Original Air Date: October 5, 2001
After watching his favorite show, Dinobonoids, Billy runs out to play. He happens upon a junkyard when an earthquake opens the ground. While Billy pays the incident no mind and decides to run back to his friends, an unseen entity grabs him and pulls him into the crater.
When Mandy and Grim investigate the junkyard, they are taken in the same manner. They land at the Center of the Earth where they are welcomed by Nergal, a devilish creature.
The lonely Nergal explains how he's been observing the trio through his surface monitors. He is jealous of their friendship and fun times and demands that Grim let Billy and Mandy be his friends from now on. Grim agrees to letting Nergal take the kids off his hands forever and returns to the surface.
While Billy takes to their new situation quickly, Mandy suggests they run away. She is viciously grabbed by Nergal, who says there is no escape, suggesting that he is trapped here as well. Soon, even Billy has his fill of their captor's psychotic behavior.
Grim has been enjoying his freedom, but has a change of heart and returns to the kids' rescue. However, Nergal is not willing to give up his new friends that easily. He seizes Grim with his electric tentacles and tears him apart. It is Mandy who saves the day when, while Nergal is distracted, she kicks him hard in the shin.
"Fiend is Like Friend Without the “R”" contains examples of…
- Conscience Makes You Go Back: At first, Grim revels in his freedom after Nergal kidnaps Billy and Mandy, but after seeing some photos and drawings in Billy’s room of the three of them together, Grim decides to go back and save them.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: Nergal’s motive for kidnapping Billy and Mandy, but he takes it to Yandere levels by wanting to keep them with him in the Earth’s core for all eternity.
- Little Girls Kick Shins: How Mandy ultimately defeats Nergal when he has Grim in his clutches.
- Screams Like a Little Girl: As he and Mandy are getting dragged down into the Center of the Earth, Grim lets out an unmanly shriek.
