characters or less.
- Phoneaholic Teenager: Blake, who is not once seen without her phone in her hand.
- Poke in the Third Eye: Just as Dad takes the accidental detour, Blake begins "psychically willing" Eric to find a reason to have him stop the car. Judging by her reaction, it's abundantly clear that Blake witnessed what could best be described as "impure thoughts".
- Product Placement: Twitter is an essential element of the story, although it isn't showcased in the most positive of lights.
- Running Gag: Whenever Blake sends a tweet, little Twitter birds fly out of her phone. At the end of the story, when her phone is damaged, the birds turn red and glitched.
- Sadist: The staff of the Circus of the Dead, a bunch of shady, sick-looking carnies that go out of their way to come up with inventive ways of killing the zombies, turn whatever living guests show up into more zombies, and capture one woman in the audience at each show and deem her the next ringmistress, routinely forcing her to run for her life. They practically use the circus to entertain themselves instead of their audience.
- Shout-Out:
- During the climax, the zombies form an "inhuman pyramid" straight out of World War Z.
- The shirt Dad wears features a monster clown, similar to IT.
- Blake's first Imagine Spot has her and her mom duking it out in a cage match, being cheered on by a leather-clad audience in a scene straight out of Mad Max.
- Her second Imagine Spot has her mom wearing Raquel Welch's fur bikini from One Million Years B.C., complete with a volcano in the background.
- Social Media Is Bad: Mom has a very low opinion about social media, claiming that it's dumbing down her daughter and those like her. Considering that Blake shows only mild disinterest about the increasingly gruesome acts of the circus, she may have had a valid point.
- Spectacled Sadist: The ticket-taker.
- Take That!: To social media, and about how people like Blake are obsessed with it. Mom delivers a pretty good jab that compares social media to a circus, saying that "YouTube is full of clowns, Facebook is full of fire-breathers, and blogs are for people who can't live without a spotlight on them."
- What Happened to the Mouse?: While it's shown that Eric and Dad are zombified and Blake is set to be the next ringmistress, it's never explicitly shown what happens to Mom, though it's strongly implied that Dad kills her.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The Circus' staff apparently demands that their ringmistresses be in top physical condition. Case in point with Gayle, who gets the zombies sicced on her when she twists her ankle and blurts out the truth about the Circus.
