Speechless – N-I-Nightmares On D-I-DiMeo S-Street

By: Taylor Gates

Kenneth (Cedric Yarbrough) asks the DiMeo kids to help him choose which Michael Jackson to be for Halloween. He’s narrowed it down to ten, and Ray (Mason Cook) encourages him to try on all his costumes for them. While he does that, they sneak in and ransack Maya (Minnie Driver) and Jimmy’s (John Ross Bowie) room, trying to find where they hid the candy.

They find a bag and start scarfing it down. When Maya and Jimmy walk in, they tell the kids they just went out and bought the new candy. Whatever they ate must have been six years old. JJ (Micah Fowler) ate the most and is having hallucinations. Maya puts Kenneth on trick-or-treat duty until JJ feels better, causing Kenneth to be late to his Halloween party. Jimmy pushes back the family’s escape room reservations.

Maya turns on The Exorcist, which JJ hates. Characters who are in wheelchairs in horror movies are always either the victim or an angel—he wants to be the bad guy for once. JJ starts hallucinating that Kenneth finds a Ouija board in the school’s basement and replaces his speech board with it. This makes JJ fall under the control of an evil power that wreaks havoc on the janitor and his physical therapist.

Kenneth and JJ try to explain what happened to the family, and they find out whoever reads for JJ gets a demonic sounding voice when doing so. Maya contacts the insurance company but despite her plea for speed, they tell her it will be three weeks for another communication board to arrive. Even the evil spirit is horrified at how slow the process is. He’s treating this possession as a learning experience to better understand the disabled community, which thrills Maya.

Dr. Miller (Marin Hinkle) calls the family in to talk about JJ murdering an English teacher. Dr. Miller calls in Mr. Powers, who is also an online-certified exorcist. While they’re preparing to remove the spirit, JJ intervenes and says he doesn’t want to be unpossessed. He’s having fun and feeling empowered with the demon. Maya agrees to go rogue with JJ in order to keep the evil spirit around.

Ray, Jimmy, and Dylan (Kyla Kenedy) take issue with that, going around and making the school unaccessible for a wheelchair. Mr. Powers (Jonathan Slavin) attempts to remove the spirit, but it’s too powerful for him, and he gets knocked over and nearly crushed by a vending machine. Maya understands that the demon is more destructive than helpful and must leave. Before it goes, however, it thanks the family for destroying its misconceptions about disabilities—even though its original goal was to destroy mankind.

JJ snaps out of his hallucination and starts feeling better. However, as soon as JJ gets through it, Dylan starts feeling sick, and Jimmy pushes back their escape room reservations once again. Maya turns on Freaky Friday, and Dylan has a hallucination about switching bodies with Ray.

They agree not to tell anyone about their switch until they figure things out. Although Dylan struggles with the bullying, humiliation, and nerdy clubs that come along with being Ray, Ray enjoys slacking off and being Dylan. Dylan has an epiphany when she sees Jimmy taking a bowl off a shelf. She grabs Ray and tells him they both have to touch the bowl they were grabbing when the switch happened. When Ray refuses, Dylan shaves an eyebrow off Ray’s body, but Ray doesn’t care, vowing never to switch back. Jimmy doesn’t believe her, as Ray is good as pretending to be Dylan. The family calls the doctor and drags Dylan off to the hospital, insisting she’s crazy.

Once Dylan wakes up, Kenneth is excited they all finally get to go to the escape room, but Jimmy breaks the news that the reservation is only for five. Kenneth is furious that he missed his Halloween party and doesn’t even get to have fun with the family.

The DiMeos arrive to the escape room, which is hosted by the villain from Saw and tailored to them personally. The first challenge is for Maya to be on time and is represented by lit-up squares on the floor. Whenever she doesn’t make it, the floor shocks them all. Dylan mentions that this is Ray’s worse nightmare which makes him realize he’s in a dream. However, as hard as he tries, he can’t control the false reality. Jigsaw finally gives up and sends them to the next room, which is a recreation of their living room with a bunch of keys labeled “do not touch.” The only instruction in that room is “follow the rules,” but Maya can’t even do that.

The final room challenges the family to dunk a basketball before poisonous gas filling the room kills them. Jimmy tries but fails and gets sent underground. Maya wishes that Kenneth were around to dunk, and Kenneth comes out from behind the door and takes off his mask, revealing he was Jigsaw all along. He tells them he built the room just to teach them a series of lessons.

Ray wakes up from his dream, terrified and confused. He didn’t even eat any of the old candy—he’s just been munching on what they’ve actually been giving trick-or-treaters. Kenneth realizes they accidentally switched the two batches and starts hallucinating that Maya and Jimmy are both trying to kiss him. He wakes up in his hot tub, having an epiphany about a Benjamin Button Michael Jackson costume.