Todd Loses His Mind

Todd Loses His Mind is the ninth episode of the first season of Code Monkeys. It is preceded by IPO and followed by Third Reich's the Charm.

Plot

The episode opens with Dave and Jerry entering Todd's office, who locked himself up 5 weeks before to work on his masterpiece. Inside, the office is more disgusting and smelly than normal, and Todd is on the floor naked, sporting a large beard, and half-coherently babbling about spending time with his mother. After being somewhat brought to his senses, Todd pitches his masterpiece Elfin Quest: Hunt for the Ear of Nylar to the development team. However, Larrity, to put it delicately, shitcans the game, since Jerry's own fantasy game was released three weeks ago, and more than one fantasy game out at one time would confuse the marketplace. Todd suddenly snaps and attacks Jerry with his ass until Dean breaks them up. Todd then jumps out the window, and the development team continues the meeting.

Dave and Jerry, meanwhile, are facing their own dilemma. Benny is continuing to reject their games, which puts their careers at risk. He gives them a list of demands, which they quickly fulfill, but Benny only passes one game. As they contemplate their plan for revenge against Benny, Todd appears screaming like a maniac and attempts to run over Jerry. The rest of the staff run out to see what all the commotion is about, and Dean gets his head run over, but merely shrugs it off. When Todd turns around to make another pass, Black Steve pulls out a gun and unloads the entire clip into the van, incapacitating Todd and igniting the gas. As Todd and the van burn, Black Steve throws the gun over the wall and Larrity ushers everyone back inside as he suddenly develops a craving for barbeque.

Dave hires two mafia goons to scare Benny and rough him up a bit, but during their deal, Benny eavesdrops on their plan and reports it to Larrity as a plan to kill him and steal his fortune. Todd emerges from the burnt wreckage of his van almost unharmed and believes himself to be immortal, as the bullets only pierced his first protective layer of fat. His mind is much more warped than normal, and believes himself to now be his D&D character Pardue the Conqueror. He creates a plan for revenge against GameAVision which has three plans. His plan is to capture actress Molly Ringwald, then use her as an offering to Gary Gygax to barter additional stats to his person, and then use his new power to get revenge on the staff.

After grabbing supplies from a convenience store, Todd captures Molly Ringwald from Shermer High School, stuffs her in a trunk, and takes her via a rental car to Gary Gygax, who lives in a house shaped like a 20-sided die. He appears very irritated at Todd's presence and demands him to stop acting like a crazy person before he calls the police. Todd, however, does not know who Gary is referring to and insists that he is Pardue. Finally, to avoid Molly Ringwald suing him and to get rid of Todd, Gary pulls out a wand and grants Todd his new stats. After Todd leaves, Gary vanishes into thin air, leaving Molly still trapped in the trunk.

Todd returns to GameAVision carrying 14 cases of dynamite with the intent on blowing up the building. Inside, the two goons chase Benny out around back, followed closely by Dave and Jerry. Larrity arrives and kills the two goons and turns his 4-barreled shotgun on Dave and Jerry, still believing they are trying to kill him. Dean disposes of the two goons by pouring gasoline all over them and setting them ablaze, but accidentally torches himself as well. As Dave and Jerry try to explain everything, Todd finishes setting the dynamite and jumps on the plunger. Right as the plunger is pressed down, the game suddenly freezes, and The Player is forced to eject the cartridge and reset the game. The game restarts at the very beginning, nullifying all the events that happened in the episode.

Video game references

• Todd's masterpiece looks very similar to The Legend of Zelda.
• The characteristics of Todd's behavior in the beginning of the episode up until he's shot by Black Steve are very similar to abnormal behaviors in the cult-hit world building game Slaves to Armok II: Dwarf Fortress. However, due to the game's extreme obscurity along with the fact that it is still an alpha even as of 2010 makes this highly improbable; it is most likely a coincidence.
• The episode makes many references to gameplay elements in Dungeons & Dragons.
• When Dave and Jerry meet Benny's demands the game Benny is play testing is Pizza Time by Dave. Pizza Time is a reference to Burger Time the 80's arcade classic.

Movie/TV References

• Shermer High School is the setting of The Breakfast Club, starring Molly Ringwald.
• Johnny Handsome and Massive Pussy are parodies of "Johnny Boy" Soprano and Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero from the HBO TV series The Sopranos.
• When Todd goes insane and becomes his D&D alter ego, he becomes Pardue, an allusion to and old Tom Hanks movie, where Tom Hank's character has a psychotic episode and believes he's Pardeux (pronounced Par-du), his D&D character.

Notes

• This is the only episode to show the real world and reveal that each episodes really are just games.
• When The Player puts the Code Monkeys cartridge back into the console, s/he does not push down the cartridge so the ports click into place. In reality, the console would not register the game.
• The Cut-Away Scene "Todd's Masterpiece" is Michelangelo's fresco The Creation of Adam.
• The Sequence "Whac-a-Douche! reminds to the Game Whac-a-Mole.
• At the end of the episode when everything looks as though all hell is about to break loose, the show freezes, and we get a zoom out of a guy and see that the show is nothing more than a game. Like in the 80's and 90's when cartridges were still used, this person took out the Code Monkeys game, blew on it, and "started the show over".