SUMMARY: Sunny and naive young Clark Clarke arrives in the big city ready to start a business (C.P.A. and life coach) and make his fortune, but within moments of stepping off the bus, he meets a strange woman, Florence Mabel, who refers him to Miss Meredith Maxwell's Temp Agency for Unusual Employment - and, with accomplices, robs him of his luggage and wallet while he's not looking. With no choice if he wants food and shelter, he visits Miss Maxwell's establishment and asks if there are any jobs for him he can start on that day, and she sends him out on a job as a fish plucker - the only job she has for someone she knows nothing about. After he leaves, we learn that Florence is in cahoots with Miss Maxwell, and she brings Clark's luggage and wallet to her while secretary Debby tells someone on the phone that they've got another one for him...

Photos by Mandi Moss

SUMMARY: Clark is, unexpectedly, really enjoying his job as a fish plucker, unfazed by his strange boss, Milbank (aka Millie) - or by Junior, a giant mantis in a tweed outfit who is skulking about the factory; he's just happy he has a place to sleep and that Milbank feeds him well. Miss Maxwell stops by and Millie confirms that Clark is being fattened up nicely. Meanwhile, Clark's twin sister Clara arrives; she has a psychic link to Clark, though he doesn't have one to her, and she senses he's in danger. Florence attempts to rob her like she robbed Clark, but Clara is much sharper than Clark, and very much able to take care of herself; she fends off the robbery and forces Florence to take her to her younger (well, four minutes younger) brother. She is as surprised as Miss Maxwell to learn that Clark is in good spirits... and she instantly falls in love with Junior... who is apparently Miss Maxwell's son by a man she cannot bring herself to name.

Photos by Mandi Moss

SUMMARY: Milbank uses magic powers to put everyone to sleep except Miss Maxwell; he's angry at her because Clark has family... she was supposed to bring him somebody nobody was going to miss. When Clara awakens, she thinks her sighting of Junior was a dream. When Miss Maxwell learns of her psychic powers, she asks her to use them to help find someone; she tells Clara to go to her agency to apply for the job. Back at Miss Maxwell's office, Debbie, who was supposed to do the paperwork ensuring that Clark was alone in the world, is punished harshly - she's now comatose, seemingly lobotomized. Clara arrives, and it turns out she and Clark do have family... including an "Aunt Skeeter," so nicknamed because she resembles a mosquito. A family member who resembles an insect? Miss Maxwell is intrigued...

Photos by Mandi Moss

SUMMARY: Miss Maxwell gives Clara a key, and wants her to use her psychic powers and the key to help track someone down. Milbank visits and tells her that Junior has vanished, and threatens to tear down the life he's given her - one a far cry away from when she was a cocktail waitress named Lorelei Lacewing, until the Lunar Eclipse Orgy of '44 changed everything. Meanwhile, Clara meets up with Clark - and when they both touch the key, they seem to become possessed, intoning in unison that the time is nigh to avenge their family and fulfill their destiny...

Photos by Aaron Francis

SUMMARY: The trance the twins have gone into is broken when the key is taken from their hands by Samuel Sneed - mayor of their hometown of Blue Acre Ridge. Sneed reveals that the key has the power to close the cosmological rift that was opened during the Lunar Eclipse of '44. Back at the temp agency, Junior arrives in plain view, causing everyone to panic at the sight of him. Milbank freezes everyone but Junior, Miss Maxwell and Agnes, and Junior wordlessly attempts to communicate something to him - to no avail. Milbank unfreezes everyone, and their panic at Junior is interrupted by the arrival of Sneed, who knows about Miss Maxwell's past as Lorelei Lacewing. He reveals that reason everyone from Blue Acre Ridge says "Go, Goats!" all the time is because goats were brought in to save the city from a virulent kudzu crop growing out of control. The goats kept the kudzu in line... until the Lunar Eclipse of '44 - caused by Miss Maxwell - caused the goats to leave Blue Acre Ridge. Sneed needs to find the true owner of the key to close the cosmological rift, but Miss Maxwell stole the key and is not the true owner... and she says they are all doomed!

Photos by Shaela Cook

SUMMARY: Mayor Sneed tells the twins they were mind wiped, and no longer know the full story of what happened back in Blue Acre Ridge. As this information is imparted, Milbank and Miss Maxwell realize that Mayor Sneed looks oddly familiar, and it transpires that Mayor Sneed was at the Great Lunar Orgy of '44 ? though he tries to deny it. And though the world is imperiled, Miss Maxwell says it's impossible to get the key back to its original owner... because she ate him. But just as she makes this shocking pronouncement, the key's original owner shows up, very much alive! He's a handsome man with a scar across his face, and as he flips a coin, first Miss Maxwell ? and then everybody else ? faints dead away...

