Static Shock – 22brainpuppets

Virgil inadvertently pledges his vote to MADELYN SPAULDING, the bratty, unpopular candidate for freshman class President. But when
Virgil switches allegiance to Richie, an angry Madelyn uses her metahuman powers of mind control to turn the entire school, and
Virgil’s own family, against him.

Media by Bird Boy
Review by Matt Zimmer

Voices:
Phil LaMarr as Virgil Hawkins/Static
Jason Marsden as Richie Foley
Kevin Michael Richardson as Robert Hawkins
Michele Morgan as Sharon Hawkins
Kimberly Brooks as Madelyn
Daniga McKellar as Frieda
Mgiquel Sandovla as Principal
Crystal Scales as Coed #1
Philip Tanzini as Joey

Static must fight zombie versions of his friends in this intentionally stupid episode.

A girl named Madelyn Spaulding REALLY wants to get elected class president. Richie does too and begins a campaign based on fixing the vending machines in the cafeteria. Madelyn soon discovers she has the ability to turn people into zombies and control their minds. She uses the power to make the campaign frontrunner drop out and Richie witnesses this. She then reads his mind and learns that Virgil Hawkins is Static.

Richie tries to warn Virgil about his suspicions of Madelyn but Virgil has a hard time believing it until he sees his classmates acting like
"Brain Puppets". Later that night Virgil is awoken to find out Robert and Sharon have been taken a hold of and everyone in Dakota is moving towards to school. Even Richie is a mindless Brain Puppet now. At the school Madelyn tells Static that even though she can't take over his mind because of his electrostatic powers she will tell the world he is
Virgil Hawkins if he continues to fight her and says she will have everyone under her control. Static goads her by saying she doesn't have him so she tries to take over his mind by force and winds up getting her brain fried. Everyone wakes up from their trances and Madelyn falls into a vegetative state.

This is a stupid episode. REALLY stupid. And yet I can't help feeling that any episode this incompetently written and directed must have been done that way on purpose. This is stupidity at its most masterful and is written with complete conviction in its own idiocy. The jokes are bad and unfunny in the extreme but you can't help shaking the feeling that the writer's dumbed down the writing significantly just to see if the audience would accept it. I have to say I admire people with that much gall.

Madelyn was an annoying character but in the same entertaining way as
Election's Tracy Flick. Her second appearance in She-Back was much better. But as this whole episode was rather annoying she fits in quite well here, I think.

The only really good thing about the episode was the animation. Virgil's nightmare was funky and I noticed that the Brain Puppets were animated so that they moved like the stock animation of the gang walking in
Scooby Doo. Come to think of it it was also cool to see Ragtag's origin as well. But I'm not going to say that an episode this intentionally bad is ACTUALLY bad. It just feels that way.

Story: **
Animation: ***1/2
Average: **1/2