Goosebumps - Stay Out of the Basement
Disney's Goosebumps series returns for a Second Season under the subtitle "The Vanishing." The two-parter to kick off the season introduces to a group of kids who go missing after discovering something ominous in the deserted bowels of Fort Jerome. Thirty years later the nephew of one of the missing kids will take a similar journey. Our main characters here are Cece (Jayden Bartels) and Devin (Sam McCarthy) who are relocated to live with their father Anthony (David Schwimmer) for the summer. The younger brother of one of the missing children, Anthony is better with plants than people, locking himself up with his basement focusing on his scientific research whenever possible.
Trouble recreates itself with Cece and Devin running into a group of kids their age in C.J. (Elijah M. Cooper), Jen (Ana Ortiz), and Jen's cliche of an asshole boyfriend Trey (Stony Blyden). Dared to go into the same facility where his uncle and others disappeared, Devin complies (mostly to impress Jen) only to be exposed to something unusual just as his uncle was all those years ago. From there the story develops on a few different paths with both Devin and Anthony (who has a bit of this odd lifeform fall into his lap) each doing separate investigations, Trey getting on the bad side of basically everyone, and Cece being mostly absent allowing her own story to unfold in future episodes.
The aptly titled "Stay Out of the Basement" does a fairly good job of introducing all the characters, even if some of them like Trey are little more than walking plot points to force conflict and do exactly what the title of the episode says not to do. As for our weird horror element, that is the unusual monster seen in spore and plant form over the episode (including when Anthony removes it growing from his arm) is pretty much the most interesting thing on-screen. The two-parter ends with the defeat, and apparent death, of the not-very-terrifying monsterfied Trey, but there are plenty of questions still left about just what Devin found in the facility and how it ties into the ghostly vision of Matty (Christopher Paul Richards) the show teases us with on multiple occasions.