Photos by Aaron Francis

SUMMARY: Miss Maxwell is enraged when Clark and Clara decide to quit their temp jobs and return to Blue Acre Ridge, especially when she learns that Mayor Sneed may be the one who encouraged them to go home. "PINK SLIPS FOR EVERYONE!" she declares... and exercises a mighty power that spells doom for those unfortunate enough to be standing too close to her. One of the office girls dies, as does Agnes Smith - uttering "Chrysanthemum" as a mysterious final word. Later, when Clark and Clara return to their parents' home in Blue Acre Ridge, they are confronted with Miss Maxwell, Junior, and Junior's Dad. Have Clark and Clara really been brain wiped? Have Miss Maxwell and her old lover from the lunar eclipse been their parents all along!?

Photos by Aaron Francis

SUMMARY: Clark and Clara flee to Mayor Sneed's home... but find Junior there instead. Befuddled and panicked, they decide their only hope to figure out what's going on is to return to New Metro City... where Miss Maxwell and Junior are still at the temp agency, somehow in two places at the same time. Milbank freezes them in place with his clicker to stop their questions... just as Detective Cylas arrives, investigating the disappearance of Agnes Smith. She's suspicious of everyone, as well she might be. Milbank freezes everyone but Junior... and tells him it's time they had a little talk.

Photos by Aaron Francis

SUMMARY: As Florence Mabel gets dispensation to "address" the problem of Detective Cylas, Miss Maxwell confronts Clark and Clara's questions about her appearance in Blue Acre Ridge with a flat denial. Meanwhile, Detective Cylas - whose father had also been a detective, and was killed by a swarm of cicadas - checks out the storage shed in the backyard of Helen Hamer - one of Miss Maxwell's employees who disappeared - and inside finds a bound and gagged Mayor Sneed, who splutters something about chrysanthemums, and that he's been bamboozled. And Milbank has taken Junior on a trip to meet Skeet, a mosquito-like woman last mentioned back in Episode 3...

Photos by Mandi Moss

SUMMARY: Milbank tells Skeet he has raised and sheltered Junior, and fears the outside world will not be kind to him. Skeet says that Junior must accept who he can become, and that the important thing is to be kind... and shames Milbank by telling him he must face his own way of seeing Junior before they can help with how others see him. Meanwhile, Detective Cylas continues her investigation, and is befuddled at the terrified reaction everyone who works for Miss Maxwell has to the word "chrysanthemum." Junior's father arrives, and the detective is inappropriately attracted to him. Miss Maxwell is forced to make the bizarre confession that Junior's father's scar was caused by her eating his face. When Miss Maxwell proves to have a temper, Detective Cylas, convinced she's the most likely suspect in the disappearances, asks Miss Maxwell to come with her - but Miss Maxwell, declaring she'll never be taken alive, vanishes in a sudden crash of lightning.

Photos by Aaron Francis

SUMMARY: As Detective Cylas leads the scar-faced man away for some... questions... Clara tries to use her psychic link to find her missing parents, but only gets an electric shock for her troubles. a package arrives contianing a "welding project" from Florence Mabel... a cannister that contains all that's left of their missing employees. There's a note inside that leaves Ethel in charge, along with an immediately-unheeded exhortation for her not to go drunk with power. Meanwhile, Skeet tells Junior that what he sees in the mirror is a reflection of how the world has chosen to see him. He asks Junior how he wants to be seen... and for the first time, haltingly, something resembling actual words seem to emerge from his mouth. Elsewhere, the fleeing Miss Maxwell seeks sustenance at a convenience store; when the clerk insists she pay for her snacks, she casts a spell on him and makes him her slave. Back at the temp agency, Ethel is musically exulting in her newfound power and has gagged Clark and Clara while making them sing with her. But sneaking up behind them is the ever-present (yet unmentioned in these synopses until now) Office Drone #3, who makes ready to bash Ethel's head in with a gigantic dildo...

Photos by Brendan Broms

SUMMARY: Ethel is tied up for getting drunk with power in her attempt to take over the temp agency... and a suddenly-scary Clara demands to take the latest job order, while Clark plans to go back to his fish-plucking job; they need to make money so they can get home to Blue Acre Ridge to find their missing parents. Detective Cylas offers to find their parents, but first, she still needs to find the missing Junior. When Clark says that Milbank took Junior to visit Skeet, a horrified Florence Mabel says they have to move fast. Meanwhile, Miss Maxwell arrives at Skeet's home, and Florence Mabel arrives too late to stop Miss Maxwell from learning that Skeet is Florence's sister. "I have been BETRAYED!", Miss Maxwell bellows.

