LOLZ @ the wild-eyed Viking popping up of the woods with his tiny ax. It looks like Jack Black is the one running around, trying to kill these morons. Oh, how I wish.
Liz is starting to feel guilty for cheating on Todd Wilkins, you guys! But Camp Echo Mountain’s acting coach, Joey Mason, is just too, too fine to resist. Liz even gets thoughtful care packages for Todd that she unwraps while gazing adoringly at Joey. Todd, please man up and dump this skirt already.
Nicole Banes continues to consider Liz her arch-nemesis, and (obviously) I don’t blame her—Liz is constantly throwing her smug, triumphant looks because she has Joey and Nicole doesn’t. Seriously, how can anyone not want to just punch Liz in her perfect, size-six gut? ARGH and other frustrated pirate noises. Nicole attempts to write Todd a letter confessing to him Liz’s evil deeds (complete with photographic evidence!), but her “friend” (and Liz’s new BFF) Maria Slater stops her and makes her feel like shit for hating a Wakefield and wishing she were dead, because it’s against federal law or something.
Anyway, I’m sick of talking about dumb Liz. Love is in the air for the other junior counselors: Lila Fowler and her new, fantastically rich and wussy boyfriend Bo Creighton have props and feasts imported into the camp so they can pretend they’re in Paris and the movie South Pacific, while Jess sneaks away from camp to rub up against Paul Mathis, a hot townie whose little sister, Tanya, worships Jessica. Together, they steal horses and go on picnics, during which they plot to scare the bejeezus out of the camp-goers for funsies using the legend of Crazy Freddy, a serial killer who lurks near the camp.
Nicole also decides to use the Crazy Freddy legend to torment Liz, and Liz goes screaming into the night when she sees “a shadowy figure dressed in a flowing dark robe swinging an ax behind a grove of trees”—i.e., Nicole—and naturally it’s awesome to watch Liz get bested. Joey and Liz, however, eventually deduce that Nicole is up to shenanigans, but when they hear someone chopping wood in the forest and see Nicole back at camp moments later surrounded by campers, they realize something just ain’t right.
Meanwhile, Paul and Jessica terrorize the camp with their “ax”—a sponge on a stick—until Jess gets captured for real real. It turns out that there is a crazy bastard roaming the forest and preying on teens! The story is inter-cut with all these scenes of a creepy person with an ax watching the JCs and thinking of “visions of long blond hair…stained with blood, spread out across the forest floor.” Me and you both, buddy. The baddie—a.k.a., wanted homicidal lunatic Frank Cobra—drags Jessica and little Tanya into the woods to an abandoned cabin, where he plans to hack them into little pieces as sacrifices to the forest. Is it possible for an SVH mini-series to not include a twin’s near-death experience? My very educated guess is no.
When Tanya’s friendship bracelet is found in the woods, Joey disappears when he heads out to search an abandoned cabin nearby, where Frank Cobra conks him out. That’s three down! Back at camp, the camp director orders everyone back to the lodge, but of course Liz says, “We can’t wait for the police! We have to do something right now!” Seriously, what does she have against cops and letting them do their jobs? Isn’t there some anti-vigilante law? Liz, Nicole, and Paul (who has ceased his reign of terror) set out for the cabin, and Nicole and Liz act as bait while Paul goes inside and rescues everyone. But then something gross happens when Liz winds up in the baddie’s ax-wielding clutches: Nicole gains respect for Liz. “She’s the first worthwhile rival I’ve ever had,” Nicole thinks. Oh, SHUT UP! Paul storms the cabin through a broken window to save the bound three, and even in the midst of danger, Jess admires how “his muscular leg hooked over the windowsill.” For the love of Christ. Then a bunch of stuff happens, everyone’s lives are in mortal danger, but ultimately the over-privileged teenagers tie up the ax-wielding murderer. And THEN the police arrive!
Nicole and Liz hug, sobbing, and then Nicole gives up on Joey—NO! For once, can Liz not get what she wants and wind up with no consolation prize whatsoever? Nicole decides to go for Derek, the tumbling instructor, who has “collar-length blond hair and smoky blue eyes” and sounds way hotter than Joey and his bright red lips anyway but still. Jess teaches Paul how to love again; Lila and Bo, who’d gone out looking for Jess and the gang during the night, get rescued by a crop-dusting plane that they wind up investing in (LOL—WTF); and Liz says a tearful goodbye to Joey now that all the drama of loving him is basically over. Shut up, Liz.
Other Notes:
- Bo is so rich that he hires out his camp duties, likely to migrant workers.
- Liz and Nicole are chosen to be the captains of opposing teams in the color war, and Nicole throws a raw egg at Liz during the egg toss and Liz literally runs away crying. That’s basically all that happens during this momentous rite of camp passage.
- Liz finally writes Todd one letter (during the course of the entire summer) and cries teardrops on it—so gross—while thinking that “she did love him and wanted him to be there for her when she returned to Sweet Valley.” Then, not one minute later, she sees Joey and runs into his arms. She is the worst (fictional) human being ever. I used to think that Jenny Schecter of The L Word was the most hateworthy person/character in all the land, but at least other TLW characters came to recognize that Jenny was, in fact, a selfish douche bag. ARGH some more!
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