Photos by Jenelle Riley

SUMMARY: Clara realizes that if Aunt Skeet is Florence's sister, then she and Clark are related to Florence Mabel. The long-thought-dead Agnes Smith arrives, serving tea made from chrysanthemums... panicking everyone at the agency. But it's not really Agnes; it's Skeet; when people look at Skeet, they see their greatest regret, so Miss Maxwell must regret killing Agnes. Junior shocks everybody by speaking for the first time, creaking out a "Mother" and "Father" to Miss Maxwell and the Scarred Man. And then the long-missing receptionist Debbie unexpectedly arrives along with Mayor Sneed; both are in disheveled and in straitjackets, having escaped from the New Metro City Sanitarium for Nervous Disorders. "I must have soup!" declares Sneed.

Photos by Jenelle Riley

SUMMARY: Miss Maxwell tries to get back to business, but when the deeply suspicious Detective Cylas threatens her, Milbank freezes her with his clicker, and she is dragged away. However, Milbank is not happy with Miss Maxwell's dismissal of Junior's recent evolution; she wants him to stay just as he was. As Mayor Sneed and Receptionist Debbie cause chaos, we find that Clark and Clara have gone to the woods near Blue Acre Ridge to find their missing parents. And they find them... in a nudist colony, where Mr. & Mrs. Clark say they meet every solstice. They insist that Clark and Clara take off their clothes, and when they refuse, their parents become menacing, telling them they should not have come - they really should not have seen this at all.

Photos by Jenelle Riley

SUMMARY: Junior rescues Clark and Clara, who wake up at the Aquarium where Clark works. Junior scratches out in halting words that he followed them to keep them safe. Clara sees Junior in a new light, and the two dance a pas de deux... during which Junior's hands transform into human hands. Clark and Clara sadly realize that whatever happens now, they can never go home to Blue Acre Ridge. Meanwhile, Miss Maxwell gets a shock when the temp agency is visited by celebrated land developer and gadabout Buzz Brixton, who informs all and sundry that she's purchased all the buildings on the block to build the New Metro City Resort and Family Friendly Laundromat. Miss Maxwell says that's impossible, but Milbank informs her that he sold the building to cover the debts of keeping so many employees at the New Metro City Sanitarium. Miss Maxwell is horrified; the temp agency was Junior's future. Now what will happen to them? With the agency facing eviction within 30 days, Miss Maxwell and Buzz Brixton face off, each clearly wielding magical powers. Everybody in their path runs for their lives...

Photos by Jenelle Riley

SUMMARY: Debbie is struck down by the powers of Miss Maxwell and Buzz Brixton... and then immediately revived. Miss Maxwell indignantly tells Buzz that her services are essential to New Metro City. Who else will supply the unusual employment? Buzz becomes curious, and the staff create an impromptu jingle for her laundromat to show her what they can do. However, they are interrupted by the arrival of Mr. & Mrs. Clarke, who have come to take Clark, Clara and Mayor Sneed home to be punished by the elders. Clark and Clara declare that the denizens of the temp agency are their family now, and - as Buzz watches from the sidelines with interest - everyone comes together to defend them... including the long-missing Florence Mabel and Scar Man, the latter of whom finally chases them off by threatening to eat their faces. Aunt Skeet appears, and tells Junior that people cannot see him for who he truly is until he can see himself, and reassures him that the people here already love him. Junior assents... and is turned into a human being. And Clara and Junior's love now has no obstacles. As Scar Man leaves to look for Detective Cylas, who he has married but has gone missing, Clark tells Milbank he'd like to return to work as a fish plucker. Ethel wonders what's going to happen to their jobs at the agency, but Buzz interrupts. She's impressed that Miss Maxwell and the others are as passionate and as married to her work as Buzz is. She agrees to let the temp agency stay, and to work out an arrangement that will clear Miss Maxwell's debt and return the building's ownership to her in time. Miss Maxwell is still indignant - she doesn't want to work for anybody - but Buzz says they'll be working together. As everyone leaves, Junior implores his mother to think about it. Florence Mabel hangs behind, and Miss Maxwell apologies for making her weld some of their employees into a paperweight. Florence gently tells her to look into anger management... and also that she has faith in her. As Miss Maxwell is left alone, looking uncharacteristically sad and unsure of herself, a fresh-faced young man energetically enters the office, looking for work. Miss Maxwell  slowly perks up, offering the young man her old litany of potential unusual employment options. She becomes her old self again, confident in what the future will hold.

Photos by Leon Russom